 Selamat pagi, semua. Nama saya Kishor Mahbubani. Saya Pn. Likwan U-School Public Policy National University of Singapore. Ia memberikan saya banyak kejutan untuk membaikkan anda ke panel ini untuk membangun percayaan di Asia. Sekarang, seperti yang anda tahu, Davos akan berbincang dengan banyak masalah yang luar biasa. Tetapi saya percaya bahawa pilihan yang kita akan mempunyai pagi ini mungkin akan mengajar salah satu pilihan yang paling penting. Saya mengatakan ini kerana, seperti yang anda tahu, selama lama saya memperkenalkan bahawa kejujuan 21-an akan menjadi kejujuan Asia. Saya rasa itu yang kita tahu. Apa yang kita tidak tahu adalah apakah ia akan menjadi kejujuan bahagia atau kejujuan bahagia. Dan, anda tahu, kita telah melihat kedua-dua kejujuan dan saya ingat bahawa sepanjang tahun yang lalu di Davos pada Januari 2014 apabila saya berada di sini, satu pertanyaan yang semua orang beritahu saya di koridor itu adalah, akan ada warga dalam China dan Jepang pada tahun 2014? Sebaiknya, saya mengambil batu dengan beberapa orang. Saya beri mereka 10-1 batu dan saya mengambil batu di Davos pada Januari 2015. Jadi anda dapat lihat, saya ada banyak percaya dalam kejujuan kejujuan bahagia. Tetapi setelah itu, anda tahu, ada kejujuan sebenar, kejujuan sebenar yang kita perlu berbincang dengan. Dan ada kejujuan kejujuan bahagia dalam kejujuan kejujuan bahagia ini. Jadi, apa yang kita ingin lakukan pagi ini adalah, awal-awal, untuk cuba dan melihat jika kita boleh melakukan analisis yang baik atau apa yang lebih besar dari kejujuan kejujuan bahagia ini. Dan kemudian, anda akan bergerak daripada itu untuk melihat jika kita boleh menjadikan kejujuan atau kejujuan dan kejujuan bahagia dalam kejujuan kejujuan bahagia ini. Dan kemudian pada akhirnya, anda akan juga menghubungi kejujuan kejujuan kejujuan dengan beberapa kejujuan yang sukar dan kejujuan kejujuan. Seperti anda tahu, sesi ini adalah di rekod, telah menghubungi wabkar pada pagi setiap pagi. Sudah tentu, anda tahu, ia susah untuk menghubungi ruang, tetapi perkara yang baik adalah ada kejujuan yang besar melihat di sana, hari ini dan masa depan juga. Sekarang, saya akan memperkenalkan panel di Great Lang. Anda semua tahu bahagia yang sangat mengalami panel yang dihubungi. Saya akan membincangkan setiap perigunan dengan rapat-rapat yang pertama saya berputus-rapat kepada mereka. Kita akan mencukupanku sementara kita semua akan menganggap bahagiaannya sebelum ini. Sudah tidak akan ada kejujuan yang stabil, tetapi kita akan mempunyai kata-kata yang berilang untuk meng Harper, untuk mempunyai sebuah pagi. Jadi, Dr. Kill, saya akan memulainya. Dr. Kill adalah penyelamat dan kebetulan apabila kita bercakap tentang keadaan keadaan keadaan ketua yang memelihari Koriya, ia sangat Regierung bahawa tidak dia ada keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan di Koriya dan Japa, akan memperkenalkan tempat vadah dan masalah, Switch dan perkara lain. Jika Anda minta pada cara halus yang meng saling mengejauhkan keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan keadaan, bagaimana anda kata? Well anyway, this is my honor always, but I think this is a pity or kind of shame for major East Asian countries are now talking about rebuilding trust in the region. Considering the economic importance of those three countries in North East Asia, and considering many different kind of issues of each countries is contributing to the region and as a world in general, we can do it better as a matter of fact. We can share kind of geographic proximity and we are sharing cultural heritage. But I think all three countries, major countries, China, Japan and Korea are now playing the game of self-defeating. So my message is we can do it better. You may be heard about the kind of East Asian paradox. Economically prosperous, but we are still suffering from political tensions. And such political tensions are mostly coming out of our past history. Each country still have some feelings in our contemporary history. And each political leaders probably have not been courageous enough to kind of break the shackles of the past history. And each leader of major countries are still lean on kind of trying to be lean on the populism. And so I think we are now here. So we should try to find a way out of this kind of self-defeating game. Most kinds of tensions, political tensions are coming from the past history. I think you're trying to start us off on an optimistic note, but I'll push you a bit later. And I'm going to ask you later on as a follow-up question. Why can Korea and Japan do what Germany and France have done and it's saying history is history, the future is the future. Think about that for the second question. Sinbo of course as you know is a very distinguished academic from Pudan University, China. And of course China as you know has also had challenges with its neighbors. Certainly as I mentioned in my opening remarks last year everyone thought that China and Japan may possibly come to blows over the disputes on the Senkakujiayu Islands and of course there were issues in the South China Sea and so on and so forth. How do you see China's perspective on this trust deficit? Well, I will tell you what I personally think about this issue because in China there may be different views on this issue. I think the challenges are one that in this region the economic relations are becoming increasingly regional in terms of the integration and independence. But politically it remains very much national or sometimes the politics in a country is very much local, even personal. So you look at the trends in this region economically integration but politically very much driven by respective national agenda or even partisan agenda, local agenda. So that creates a lot of tension in relations among countries. And another reason for this is we have seen the rapid change in the balance power in this region because of the rise of China and because of the rapid development of other countries. So this kind of shift in balance power always leads to concern and anxiety and we haven't been able to come up with a new regional framework that will accommodate this changing power balance and make every member in this region to have a shared vision about the future of this region. So I think if we are going to address the issue of trust deficit we really need to think about shared vision for the future and shared agenda for this region. So that's the direction we should move toward. I'm glad that you're taking a slightly different approach. Dr. Kil spoke about the historical dimension. You speak about the shift of balance of power which is also causing a new tension. So let me turn to my good friend Akihiko Tanaka Distinguished academic who is now a very good bureaucrat running jaika succeeding my good friend Sadaka Ogata. So Akihiko, from your point of view, as you know Japan has got trust deficits with China and the Korea. What's your perspective and what do you see as the underlying causes of all this? Well thank you Kisho. It's a great pleasure to be on the same panel with you and also to good friends of mine, member of parliament, Mr. Kil and Dr. Simpol and Prime Minister. Prime Minister, certainly. Australia is a footnote. Well, I agree that there is a trust deficit amongst the Northeast Asian three countries and I think there are three levels. One is the leadership level, the second ordinary people's level and the third is an extremist level. And that leadership level, I think there are issues of sort of unpredictability of others. There are suspicion what other leaders would do in response to my action. And this level of mutual suspicion cause a background in which ordinary people are reacting. And if the two leaders are afraid of seeing each other, then people tend to figure that something wrong in the relations between the two countries. But I think what makes the deficit worse is the existence of extremists in all three countries, particularly working very actively on the net. And then they somehow found the mutual suspicions. And this could create the leadership level lack of dialogue and then extremist view of each other, find each other and then affect the ordinary people's level. And now the situation in the ordinary people's level is quite serious because any opinion surveys we take in Japan, China and Korea indicate that depending on the countries and depending on the time, but 60% to 80%, 90% of people do not trust the other countries. So I think we need to attend to all three levels. But I'm quite optimistic in the sense that the first last year there has been an improvement in the leadership level. And then there is an increase of ordinary people's level interaction amongst the three countries. And then I think Kishu has been instrumentally in university level exchanges in East Asia. But the students are becoming friends with each other, studying in different campuses in Todai students studying Seoul National and Beta students studying in Todai and Futang students at Futang campus there are Japanese and Korean students. And so I think there are foundation and then in contrast to the atmosphere last year, this year's conditions is markedly better. Well, I like this optimism that is flowing through the panel but I'm going to challenge it in a while. Kevin, as you know Kevin is a former Prime Minister of Australia, but also a very distinguished scholar. He speaks English and Mandarin equally fluently so I have to remind him today's session is in English. I also speak Australian as well. Kevin, you are in a very good position to talk about probably the most important relation across the Pacific which is the relationship within the world's number one power today in the United States and the world's number one emerging power, China. And of course the US-China dynamic is also going to influence how events unfold in Asia-Pacific and I wonder from that, looking at that particular relationship where do you see the trust deficit? Stepping back one point and that is why do we talk about strategic trust? It's a really important question in the fundamental strategic logic of China and America. If we take as a given that security and stability can only be obtained by a balance of power, then I think we are in for a world of pain for a long, long time in this particular relationship. One of the reasons being from a Beijing perspective there is no balance of power because an overwhelming United States in terms of its military strength still today and secondly, the border-bina alliance structure around it. That's the core logic. So if that is the underpinning logic to our analysis of what's possible for the future between China and the US and therefore the region, then we have a real problem. Hence, enter the trust question which is a relative question, never an absolute one. Trust within political systems is hard enough, between political systems is hard enough. In Asia, in the 21st century, it's trebly hard. So it's not an absolute question. China and Japan are not going to start trusting each other tomorrow, are they? But it's a relative question of how much trust is adequate to the task of building a cooperative security or strategic project between them and between China and the US. How does China view America therefore on the trust question? I spend a lot of time working on this at Harvard Kennedy School this year. Number one is that, and this will surprise many people in this room, but if you drill down within the Chinese leadership and the way in which they view the world, their baseline lack of trust towards America as they don't believe America accepts the legitimacy of the Chinese political system. And that informs so much else. In fact, the Chinese leadership terms or elements of it added this into a five point phrase midway through last year. Along the lines of what the United States is engaged in is a process of delegitimising, undermining China, containing China, and ultimately overthrowing the Communist Party. Now it's pretty hardline stuff, but if you are in the Chinese party leadership, this has been a very widespread view for a long period of time. In fact, there's nothing more distrusting than the view that the other guy actually thinks you're totally illegitimate and wants to get rid of you. So that's number one. Number two is the external domain. And that's the Chinese argument about containment. And that is not only is the legitimacy of their regime domestically seen as not right, but therefore the United States is locking them in externally in a security sense. And that has direct geoeconomic implications for them in terms of long term energy supply. Final point, just as how do the Americans view all that in return. The United States perceives that the Chinese strategy is kind of along these lines. Number one, that China will wish to avoid any military conflict with the United States for the long term future, simply because the United States mempunyai kelebihan. Number two, the Chinese strategy is the Americans perceive it as to economically overwhelm Asia. And ultimately therefore cause Asia to become more politically compliant to Beijing. That's the American internal conclusion. And a lot proceeds from that underlying strategic logic. Finally, the good news. This Obama Xi Jinping meeting in November on the back of APEC was probably the best since Xi Jinping took over. And the reason is, based on my understanding and Xing Bo should answer from the Chinese side, I'm just a third party looking at it from the southern hemisphere, is that these two questions were explicitly addressed in the leaders discussions with each other. Because unless you are talking about the elephant in the room, in my argument the two elephants in the room, domestic legitimacy and containment, then frankly everything else is frankly a bit of folk dancing. The second good news I think out of this meeting is that there is now the beginnings of a framework, the beginnings of a process to manage the really hard stuff and of course to advance the cooperative stuff in order to trust build over time. Thank you. That was wonderful. I see that Xing Bo has raised a two finger thing and I'll give it your floor to you in a minute, but I think in the first round you can see we have touched upon many of the key issues that we have to address, the history issue, the balance of power issue and as Kevin has also mentioned, the question of domestic legitimacy is also one of the new factor. And here the Xing Bo as you think of your response too, the paradox in East Asia is that in theory the most difficult relationship is always between the number one power and the number one emerging power because there's a real contest down there not about those who have had old ancient historical disputes and surprisingly I'm genuinely surprised how well the US-China relationship is going in contrast to the China-Japan relationship or the Korea-Japan relationship and that I agree with Kevin gives us a lot of hope if you can take the most difficult relationship in the region and manage it well then there's hope for the regions and then maybe others can learn lessons from it too but Xing Bo, when you raise your two fingers what were you going to agree or disagree with Kevin? I hope you'll disagree We are partly different from what he describes the Chinese vision of how the US approach China when China rises I think one thinking here in China and maybe in other parts of Asia is that when we talk about the deficit of trust in Asia the US is the single most important external factor affecting this equation and to some extent people think US may not want to say an Asia that really has committed to a shared agenda of regional cooperation and community because of that we are around the risk of excluding the US from regional affairs undermining the decade-long US influence in this region so when China rises the US tries to balance China in working with its security allies in this region so like Japan, Korea and other Philippines etc. even Australia so that somehow undermines the trust between China and its regional members and economically China is becoming like it or not the center of regional economy however there's also alarmed Washington so it tried to move to create some new regional economic framework like GPP Asia Pacific framework to challenge China's central position in regional economy so this kind of trends really strain the confidence building and trust building between China and its neighbors and also between China and the United States I think the core for Washington is really it realizes whether Asian countries are doomed to have much closer integrated political, economic and security cooperation in the future without the United States and to whether rising China will have more influence in Asia Pacific region even if that comes as a consequence of some of the US influence in this region so these are kind of philosophical issues that political elite in Washington really have to figure out before they sit down to think about policy and future and towards China Both Dr. Kil and Kevin raised their hands but before I get to them do you agree very quickly Shinbo with Kevin's key point that the Obama-Shi meeting the last one at APEC was amazingly successful, do you agree with that? Well we felt pleasantly surprised with outcome of this and was even more important That's Chinese for amazingly successful I mean the US side was also pleasantly surprised because Obama after losing the mutual election but he was greeted very warmly in Beijing treating him like someone who is going to be the president of the United States for the next 10 years How many hours did he spend together? 12 hours? 10 hours The first day for the evening dinner they were supposed to stay together for 3 hours from 6.30 to 9.30 but then it turned out to be protected for another 2 hours so they started from 9.30 ended in 11.30 so 2 more hours than originally planned that is important because that was informal discussion very substantive, very personal really free exchanges No, Dr. Kil I'm going to ask you a mischievous question as you respond to what has been said earlier Can you proceed President Park and Prime Minister Abe to spend 10 hours together? I hope so I really hope so I'm not representing majority voices in Korea at the current situation but I'm always arguing or emphasizing that summit meeting without the substantive outcome is better than no meeting especially because Korea-Japan relations is very unique and very important so let's come back to 1998 South Korean President Kim Dae-joon at that time, Japanese Prime Minister Oji so they made an agreement and declared the common future of both countries It's simple, we can come back to that spirit and respect that kind of agreement then we can resume anything in a positive direction but let me add one thing about the change in strategic map in North East Asia that comes from the rise of China and the US administration is a kind of people to Asia strategy probably that kind of changing strategic map might to some degree affect Japanese of a government's kind of direction somebody call it the historical revisionism somebody call it that is masochistic view of history referring to South Korean foreign ministers comment yesterday but the problem is that is change of strategy map surely affected Japan's future path and his leader's kind of decision which direction to drive the Japanese community to go so that might quite mystery to affect Korea-Japan relations so that's why that the Japanese not all the Japanese people still think Japan are the victim of the second world war Pacific war Japan was the victim forced victim of the atomic bombing but that kind of psychology of victim of the second world war shared by some Japanese people that is a major kind of huddle to get out of this kind of vicious cycle in Korea-Japan relations victim is concerned that Korea is the victim of the victim of Japan okay both Kevin and Akiko have raised their fingers to respond I'll give you the floor in a second but before doing so I want you to prepare all of you for the second round and for the second round I think it's good since the theme of the panel is rebuilding trust I want you all to also suggest concrete things that can be done that will help to rebuild trust for example I'm glad Dr. Keele agreed with me that we should have a 10 hour summit meeting between Prime Minister Abe and President Park it's better than no meeting that's a good example because it worked the magic so Kevin you're going to respond to Shinbo's comments and then Akiko I was but now I've changed my mind but this is fascinating because we've got in this strategic triangle the underpinning dynamic which triangle is different to? this one not including the United States just these three we'll come back to the Americans in a minute I would like to hear and this is your job and I'm sorry for supplementing a question from our three representatives from North East Asia do they believe the history question is resolvable in any form because we know that from all of our engagements in these relationships and I've had engagement in all of them is that it is the silent and very sometimes really noisy elephant in the room if it is solvable what's the formula between Japan and Korea and between Japan and China what is the baseline here there's a separate question about what's politically possible or not but what is the baseline well thirdly are we saying that this must now wait the passage of yet another generation before it is quote forgotten and there I'm not sure and all of our families looking at our respective ages everyone would have a family narrative about their engagement in the Pacific War I do and I'm sure these folks do as well so I just leave that to one side on the Shingbo's point about the region I think he's right in this sense I now live in the United States I'm at Harvard Kennedy School and I take over as President of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York fairly soon there is a general non-acceptance I think or non-awareness across American policy elites to the extent to which China is now such a central economic power not just in Asia but in many other regions in the world this is not grasped intuitively in America it is seen by some in the academy and when I say the economic world is changing under America's feet I'm usually stared at blankly so Shingbo's point about that in terms the United States is correct but the point about common regional engagement is this if it's a security concept that has a different set of answers if it's an economic concept around either F-tap free trade for Asia and the Pacific currently backed by China or TPP as backed by the United States that has its own internal disagreements but you add the security concept frankly it becomes even more common frankly it becomes even more complex so the point is this in terms of a Chinese concept of what would be a common dream for the region it's Xi Jinping's term is it a common dream for the region which insecurity and economic terms has America in or is it a common dream for the region which just has America in economic terms in when I look at Xi Jinping's statements and he talks about the new Asian security concept it is one which as I read it does not automatically seem to include the United States and when I look at his articulations at APEC about a dream for the region it is an economy-wide Asia-Pacific concept so therefore you have a concept of Asian security regionalism excluding the United States perhaps and you have an Asia-Pacific economic concept emanating from the same Chinese government say the United States is in and frankly my own view having spent the best part of one year now thinking about this and unless you embrace the lot it won't work on the core question which you have posed us which is how do you begin to build manageable levels of strategic trust Aki, Aki Iko Aki Iko Okay, thank you very much I believe there are in my understanding two built-in stabilizers in East Asia one most fundamental is the deepening economic interdependence everyone lose if they squabble each other and this is a most fundamental built-in that's why I won my bets on China-Japan and then the second built-in stabilizer is the strategic understanding between China and the United States as long as they have mutual understanding and then they have certain consensus about what should be the role of the United States what should be the role of China in Asia-Pacific region Well, from other countries' perspectives if the agreement is a condominium of dividing the areas into two spheres in the influence that we would not agree but then otherwise the existence of strategic understanding between the two countries is beneficial to correct any of the issues that Japanese-Chinese or Japanese-Goreans there are in my understanding limit of the degeneration of relations and what we need more is we need to create third built-in stabilizer which is a more trust amongst the regional countries and if we could have these three built-in stabilizers I think East Asia could be a lot stabler place as to Korea-Japan relations I think it is quite possible for the two leaders to meet for an extended period of time and discuss many issues Well, so far it hasn't been realized but then well thanks to the organizers of various ASEAN-related meetings Mr. Abe and Mr. Park because of the alphabetical order share table together and then they I assume had a fairly good conversation which both of them did not reveal what they discussed but that is a good beginning and then there are issues of history we need to sort out and as somebody who has studied international history in the 19th, 20th century it is the fact Japan colonized Korea it is the fact Japan made an aggressive war in the 1930s and very few serious historians would deny these fundamental facts there are certain extremists who tend to revise these type of views but there you know academic force is so weak that I think with the determination on the leader's level I think these could be managed I'm looking at the clock very carefully because as you know the clock runs out very fast you can respond to Kevin when you do your second round too quickly but I do want to focus on specific things that we can do and I'll give some examples but I'm glad you mentioned ASEAN's role and that's by the way that's not the first time ASEAN has played a role for North East Asia I remember 10-15 years ago there were tensions within China and Japan but the leaders of China and Japan to me was at an ASEAN meeting so ASEAN actually plays an incredibly important silent diplomatic role which is not recognized by many in the region and I think ASEAN's role will be very important in terms of rebuilding trust in East Asia but I'm going to give you three concrete specific examples of how to rebuild trust between the various countries one on history and the Germans and the French said okay, let our historians sit together and write history books together and so we agree on a common history and that would help to resolve a lot the tension that one concrete example second concrete example Japan has very wisely told Korea oh, let us refer our dispute over our islands to the ICJ why doesn't Japan make the offer for Senkaku, the IU Islands to China we will refer the dispute to the ICJ and as you know Malaysia, Singapore Malaysia, Indonesia and Malaysia have resolved their dispute through ICJ and that's one way of rebuilding trust and within US and China to pick a very sensitive example it's clear that one of the things that's really, that I think China finds quite naturally irritating and aggravating is that the United States is carrying on a sort of cold war pattern of a very aggressive naval patrolling 10 to 12 miles off the shores of China I think that's completely unnecessary it's a cold war relic you don't pick up any information anymore from 10 to 12 miles off shore that you can't pick up from satellites and other sources but it's a continuation of an old pattern of behavior no longer need in today's environment that's another concrete thing that can be done so these are examples of concrete things that can be done to rebuild trust in the region so in that spirit Dr. Kil, what would your concrete specific suggestion be? Well as far as history book kind of co-editing by the country's concern yes, Korea and Japan are on and off kind of working kind of the project is on and off but we are continuing but as Akihiko mentioned earlier that exchange of visit is special for youngsters I think that is very productive and constructive campus Asia project that is importantly initiated by the three summit in 2010 and they started 2011 100 students of each countries exchanging of visit and exchanging the credits of the shared classes and making a joint curriculum of the universities still ongoing this is constructive project another one is initiated by Peace Foundation Korea and Japan so called Peace and Green Boat Project for 10 days 1000 people from Korea and Japan professionals, academicians, youngsters journalists on board and cruise ship and stop over you don't call it a love boat I think that is a kind of stop over many different ports and they shared the lectures they kind of attended the same cultural activities and I want to emphasize there are many problems in between bilateral and through-lateral relations but this is a time you better highlight the success stories not only the kind of cultural diplomacy as well as some economic corporations there are many good cases industries there is Japanese global company on textiles and fabric and advanced materials 15 years ago they invested Korea joint ventures there is very lucrative business now they invest China and running the laboratories and research and development in Shanghai and Japanese mother company as a Korean joint venture company have co-invested Indonesia this is a many success stories and Sony and Samsung's kind of co-operations excellent those are very good examples I like the boat one simple first I want to respond to Kevin and then you give us a copy his question about whether the history issue is resolvable as many as it is or at least manageable actually between China and Japan we used to be very close to closing the gap on the history issue one in the past the Japanese leaders they already made statement acknowledging the aggression against China and the big casualties it occurred to people in China secondly they didn't go to visit the Yasukuni Shirai where the World War II 8 class criminals were in Shirai and suddenly they tried to work with China to solve the issue of chemical weapons left by the Japanese soldiers in China in World War II so we were very close to solving these issues but then in the last 30 years the shift in Japan I think someone just mentioned this kind of political shift because of the rise of China Japan shifted from liberalism and pacifism to strategic realism but also on history issue the shift to historical revisionism so leaders begin to say where aggression is a turn difficult to define what do you mean by saying aggression comfort women more or less a voluntary act not really forced by the Japanese soldiers and then the leaders began to pay visit to Yasukuni Shirai so in many cases it was not China or Korea that brought up the history issue but rather only when the Japanese leaders began to defend the World War II history paying visit to Yasukuni Shirai and doing this kind of things to come up again so I think if we follow the good example that set by the previous Japanese leaders and then get back to the right path is very likely we can leave this issue behind rather than put this in front of on the US role in Asian security I think it's not fair to say even she intends to exclude the US from our regional security is not even though in his statement he said Asian security affairs ultimately should be managed by Asian countries but he added we also welcome to constructive role played by the external powers and organizations that's fair because if you look at the US role in Asian security in the past like the Vietnam war the war in Afghanistan Iraq they didn't solve the issue very well so we think at the end of the day it has to be Asian countries to find their way out of this security challenges with this assistance of US and other external actors and finally getting to your concern about what kind of specific approach we should take in addition to this kind of leadership relationship, student exchange I think the media is very important in Asian countries especially in the three countries because this is an era of information and the young generation maybe they are more influenced by media rather than by their class or work so if the media is just contented with attracting audience then they will make a lot of sexy reports provocative things but media is a business an industry it should provide good products to its consumers like other industries so the media we should represent to become responsible in encouraging regional cooperation reconciliation between countries and trust promoting exchanges so that's how in the future we should create a kind of regional media platform and create a kind of media exchange program you invite the media media people to your country stay there for some time and talk to the local people and this kind of exchanges should be very interesting and useful I'm going to make a very naughty comment the term responsible media may be an oxymoron Akihiko I'm going to send to the floor I'm going to quickly get Akihiko and Kevin suggestions on concrete things and then we'll throw the floor open to you and then we're going to finish I know many of your hands are coming up wow so many then I have to be very brief but I believe there are already much attempt of joint studies of histories among the historians and in my understanding there emerged a fair amount of consensus although there are areas of disagreements among historians such as specific number of victims of certain incident and specific numbers of these there may be some differences of historians but then I think the general understanding of the difficulty that the three countries faced in the early 20th century have been investigated fairly jointly so on the historians level there are quite strong possibilities of mutual understanding or disagree or agree to disagree on certain interpretation but that's not natural in any kind of historical studies so I think the concrete measures what concrete measures do you propose well well I think the leadership level they should be mindful of their the impact of their statements and then so that's the you know what is needed for the leadership level and then in the level of I think media I think there is a danger of too much simplification well already now you know because the Yas Kuni Shrine issue has been so much politicized that the meaning of somebody's visit may have been fixated into certain interpretations but then if you look into the history of the shrine then there are a lot of nuanced you know things going on but then in the media it appears impossible to see these nuances and so I think somehow the on the one hand the leader should be mindful of the impact of the statement and the media should make a report that gives each issues in broader more historically you know oriented perspective and then I think what is needed is the management of this year's so-called two anniversaries 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War 50th anniversary of the diplomatic relations of Japan Korea since 1965 I believe and I hope the leaders of the three countries should be mindful to make this anniversary the anniversary to celebrate the achievement of the past 50 years or 70 years instead of focusing too much on what brought about the 1945 and others I believe of course to do that the Japanese leader should be candid about Japan's conducts that lead to 1945 Kevin, there's just a lot of hands coming up can you get a quick comment from your concrete suggestions three concrete ones number one Japanese leadership needs to declare that future Japanese prime ministers will not visit Yasukuni again this is not just a Japan-China problem it's a problem for most of us and the reason is if you walk inside Yasukuni and go to the museum it is a monstrously distorted view of history secondly, the equivalent would be if there was a cemetery in the middle of Berlin today in which latterly were interred the remains of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels and annually the German Chancellor went to pay generic respect I hate to say this so stridently with my Japanese friends in the room but it is a huge stumbling block and for friends of Japan and the region I fail to see why the rest of us need to be constantly engage in foreign policy frictions which arise from this core question which can be resolved by a single action and that then creates an atmosphere where the other problems of history can be dealt with second point is common regional institutions or common regional vision as Xingbo said before I think there's enough in the public language of the Americans and the Chinese to start moving towards a common regional vision as you know we've got APEC we've got the various ASEAN related institutions we have the ARF I think our model kishore to go back to Singapore and ASEAN should be an expanded ASEAN in this sense you have been remarkably successful as a regional institution which has turned conflict into peace and into common economic opportunity look at the history of ASEAN over 40 years it's terrific frankly against what it was therefore my strong concrete suggestion is with ASEAN at the core mindful of the ASEAN example we use the East Asian Summit which is ASEAN-based to evolve a common concept of regional of a regional community for the future which incorporates both the security and the economic dimension it's one of the projects I intend to launch this year through the Asia Society Policy Institute for China, Japan and the rest of the region to merge the concepts of TPP and FTAP on the basis of trade principles the argument from the trade policy specialist is that TPP is a high quality agreement and FTAP would be a geopolitical agreement I think there is a capacity to find a middle point there which then causes us to incorporate common economic engagement as a continued net regional advantage and trust builder rather than turning into yet another terrain for conflict excellent suggestions great, there are so many hands so I want to suggest this each one of you if you don't mind stand up state your name and quickly pose a question we'll take all the questions in one go but we have to finish all the questions in exactly 5 minutes so please be very short and sharp and we'll give 5 minutes for the panelists to respond and we'll have a very robust ending so we start the ladies in front here and we'll get everybody quickly please Dr. Han from Korea as Korean women I'd like to raise one issue that about sexual slave issues but even though there are many issues about Korean-Japanese relationships there are many great Japanese people who unofficially apologize for that issue but we as a Korean we only need official apologies from Japanese leadership but they don't so I'm so sorry about that and there are only 55 comfort women alive at this moment we don't have much time for official apologies as Dr. Tanaka said it's the 50th anniversary between Japan and Korea relationship and the end of the Second World War and then I really want Japanese people to do official apologies for the old people of the world this is not only a Korean women's issue but also everybody's issue thank you quickly please thank you everybody I just want to say something about the media because many of you talk about that usually the media is always to be blamed on whatever difficult issues but having said that though I'm a member of the international media council for the WEF and I have to brief everyone this year we have an enormous amount of discussion about what the role of the media for the betterment of the society as a whole given the Middle East and many other areas so having said that though my question is but the enormous amount of cooperative spirit that I see not only with Kishore but also all the panelists here to get things right so that the relations go ahead which is important but on the other hand may I just ask a question that can we just easily brush off all the facts and so-called move the relations further to a quote-unquote better situation by brushing off all of the important facts and realities I think that's now realistic and I want to invite the views coming from our panelists Thank you Gideon Rackman Financial Times I just wanted to ask the perception I have and a few others have that there's been a change in the tone of Chinese foreign policy in the last three months a more conciliatory approach to Japan, to Vietnam and also a report I read Yang in Washington where he apparently said that China had no desire to challenge a US-led global order was that an accurate report and can it be taken at face value? Minister Wahid and then we come to the gentleman Thank you Professor My name is Wahid from Malaysia Malaysia and many other Haasian countries do enjoy a relationship between those countries with Korea China, Japan Australia too In the case of Japan although Japan was an aggressor to Malaysia during the Second World War but we've seen those issues being almost forgotten for example my grandmother would never forgive the Japanese because she lost her sister but my father and myself had any ill feelings towards Japan and in fact in my case our relationship with Japan is one of gratitude because Japan within three decades of the Second World War invested into Malaysia and brought Malaysia up to become an industrialized nation where a quarter of our GDP is now contributed by manufacturing sector and big portion of that was contributed by Japanese investors Why is it that in Malaysia we can embrace in fact welcome Japan where other countries may have some difficulties We're going to take just two more questions and this one I'm sorry I'm Harvey Luana, one of the global shapers attending this meeting and I'm from the Philippines I were all aware of the tension in the Spratlys in the South China Sea as a result of China's aggressive behavior the Philippines has filed a case the Philippines wants to dialogue with China multilaterally through ASEAN for example but China has always refused to approach it multilaterally China insists on a bilateral approach what are your thoughts on this okay gentlemen over there raise his hand frequently maybe those two quickly you're literally at the clock sticking we have exactly five minutes Vokiromich editor in chief of horizons there are tumults in the European theater geopolitical tumults but Russia getting frictions frictions between Russia and the west and that is causing Russia's forced pivot to Asia so how is that influencing if at all geopolitical and geoeconomic equation in Asia through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization through the new energy deals so the emergence of Russia in the theater does it change things at all okay you only have four minutes so each one of you has only one minute you can't respond to all the questions respond to one or two and then we'll please go ahead Ken Choi from the newspaper Korea I'll be more responsible in the future reporting what we're missing in this region is some sort of military arrangements whereas in Europe we have NATO and it's impossible to have a war in that region whereas in Asia we've mentioned that there is no security arrangements that sort of prevents this simply make war impossible in the region why aren't we talking about this okay we'll go in reverse order Kevin we'll start with you one minute please I'm sorry I won't cut you off in one minute thank you I'll interrupt on you too Gideon to respond to your question the key speech is Xi Jinping's 30 November speech last year partially reported in the Chinese media it outlines an approach to the world which has China very much on the front foot China with a new constructive global diplomacy and the key phrase I think is for China assuming what it describes as a new great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics cooperating with the rest of the world on the construction of the future international order it's the key speech I think Wang Yang's speech partly reflects that secondly on the question of the ICJ in the Philippines that was asked before can I just say this I think a smart solution for everybody as you as the ends have demonstrated is to use the ICJ comprehensively and everyone wants different approaches to that and thirdly on the sorry I'm sorry I want to give you shorter than one minute okay and thirdly that's the end okay please well on the issue of comfort women I personally feel for the victims who are becoming older and older and we need to do things that could consult them and I would like to mention that the Japanese had been trying to do to alleviate the the damage down to these victims by establishing what we call Asia Women's Fund and it is a joint activity by the government and the private sector and the government use the government money to handle the fund with the donations and then I'm one of those who contributed little amount of donation to the Asian Women's Fund and this activity unfortunately was not accepted very much by the Korean I think some of the Korean victims and others and so I would like to hope that the leaders should create a wider framework in which substantively the victims will be the clock is very brutal, it's not me very quickly on the middle row I think it can do a better job by A, putting facts in perspective and B reporting more rational voice rather than this extreme voice in certain cases for China and the Philippines, I think the problem is if China and the Philippines have a dispute of a particular islands, what's the use of bringing other Asian countries like Singapore in this equation and also China and the Philippines used to reach some agreement cooperation projects but it was after your current president Aquina who came to power and he changed his mind so that's how the domestic politics could be over into this issue and final question is Russia we think Russia is also an Asian power so Russia is expected to play a constructive role in regional security affairs it seems to be very difficult for all major eastern countries to rebuild the trust in the region but I think we should try first to kind of stop the game of self-defeating first of all and let me finally quote former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela it always seems impossible until it's really done so I think you'll all agree that we've had a remarkable discussion today because you know we've gone into very deep dive into history we've looked at the big picture we look at the larger strategic trends we pointed out the negative dimensions the positive dimensions by the end of the day what I take away from this panel actually is a renewed sense of optimism that even though some of the challenges will remain, they are what Akiko said at the beginning strategic stabilizes in the region driven by the economic and trade integration in the region driven by new generation emerging and driven by the ability of these countries now to talk frankly to each other about issues for which they could not discuss before and that is I think a very positive new development so I leave this panel feeling optimistic and I hope you'll leave this panel feeling optimistic too panis