 yeah it's on good to see you it's on good to see you eight love all right good to see you too you could you could prevent you've read all the chapters in that's great i'm gonna go get a beer and you you know you just take over from here are you in indivisio i am i'm in joke you are oh wow yeah good for you hello everyone hi keo you there oh hey good to see you how are you no i'm good good i'm doing well are you finishing up i am actually i for a psc program at stanford are you what apart from a psc program oh wonderful oh wonderful that's great i think some departments are taking psc students not not all of them but yeah fortunately is michigan taking psc students as far as i know it's just business as usual yeah oh is it okay good so we've got a quorum here and i think we can get started welcome everyone whether you are in the asian morning or whether you are in the north american evening thanks for joining the session on japan and southeast asia and i'm john short cherry most of you know me i'm the director of our international policy center and we are co-hosting this event with the center of southeast asian studies at kyoto university in japan thank you very much to erika sileski for organizing today's session and thank you for our two other speakers who are here today one is my friend and co-author kiyotsuzui who is until recently a star faculty member at the university of michigan now at stanford where he's the takahashi professor and senior fellow in japanese studies also directs the uh japan program at the shore in synesia pacific research center uh is a senior fellow of the freeman spogli institute at stanford as well as a professor of sociology and kiyos also the author of many publications among them a book called rights make might global human rights and minority social movements in japan uh that's won many awards i'm also joined by a friend and colleague paven chachavel punk pun who is an associate professor at the center for southeast asian studies at kyoto university after he got his bachelor's degree at chula long corn and his phd at london so as he was a diplomat in the tai ministry of foreign affairs for more than a decade now he's been at kyoto for the better part of the last 10 years where he's the editor-in-chief of the kyoto review of southeast asia he's written widely on tai foreign policy as well as tai domestic politics and is the editor of a new volume that's coming out soon on the tai ku and royal succession tonight what we're going to do is i will start off by sharing uh some of the findings from the collaborative study that's uh going to be coming to fruition in the form of an edited volume kiyo will then speak also for about 15 minutes paven will share some of his comments as discussant and then we'll leave lots of time for for your questions and comments i also want to call out aton paul who's here who's a doctoral student at um and a southeast asia expert in his own regard and he has been the managing editor and provide really invaluable contributions to our edited volume as well and i can't see right now in the participant list but i know shon narine one of our chapter contributors from st thomas university in canada uh also plans to attend and so we may be able to fold him into the conversation in q and a here's the picture that will be on the cover of our book uh an image of prime minister shinzo abe with ang san su chi embodying this idea of japan as a courious power and uh the collaborative project that kiyo and i undertook wanted to look at this very important and enduring relationship between japan and southeast asia study its basic dynamics and look at its prospects going forward it's not a coincidence that in october uh when new prime minister yoshi isuga came to power in japan that the very first trip he took overseas was southeast asia and you can see images of him uh uh in first in vietnam on the left and then in indonesia on the right again very much uh images that capture this notion of japan as a courious power uh keen to show that southeast asia is important to japan and also to participate uh in in some local customs so this collaborative project joined an interdisciplinary group of scholars from japan southeast asia and north america the japan foundation graciously supported this research uh and the forthcoming edited volume will be with the university of michigan press and it's called the courious power we cover several key themes in the book uh one of them is to spotlight japan's proactive and autonomous roles in southeast asia in a number of dimensions it's not uncommon in the united states in particular but also in other parts of the world to speak about southeast asia as a domain for sino-american competition and to downplay or even neglect the very important role that japan has played it's also common to think of japan as operating like a u.s adjunct uh or a supplement to the u.s power in the region because of the u.s japan security treaty but in fact as our contributors show uh japan has been proactive and quite autonomous from the united states in many dimensions a second theme we look at is the continuity and change that's occurred over the last eight or so years in what we call the indo-pacific era the era in which shinzo abe returned for a second term as prime minister and later pronounced the idea of a free and open indo-pacific very bold stroke in japanese diplomacy and so we look at the last eight years and observe the areas in which japan's policy towards southeast asia has changed and where it's remained the same thirdly we focus on the importance of non-state actors in japan's relations with the region this is another area that we think has gotten real short shrift in the literature which tends to focus on official relations at the expense of looking at other actors like businesses civil society and ordinary people lastly emerging from this analysis is the idea of japan as a courteous power it's not a title that we started with when we began this project it's an observation that emerged from the opportunity to to engage in this collaboration with uh with leading scholars uh from those various regions to see that in so many domains that japan behaved in a way that we think of as a courteous power that is to say a country that has formidable capabilities but the where's those capabilities lightly that tends to keep its head down that prioritizes listening to the preferences needs and interests of its southeast asian partners and rather than trying to force their hands looks for areas of preference alignment to be able to facilitate progress in areas where those interests align in the book we discuss multiple channels of influence that japan has in southeast asia some of those occur through official levels whether in the security arena the economic domain or via diplomacy and other channels of influence occur through non-state channels such as businesses civil society organizations uh migrants from japan to southeast asia including migrant women who are the subject of one of our chapters and both producers and consumers of cultural products like manga and anime and the image captured here on the bottom of your slide so i want to walk through a few of the chapters that cover official relations between japan and southeast asia i'll go through those five very briefly to give you a flavor of what's in in the study and then kia will do the latter five and wrap up with some conclusions the first of our chapters is one that i authored and it's about japan as a key to southeast asian diversification many studies of southeast asia nowadays talk about hedging and in particular they talk about hedging vis-a-vis a rising china or hedging vis-a-vis the possibility of us withdrawal or abandonment of its friends and allies in the region diversification is a little bit different than hedging although they overlap and and this part of our study examines the way in which japan has via its autonomous activity in southeast asia provided an option for those states to diversify in particular diversify beyond china and the united states and their external relations and look at this through several key domain you look at aid trade and investment uh you can see the foreign direct investment and trade figures in these pie charts and the rent slices representing japan are just a quick visual illustration of one way of thinking about japan's role as a key diversifier japan also allows countries to diversify in governance terms to reduce their reliance for example on political and economic support from the united states or europe which tend to be more critical of governance and instead to invest in a partner in japan that has been more accommodating of differences on domestic governance approaches and increasingly japan has also become a source of diversification the security arena particularly when it guards maritime security affairs around the south china sea and that's the subject of our next chapter written by ken jimbo an expert at keo university in japan he looks at how japan has emerged in the security domain and how it has edged onto the scene first very inoffensively through peacekeeping operations humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and then engaging a little bit more in traditional security affairs including maritime security such as coast guard patrols naval operations and the like and he just describes how japan has done this through a three-pronged approach it's built out its security networks with partners particularly states like vietnam and the philippines but also others it has contributed through capacity building for southeast asian navies coast guards and other security forces and it's engaged robustly in defense diplomacy particularly through the multilateral channel represented by the admm plus or asian defense ministers meeting plus that's a very wordy phrase that captures a meeting of the defense ministers of the 10 southeast asian members of asian plus key external members including japan and the punchline from his study is that japan has sought to be an increasingly important security actor but not a provocative one and thus in this regard as in its role as a diversifier it has conformed to the notion of japan as a courteous power k koga from nanyang technological university in singapore wrote our third chapter and he wanted to ask the question of how japan and asian can cooperate beyond the geographic confines of southeast asia this is important because the definition of the indopacific region was one that extended beyond the preceding notion of an asia pacific region to include areas to the west of the indian subcontinent extending all the way to the middle east and east africa and so k wants to know is japan going to be able to forge cooperation with asian and those extended geographic domains uh and his study suggests that it's going to be very difficult uh he looks at something called wedge strategies think of driving a wedge between two parties and he's saying that uh wedge strategies are an important means by which major powers can drive wedges between asian and their rivals or between asian members themselves thereby limiting the organization's ability to function and he uses the example of japan's role in the 2000s uh during the creation of the east asia summit the eas as it's called was was initiated as an idea by china and malaysia as something that would build on the asian plus three framework that's the framework devised after the asian financial crisis that included the 10 asian members plus south korea plus japan plus china japan was wary of that initiative because it saw that as a possible vehicle that china could come to dominate and so wanted to include other members that would offset some of china's scope or influence including australia uh india and to a lesser extent new zealand and japan was instrumental in that case in helping to drive a wedge essentially between asian and china by helping those members of asian uh that were sympathetic to its views to mobilize in favor of the admission of a larger range of countries and so while this showed japan's ability to exercise a wedge strategy itself it's also an indication uh that it will be difficult for japan to drive bold initiatives in cooperation with asian because the same wedge strategies are available to china and others and this is somewhat of an irony that japan by investing in asian centrality and on consensus-based diplomacy has actually imposed limits on itself and that's an understood feature of japanese foreign policy in southeast asia it's an intentional feature but it is one that has a certain irony to it shawn narine is the author of our next chapter and he studies the japanese approach toward asian unity asian as a diverse grouping of 10 is highly dependent on the unity of its members to address key challenges a bunch of you on the call were in that south china sea simulation recently and observed this in practice uh when asian is disunited it's very tough to take a corporate stance on key issues of concern uh and shawn looks at uh historical examples of this to show for example the importance of asian unity in dealing with the vietnamese invasion of cammo d in the 1980s and the importance of its disunity in the haphazard response to the asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and he describes how japan may have incentives to back away from its traditional prioritization of asian unity and centrality when asian is unable to act on issues that it really cares about so let's take the south china sea as an example if asian as a whole is divided and therefore can't make a strong statement on the south china sea japan may have an incentive to form mini lateral cooperation with a few members that share its attitudes on the issues such as the philippines or vietnam or indonesia or singapore however he observes what's happened in the indopacific era and finds that while japan's initial rhetoric was bold its behavior has actually reverted more toward a deference to asian and a continued promotion of asian centrality and unity in the regional order and thus we see another instance of japan sort of falling back on its long-standing approach of being a courteous power in the region not trying to our de force asian states to change their preferences or their direction and the last of the chapters that i'll that i'll introduce quickly by calvin fong at wasa university in tokyo is a study of japan's approach to regional leadership he looks at three different historical cases including a dakeyama proposal in the early 1990s which had to do with creating a new security architecture after the cold war the creation of the east asia summit and then the introduction of the free and in the free and open indopacific concept in in the 2015 to 16 period and what his studies show in some are that japan had very limited capacity to actually change southeast asian preferences however it was quite effective in being able to identify areas where their where their interests align and thereby to do what president obama once called leading from behind that it was able to facilitate common movement towards shared goals even when it wasn't able through coercion or through inducement to fundamentally reorient the interests of those parties and so taken together this like the other studies tends to support the image of japan as a courteous power i'll turn over now to keo and he can walk through the rest of the study wonderful thank you john and thank you both john and erica for organizing this session and thank you to pavin for joining us and special thanks to eight ten for all the contribution that he has made so much so so that he could easily present the second half of the book better than i would it's great to be back virtually in an arbor and to be connected to kato to two places that i spent years in in the past so the second half of the book zooms in on the contributions by non-governmental actors businesses civil society actors and cultural products their role in establishing japan as a courteous power and the second half starts with a chapter by kitty prosthetic from thailand who provides a nice overview of the businesses contributions in the southeast asia region since the 1960s and he compartmentalizes the post-1945 1960 era for japan southeast asian relations into three parts in the first part as japan returned to that region japan internally had a very cozy relationship between the government and business actors and both parties used you know they walked in tandem and using odia and fdi to to first assist economic development and economic growth in southeast asia but also benefiting from the economic activities that resulted from that in the region this is a period of methi miti really guiding the japanese economy and trade and k darman the japan federation of economic associations are forming a bond between the government actors bureaucrats and politicians and corporations so that was the first period and in the second period a lot of that continued on but there were more of efforts to establish multilateral frameworks to facilitate business transactions in the region that's the 1990s to 2000s this is when panacea supply chains expanded and there was a more of a need to coordinate and also to establish more of a free movement of goods and capital so the the japanese government or japan in general moved in that direction using the asian development bank which already existed but also trying to establish a new institution like the asian monetary fund which didn't pan out but the japanese actors came back and tried to do other things like mirador initiative and my initiative contributing to a more of a free trade of free flows of goods and capital in the region that those efforts formed the basis for more efforts on free trade agreements which came to fruition to a certain extent in recent years and really months that was the phase two and then the in the third era since the 2010s the nature of the engagement between japan and south east asia changed a little bit but also the the nature of government business ties have shifted in this era so the japanese government started focusing more on security areas south east asia was primarily for the japanese government an area of region of economic activity but now with the rise of china and japan's increasing realization that he needs to counter with a concerted effort with south east asian countries the government is now focused as much on security areas as in economic areas so that that really changed the government's engagement and and simultaneously the businesses that enter south east asia market which was which were really heavily oriented towards industries heavy industries in particular and manufacturing now there's a lot more service sector businesses retails restaurants and health those industries those are economic actors are going in there in the market in that region and that and they tend to be more smaller independent independent from the government and they're less connected to bureaucracy in the japanese government so that leads to less of a concerted effort between the government and businesses in engaging with south east asia so the nature of the engagement changed having said that the government is japanese government is still attentive to businesses needs promoting regional integration efforts like in cptp and recently alsep and also in more of a case by case sort of engagement with south south east asian countries as demonstrated very vividly in the next chapter which is john if we can move to the next chapter an example of thailand and and the coup in 2014 and and how the businesses japanese businesses facilitated the process of transition in that country so in on on may 22nd of 2014 the army commander frayas chan ocha sees power and quickly the u.s. government criticized the move on the grounds of democracy and freedom and the japanese government was put in a difficult position the japan had to say something critical to go along with the u.s. ideology of democracy and freedom but at the same time the japanese government wanted to maintain a good relationship with with the pi regime even if it's a military coup so that presented a serious dilemma for the japanese government and that's when the japanese businesses at the japanese chamber of commerce in bangkok stepped in and provided a one of the very few channels of communication between the japanese government and the tai military officers who took over in the country and really helped navigate the japanese government navigate the this territory's train so what the japanese chamber of commerce did basically is to reframe the idea of democracy in such a way that the japanese government can criticize or at least push that the tai regime to become more democratic to satisfy the us's demand for the japanese not demand but pressure to criticize for the on the japanese government to criticize the new tai military regime but also not to alienate completely alienate the tai military officers who took over and the way they did it is to change the content of democracy from this you know more standard understanding or at least american understanding of civil liberties and freedom type of focus to focus on transparency and political stability which would contribute to economic prosperity as well so by shifting the democracy reframing the democracy in that way the japanese government could tell the tai government tai regime that oh you have to become more democratic but you know what we mean by that is to become more transparent and provide more stability and to the u.s. government the japanese government could tell could say that oh we're pressuring that we're pressing the new tai regime to become more democratic and the u.s. government would think that democratic democracy here means civil liberty so that process demonstrates how effective the japanese businesses japanese chamber of commerce were in in linking the japanese government and the tai new regime the next two chapters focused on civil society actor then their contributions the first one the third one that i present is by syri porn wash work who looks at the angios japanese angios in southeast asia especially in the meccan region angios angio actors who contribute to the development aid and the role of angios has expanded global globally the role of angios in aid delivery project implementation and so on and japan called that wave and since the 1990s the japanese government also studied using getting help from angios more to provide a aid more effectively in southeast asia and that was helpful in many ways but also presented a challenge for some angios because if they work too closely with the japanese government they might actually lose side of the interest of the local community but if they don't work with the japanese government and focus on representing local interest then they may not have a lot of impact on the actual policymaking in the japanese government so she presents two contrasting cases one is meccan watch the other is japan water forum both work in development in in the meccan region and the first angio meccan watch works very closely to local communities trying to represent local interests and decided at some point to not work with the japanese government so they're more effective in presenting to the japanese public what would be the best way to deliver aid in that region that would contribute to sustainable development without forced relocation or environmental degradation but the back but the the other side of that coin is that meccan watch doesn't really have any very limited impact direct impact on the policymaking in the japanese government in terms of aid the second group angio japan water forum works closely with the japanese government so the group has some significant impact on the policymaking the government will listen to the group but whether they that group represents the interest of local communities need an interest is questionable they might not necessarily represent local interest so she really very nicely captured the dilemma that the two types of angios face in the aid development the next chapter by london fang and mika toiora they look at japanese women and their contributions to contributions in engaging with southeast asia so they focus on well i mean when we think about japanese people living in southeast asia um the typical image that's invoked is japanese expats corporate workers mostly male corporate workers with their trailing family members living comfortably in enclaves with very limited interaction with local people that was a typical image that may still be true for the most part but since the mid 1990s many more female japanese migrants moved to southeast asia settled in there semi-permanently not just visiting there and and they have changed the way japanese citizens interact and engage with southeast asian countries so those women were many of them were not too happy with the japanese work environment with a very low glass ceiling and although things may have been changing in the last five ten years at the time in the 1990s japanese corporate world was very much dominated by men and they didn't have a bright didn't perceive a bright future in Japan in japan so they left it did not it didn't help that the last 20 years of post bubble japanese economy deprived the employment opportunities for a lot of newly graduating japanese female students so many women first went to western countries and then gradually they also started going to southeast asia and they go to southeast asian countries this is a very diverse group they go to southeast asian countries for different reasons and and work in different areas some of them work as local hires at japanese corporation then other teach japanese language others own small businesses or engage in volunteer and philanthropic kind of activities and still others marry into local communities marrying local citizens in those countries and many of them go there i they don't think that a lot of those women go there thinking that they would be citizen diplomats going in there promoting the gospel of how great japan is and that kind of stuff and that's not now wasn't their motivation they go there really sort of as a result of self-searching identity kind of searching that became also popular in japan since the 1990s but they end up really building strong bonds between japan and southeast asia they engage with local communities and build a not all of them but a lot of them are great citizens of the local communities contribute to local efforts and contribute a good image of japan as a courious nation they also bring back some of the knowledge of southeast asia to japan try to promote understanding about southeast asian countries in japan by publishing books and you know doing other kinds of promotional activities so they are not assisted strongly by the government or even corporate actors but they go on their own and help contribute to japan's asia engagement the next chapter by carl chan chua looks at japan's soft power in the region and the chapter starts off with some evidence of how manga and anime are the most potent source of japan soft power in southeast asia probably globally and but it's it's interesting to think about japan's soft power popular culture in southeast asia because there was this phenomenon of oshin a very popular tv show that became a huge hit in many southeast asian countries as well as in other countries in the world that was in the in the 80s to maybe early 90s for the most part then the recent effort by the japanese government under the heading of the cool japan initiative by medi that started in the 2010s by then the japanese popular culture was already fairly popular in southeast asia so why is that and carl argues that for the most part those efforts to initiatives to promote japanese popular culture were taken on by local citizens of southeast asia who just liked japanese popular culture especially anime and manga and promoted related activities you know without maybe the authentic framework understanding of japanese soft popular culture nor sometimes a proper legitimate legal license to do so so he talks about three examples of local adaptation and unlicensed sort of distribution of japanese soft power first one is the hijab cosplay which is an indonesian version of sort of muslim adaptation of cosplay cosplay costume play is you know getting into a character by wearing costumes of popular manga and anime characters and and this hijab cosplay is a very unique indonesian version of this practice that does not exist in japan but it became very popular as a local adaptation so this is kind of this different from authentic japanese popular culture but was interpreted as a japanese culture the second example is a duterte manga anime in the philippines which is a japanese style but but non-authentic depiction of president duterte in cartoon manga anime style depiction which is really nothing to do with japanese authors of manga anime but also brought with it some japanese cultural cachet and helped sort of bring up the level of popularity of japanese manga anime the third example is doraymon tofu is a doraymon is a popular character in japan in in asia and it became popular in vietnam he focuses on the vietnam example it became popular without licensed distribution of the manga for the most part for decades doraymon was read in vietnam through a pirated version and it began popular and then as a result some products like doraymon tofu which is a more legitimate use of the copyrighted image of doraymon that came much later so the popularity of doraymon having been established earlier through unlicensed consumption of the manga was a very important component and what's interesting about this is that the japanese the authors fujiko fujio didn't try to get the money copyright royalties from that unlicensed consumption and just basically forgave that all of all of that just enjoying the popularity of doraymon and they didn't try to benefit from that that's another kind of interesting sort of courteous approach over japanese and not the government civil side actors but courteous japan was sort of exemplified in this example and through this process it was really not the government or even corporate actors that spread japanese popular culture in the region it's the citizens citizens the citizens of inaction that helped promote manga and anime so to wrap up quickly this courteous approach of japan uh which offers a guiding hand but never really a threatening fist really nudging south east you know japan has its own interests so japan always tries to nudge south east asian countries in certain direction that would meet their meet japan's interests but rarely really forcing its hands and or use or even suggest to use coercive measures even during the height of its economic might in the 1980s japan's approach was typically that and this was born out of necessity at least initially with japan's image being more of an invaders you know because of the world war two era legacy and japan was very mindful of that um and and japan had to recover from that bad image so initially that was the main thing and that that's one reason why japan took this approach but that really helped establish japan as in a very advantageous position japan is mostly i don't want to overplay this but but if you look a lot of surveys japan is broadly speaking your most one of the most popular countries in south east asia so this is generally popular for the status and also mostly trusted the reliable partner by many south east asian governments that resulted from this approach so that's a very important asset i'll go over the second and third point quickly so going forward japan under suga administration which continues this free and open in the pacific framework vision and south east asian countries they are a very very important component of that vision so japan will likely need south east asian countries and and will continue to engage with them fully understanding that asian centrality is very important for asian countries so japan will continue to engage in a relatively low key and and largely multilateral approach and work with asian to find convergence of interest between asian countries in japan and asian countries on the other hand also will likely welcome japan's engagement as an alternative to this us-china dichotomy that they don't want to get stuck in japan as john summarized offers a very useful alternative for them there are some downsides to this courteous approach obviously one is that in terms of you know promoting democracy and human rights and so on japan really takes sort of backs takes a step back on that you know especially compared to countries like the united states and some european country western european countries japan generally avoids interfering with foreign called domestic affairs most vividly described in the discussion about how miyama right in miyama japan really rarely criticized miyama military regime harshly today with rohingya also japan is very careful not to criticize ansan suji so that that's a one major limitation of being a courteous power um and also looking forward a second limitation potential limitation if we don't know what might happen if japan has has to ask southeast asian countries to take its side uh how much of this popularity and trusted status how much of that is that it translates into actual support for japan when it actually comes to some kind of confrontation between japan and china that's that's to be seen and and somewhat questionable um and finally so those are limitations of the courteous power and finally we also want to highlight especially in the second part of the book how important businesses, cyber-side actors, NGOs, individual citizens and also cultural products how important those are non-state sources are to build a lasting tie between japan and southeast asian country so i'll stop here and i'm looking forward to your comments and questions great thank you poppin we look forward to uh to your comments thank you so much john so uh first i'm very delighted to be a part of this uh event and i think it's very important to have at least a voice from southeast asia and i'm glad that i am that person to represent uh what i call a perspective from southeast asia since we have one american and also one japanese you know uh yeah i have done some work on japan and southeast asia and also japan and thailand too in the past few years uh so when john asked me to do this so i i'm glad to also uh not only to give some comments but also to share my own findings uh on this uh study of japan visa visa east asia i usually begin with uh 1977 with the fukuda doctrine when it come to understanding japanese foreign policy visa visa east asia because i think that is the first uh how to say landmark you know or cornerstone of japanese foreign policy towards southeast asia but then i left very disappointed to be honest uh because it started it started off really well with 1997 fukuda doctrine when japan uh want to engage so much with southeast asia uh promoting this sort of equality you know in uh bilateral relationship and also in relationship with asian as well when i said i was i was left disappointed because uh soon after 1997 uh what you have seen in japanese foreign policy uh yes definitely there's some kind of amicable relationship between japan and and southeast asia but i have seen it it just only being friendly but there's nothing really strategic coming out from japan so there is a different you know idea of being a friendly neighbor and being a strategic neighbor but i think japan has lagged behind uh some other country when it come to crafting strategic position visa visa east asia but then i understand because after 1997 or in the middle of co-war japan also had its own problems as well not to mention the korean peninsula not to mention its own problem with china territorial dispute right it complication with uh the american relationship and also including japan's internal development because japan had worked so hard in terms of uh uh developing its own economy so as it could because it's it's concentrated so much on on the economic development because it it it became it became something that would compensate to the lack of military uh uh capability of japan in southeast asia so because of that i started to see uh japan even though having good relationship but yet again drifting away from southeast asia yes you talk about uh regular investment from japan you're talking about oda from japan but i have seen this as a kind of routine job for japan once again i don't i don't think there is anything a strategy back then i don't see that how japan would want to use economic uh position and also the power of oda to try to change the behavior of certain Southeast Asian state now move forward to let's say in the past decade we have this event of the rise of china this is the second argument i think because of the rise of china we started to see japan renews diplomatic active activism so that when you started to see japan becoming a little bit more strategic but again i have been i have been left disappointed because japan would only come to japan would only come to to be activists to be sort of uh to go ahead with this diplomatic activism basically it was a response to the rise of china this is in my opinion maybe not so much so about the importance of southeast asia on its own so in other words japan would only come back to the region in order to to try to counter balance the rise of china this also a part of the new post-co-war international order when you talk about polarity that japan seems sort of obliged you know to play a role because this is no longer about you know the democratic camp the the uh the the communist camp so yes i think because of that japan started to to engage more with southeast asia but in my own study though especially uh looking at the competition between japan and china we saw we are seeing uh i don't have all the details here but it is in my book uh but i can prove to you that uh you continue to see that japan has lagged behind china in almost every aspect when it comes to again the engagement with southeast asia and always japan would walk a step behind for example when china came up with the fta with arsene in 2002 through the arsene china free trade agreement in 2002 japan would respond to it in 2008 with arsene japan a comprehensive economy partnership but the list you know slowly go on you talk about a for example uh casual cooperation then you also see that china would really go ahead and then and then japan would only you know step behind even to the point that when you once said that you know what japan has been good at is following you know in the footsteps of china so uh but about i see though that japan has tried hard you know at least to catching up uh to catch up with what china has done with southeast asia and then start to think more strategically especially japan could no longer focus on the economy alone maybe japan had to expand you know into more dimensions when it comes to relationship with southeast asia for example uh in the defense area something like that uh defense area is very important uh i'm not sure that i'm an expert to talk about it but uh but in again in my own uh research i think japan uh keep a watchful eye on what really going on in southeast asia especially uh the the defense uh relationship between china and southeast asia and including china and individual country in southeast asia for example you know cobraco cobraco is the is the annual military exercise between tailand and united states but this day is no longer about tailand and united states but it's sort of expanded to include any other southeast asian state uh then japan sorry then china uh sort of borrow a kind of model in order to come up with similar thing but a smaller scale military exercise between china and tailand and i think that already uh sort of alarm uh both united states and also japan too uh this is something that china uh think carefully and uh because of that in 2012 uh chinso abe came up with people might like to very like to call abe doctrine i really don't know what it means uh uh well abe came uh came up in 2012 you know trying to become more assertive you know in historical policy towards southeast asia especially talking more about uh the military cooperation i think japan uh sort of live on the the good image that uh we have mentioned about the the image of of japan as a country you know in the eyes of southeast asia and again there has been some research work on comparing the image of the japanese and the chinese among southeast asia undoubtedly of course you know japan length really high not just only above china but also above any other country in the region for example in comparison with the south korean also japan have been uh trusted you know by southeast asian neighbor and i think japan tried to use that you know as a basis for uh assertive policy you started to see from 2012 more regular bilateral visits you know exchange between japan and southeast asia in particular and i think this is my own observation japan started to go to uh not so obvious country in southeast asia when you talk about south when you talk about obvious southeast asian country you think about indonesia you think about thailand uh but then more visit started to see you know uh in vietnam you know in miyan ma especially after the the release of aung san sui ji and there's a lot of of things going on after that uh yes the increase is in bilateral bilateral visit and also uh more aggressive in using aid oda and trade as a kind of uh diplomatic tools uh again in my own studies china might have might have pledged a lot of money going into southeast asia but the actual money that has been delivered to southeast asia japan has still uh done it the best way ahead of china so you have to see the difference between whatever has been pledged and whatever has been actually delivered we still can count on japan rather than china and and because of that i think i started to see also that japan uh seriously used foreign aid you know to expand not just only political influence but also to expand more businesses coming to southeast asia uh just a little bit more on the competition with with china and and you start to see every single step japan starts to think carefully about how to counter certain ideas policy of china towards southeast asia for example we went the the bell and road initiative and also the a i i b initiative coming up japan responded by raising the amount of fda from japan to southeast asia into becoming sort of increasing twofold uh into becoming something like 20 billion us dollars uh for fda uh to southeast asia starting to engage into other important project for southeast asia especially high speed train this is something that maybe we can talk about during the q and a uh i mean in my own country i know definitely that there is a fierce competition between china and japan uh when it comes to the investment into high speed taiwan desperately need high speed uh train project and then uh eventually i think again japan has lost out because thailand just signed a deal with china to build uh this one rail you know from uh bancorp to connect with uh the northern the north eastern part of thailand uh that has already been concluded and then it will start operating uh in 2023 i still have not heard that japan has finalized any deal with thailand so i think japan still had to keep up but i think japan did think about it you know especially when the tpp the transfer of partnership partnership seemed not to work out so well under trump administration so japan instead turned to the rcm base regional competency between the partnership by trying to link the asian pastry as in past sake you know in the framework of east asia summit you know into becoming something that japan would take a lead in order to counter china b i and uh and a i i b something like that and also to compensate on the the tpp as well uh the defense this is something that i'm i'm very interested and i hope to learn more you know from this discussion as well because sitting here in japan uh people talk so much about how far japan could go when they come to uh engaging with southeast asia in the military area uh giving the fact that the the constitution of japan sort of stands in a way but i think japan has done really well you know in this regard starting off with you know just basically stick to humanitarian activities and you have seen uh japan uh being really assertive in that uh doing a kind of uh uh joint drill exercise you know with the philippines with cambodia with vietnam and i think these countries are meaningful because because it's happened that all of these seem to take place within the vicinity of the south china sea you know somehow you cannot run away from the from the suspect you know on the part of china whether you know china would see this japan uh policy uh or ambition in fact uh as a way to counter uh china's influence in south china sea and in particular uh those acian clements that have been you know uh in dispute with china for the south china sea territory dispute including a vietnam and the philippine in this case japan has done uh some sort of uh joint patrol anti-pirate for example once again still stick to this kind of non-traditional military exercise right uh so as not to because not to be perceived as uh being politically or military ambitious so as to fit in with the theme of conscious you know power the other thing uh is i like to learn more as well about quad i'm not sure that where where do we have have been talking about quad uh which started in 2017 uh i think i think in many ways quad seem to fit in with the the indoor pacific strategy of of uh of japan in term of you know we talked about promoting free and open uh region linking pacific and the subcontinent of india right uh i have not done really serious study on quad but what i have heard is that maybe india and austria might not be that team because uh because at the end of the day they still have to think so much about their own relationship with china and they i think they become aware that by being with japan through quad that could be perceived as ganking up you know against china so i think that could be an obstacle for quad and also from the viewpoint of rcm rcm must have been you know aware as well that whether if quad would become too successful could that could that dilute you know the the strengthality of rcm as well and we know that rcm is very jealous of his own position here as sort of the driving force for southeast asia and because of that uh maybe you know uh it could jeopardize rc support for quad and coming back going back to china as well whether this could be perceived as uh too much of an anti-chinese initiating coming out of japan uh i think that really my my intervention for now but i just leave a few points for further discussion if uh that would be possible uh we did talk about political role of japan in southeast asia and i like to see it more and i think this somehow linked to what happened in thailand my own country and even linked to my own situation in japan to being a refugee from the thailand regime uh i think japan has become too concerned about its economic interests uh to the point that uh to the point that it it compromised with its own political standing after the coup you know i have done even until now you know some interview with big businesses investing in thailand you know what they told me that they're quite happy that there was a coup in thailand because whatever happened before the coup under the gilab administration if you remember the big flood in thailand in 2011 and it hit so badly japanese car industry in thailand and the thai political the thai the thai flood became political flood and i think japanese businesses became frustrated that that uh that seemed to be no one to protect the interests of uh the business interests of japan so that's why when the coup took place japan started you know thinking uh uh deeply that okay maybe this this might be a good thing that from now on it would only be one stop service for them in contacting with the government so i think that had been some sort of perception of businesses so not necessary really you know uh positive toward uh political development in thailand i was very disappointed that at the high of the sanction against the thai regime after 2014 japan was the only country in the g-8 group to welcome preyuk chan ocha you know any other country boycott the visit you know from the top uh top elites in the kunta but japan rolled the red carpet and in that trip to tokyo of preyuk uh obviously talking about possibility of high speed deal uh but you even took a shinkansen you know from tokyo to osaka in order to try the shinkansen that hopefully that would lead to lead to the conclusion of a deal uh deputy chief of mission of the embassy in japan i mean the the japanese embassy in bangkok the deputy chief of that mission came to talk to me and then he said that well you know we know we understand what going on in thailand and we really seem feel sympathetic toward uh pro-democracy movement but yet at the same time i hope you understand that we have business to conduct and i and and that person also told me quite frankly that we really want to uh to strengthen our partnership with the military and you must understand that this is something that we have to do so i mean i appreciate the his his frankness but then that go to show that uh i mean to be honest to try to understand japanese policy toward thailand and southeast asia as a whole maybe we have to wait you know so many different aspects i i also this uh applicable to the case of mi enma and the philippine too we have heard before that uh japan has been very careful not to criticize so much of what going on in mi enma with the with the turd meda and also with the rohingya thing we have not heard anything from japan talking about the third day about the extra judiciary links there about the the way that they deal with drug trafficking and also cybercrime right now that is a political issue that i would like to discuss later second point and hopefully will be my last point cultural product from japan well i know carl really well because i work so closely with carl you know he helped me with a Kyoto review in one issue on manga in southeast asia well i do think japan continue to lag behind i i i don't think focusing on manga as the entry to come back to southeast asia that would be enough and i talk i talk this i talk about this you know because i see how south korea right now in wedding southeast asia you know south south korea came with the korean wave you know a decade ago and it it seemed to sort of fade away but the second wave of the korean come back and it come back even more accuracy than than the japanese and then the chinese you know amongst southeast asia now we look at we look at south korea as a source of cultural inspiration as a kind of huge and popular uh k-pop something that becomes so much more superior than j-pop nobody listened to j-pop this day uh talking about food and cuisine japan become a little bit like oh yeah we can buy sushi anywhere but we talk about you know korean beef we're talking about uh bulgogi something that is quite trendy you know uh and amazingly not just only south korea but it's also come from north korea too because the most successful restaurant business in southeast asia come from north korea not from south korea and that is something about north korea that has been so intriguing among southeast asia that they want to try and they like to do you know one dessert before they like to wear that hanbok thing and dance around in the in the restaurant i mean that is so funny uh uh last thing cosmetic and surgery this kind of thing you might think that this is trivial business but this is very edging cutting it you know business coming from south south korea that has become a part of the cultural invasion that has sort of eclipsed you know what uh japan has done uh in the past uh i wish that japan would reconsider its cultural position including the engagement of ngo this is the last point in your presentation uh i will end by saying that last week i was invited by osaka you know steve to talk about uh new tea alliance new tea alliance is the the alliance between thailand hong kong and taiwan when it comes to uh giving support uh to each other's democratic movement right we saw also linked up with jojo wong and also uh big uh activates you know in in taiwan and this uh this symposium was organized by osaka unity plus other ngo groups in japan this is something this is the first time that i was invited to this kind of conference and i must say that among ngo serious society organization in japan they are really keen to know more about political development in southeast asia but but they also admit that the government doesn't seem to open the way for them so i think this could be something that we could explore how the japanese government would would set itself as an example when it comes to uh to look into political development to follow it up and also to have a a stronger voice this could be an edge over china and any other country thank you so much thank you so much paven really appreciate those very rich comments covering a whole range of issues that are in the book uh we have some time for questions and uh i see herridas has put one already in the chat box would you like to to a voice that yourself for shall we just shall i just read it out for you well i appreciate it uh if you could just read it out uh no worries thanks sure so the comment is that since japan was a driving force and pushing for the quadrilateral which in case anyone's not familiar with this term the quadrilateral security dialogue was something launched in the late 2000s between japan the united states india and australia as a as a potential new architecture for security uh in in the indovacific region and given that the uh liberal democratic party the incumbent party that abe and and the current p.m. suber from have tried to revise the pacifist clause in japan's constitution article nine to allow a more normal range of military activity because the idea of japan is a courteous power presented in more benign light than in fact is um i'm happy to share a couple quick comments on this and keo and paven may have more i think it's important to distinguish between what uh what shinzo abe tried to do and and what japan's behavior has actually been in practice there's no question that if the quadrilateral had come to its full fruition we'd be looking at a different scenario right now in the indovacific and certainly if he had been successful in revising article nine uh and and japan had uh taken on more of a sort of a normal military role in the region uh brandishing all of his capabilities then yes that would lead away from what we're describing as a tradition of being a courteous power in the region instead what we see are a lot of continuing constraints on japan in particular abe was unsuccessful as suga almost certainly will be in revising article nine because they govern in coalition with komito a buddhist party that opposes a revision of article nine there still is a lot of popular ambivalence in order to revise article nine you need to have a majority in the diet you need to have a popular referendum it's a very tough tough set of hurdles to clear and therefore japan has has reverted to more of its approach that that aligns with the the idea of a courteous power but i do not deny that there are that there are a nationalist voices in tokyo that would like to see a less courteous approach at least on the security front a more confrontational approach toward china um and i'll see if keo or palman would like to to comment on this as well no okay and why don't i ask the next question then but i'm muted sorry i was just muted um so i i i just wrote an op-ed on the quad so i have a few things to say about this um i mean john is exactly right um abe um his really lifelong goal really was to change the revised constitution but you know he it seemed like he came close to being in a position to doing that but but um the public japanese public you know and and um wasn't really willing to move at all um so if you look at the public opinion polls it's just nowhere near uh majority um so i don't see that changing under suga you know who knows five ten years down the line with china becoming more aggressive maybe that's a possibility um but at this moment i don't think japan is moving quickly in that direction at all um the quad um is also somewhat overrated i have to say at this moment it has a it has great potential but it's overrated i think um so it emerged in or it emerged in 2004 as a reaction to the indonesian tsunami you know there was a coalition of four countries trying to do something about it and then in 2007 abe elevated that into more of a regular working group meeting and some maritime exercises but quickly china came to australia and pressured the the new regime kevin rod to break away from it so it ended quickly in 2008 and it got revived in 2017 and especially you know with trump coming to power it seemed useful for the u.s administration and and you know we saw a lot in october and november activities around quad there was a meeting uh of foreign ministers and prime ministers in in october and there was a first maritime exercise with all four navies participating a couple weeks ago in november so now we're kind of getting somewhat excited about it but it's really far from becoming institutionalized into something tangible so we have no idea where it might go uh i think a lot of the japanese um bureaucrats especially in morpher or dod or dod the mid defense ministry um are putting their laying their eggs in that basket and it does have potential i think but for it to be successful it has to become more of an institutionalized alliance um and even the japanese government is somewhat hesitant to pushing it too far uh for fear that it might alienate the chinese government and good good for for japan economic relations with china are quite important as well so there is a balance to be struck and then the suga administration is very careful about that um so it i think it would be a while before it becomes something uh who knows what biden administration right would would like to do on that um but so and and even if it becomes more powerful it still needs i think this is uh what palvin mentioned the quad really needs to become quad plus the southeast asian countries included south korea in an obvious partner right uh but japan-south korea relationship is so bad that it it seems very difficult to do that uh new zealand you know so all these other countries should join in if china's threat becomes likely right it's likely china the threat becomes even more and more um than the quad or quad plus would become a very viable for the source of a counter move against china i mean i have other comments on other issue but i just want to say something about the quad palvin well just that's a short intervention then well we also have to think about that this could become repetitive you know because if you look at the framework of asian you already have asian regional forum you really want to talk about security cooperation then you already have this and the asian regional forum already linked you know all key partner in quad you know japan you know indian australia not to mention that we also have east asia summit so i think in the mind of southeast asia why do we need another one even the fact that asian has always been team you know to to be at the at the center of the of the entire region it was pretty quickly that's exactly that that's exactly the problem with asian based framework right the the the collective decision-making process of asian makes it very difficult and the quad at least it just it looks different right so it doesn't come from asian that's why you know possibly asian countries can participate one by one yeah and the and the quad was a pretty clear effort by the u.s and japanese governments in particular to try to recruit countries along china's periphery to take sides in a strategic sense in that in that equation and asian members don't want to do that and so to read us the second question about whether japan would look look toward a trilateral cooperation framework with india and australia if the united states looks like it's ambivalent about a security commitment to southeast asia i think that's unlikely for two reasons i think number one as pavin mentioned earlier both the australian and indian government indian governments are ambivalent about the idea of of the quad or a reduced version of it for reasons somewhat similar to those that that that makes southeast asian governments lean against it but secondly japan is although again there are some nationalists in japan that would like to see greater autonomy from the united states in defense affairs that's a long-term proposition uh for japan the short-term consequences of a of a clear decoupling from the united states in terms of southeast asian security as a non-starter in in tokyo defense circles and so for both reasons i would expect that if the united states if the united states is not very active in southeast asian security uh the japan's first phone call will be to washington to try to get the more involved and perhaps also try to encourage other quad members to make similar phone calls to washington but not to try to set up a structure that's independent of the u.s. japan alliance and i'm happy if you know others may have comments as well uh keo or pavin did you have comments on this question oh what what is the question oh sorry the second question there in the chat uh whether whether if the biden administration was ambivalent about its commitment to southeast to east asian security would japan push for a trilateral architecture involving australia and india and i think there's something right already in place oh i'm not going to repeat that point i think etan has a question yeah uh so let's go to etans uh and i'll just read how is it japan's approach to investment and economic reform in asian countries involving and evolving in the face of increased chinese investment and influence etan mentions the indonesian's sweeping and controversial job creation law that deregulates certain industries to attract more fdi he notes the labor and environmental protests and a lot of indonesians think that that law was passed under chinese pressure but it might also facilitate more japanese investment so tell us about how japan's trying to counter uh chinese economic investment and whether japan's pruning its own preferred reform policies in southeast asia pavin i know that you had some thoughts about this in connection with uh high speed rail and other big investment projects maybe you could comment a little bit on this and and keo and i may have comments to follow well uh yeah i mean if there's a competition between could be two layers yeah japan want to want to maintain what has been regular for japan meaning that long-term investment you know if you think about uh automobile industry in thailand yeah in indonesia for example right i think i think japan continue to maintain that level of investment so i think for this point that's why it become as i said compensated with how japan think about political situation in this country because of because this has become long-term investment so no matter what happened in in the political domain japan seem not to be so concerned too much the other one i think japan tend to pick on make a project in southeast asia i i think that when it come to uh to contest with uh with china we talking about high speed uh rail train but i think on this china has might have an edge over over japan because of the connectivity uh connectedness between and i'm talking about physical connectivity of china and southeast asia you know you you can't deny the fact that the dream of linking the south of china you know to uh the end of the the state of malacca you know in singapore it has it has long always had always been a dream and i think it's become a reality it might have already become a reality there and i think that is something that uh japan uh find it difficult to compete with uh the other thing also this is something that i'm interested but i i don't know yet it's a kind of uh contract farming this is something is very new in southeast asia when china uh have a kind of direct investment with particular particular businesses and in this in this case is a farming business you know and in particular in the least dvlog nation of southeast asia lau cambodi and vietnam in particular that you also started to see japan coming in as well so uh yeah this is just my intervention thank you kiyo did you want to share on this topic yeah so i we john and i just had a chance to talk to some experts in thailand um and we we there was a very interesting comment about how tai elite a lot of tai elites have sort of chinese heritage root and one uh scholar i was kind of surprised publicly talked about how he just enjoys china success and he wants to see more of that and when he comes to investment in thailand as well a lot of elites in tai with chinese connections ethnic identification um would prefer uh connecting with china so japan has to contend with that so being cordious and popular in popular culture and that kind of stuff is nice but but that's that's a it's a tough competition in that regard so um i mean i'm not suggesting that that's the only reason why japan lost in the competition in all that uh but but i i'm wondering if there's a to what extent that's true maybe paving can comment on this because i was really struck by the comment and but that's one person's evaluation for i'm not sure um and also i should say that kitty's chapter talks about this a little bit and how japan realizing that the winning you know the the bidding for high speed uh trains and stuff like that you know they kept japan kept losing losing and it's kind of hard so now they're shifting attention to smaller projects like subways in cities that are slightly right smaller um and and japan is having more success in that regard and that may be where being cordious uh is paying off because that you know tai government might go to um china for the big big investment but you know it still has some sense that it needs to be nice to japan as well so some smaller projects it would go to japan and japan is actually pretty good at that those kinds of right city buses or subway system japan is very good at that too um so so that that's where kind of things might be shifting uh which is that you know it's a consolation price price but it's not a bad consolation price well i'm i have a comment too but probably maybe you could share a little bit about the ethnic chinese factor and investment yeah first thing first i was i mean i had a talk with uh the government official when they come to the high speed train they just basically confess that japan is more expensive and china offer a friendship price a friendship price we have we have heard this decades ago now i mean i mean originally they talk about military hardware from china at a friendship price now we talk about high speed rail from china at a friendship price comparing with uh japan too but yeah the ethnic chinese among the tai elites i think this this is that person really spot on and this is something that i'm interested as well uh that's two things one is that the majority of tai prime minister there are half tai half chinese that go to show how significant you know china ranked in in the tai political thinking political idea right and don't forget that i mean the chinese uh in thailand they they they were assimilated into tai society uh i am a product of you know tai chinese thing businesses big businesses also dominated by this tai chinese group right the biggest one is jalan prokapan jalan prokapan basically now dominate dominates almost everything in thailand form large large large businesses into something really small right now 711 the convenience store now being taken over by jalan prokapan jalan prokapan know the chinese leadership right in the in the com com companies party so that's why you know you start to see the link at the top level not just political leadership but also the economic leadership as well uh and jalan prokapan not only big in terms of economy investment within thailand and its its connection with the chinese leadership is also involved so much into in the business with the tai monarchy too that that when the tai monarchy start to play a role here you know in in the past week the tai protest the protest it against uh the the the the super rich status of the king the club of tv role how the club of tv role has dominated the tai economy working hand in hand with the tai chinese uh business community like jalan prokapan like uh like bia chang you know like singa bia like sim uh tai sayam si men company these are big big big company once again dominated by tai chinese and also the monarchy last year about the monarchy and then with china and japan uh we have seen the uh a very intimate relationship between the tai royal family with the chinese leadership for a long long time now uh i mean tai royal families they are really i mean they are really popular in china with japan there's some interruption in in this kind of relationship between monarchy business and japan too uh it's happened that the current king you know made a scene when he came to japan in the 1980s as a crowd prince and then there was a big argument with the with the japanese horse i did write about it you know you can find out a bit later uh this thing is not small but because good relationship at the top level not only can pay the way for political uh corporation but also in business like this that would come in bring in tai chinese uh mix investor you know to play a role here i have a quick comment on the latter part of your question a ton about the regulatory vision that japan has for for investment in the region first of all japan is still the stock of japanese investment is still larger by a sizable margin than the chinese stock of fdi in southeast asia and so japan has some legacy advantage in relationships in certain countries in certain domains uh less so perhaps in the mainland than in the maritime states but there's also the quality infrastructure investment initiative where japan basically laid out in broad brush terms what its answer is to your question which is that we want to provide big ticket investment that meets higher labor and environmental standards and if you select our project you're not going to have mass protests in the streets you're not going to have roads crumbling in a few years i'm not suggesting that all chinese projects are our shoddy construction or that they violate these these rules but clearly japan was trying to present a contrast and the thing i think that matters about this is twofold one is that if a country actually if a government actually wants to take the more expensive project that has higher labor and environmental standards japan is there and is ready to is to do that deal secondly if japan doesn't get the bid it still puts the country that's bargaining for the contract in a better negotiating position vis-a-vis china because there's another bidder and so it may be that the the quality of chinese projects goes up because there's actually some serious competition from japanese bidders that would be a real benefit to southeast asia and that may be an indirect mechanism whereby japan gets some of what of of of of what it's advertised as its regulatory agenda in the region understanding that for a variety of reasons it's going to lose a lot of the bids so do any others have have questions we have time for one or two more quick ones if you want to share i think that's a question for me for the for the type protest um oh so i think for me is that as i'm learning from this discussion there seems to be a kind of my experience of learning about japan is really japan's taking a lot of soft approaches in terms of exerting itself politically economically and and and socially in terms of making very clear that they're supporting other countries for aid or for multilateral actions or informal influence from the culture that has been exported out of japan and so just one situation that i i wanted to kind of hear your thoughts about has been that the current type protest um happening and challenging the political status quo of the monarchy in thailand and do you see japan taking a different stance in this situation or just more of the repeat of what they've already kind of taken in the past regarding these this is the very thin line what japan's trying to be we support certain democratic values but we also want to keep these relationships open um as well because in these particular protests there's also an element of culture as well from what i've been reading is that there's been uh some um cultural impacts from from japan and where the students have been using to to to promote this pro democratic movement in thailand before pop in response to that maybe we'll take piscius question two and then and then we can just have a quick round of of closing comments you need it it looks like your your audio is not working but you've done us the favor of typing in the chat so i'll read i'm mute but can you hear me now yes yes now you're good okay sorry um so as you can tell by my name i'm tai american and um thank you so much uh john felwyn for being here and i'm a big fan of your work um i'm curious to hear to what extent is southeast asian countries are falling under china's debt trap democ diplomacy where china being a powerful lender seeks to exert its power over its borrower through the enormous debt thank you okay so great um pop and maybe you wanted to offer a few thoughts on those two questions and then kia if you have any little closing remarks that's great oh i'll be quick uh thank you so much for the first question i think japan has been very pragmatic you know in the in the current situation in thailand a pragmatic in a sense that uh not necessary not necessary jumping into uh into taking any size in the tai political divide i think japan watched the situation quite carefully uh this is also because we are talking about uh the same sort of constitutional monarchy what will happen in thailand you also can can learn a lesson from japan to as a successful constitutional monarchy you know but behind the scene i'm sure that a lot of japanese scola and also those in the government would be loving at the typing right now for not knowing that it's time for the reform you just usually have to go with the reform but i guess uh because of the of the as i said the economic interest because of the need to compete with china you know uh to that high level japan has continued to to be very careful with again for the tai protester it is a little bit disappointing because japan could exert more power using its economic uh influence but i don't think japan want to do it but i can understand i can understand or because because it is too soon to say who would who would come out as a winner in this in this tai you know uh political turmoil you know choosing the wrong side you know would cause a lot of uh national interest you know okay the other one is uh uh yes of course i mean it's very difficult for for especially the least developed country as i mentioned before uh that has fallen into a depth trap you know diplomacy i'm thinking about uh lao and cambodia and me and ma i think uh with with the united state seeming to you know to to fade away during the trump and we're not sure it uh also during biden that that united state will return to southeast asia southeast asia has no rank high in the u.s foreign policy anyway and then because of that the hope is for japan to come and and and and make it more balanced but right now i don't think japan has been able to do so because i think the intro and of china has been too immense i just want to give you one last example of what really happened you know with cambodia if you remember i think in 2012 if i'm not mistaken with the the south china sea issue and then with cambodia be uh serving as the uh the chairman of the acian uh committee uh and then we we would not be able to produce the the joy communicate at the end because uh obviously cambodia care too much about the to upset the chinese leadership so i guess that here to answer your question japan has a role to play at least you know to make things more balanced uh among this least developing country thank you pervin keo any any final uh thoughts as we wind up just quickly i i i think the all the constraints or forces that put japan into a becoming a courier's power um i mean i i want to give some agency to japanese policy makers but for the most part it was a lot there are constraints that put japan in the position and most of them are kind of still there uh the legacy of world war two people still talk about it and as you know there's always this suspicion about somebody like abe being a hawkish nationalist who's intent on you know rebuilding military and expanding and you know which is um i don't agree with that assessment but there's that suspicion is still there so that that you know japan cannot escape that very quickly even after 70 plus years so that's there and the constitutional right constraint article nine is there unlikely to change anytime soon so japan cannot really engage in uh i mean the japan's military capacity is expanding and legal constraints are becoming somewhat looser than before but still it you know it's it cannot really engage in the same kind of activities that the united states can or china can't so that's still there um and asian's collective decision-making procedure is still there so you know all of those things that have not changed up that dramatically so that uh i can't i don't imagine japan's courted approach getting dropped in the next few years or so i think japan will stay that way and there's a lot of uh i don't know about there are some ambitious politicians who want japan to play bigger roles right that's true but um i think for the most part the japanese public is quite content being a trusted partner in the region being a popular country looking at the public's opinion survey and seeing that japan is very popular in many countries they're quite happy with that and they don't really want to try to compete with china full on uh and or overtake china in the region to become the most powerful nation in the week i don't i don't see a lot of japanese public wanting that so so i think for the foreseeable future uh japan's approach will uh it's going to stay constant unless there's a dramatic shift in the way china engages with the regional with japan with senkaku so that might trigger japan into a very different direction but otherwise i think japan will stay being a courteous power right excellent wrap up comment then for our discussion thank you to pavin for joining us from kyoto and and your insights uh thanks to erica uh for organizing thanks to all of you for coming especially uh for many of you late in your evening so thanks a lot we'll look forward to continuing the conversation another time and uh have a good night thank you so much thank you thank you so much thank you pavin very helpful thank you hio thank you learned a lot yeah thank you thank you for all the questions from the audience