 Hello. Good evening and good morning. This is Deko Katsumata of JCI. Thank you very much for joining for this webinar. I would like to introduce Mr Akio Okawara, who will be the president of JCI to make a brief remarks. So Mr Okawara, please. Yes, thank you. Good evening and good morning, depending on where you are. I am Akio Okawara as introduced. I am the president of JCI and as the organizer of today's event, I'd like to welcome you all to the JCI webinar, Enhancing Democratic Partnership in Asia. JCI, since its creation in 1970, has been promoting policy dialogue and exchange programs in pursuit of peace and security in Asia and the world as a non-governmental, non-partisan foreign affairs institute. JCI organized a study group for a study group Future of Democracy three years ago, and we have been conducting various programs since then to promote dialogue and enhance understanding of this very important issue. This time, responding to the call for bringing in voices into the summit for democracy conversation by the International Ideas Global Coalition for Democracy Forum. JCI organized today's webinar to hear from experts from Asian democracies regarding the current state of democracy in their respective countries and the Asia region as a whole. This webinar is one of over 40 events held today as part of the Global Democracy Coalition Forum, a virtual 24-hour event convened on the eve of the Summit for Democracy to be held later this week on the 9th and 10th December. This event's aim is to galvanize a global conversation on democracy as inputs to the summit. The main messages from our speakers at our event today and all the other webinars during the day will be communicated to the organizers of the summit. I understand that our event and another event organized by India's ADL, the Association for Democratic Reform, are the only ones being held in the Asian region. Therefore, today's event is important in ensuring that Asian voices will be presented to the summit. So now, without any further ado, I would like to hand over the proceedings to Ambassador Yukio Takasu who will be acting as the moderator of today's discussion. Ambassador Takasu has kindly accepted to be the chair of JCI's Future of Democracy Study Project and we are grateful for his great leadership in guiding our study project. Ambassador Yukio Takasu is also the special advisor to the UN Secretary-General on Human Security and is a former Japanese ambassador to the United Nations. So with that, Ambassador Takasu, please. Thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Kawara for kind introduction. My name is Yukio Takasu. I'm a chairperson of the JCI study team on the Future of Democracy and I'm very much grateful to all those of you who are participating despite not the most convenient time. And my warm welcome also to all of you. We're very much pleased to organize this event in the event of Summit of Democracy in conjunction with the Global Correlation for Democracy Forum which is called for by International Idea. The political leaders were duress in a few days time at Summit later this week. However, it's also important for civil society leaders to express views and raise voice to empower ourselves but also to influence decision makers. In Asia, in our region, backsliding democracy and the rise of authoritarian rule is noticeable particularly since around 2013 and further deterioration later in Hong Kong and once a beacon of hope from Myanmar is in disarray in Afghanistan and many countries in Asia excessive restriction of freedom due to COVID-19 causes our deep concern. So democratic values such as the rule of law and human rights are threatened. And particularly in the area of press freedom, it's very much worrisome. It is an issue of crucial importance for all of us whether we'll be able to stop this deterioration further and the change of tide in this very dynamic, most dynamic region in the world. So no matter how powerful no single country or no organization alone can succeed. We'll make it only through enhancing democratic partnership not only government but also civil society level. So in discussing democracy in Asia we should remind for which diversity in the cultural historical background and the political economic structure. Specific way of protecting human rights and freedom need to take into account such sensitivity but at the same time it's important to remind ourselves that human rights and freedom of choice are universal values and inalienable to any human being. Cultural historical differences are no excuse not to de-protect and the human rights. So we have prepared for today's discussion three topics. First how you assess the status democracy in our region. Two what kind of shared norms and regional partnership we should promote. Three how to engage with non-democratic countries. On top of that I would suggest that we should perhaps discuss also what we expect from summit of democracy. What we can make suggestion or recommendation the summit of democracy and year for action in the course of 2022 for next summit. I hope it's a person. So this evening or this morning we are very much fortunate to have a prominent expert on Asian democracies today. So we're going to hear first five panelists. Yamini Iyer from India, Edunako from Philippines, Ketuke Ravan from Indonesia, Maiko Ichihara from Japan and Foon Jun Kim from South Korea. And after hearing from two commentators, Rena from India, International India and Manpreet of National Democratic Institute, we open the floor for this discussion. And I'm very much hoping to hear as many views as possible and come to your cooperation. So now let's go to the first speaker panelist, if I may. I'm Tabetika Rouda. I call on Yamini Iyer. She is a president and chief executive center for policy research in India. Yamini, you have a floor please. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador, for that kind introduction and this important preface to the conversation today. I think the very fact that we are able to cut across boundaries, timelines, time zones rather, geographical boundaries, time zones and contexts to speak about the values of democracy and the importance of democracy in our region, as well as the threats to democracy in our region, is itself a tribute to democracy and the power of what technology can do to bring a multitude of voices and perspectives together. But I think in celebrating this power, we also must be cognizant of the many deep threats that democracy faces today. The very same technology that brings us together has also been a powerful tool to fundamentally undermine the practice of democracy in its everyday sense. I come from a country, India, which has been widely celebrated across the globe for its resilience of democratic values and democratic principles, resilience in the sense that in 1947, when the modern Indian nation gained independence and our constitutional founding fathers established our constitution, committing the country to democratic principles, there was widespread skepticism about the possibility of democracy unfolding in a context of deep poverty, social stratification and inequality and illiteracy. In fact, in many ways, democracy was seen as almost a luxury of the rich, a luxury of countries that had gone through a structural transformation and that collectively had arrived at values of liberty, equality and justice. And it was for us, the people of India, to prove to the world that the values of democracy can cut across multiple challenges, challenges of poverty, challenges of illiteracy, challenges of deep social stratification and inequality. And we proved over these last now nearly 70 years that the practice of democracy can, in fact, be embedded in the harshest of contexts. But democracy is more than the art of voting. And I think the lessons from India over these last 70 years, but perhaps more profoundly in the last decade, raise important questions about what the limits of democracy can be. And how hard we need to work beyond the active practice of voting to secure democratic values in our society and in the functioning of our state and the relationship that the state forges with citizens. I would argue that in India, we see three critical threats to the substantive practice of democracy. And none of these threats are unique to India. I think they, in different ways, are demonstrated across the globe. And many countries in the region, many of our neighbors, are struggling with similar questions and similar challenges. The first biggest threat that comes to democracy is from the, is from the active complexity of the relationship between capital, private capital, and democracy. The practice of democracy requires resources across the world. And it has always played a sat, electoral financing has always sat in a somewhat uneasy relationship with the values of democracy. Across the globe, the question of what does it take to effectively ensure transparent electoral financing, whilst at the same time ensuring that money doesn't guide how the practice of party politics unfolds in the, in everyday democracy remains a crucial challenge. But what makes it particularly critical in the context of India is that we are seeing two very, two parallel processes. One as capital itself, as growth itself has unfolded, social inequality and wealth inequality has become far more embedded. So it is a set of very high level monopolies that now dominate the economy. And it is those monopolies that now, that also dominate our politics. So we ended up with through the process of 30 years of economic liberalization, with the unleashing of animal spirits of capitalism, but the profits of that of those animal spirits concentrated amongst the higher end of the elites, building into our democracy, a very critical foundational crony capitalism that is hard to break. How do you make democracy representative in this context is a very, very crucial question. And in India, it finds itself unfold in very intriguing ways. We struggle with the fact that a large number of our representatives actually have deep criminal records. You mentioned the association of democratic reforms that is organizing a discussion on democracy in India, in the context of the Democracy Summit. Well, they were one of the few civil society organizations that raised their voice in the Indian context on this coexistence of capital and democracy and criminality in politics. Again, a challenge not unique to India, but one that finds itself very sharply defined in India. The second big challenge I think that democracy confronts is linked to across the globe and very profoundly in India too, perhaps a consequence of increasing social inequality. A social public sphere in which the rising tide of nationalism of boundaries starts playing a deep, deep role in how the practice of democracy unfolds. When democracy and its values of equality, justice and liberty gets conflated with nationalism, which often is articulated in the form of closing of its boundaries and closing of majorities, pitting majorities against minorities, you undermine the very values and spirit of democracy. India and its neighbors had a very, very fractious, bloody evolution into modern nationhood. These 70 years were meant to be a years of healing. We healed somewhat, but our own democracy has become in many ways much more inward looking. In that inward looking, violence sits uneasily, but in very happy complementarity with democracy, creating a deep threat to democracy itself. A challenge which now has got even more exacerbated by the very technology that brings us together. A new kind of public sphere is evolving. A new public sphere which is deeply democratic, but it also allows anonymity. Its norms of operation are still to be defined and determined, and in that certain voices tend to drown out truly democratic principles, values and voices. How do we address that? It remains a crucial threat to democracy of the future. Last and associated, what does democracy mean in the world of big data? In the world of technology in which we live, it's not just about the creation of a public sphere, it's in every act of our participation in that public sphere. We are creating data which is used to shape the nature of that public sphere, and that data has to be held somewhere. How do you bring in principles of equality, of justice, of transparency, of accountability? When the bulk of our data is held by a set of private companies somewhere very far away or by governments who may use it in ways that undermine the very principles of democracy that we fight for. Each of these crucial threats are threats that we need to fight for, understand and fight for in order to ensure that the values of democracy are preserved and that these threats become opportunities and advantages to spreading the core of what democratic societies are about, societies that believe in the principles of equality, of justice, of freedom and of liberty. Collectively fighting and learning from each other as we enter uncharted territory for democracy across the globe is where the democracy of the future is concerned, and I'll end with just one last point since you did mention that messages have to go to the summit of democracy. I think it's very important for the largest democracy in the world, the oldest democracy in the world rather, we are I think the largest democracy in the world to recognize that it plays a central role in the global sphere and the global sphere of governance. If there's one thing that the traumas of the last two years has taught us, it is that global governance is fundamentally undemocratic, that we today are still fighting for vaccine equality in the context of a disease that does not know any boundaries and is in fact perhaps genuinely democratic. Talk of democracy without fulfilling those principles in the in the context of a global crisis leaves a lot to be desired for what democracy means in the globe. I'll stop there. Thank you, great. Thank you very much. Next speaker I invite Professor Edna Cole. She's a full professor and former dean of National College of Public Administration Governance University of the Philippines. Edna, you are a professor. Thank you very much for the introduction, Mr. Ambassador. I will try to limit my talk to just three points, and I think I'll follow what the prescription says that there are three main points to guide in the discussion on Philippine democracy particularly. I am an old student of David Betham's idea of democracy assessment and democracy audit in the early 2000 and following that with further support from the international idea sometime in the early 2000 particularly 2005. I try to examine democracy, unwrap it, break it down because it's such an enveloping generic general term and I use certain metrics and parameters of defining democracy albeit limited at that point. I looked at elections, I looked at citizen participation, I look at rule of law and access to justice, and I looked at the socioeconomic development which includes poverty, economic progress and so on. Having used this as parameters of democracy in my country, in the Philippines, I try to look back now at this point in time and what I see is that the Philippines just like some countries in the region are sharing a decline, a fragility of democratic institutions and the evidences in my country include as follows. Our chipping away of the democratic institutions, for example, and the closing and shutting down of media network in my country including the very, the biggest and the largest media network. The filing of cases against a media leader and personality who eventually turned out to be a recipient of the Nobel Prize given to her recently, thousands of extra judicial killings in my country reach enabling the country to be recorded as a country that is being complained at the international criminal court and the exposed fragility of democratic institutions. Increasingly, the Philippines shares similarity in increasing authoritarianism in the region. The weakening of institutional checks and balances, are we unhappy or happy about this development? I would say yes, we are disturbed by the declining democracy if I go by those measures that I mentioned, but no, we continue to be happy as a country because we are hopeful that democracy is a work in progress and that many of my fellow citizens are not fully giving up on finding every means and mechanisms to question a declining democracy and put under the rule of law the questions against democracy. Let me come to the second point now. What is it that we can share with other countries? Very much so, in the case of Hong Kong, in the case of Myanmar, in the case of other countries in the region whose decline for, whose increase for authoritarianism and the decline for the respect of civil liberties are increasing or shall I say declining, but next year the Philippines faces a nodal point which is promising for democracy. We are holding a national election in 2022 and election and political parties are another measure of democracy that all of us would like to examine along with other Asian countries. Similarly, we are hopeful that our citizens continue to express democratic rights through an exercise of an election for 2022. A third point, my last point, how do we engage non-democratic countries? I don't think there is such a thing as non-democratic countries if we broaden the definition of democracy because even in the case of countries which seem to be politically and democratic, they are similarly faced just like us, just like many other Asian countries on the other manifestations of the power of democracy and this democracy power is soft. It is embedded, power is embedded in the technology which is not up front, power is also embedded in the threat of the climate, the environment, which is not requiring a military fight or a political fight, but just the same, we can talk in a conversation how we can reduce the impact and reduce the frequent shocks and the implications to poverty, homelessness on population given the climate crisis, given the environmental disturbances and I think for many countries this is something that binds us together. Whether you are democratic, so called democratic or non-democratic, there is always a piece of conversation that threatens democracy having access to resources, having access to natural resources. If we do not protect the environment, if we do not protect our defenses against recurrent shocks and if we do not protect ourselves against climate crisis. So there is much in the conversation to go on within Asia among other countries who may have different levels of democratic as your sizes, but nevertheless we find the least common denominator of democracy. Thank you very much. Ambassador Takasu, you are muted. So thank you very much. May I invite the next speaker, Ketut Eravan, who is the Executive Director of the Institute of Peace and Democracy by Indonesia. Ketut, please. Thank you very much, Ambassador. The committee asked me to respond to the three questions, but I will focus only on the two, which is the question on how to respond to the non-democracies and how to keep cooperation from them. And for the Indonesian democracy as a situation, we can discuss along the way if we have still time. Responding to non-democracy reflection for cooperation. When asked to reflect on the current state of global or regional democracy, the future cooperation and how to respond to non-democracy, my answer cannot be straightforward. The challenge of democracy are tremendous. Democracies are in declining. Populism is in the various forms. On the rise, the threat to climate change and emerging and emergency due to pandemic is also protected. The future of cooperation is in the narrow corridor. There are two choices usually made beyond business essential by condoning the non-democracies or cut the relationship by which is jeopardizing the activism. So my position is in the middle. I call it narrow corridor. So for sure, it needs rejuvenation and transformation, but the question is how? Responding to the non-democracy demands the realization of the form of the democracy are very non-democracies mean more than no existence of competition process for electing leaders, the limitation of rule of law and the neglect of political rights. My point of view, non-democracies cover a notion of form of unfreedom, inequality and exclusion. For this meeting, I delved the aforementioned views into two reflections, a reflection on how to build social fabrics and the second on supporting activism, home and abroad. My point of view was grounded by our discussion today in Bali because we have a forum about ASEAN. So we reflect much more beyond Indonesia because we want to see our relationship with other countries around the area. The first one is building the social fabrics. This is the question raised by so many participants along our interaction with countries like Myanmar, Egypt, Tunisia, Fiji and others. One of the most challenging situations shaped by the non-democracy is the fragmentation of the social fabrics. The practices of domination hegemony, exclusion could fragment the society, spread distrust and ignite friction. The daily practices of politics politicizing identity through race, religion and ethnicity, gender and nationality fragment the social further. For a heterogeneous society and emerging from the conflict experiences which some of ASEAN countries faced before, building social fabrics are so essential and challenging. The question from our friends and partners during our engagement today, which is a separate question. One is that they are asking whether Indonesia can share how to create a common ground like ideology to unify and weave the nation, how the response to the historical baggage of conflicts and how the heritage of colonialization breads chism. That's a question from Myanmar. Some friends from Arabic countries ask a question about how Islam and nationalism can be grounded with democracy to bring unity. So social public are very structural foundation of norms, institutions and practices of democracy as possible. Social public may be taken for granted in the homogeneous countries which have not facing conflict before. So our question from our respondent from Indonesia are humbling that Indonesia is still striving to nurture the nation building every day. Even if we capitalize every historical moment we are still facing some unsettled processes of we call it social public weaving. So I suggest the international cooperation to enable the grassroots organization to interact and build solidarity and seek the common purposes in the first effort to shape the emergency of the social fabric. The public spare should be weaving democratically, weaving from the ground and views democracy as a building the culture of dialogue is our main suggestion. The second point if I still have time is the reflection of how to supporting activism at home and abroad. This is the question raised by so many activists regarding about how to respond to the non-democracy. The choices of cutting off our relationship with the non-democracy is not good for activism because you may be jeopardizing their life, complicating their activism and much more it is keeping them away from their daily service to the public and public legitimacy. And the second one if we are conducting as business as usual it will be condoning the non-democracy that is not good for the civil society activism and the media particularly. We discussed also the issues of how to support the area of non-real we call it pre-virtual because activism now is widening the spare beyond the reality into the virtual reality. In the end I can suggest that the cooperation among countries to support for building social public and supporting activism home and abroad is as two agenda need to be raised in the democracy summit because those are two usually taken for granted and sometimes politics politicize so much. So we need to put that in democratic perspective. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. May I now invite the next speaker Professor Ichihara who is a professor of graduate school of law and school of international public policy in Totsubashi University and co-director of our research study group. Please you have a floor. Thank you. Thank you very much Ambassador Takasi for the introduction. I would like to talk from a Japanese standpoint but let me begin with the brief overview of the situation in Asia first. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic Asia has been a unique region which consists of a sub-region that preserved the democratic process relatively well namely northeast Asia and the sub-regions which experienced some of the worst setback in liberal democracy namely south and southeast Asia. Repression of freedom of speech, human rights of minority groups in the rule of law continues even in democratic countries such as the Philippines and India as previous speakers talked about. The coup in Myanmar overturned the election results in November 2020 and brought the country to military dictatorship once again. And of course China is an unignorable actor which weakens the norms and institutions of civil liberties and political rights. Genocide or human rights violation is taking place in Xinjiang and Hong Kong has suffered from the deprivation of freedom by the national security law. China has been also trying to weaken democratic norms as well as cooperation among democratic countries with its massive influence operations around the world disseminating propaganda disinformation and making cyber attacks. Taiwan has been suffering from it the most but other countries including Japan have also been affected by China's subtle influence operations. China also began a campaign to distort and dilute the norms of democracy as we can see in an article from Global Times a CCP media on December 4th. Despite its disrespect for civil liberties which is one of the core components of democracy it now claims that China is more democratic than the United States. It is not. Together with the fact that the center of gravity in today's world is in Asia we the Asians have to take serious efforts to revitalize and defend liberal democracy in the Asian region. Actors with momentum for democratic defense is needed for this process and in that sense I welcome the inclusion of Taiwan for the democracy summit. But that is apparently not enough. Other Northeast Asian democracies namely Japan and South Korea should especially be central actors for democratic defense in the region. The time has passed when Japan keeps a low profile in political relations in the region. Japan is not only a major power in Asia despite weakening transparency and accountability in the government as well as increasing governmental intervention in the judiciary media for the past 10 years. Japan is a country which has been preserving democratic norms and institutions relatively well compared to other countries. We need Japan's commitment to liberal democracy in Asia. I make three proposals. First in order to show that Japan is not using democracy or democracies haven't rhetorically and ideologically the country should make proposals to improve the democratic processes both domestically and externally. Showing the same level of commitment to liberal democracy in Japan in other Asian countries or elsewhere is a key to show that Japan considers liberal democracy as a universal value. Second Japan should lead a regional approach to democratic defense. Asia is a rare region which does not have an effective regional mechanism for the protection of human rights and democracy. On the other hand Asia is a region where regional mechanism is most needed in the world given the strong emphasis remaining on the sovereignty norms. Asian actors are more relaxed with multilateral approaches to democratic defense and support rather than bilateral approaches. That is why countries such as Japan and India have been major donors for the United Nations Democracy Fund for example. Japan can take a leadership to launch an Asian version of the European Endowment for Democracy for example. Third the Japanese government should involve the civil society namely academics, lawyers, journalists and activists in the implementation phase for the next one year. Normalizing the presence of third party oversight is crucial for democratic governance and this will also provide a model for how to maintain transparency and accountability which are core norms of good governance that other Asian countries also accept. Authoritarian powers are increasingly exerting to exerting to hybrid warfare where they attack the norms and institutions of liberal democracy in order to destabilize democratic societies before conducting military attacks. Thus defense and restoration of democracy is badly needed for international security as well and a wide range of middle power countries cooperation is crucial for its success. Japan must stand up and stop here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me invite the next professor in Jun Kim who is a professor of department political science in Korea University. We are pleased to have you please. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I study international norms and then I study international human rights and the US-China relations. So my discussion would be particularly focused on the rise of authoritarian China. So I'll address all three questions. The question number one, the challenges for the democracies in the region. I want to raise the three points about authoritarian threat from China. The first, the China finds its legitimacy mainly from its economic achievement. Therefore, the many democracies suffering economic hardship like countries in ASEAN and then countries with high levels of trade dependence on China like South Korea are especially vulnerable. So I think that's the first premise that we have to start with. And second, the China for a long time claimed the relativism. It echoes with many countries in the region, especially ASEAN, which emphasized the relativism and non-interference and also the Asian value. One key difference is that previously it was defensive one for Chinese, but now it's more offensive and much more sophisticated. Two recent documents this week released this week, one on the Chinese democracy and then the other on the democracy on the US is a clear example of the offensive from China. The third, the China is taking advantage of the failure of the US and other democracies, especially a gap between the words and deeds and then double standards, interest-driven and then selective application of values. The China's recent offensive against democracy, human rights and multilateralism all hinges upon the failure and then the faltering of the democracies. So question number two, how to build a democratic partnership in the region? From this understanding, I suggest the two strategies for the democracies in Asia. The first, the pro-democracy and not anti-China or the anti-authoritarian measure. Due to China's strategy, the anti-China or the anti-authoritarian policy can always and easily backfire. So examples are what happened to Australia. The better way is to always to focus on pro-democracy initiatives. This means working together with other democracies and even raising voices against other democracies missteps and faltering if needed. The US under Trump or the deteriorating democracy in Eastern Europe is a clear example. No democracies are perfect. The checks and balances is not only the domestic principle for democracies, but also should happen across borders. The second, enhance the mutual understanding of other democracies in the region. The democracies in Asia should communicate with each other and then learn from each other how they are dealing with an authoritarian threat from China. The recent experience shows that many countries in the region suffer a similar offensive from China, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Measures include the misinformation or the infiltration, the punitive sanctions and so on. However, these experiences and strategies are not effectively shared among the Asian democracies. I'm really glad that we have this session, which is a rare opportunity for scholars and activists and practitioners to share what we think of the recent challenges to the democracy. Lastly, the question number three, how to engage with non-democratic countries. Again, so just two strategies. The first, multilateral rather than the bilateral interactions against China. For measures such as raising concerns over Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet or transparent COVID-19 investigation, multilateral actions are always better than the bilateral ones. China, which is highly combative against the individual countries, tend to be silent when the multiple countries raise the issues together. However, there is a catch. So far, it was mainly the G7 countries who raise these concerns, but I think the more Asian countries should be involved. It is not only against China, but also in case of the Myanmar junta. In most recent joint statement against the military junta, only the Korea and the East Timor or the only Asian countries who co-signed the statements along with the EU and the US. And second strategy is state and civil society in coordination. Similarly, especially for the Asian democracies, which has a very strong economic ties with China, they should work together with active civil society actors to promote democratic values and human rights. The recent poll from Korea shows that the concern over Chinese human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang is very high in Korea. However, the government is too cautious to raise the voice due to its economic vulnerabilities and then also the input from the many stakeholders and the interest groups. The solution could be the government should let the civil society lead on these issues about addressing the human rights issues in China with a tacit but strong support. So I'll stop here and discuss more later. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor. We have had four panelist presentations, which are extremely rich. We are invited two commentators, one by one. First, from Edea. Edea, Lina Likrataman, who is Director of Asia in the Pacific region. Lina, you have a floor. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Takasu. And thank you for being part of the Global Coalition for Democracy. I agree with many of the speakers. Can you check your microphone? The sound isn't too clear. Can you check the microphone? Sure. First, unmute and unmute again. Sure. Is it better now? Yes. Good. Yeah. Well, I just was mentioning that I do agree with many speakers and what was said, particularly about the challenges, many of which are linked to growing photocratization on the one hand and the loss of quality or erosion of democracy on the other. So that's the quick reminder that number one, from the democracy point of view, yesterday was not better in Asia and the Pacific. For the last 20 years, democracies have outnumbered non-democratic regimes. And secondly, over the last five years, not only retreats, but also progress towards democracy found across Asia and the Pacific. And here I'm referring to international idea, global state of democracy indices and reports freshly launched. The overall scores have improved in number of countries, from Babunegini to Nepal, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, and such improvements often go unnoticed. And thirdly, there are popular demands, protests, we have seen Hong Kong, India, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, among other places, they are not muted, even in the face of often brutal use of force to repress them. At the same time, no doubt, the challenges that were discussed are real. As mentioned, we saw dramatic reversals in Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Hong Kong, and many more outside of Asia to a point that question has been asked about, what is it about 21, 2021, and the course and the sort of return of traditional military takeover? Is it pandemic related in the sense that the whole world seems to be in influx and what is normal is sifting? Or is it something to do with the rising democratization clashing with authoritarianism? Equally worrying is the erosion of democracy, or what we can call killing democracy by a thousand cuts phenomena. Significant declines reported from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, India, and the Philippines, and I'm talking about democracies here, attacks are made against separation of powers and fundamental rights in particular. To me, some of the biggest future worries lie, and number one, and here I agree with Yamini, the rising ethno-nationalism often fueled by religion, intensified xenophobia, exasperated by the stress of the pandemic, undermining pluralism, and increasing polarization. For example, in Indonesia, freedom of religion is its all-time law since 1975. Number two, the growing reliance on emergency legislation to deal with the pandemic gave a certain normalcy to harsh policy measures, and reversing this normalcy and militarization, securitization of politics will require democratic pushback. He also confronted by the dilemma of renewed assertiveness of the state in good and in bad, including heightened expectations versus erosion of state resources in many places and consequences thereof. My final point about the partnerships and engaging with non-democracies, and I agree that someone always needs to have an access and dialogue with the autocrats or representatives of non-democracies, contexts, of course, vary terribly much, but it's important to do it in a way that does not render them legitimacy or in a way that engagement slowly transforms towards normalization or non-acceptable situation, the business, as usual, was mentioned. I liked what he said about the narrow corridor there. Authoritarian regimes and leaders are most certainly learning from each other, from surveillance technology to using gender quality as weapon in backsliding, and the democratic forces need to do the same, and we need coordinated solidarity with opposition movements in repressive contexts through information sharing, emergency funding, and so on. The actors on the ground, beating Myanmar, Cambodia, Hong Kong, elsewhere, they're often exhausted by the tasks they have from beating media attention, keeping in touch with their constituencies, often fearing for their lives. This may not be easy, but try to be must. I think I'll leave it there. I look forward to our discussion. Thank you very much, all right. Thank you very much, Lena. Next, Manpreet, who is a regional director for Asia-Pacific National Democratic Institute. Manpreet, please. Well, thank you, Ambassador Takasu, and let me just say it's been a very rich conversation already, and I have the perhaps one of the more difficult tasks of making sure I don't repeat what has already been said, and frankly, what I thought I'd do is just spend just a few minutes teasing out some of the key takeaways from each of the speakers as they relate to the three themes that were discussed, as well as pose a couple of questions in between if the speakers are willing to take them on during the discussion period. But first, on the first theme on democracy in Asia-Pacific challenges and prospects, I think one challenge that perhaps is more timely, that hasn't been discussed and be interested in people's views, is the example of Afghanistan, where the example of Afghanistan, what has happened in the last few months, has really cast a doubt on those of us who have been working towards promotion of democracy as it seems to be conflated with nation building. And so how do we avoid this trap of making sure that conflation is not taken away from the important work of democracy promotion? Secondly, there was a lot of conversation amongst the speakers about emboldenment of authoritarian leaders. What I think hasn't been discussed as much is the learning that is actually taking place amongst authoritarian leaders. This is happening within borders but importantly across borders and in some cases in very insidious ways and through the use of technology and sharing technology to increase surveillance or to otherwise take away from more fundamental rights. So I think this this ability is one challenge to watch as well. And then finally in terms of challenges, you know, so many of the issues that were discussed by the speakers, I think boiled down to the issue of trust. The trust or lack thereof between the citizenry and its leaders. And this relates to some of the issues that Ms. Iyer was talking about in terms of disinformation, the role of big data, the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability. Here, if I may just drill down to one of the things that Ms. Iyer mentioned around big data, because she used the example of India to discuss those themes is, you know, might a solution actually lie within the problem in that India, for example, has done a lot of really innovative work on how to manage big data in a way that doesn't run crosswise with privacy concerns and other issues. So I think we have to try to be creative of trying to find solutions within the problems, if you will. In terms of prospects, you know, I think there's, we sometimes give a short shrift to some of the some of the reasons to be helpful for democracy in the Asia-Pacific region. We have seen an increase in civil movements from Hong Kong to India to Thailand across the Asia-Pacific region. And I think that speaks well for the power of democracy still resonating amongst large populations, regardless of where governments or leaders are actually taking the country. I think that's something to be helpful for. Secondly, demographics may be on our side. So many countries have such a large youth population from Malaysia to India, so many parts of South Asia. You know, this is where I think there's an opportunity that we need to seize, frankly, a window we need to seize to really harness that energy from the youth to make sure that it's put forward to appropriate channels for political change around democracy. And then finally, I think in terms of prospects, you know, speaking from the United States, we're on the on the cusp of going towards this summit for democracy. There is absolutely as many speakers have talked about a role for the United States and other traditional strongholds of democracy to play here and focusing on the Asia-Pacific and focusing on democracy and human rights as the basis for foreign policy, as the Biden administration has has said they wish to do. So that's on the first theme. On the second theme about building democratic partnerships in the region, this is an area of work for NDI actually in partnership with JCIE. And it really does come down to a few different key elements. One is around building common values and norms. Another is about how showing that democracy can deliver for its citizens, the power of democracy and actually delivering towards citizens' needs. And then also around creating solidarity to making sure that it's kind of the best bulwark towards authoritarianism. Now here, where Professor Ichihara and Professor Hanjun Kim, I think, both mentioned using regional mechanisms to be able to provide that bulwark and that solidarity. I guess my question to each of you would be, are the regional architectures that currently exist adequate and up to the task in the Asia-Pacific region to actually take this on? I think many would agree that there's been a bit of a mix success, whether you're seeing ASEAN visa Myanmar, we're yet to see what the power of this quad might look like and whether it gets into these issues. So I think there's a real question mark about whether current regional mechanisms are actually up to the task of pursuing this. One other key point on this theme, I couldn't agree more with Professor Hanjun about being pro-democracy and not anti-China. As someone who's been personally sanctioned by China, I can't emphasize this enough, that this is about our values, not being against somebody else. And so showing solidarity around those common set of values, I think, is going to be increasingly important. And then finally on the last theme about engaging non-democratic countries, this is an area, and both Professor Nako, as well as Mr. Erwan, spoke about this. This is not about cutting and splicing and saying whether you're a democratic country or non-democratic country. There are democratic values and constituencies within all of the countries of Asia Pacific. The question is, how do you build solidarity amongst them? How do you empower that to try to shape change? And I think there's a lot of work, good work, that can be done here. But it does get back to this point around making sure that we're not cutting off out of some high-principled rationale, engagement within certain political borders just because the leaders have taken an authoritarian turn. It's a more nuanced view. It's a more complicated way of engaging, but it's a necessary one to make sure that we empower those democratic actors even within those countries. Finally, just one quick word on the Summit for Democracy. I think this is not a moment in time. This is a Summit for Democracy to remind democracies of the norms and the values, the reasons why democracy can deliver for its citizens and a time to reinvest in those principles in a number of different ways, many of which have been discussed by the speakers here today. So I see this as the beginning of a step change, I hope, in focusing in democracy, not a moment in time. I'll stop there. Thank you. Let's open the floor. May I invite all the participants to use the reaction, raise your hands or a reaction part to put their hands like this, whatever. And I'd like to, you know, well, make the floor as many people as possible so that already we have some question, a temporary task question, and I will come back to that later. But let me see. Can I recognize any hands raised? Let me see. I'm trying to see. It's not so easy. There are so many participants. If nobody's raising hand yet, I saw each child's face in the screen. Each child, are you with us? Yes, Mr. Masador. How are you doing? Can you take a floor while I'm waiting for this? So just to speak out what you're doing and then perhaps make a brief comment, please. Yeah, good evening, everybody. I'm going to be good morning for friends. I'm enjoying, and I've actually learned a lot from the perspective of the academic related to the topics. I have a few questions, actually, but first, maybe I would like to address these things. Because from civil society organizations in Asia, we are kind of struggling to really formulate things or even preparing ourselves in terms of the what next and then what to do to responding to all the challenges that we've been repeatedly discussed in many forums, discussions, or webinars. I think the most attention is at the moment of time is how we are supporting or helping the struggle of the many civil society organizations in the frontliners. For instance, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, and many others, because at the end isn't on the tip of the issue, then we can feel actually how day to day real struggles with very less support of international communities. Since the battle is too huge, I guess this is, we expect things, the manifestation or more support in different sectors in order to address these issues. So I guess recently we're just finishing our democratic assembly that comes up with a few key strategies, how the civil society to confront the regressions or let's say or to deepening democratic regressions. I think we will finalizing within these weeks and then we also would like to submit to the democratic summits that are happening later this week. So I guess there's a few issues because civil society has been hearing a lot of the odd cry about the challenges, different practices, different suffering. I think it's very important right now is to step into the next levels, how to providing support to, sorry, strategy first, how the many civil society in the regional, national, and subnational levels to start responding to every challenges from different aspects. And then secondly, sorry, before that, so we are really trying to frame our pointers to navigating them. I think it's very important for them now to start putting the effort to confronting every challenges. And then for, maybe from the civil society organization itself, we also would like to putting like a positioning paper or document to the democratic democracy summits that we hope at least three point first is to try to be inclusive and try to be practical because many of us are struggle with the many webinar, many discussions, many coalitions that actually is quite useful but we need something more concrete and inclusive including the national and subnational engagement. Second is to addressing the most concerns which is not, I mean like we thinking away these democratic summits or other efforts to try to addressing the most concerns in Myanmar, Hong Kong, Afghanistan, and many others countries. And of course the third, increasing the democratic supports. I guess Maiko Ichihara has addressing very good pointers that encouraging the Japanese governments and many other government to start to step in, do not be idols because it seems like it's been quite lonely, you know, and I feel like there should be some things to increase in democratic supports. And the rest is we are still encouraging many civil society and we try to build different sector to engage, connecting, and supporting each other. So I think the most question right now for everybody who can respond is like how actually we can translate these kind of discussions to increasing supports and how to connect things with the struggle of many civil society organizations on the ground. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ichihara. This is a very important issue. I think the many civil society organization, you mentioned the civil society organization but also media are really struggling in hard work and the civic space is narrowing, you know, very much. And I think one of the very concrete I think contribution summit to democracy could make is to change this, you know, climate for that. So the, and one more question about Marpreet raised the issue about regional mechanism. Do we have, you know, this working regional mechanism already? What do we need to create a new one or improve the existing mechanism? I think these are two perhaps very important question. May I invite our panelists or commentators speak? Professor Hanjun, you raise, you are nodding. So can you stay first? Yeah, sure. I think that's a very important question about the regional mechanism. I think as the competition between over the value between US China deepens and then if the situation becomes more serious, and then if the countries becomes more threatened and they have a higher heightened levels of a threat perception on the authoritarian challenges, I think it will eventually occur in the long term. But I think my understanding of the regional mechanism and why it's not difficult, although we have them, you know, in terms of the human rights commissions, they have a regional organization. And then also in terms of the constitutional courts, and then many lawyers and then the congressmen have their regional associations. But I think the fundamental problem is that the US's role in the region still is modeled after the hub and spoke model of the alliance system, mainly dealing with Korea, dealing with Japan independently, dealing with ASEAN and dealing with Australia. So I think that hub and spoke system, I think is somewhat a hindrance to have more about the Asian initiative or the ASEAN countries have their own initiative to build the regional institutions. At the same time, I think the China, of course, is doing is all it can do to this to to to to frustrate those kind of the efforts to build a kind of a unified voice in the region. So I think there are very difficult difficult situation. But I think as the China, and then the threat from Hong Kong, of course, was really, really is the disastrous thing. But I think the problem is that the regional sensitivity has not been that heightened up at this point. But I think those kind of as the time becomes more as the time passes, I think if that situation changes, and then if the US also with this kind of democrat summit, and I think more will come next year, which is in person, and with a more small number of countries, I think we will have more concrete plan of the regional institutions. I know that the foreign state department people are running these days in the Asian countries to build upon that kind of regional consensus or the kind of at least some agreement among of the democracies and values and things like that. Okay, thank you. For instance, Eduna, do you have any comment to one of these questions, either regionalism or support the civil society organizations? Well, actually, my view there is I share a number of points with Mr. Hon Jun Kim on on the on the role of, I mean, on particularly on the regional mechanisms. But my view in addition to that is democracy is promoted both at home as well as with the support outside. And no matter how good your regional mechanism is, if there is no home based democracy, it sounds very violent, democracy warriors or democracy promoters, then it doesn't hold water. I think I salute Hong Kong for exhibiting such home based promotion of democracy and struggle for democracy. Nevertheless, there it looks like there's some more that could be done to improve regional mechanisms of support. And I agree with Mr. Kim on saying that we probably have said it in a way we cannot draw a very strong line between democracy, between democratic and non democratic. There are various levels of voices that can be raised even among the so-called non democratic, because the forms of threats to democracy are changing and have changed something which cannot be seen upfront, like I would say access to natural resources, access to to certain economic indices or even technology. I have some doubts though about the question of demographic. I think we have to look at it more thoroughly because young people come from bar you sectors and they are not a solid block. We can further look into how young people think in terms of democracy and how they can play this out. For the large part of them, they are into a different modality of participation. It's unusual and quite different from the way people of our age, the older people have defined democracy and it's something that should be scrutinized further studied and should be database. In my country, for example, young people, you cannot generally speak for all, but young people come from poorer sections, middle income and they vary in terms of their perspective on participation. They vary in terms of their understanding of democracy. So I think that one has to be reexamined as well. Thank you. Okay, good. Ayal, do you have any comment to this question? Any of these questions? Can I come in? Yeah, you have any comments? One of these questions. Just two very quick things. I think particularly on the question of regionalism, regional fora, I think these are really, really crucial and critical. And if I think about one of the biggest lacuna in the South Asian region, for instance, is the complete breakdown of regional institutional platforms like the SAC that were critical to building bridges, both in terms of government to government, but also people to people contact within the region that enable effective governance. And this challenge is becoming even stronger owing to two factors. One, the increasing push towards nationalism and de-globalization. India, for instance, chose not to become an active participant in the RCEP, the big trade agreement. And I think that that sits to our peril. And we tend to conflate economic cooperation with some of the strategic challenges that we face in the region, which is also why institutions like SAC have broken down and trade within the region has undermined. So I think that there's a really big push. And here is where civil society can play a role in demanding and enabling and pushing our governments to build these active platforms and institutional regional connectivity in substantive ways, absent which both our economy lies in peril, but also the spaces for cooperation and dialogue and building a democratic, collective democratic future become closed off. So I see civil society as playing a crucial role. And there I do think it is important to acknowledge and several speakers have done so, but from the perspective of India to civil society or spaces for civil society to actively function are increasingly getting closed off as democracy itself is becoming challenged. So we have a dual fight both to ensure that civil society plays a role in global fora, on pushing for international dialogue and regionalism, but at the same time ensuring that we preserve space within our countries to ensure that civil society remains prevalent. And here international cooperation plays a very important role. Good. Thank you. These are two crucial questions, you know, the multilateralism and region reason, how to cooperate in each other and the role of civil society. Professor Ichihara, do you have the additional comment? Sure. Yeah, thank you very much. On the multi-letter front, I agree that, well, I mean, there are regional mechanisms in Asia, but well, those who are not really functioning well for the protection of human rights and democracy. For example, we have as an intergovernmental commission for human rights, but each member has veto power. So it's impossible to really protect, you know, function to protect human rights. We also have cordial electoral security dialogue, which has a shared value of democracy, but they do not have different, you know, mechanisms to defend democracy and human rights. And so we are, well, in need of regional mechanisms indeed. But at the same time, it does not mean that we don't have anything at all. We do have Asia-democracy network where Ichihara has been leading. And also we have Asia-democracy research network, East Asia Forum and so on. And all these are in the civil society sector. So this means that we have to incorporate civil society in the creation of regional mechanisms. And indeed, civil society's fear is the place where they have momentum for the difference of democracy. And, well, I echo Professor Kim's point that, you know, the current, you know, regional mechanism in Asia is sort of corresponding to the hub-and-spoke, you know, mechanism in the security sector. And so it's really Japan and South Korea, which have to take the leadership in creating those regional mechanisms. Thank you. Kato, can you add the briefly, please? Yes. When you asking whether any regional mechanism, I think we should expand the conception of mechanism more than just state-based into sectoral-based and also forum-based. Today and tomorrow, in Bali, we are discussing about how to rejuvenate Asian way. Because Asian way was criticized a lot when Myanmar issues were on the table. And when Thailand has an issue, and also in the Philippines, we got a problem. So Asian response to that is not sufficient from the perspective of participants attending our forum today. So we have, besides the way of approaching and rejuvenating Asian, and put a new perspective on what means sovereignty, what means in a non-interference. Because non-interference cannot be used to protect, of preventing abuse or making excuse for abuse of human rights, for example, that kind of discussion about how to rejuvenate of state-based regionalism. Sectoral-based, we see a lot of element of those already developed. The forum-based, which is one of the most potential to be supported and well-grounded now, we have Bali Democracy Forum, for example, a forum among state, which is now entering the 14 years. And it's engaging non-democracy from the beginning. And that question by many Western countries, why we are engaging as by democracy, we call it, because they want to learn. And then we need to be conscious how far that learning is there. So another forum is that we got now 10 years already, Bali Civil Society and Media Forum. We criticized a lot about the question about how democracy is not bringing delivery. So our team is about social justice and economic justice. And the state actors forum discussing the same issues, how democracy bring humanity, how civil economic and social justice can be discussed. It is rare for in and topic to be discussed amongst the actors, but we try to push the end for them. Okay, good. Let's go to the second round, but we have very little time left, unfortunately. May I invite Mr. Shu Sakurai. He's a member of House of Representatives, Constitutional Democratic Party. Sakurai sensei dozo. Hello. Maybe I am the only politician among the participants today. And so I'd like to comment on about the operation aspect of democracy. That means election. I just elected one month ago. And so democracy is very important. And that's a universal value and should be a spread all over the world. I totally agree. But the election is not beautiful, not gentle, not something high value, but it's more ferocious and violent stuff. So and it's a reality of election is just fighting to take the power. So the government and the leading party try to keep the power and they do everything they can do. So it's the rule of election is very important. And sometimes the police can judge fairly. Sometimes it doesn't work. And so the operation is also very important. And if I think it's very difficult in looking at convocia five years ago, the government and leading party destroyed the largest opposition party. And after that election was held. But it's not, I think fair. It's not fair election. So it's kind of difficult to discuss among the political science area about the election operation and how to fair operation is very important. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any comment from a panelist? If any, Eduna, you are going to have election presidential action next year. Very brief comment because of time. The 2022 election in the Philippines is a very interesting challenge for democracy in more ways than one. It will be a test of democratic measure coming from the ground from the citizens. And I think we observe that right now that there are, there is a swell of population that really shows kindness and interest to participate. But it is also a test of how the rule of law, the interpretation of the rules and the laws could be could serve a democracy or maybe diminish democracy in the way our institutions interpret the rules and the law. And therefore this is where again at many layers and levels, election is truly a laboratory, a very good laboratory of democracy in the sense that you see warm bodies of people being engaged in it. But you also put to a test how rules, how the laws are operationalized and interpreted at least in our country. And therefore at the moment the entire country, 60 million voters out of 100 million people are getting into the polls and each one and all the players. I would say they pull each other. It's a tug of war and this is really going to be a test of democracy for the Philippines in 2022. And the consequence is going to be about what we have been talking about in the last hour or so. So it's crucial for a good democratic election to be held. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Nika, you raise the hand from CSIS, please. Oh, thank you Ambassador Takasa. I know we're at the end of our time. I just wanted to say I certainly appreciated the comments emphasizing the importance of U.S. leadership in the region and also multilateralism. But I just wanted to say that reflective of the region's diverse experience with democracy approaches to enhancing democratic networks will also be diverse. So I don't think that bilateral alliances, informal coordination, and multilateralism are mutually exclusive. I think as this partnership evolves, it's going to feature a variety of ways in which we coordinate both our experiences and our approaches to democratic governance in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Good point. Thank you very much. Well, time is running short. And among the panelists and commentator, if you have any desperate point that you want to make, please feel free. But otherwise, I will go to this concluding part. Anybody really want to say? Desperate, no? Thank you. Thank you very much. Then the few minutes left to conclude. I will really thank very, you know, this rich discussion. And there's no intention for me to summarize all discussions, rich discussion. It's impossible. But just focus on the last point of the expectations. What do we make recommendation to summit? I think a few points. I think, first of all, how do you see current status and prospect? I think we have seen these real challenges to democracy from the economic monopoly, social fragmentation, some big data and so and so. And really, we are worried about declining voices. Can you hear? Yes, declining significant decline democracy. The fact of the matter is that only four countries for ASEAN invited to summit for democracy. This is something, I think, really symbolic, really. But at the same time, everybody spoke that very vibrant civil power, although under difficulty, working in many countries and working in progress. So we should not lose hope for this, I think. And having said that, I think, first of all, I think basic approach should not be against authoritarianism, but pro-democracy. I will not mention against China. But anyway, pro-democracy, I think we should move on. And I think everybody agree, we have to strengthen democratic partnership and cooperation, solidarity and information sharing and coordination, solidarity, all kind of thing. At the government level, it's regionalism. And there is need to look at the view, current, how to call this existing mechanism. And then we are very much heartened to hear that there is an effort to be going to regevenize ASEAN way and as a mechanism too. But also civil society organization. I think it is a big area that we can strengthen the coordination. And in this context, I think it's important to have Asian ownership. I think an inclusive process. And where we work for this, social fabric to strengthen social fabric and also inclusive development. I think these are, I think, very good platform and climate change in pandemic. Those are common interests. I think the partnership could develop. That's the second point is, I think, an important point is a lot of CSO and also media, independent media, which are really difficult in the world in working. And I think this is very important to extend the stronger support and take advantage of summit. And then some specific recommendations made to Japan, probably this, I think, important to make appeal to leadership role of Japan and the country like Korea, South Korea, and other countries in this democracy in Asia, to take leadership role, to review their, have to call this approach and the mechanism to strengthen this support to CSO and independent media. And also, I think, important thing is that we have to demonstrate that democracy can deliver better. And we can, we should demonstrate how we can have this democracy can work better. And I think this is one, one point, I think, let me see. Is any point I may have missed? But I think we should limit two or three point of important, I think, message. And if there is no strong, I think, you know, resistance, objection to this, I will ask Secretary to summarize this, and we have to send it to tomorrow to be included in the summit in the democracy. I don't see any strong rejection. So in security council, so decided. That's the way we are doing this. Anyway, we just passed one minute. Unless anybody wants to take floor at this moment, I just want to thank for all panelists and commentators and also participant, despite all late hours or early morning, you are kind enough and generous enough to participate. And we look forward to another opportunity to deepen our cooperation. Thank you very much. Good night and good morning. Good afternoon. Thank you.