 Welcome back to ThinkTech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections. And today we're going to talk about weather and to the extent it's time to watch for the growth of Southeast Asia. Where is it going in today's geopolitical and very complex world? With Carl Baker, Senior Advisor to the Pacific Forum. Welcome to the show, Carl. But to be back, Jay, always fun to talk about Southeast Asia, a place that I've been spending more time in than recent years. So it's an exciting region. It's a growing region. There's still a lot of kids that are running around the streets in Southeast Asia. So it's somewhat refreshing when you see the dynamism that's going on in the area. Yeah. It's interesting that we don't talk enough about Southeast Asia because it's a juggernaut of activity and possibility. And I think one thing that has to be said is that China is the capstone of Southeast Asia geographically, economically, physically. And so much happens in Southeast Asia that depends on what China is going to do as an attempt to deal with China. It's an expression of the relationship these countries and leaders with China, which is actually, it hangs over them in the sense that I think they'd be doing more and better if China wasn't such a depressing effect on the individual countries. Do you agree? It depends on whose perspective you're looking at it from. I think from Southeast Asia perspective, they don't see it as being a depressing effect as much as they see it as being a very economically dependent effect. And so the people in Southeast Asia see China as the economic engine and the stop, full stop right there. Yeah, security is a problem, but we have the United States as sort of that security guarantor in the region, and we're pretty comfortable that we can manage to play China and U.S. off against each other to some extent. But we really think that China is an important economic driver. And that's Southeast Asia perspective, I think. And it's across the board, not just one or two of the countries, but I think all the countries recognize that they need China for the economic engine. Now the United States is trying to fix that as far as the United States is concerned with the Indo-Pacific economic framework. But the Southeast Asian states are pretty committed to their trading relationship with China first and the rest of the world takes a second seat to that. Well, let's look at the map and identify what's where and what's who and sort of rank them in terms of their progress and their potential. And so in this map, there are various countries and we should identify which ones are the ones that count, the ones that are really in Southeast Asia, because I think sometimes we confuse who the members are and into that matter the parameters by which we judge them to be members. So let's look at the map. Yeah. So I mean, when you look at the map, Southeast Asia is somewhat arbitrary how we define what's in Southeast Asia. But if you look at it, there's 10 countries in the ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, 10 countries with obviously the big lead Indonesia, the largest population by multiples. Next you have Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and then you get to continental Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and then finally, Brunei, which is a little sliver off Malaysia there. And so those are the 10 countries that are normally considered Southeast Asia. Obviously there's interactions with China, as you can see, because it's the big brother to the north. And there's also interactions with Taiwan. Taiwan has a lot of industries that have branched out into Southeast Asia. But primarily what has been the growth engine for Southeast Asia is building components being shipped to China. And they are by far the largest trade partner for all the countries in the region and certainly for the region overall. There's been a free trade agreement between China and Southeast Asia since the 90s. There's the regional cooperation economic initiative, ARSEP, which has been in place, which is again the Northeast Asia countries, China, South Korea, Japan, along with Southeast Asia and Australia, as well as Australia and New Zealand as well. And then there's also the comprehensive and progressive Trans-Pacific partnership, which of course was started by New Zealand and United States, and then ultimately some of the Southeast Asia countries participated in that free trade agreement, and they are still part of that. Of course the United States withdrew. And then finally you have the Indo-Pacific economic framework, which includes seven of the Southeast Asia countries. The ones that aren't included are Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. All the others are part of that IPATH that the United States has been working on, which is not really a trade agreement as much as it is a rules of the road for economic engagement agreement. That is making some progress on supply chain resilience and green energy and things like that. The trade pillar of that particular agreement has not gone very far, mostly because the United States has continued to maintain its position that it won't accept any trade that trade favors as part of it. So there's no trade concessions by the United States to give market access to the U.S. market. So that pillar has not moved very far in the Indo-Pacific economic framework, which is being led by the United States. Would you say that Southeast Asia, maybe it's just, you know, you can't lump them together really in terms of where they're all going because they're different. And I've asked you before and other shows whether there will come a time when they all get together and be closer politically, geopolitically. And the answer to that is? The answer is probably not. It's a consensus. It's a consensus-based organization. As you can see, there's countries in there that are large. Indonesia, over 200 million people. And Brunei, which is a couple million. And so, you know, Singapore, a couple million. And so, you know, so the numbers are vastly different. Religions are different. Economic positions are much different. Singapore is as much a leading economic economy as a leading economy versus a place like Laos, which is very rural, very underdeveloped. Myanmar, of course, which has is going through a revolution right now. It's run by a military junta, you know. And so there's a lot of different political systems. Vietnam is a completely communist country where Indonesia just had its latest election fairly successful. Philippines, of course, has always been a democracy. And some people's minds, too democratic and has had problems because of that, because of the open press and all that. So vastly different economies, vastly different political systems. And, you know, they try very hard to work on consensus. But of course, the downside of consensus is that it takes a long time to get agreement on something. And when you do get agreement, it tends to be a very, very bland, very anodyne sort of agreement that everybody can say yes to, but everybody also can use to their own benefit. And the common denominator is China and to a certain extent the United States. And I read recently that, you know, Australia wants to get more involved in trade. Australia, you know, allocated something like two billion dollars to encourage trade with Southeast Asia. So, you know, they're on board, too. And you have these competing countries that want to open those markets. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I mean, first of all, the big, the big other player is Japan. You know, Japan, Japan has actually done more infrastructure development in Southeast Asia than China by far. And so Japan is the other big fact. They're the ones that have have a lot of economic activity. They have, like I said, they've built a lot of infrastructure in the region. They are the go-to people for looking for support for maritime security. They've they've built up the coast guards in several of the countries that all the all the countries in Southeast Asia speak favorably of the of the security cooperation with Japan, probably primarily because the security cooperation with Japan is very focused on building local capacity, where the United States tends to be more military to military engagement. But increasingly, Southeast Asia sees that as as a hedge against China. So Japan is certainly the bigger, bigger player. Australia economically, not so much Australia has certainly has a reputation for trying to engage Southeast Asia. It sees Southeast Asia as important, but it's really more on a basis of security rather than just pure economics. Because in some ways, Australia competes with Southeast Asia for natural resources going into into China and Northeast Asia more generally. Yeah, and Australia is to some extent driven by its relationship with the US in a certain way. It's kind of a proxy of the US. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, somewhat disparagingly, people used to talk about Australia as the American's deputy sheriff in the region that Australians don't take very kindly to that sort of characterization. But, you know, there's some some element of truth that they've they've been very much a security partner of the United States. And and also they've also been a very strong security partner with the Philippines, you know, again, which plays into into that characterization that they're very much a partner with the United States, because, of course, United States has the strong security partnership with the Philippines, which under the current Marcos administration has certainly grown. You know, prior prior to Marcos, President Duterte had tried to establish a relationship with China and was largely unsuccessful. You know, he had made sort of big promises about all the economic benefits that they were going to get from cooperating with China on infrastructure and quite honestly, China sort of dropped the ball and didn't deliver all the money that the the Philippines thought they were going to get out of China. And so a lot of those big infrastructure projects have gone by the wayside. But today, you know, the Philippines is working very closely with Japan to improve its public transportation, which if you have been to Manila, they you understand that that is a big problem. And Indonesia the same way. Indonesia has, you know, probably a little different story where Japan and China have competed in Indonesia to build infrastructure. And and China was successful in building a high speed rail network in on Java, which is the main to the main island where where the largest amount of population is. But Japan has also been involved with with building building infrastructure in in Jakarta and the rest of Indonesia. So there's a little bit of a competition between China and Japan in specifically Indonesia and certainly in in Vietnam. Japan has been very active and even even in Myanmar, where, you know, the United States is very much withdrawn and is is has put a lot of sanctions on Myanmar and Japan is still there. They're still engaged economically in Myanmar, trying to trying to maintain some some level of engagement during the current Fonta era in in Myanmar. Yeah, really, you have to admire Japan for their soft power, their trade power. They do they do better. They do better than we do in so many ways. But let's talk about security. You've touched on that a couple of times here. And I keep thinking of the Sierra Madre, which was a supply ship that was, you know, supplying a Filipino outpost in the islands there. No, Sierra Madre is no Sierra Ma, sorry, sorry, Jay. Sierra Madre is the ship that they grounded on Second Thomas Shoal and they've been trying to resupply that. That's that's their claim for. Oh, yes. Right. Sierra Madre itself is the ship that sits out sits out on the sandbar and they're trying to resupply this year. I mean, yeah, it's a strange arrangement. They put a ship out there as a piece of their sovereignty. Yes. And and the Filipinos were trying to resupply the the grounded ship Sierra Madre. Yes. So that, you know, that's been a bone of contention. And through 2022 and 2023, there were all these incidents with the Chinese or the Chinese Coast Guard, which I must say is, you know, is is it's not like the American Coast Guard. It's not out there to save lives. It's out there to establish domain and sovereignty for China. It's out there to to get in the way of other ships to establish territoriality and sometimes to ram other ships, which it did with some of the ships from the Philippines. Really aggressive stuff and not admirable. Also, you know, China has refused to accept the International Court of the UN in its determination of the domain over the South China Sea. And I understand that the Filipinos are going to go try another case in the Hague. Unsimilar grounds that the Chinese are outside that they're the illegal parameters in the South China Sea. But meanwhile, you know, it's very contentious and it's it's not close to violence, it is violence. And the Chinese keep doing it. You know, I mean, there are commentators who believe that the Filipinos are winning this contention. But in fact, the Chinese have not paid attention to that. The Chinese keep on pushing them around in the South China Sea. Them and others, it's not just the Philippines. So can you comment on what's going on there and where it's all going? Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's complicated for sure. First of all, let's let's be clear that that the basis for all this activity is the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea. It's not it's not being driven by the by the courts or by the International Court. It's being driven by tribunals based on on clause. And so that's that's the basis. And of course, you know, the immediate reaction you get from everybody is, yeah, the United States talks about it, but it hasn't signed on clause yet. And, you know, just just as a as a sort of rub in the face, you know, before the Americans get too too pious about international law, let's understand the United States hasn't signed it. And to his credit, Deputy Secretary Campbell, who in his confirmation hearing said, yes, it really is important that the United States should sign on clause so that it was better grounded in its criticism of people who don't abide by on clause rules, just to make. OK, thank you. Thank you for that. But I think that's an ongoing matter. We haven't finished with that and the Filipinos haven't finished with it. And China keeps ignoring it. Yeah, yes. And so on to you on to the rest of your story. Yeah, the United States or I'm sorry, China has been very aggressive, not only with the Philippines, with with Vietnam as well. I mean, don't forget, Vietnam still claims the Paracel Islands, where the where China has now built an administrative headquarters. So it has it has completely taken over the Paracel Islands. There's no there's no doubt that the Vietnamese have just accepted that. But in the meantime, they've also they've also intruded into Indonesian waters up around the Tuna. If you go back and look at your map, they're in the very far south of the South China Sea, they've also confronted the Indonesians. And the Indonesians have been much more aggressive in some ways because they've simply have taken those fishing boats and burnt them up. I mean, they have they have literally burnt Chinese fishing vessels. And they've also been very, very aggressive with the Chinese trying to patrol areas where there are there are gas fields up in the Tuna area. So so the Indonesians have also felt the felt the the aggressiveness of the Chinese maritime fleas. And, you know, that's the other thing. It's not just the Coast Guard. It's also these these maritime militia boats, which really have no purpose other than to support Chinese claims in that area. And what and basically the way it works is China pays these these boats to go out there as nominally as fishing boats. But in fact, they're they're really military militia who are used to to make claims of Chinese sovereignty in that whole region of the South China Sea. So yeah, China has been very aggressive and actually what's happened since the Marcos administration is the Marcos administration has very much sided with made made a commitment to its alliance with the United States. It's it's increased its defense cooperation. And I think that it sees this as a way to be more aggressive against the Chinese intrusions in the region. And that's why you see more in the Western media these days about the confrontation between the Philippines and China, because because the Philippines has taken the position that we are going to take a stand. We are going to we are going to fight back to these these aggressive actions by by the Chinese in these areas. And what the Chinese are doing is they'll swarm a bunch of boats and and sort of try to intimidate the Filipinos and the Filipinos have actually responded by by saying we're not going to be intimidated. We're going to continue to build on these islands. And so they've improved their runway on the one on the one runway they have in the region, the Vietnamese have also done a lot of work on their islands where they've improved the infrastructure on their on their claims in that region. So everybody is engaged in this in this capacity building out in these, you know, land features in the South China Sea. And and more than before, more than before. I mean, they seem to be coming together and resisting the Chinese aggression more than they were. And and I'm I'm wondering why that is. Are they are they coming together? Are they having meetings? Are they deciding they need to collaborate? Is the United States involved in in incentivizing that collaboration? Well, certainly, the United States is encouraging it. I I I don't know how much actual collaboration is going on. There's talk about the Philippines has talked about that ASEAN should develop its own convention in that in that area or their their own code of conduct that that would help ASEAN. The ASEAN states better resist China, but there's not a lot of agreement there. You know, this goes back to this whole problem with consensus is even the maritime states in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam have differences on what they think should and should not be done vis-à-vis China in the maritime spaces. And then, of course, you have the land based countries, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, which are very much influenced by China, which prevents any larger ASEAN commitment to to confronting China in a meaningful way in the maritime space. So there's there's hints of it. Certainly, the Americans aren't discouraging that level of cooperation. But it the United States is somewhat limited in what it can do to facilitate that beyond, you know, build capacity for the coast guards, build build some resilience in the in the naval forces, conduct exercises and things like that. And it's doing big exercises. Sama Sama wasn't it last year? Huge big exercise organized by the U.S. You know, unprecedented in scope and scale. It's very interesting how the U.S. is is bringing them together through these military exercise. Well, but China has also done China ASEAN exercises. I mean, this is sort of the way ASEAN is, is that if if we do it with the one, we're going to do something with the other because because ultimately, their interest is to protect their capacity to act independently by each country. So, you know, so ASEAN isn't isn't a multilateral organization in the sense that these, for example, European Union is, you know, there's no there's no big headquarters that that puts out directions that individual states have to follow. It's all bottoms up in ASEAN. So everything has to be done by consensus. And so, you know, so in ASEAN, you always have this this this movement at the local level, but it's all kind of designed to protect national interests first and regional interests second, even even in the context of of a somewhat belligerent China in that region. The regional organization is always trying to facilitate national interests first and regional interests second. In that regard, you mentioned oil and gas in the South China Sea. I guess that's the south part of the South China Sea or the southwest part. And and we have what? Indonesian, you know, Hawaiian electric gets its low sulfur oil from Indonesia. That's a source for our, you know, generating power here. And I think you mentioned that Vietnam also had some oil and gas offshore. How does that play into this? Because the Chinese have tried to interfere with that. But both of those countries, the countries have resisted it. And they are, in fact, taking oil and gas from the South China Sea. How does that play for their economies? How does that play for the defense issue? Well, all the all the all the littoral states have have gas and oil extraction operations in the South China Sea. The, you know, the Chinese have tried to do cooperative agreements with with some of the individual states, for example, the Philippines. Back in the early 2000s, there was an agreement to do joint exploration, which ultimately failed because China demanded that the Philippines recognize Chinese sovereignty if they were going to do that. And so so it ultimately failed. But even even Malaysia and Brunei have have gas exploration, gas gas extraction operations in their claimed areas in the South China Sea. And China hasn't really aggressively stopped the existing operations. What what you're referring to, I think, is when they when they moved one of their exploration drills into Vietnamese territory. Then they became aggressive when the when the Vietnamese tried to try to get them to move that that exploration, Derek, out of there. But, you know, but they haven't really tried to force these people to stop doing their exploration in in their coastal waters. They they they they make sovereign claims, but they haven't really tried to enforce those sovereignty claims as much as they have with especially with fishing, where they they have moved fishermen and tried to extract marine resources for for the for the fishing. But what I get is this kind of manifest destiny mindset from China. I want to take, you know, on historical claims, they want to take as much territory as they can in the South, in and around the South China Sea. I guess that's not a big change. But the change seems to me would be that the the neighboring countries in Southeast Asia are actually pushing back a little bit. And so, you know, there's a dynamic going on. At the same time, you know, I think China is always going to be busy trying to push the envelope, always testing. And for example, we had a show not too long ago about Fiji and the Chinese presence in Fiji, they're all over the place. In Fiji, who would have thought this is like World War Two island hopping, not from the east to the west, but from the west to the east. Trying to get as much presence in as many islands, you know, in the Pacific, they possibly can. And of course, you can connect the dots or connect the islands, as the case may be. And it just looks like they're moving east. Am I right? Well, I mean, that's very much an American mindset. Is that is that the Chinese are doing this for security purposes? That the ultimate goal is what? To invade Hawaii? You know, I mean, to me, I have to take a little bit of exception to that sort of characterization. Certainly, they want to maintain economic engagement in the Pacific islands. Now, we're moving beyond Southeast Asia and into the Pacific. But I think it's mostly for extraction of resources again, you know, where they see very much of benefit to their benefit to engage these blue economy countries in the Pacific Islands. I mean, if you if you have to feed over a billion people and they like to eat fish, you know, it makes sense to go where the fish are. And so I think I think it makes economic sense for for China to try to exploit its relationship with those countries to to be able to go in and extract marine resources from those areas. I don't think I don't think it means that their island hopping, trying to control territory as as an expansion of empire. I think it's more of a more of being driven by by economic realities that China needs to continue to to find new fishing areas. And yeah, we are they they are definitely they they have exploited over exploited the South China Sea, just like all the other countries have with with over exploited the fishing fishing resources in in that area. So I think it's natural that they go and look in the Pacific to to maintain a relationship with the country. So for economic reasons, I want to move back to the area around Thailand, which we haven't talked about, you know, all that much. And I think of Thailand, I think of the Mekong. When I think of the Mekong, I think of the environment. And when I think of the Mekong and the environment, I think of degradation and I think of climate change and environmental degradation, query whether the countries, the members of these organizations in Southeast Asia are doing anything are conscious about climate change and environmental preservation. Are they? Well, yes, they are, but they're not doing a very good job. You know, and certainly the Mekong is the lifeblood of continental Southeast Asia. And yes, there's a big problem with damming the upper regions of the Mekong, which is choking off resources in Vietnam and Thailand. So it is a big problem. And, you know, and the Chinese, you know, typically have taken that and they've developed what's called the Long Song Mekong Cooperation Arrangement, you know, and it has very much dominated that area. There's the old Mekong region commission, which is run by the Southeast Asians. And the Chinese have come in and they've simply overtaken that initiative with their Long Song Mekong initiative. And they are now trying to control those resources. For a while, there was a cooperative agreement between China and the Mekong regions to patrol the Mekong, which fell apart because the Chinese tried to dominate it and tried to try to control access to the Mekong with the countries that the Mekong runs through. You know, so yeah, it's a big problem for them. And they've tried to talk about conservation efforts. The United States has developed a couple different initiative with the Mekong region, I think somewhat unsuccessfully. You know, we've started and stopped. And, you know, it kind of depends on which administration is in office how much money we put against it. And so, you know, the Mekong region has suffered. I think our relationship with the Mekong countries have suffered a little bit for that. You know, but certainly they're they're trying to maintain the Mekong and just river, river resources in general. And it's been a real struggle because there hasn't been a full commitment, a regional commitment. And so you've got Laos, you know, letting the Chinese build river, river dams and the lower region suffer. Yeah, speaking of Laos and Cambodia, there was a very interesting play at Manoa Valley Theatre last year involving the Cambodian rock band, which was just an entry point to understand, you know, what has happened in Cambodia, the killing fields and the like and what is happening there now and what kind of, you know, level of development they have. What kind of westernization, if you will. And I walk away, maybe it's my mindset problem, I walk away thinking a lot of these countries are really not westernized and they're not really democracies and they have baggage like Cambodia does that they haven't really overcome and they're rural, as you said, a lot of these places are quite rural, living in the 19th century. And so, query, you know, how is that going to work out? I think it's an uneven level of development between some of the countries. I mean, I've been to Bangkok, it's a modern city, there's, you know, this huge rail program and so, you know, up-to-date shopping centers and everything. But if you go to some of these other places, it's really country and its way back. So do you agree with me that there's an uneven level of development and some of these places are really not developed and are not likely to develop? Yeah, I sure, that's, you're absolutely right, that there is a huge, huge disparity in levels of development. And you mentioned Cambodian Laos and Myanmar, and those are the three that, you know, are really, really behind. Now, Cambodia, you know, remarkably as much as as much animosity as there is between, you know, Cambodia and the United States. Actually, the Cambodians are very westernized and, you know, the current prime minister, the son of Hun Sen, you know, is actually educated at the US military academy. So Hun Manet is a former graduate of the US military academy. And they've done, even the United States has done a lot of work with Cambodia. But Cambodia has also been very influenced by the Chinese. You know, the Chinese moved in, built a bunch of, a bunch of infrastructure and have have corrupted Sahana feel probably to forever. You know, but they but they put in a lot of capital and they've built a lot of tourist facilities in Cambodia. And they they're building apparently a navy, some kind of a navy shipyard in in Cambodia. So they've they've had a lot of influence. And Cambodia has in some ways carried China's water in in the ASEAN meetings. You know, back in 2012 famously, the Cambodians refused to refuse to to acknowledge culpability on the part of China in the South China Sea. And it ended up that there was no joint agreement at an ASEAN meeting, which for ASEAN, that was a big deal. And it was because the Cambodians were very deferential to the Chinese. And, you know, and that that certainly sparked a big disagreement between Cambodia and the United States. And the United States has kind of used that as a as a benchmark for for their willingness to work with Cambodia. You know, but yeah, the economies are certainly vastly different in terms of the amount of development, the amount of exports that they have, the amount of rural, rural electrification. You know, when you go into Laos and Cambodia, there's still large swaths of the country that aren't aren't electrified. Well, you know, seems to me that some of these other countries in the area would would be interested in tourism into Southeast Asia, including the rural places. And then, you know, developing businesses. I mean, for example, I have a friend in Singapore and, you know, he's into agricultural entrepreneurship and he's always traveling to places in Southeast Asia trying to start companies up. And I imagine the same thing happens with, you know, capital concentrations in Australia, New Zealand. But of course, I think China, as you said, is the big the big kid on the block and they would be interested in infrastructure and business of all kinds. And it takes me to whether the United States, not Singapore, not Australia, not China, not New Zealand, has a presence in terms of business to build up business, to, you know, deal with that disparity you mentioned, to bring tourism in to bring capital in to Southeast Asia. Is it happening? Can it happen more? How do we make it happen more? Certainly, the United States is not a main player. In Southeast Asia in general. I mean, the tourism industry is driven by China, Korea, Japan, Europe and probably fifth place in the United States. You know, even even Australia, in fact, now that I think about it, Australia, you know, if you go around Southeast Asia, you see way more Australians than you do Americans. And so I would be surprised America maybe even after Australia in terms of tourism in Southeast Asia. And I don't see I don't see a lot of a lot of incentive for the Americans to get more involved because they the the Southeast Asian countries really cater to those tourists. They cater to the Chinese, to the to the Japanese in the past and Koreans today. And certainly, like I say, there's a lot of Australians that travel to Southeast Asia and spend their vacation time in Southeast Asia. And the Americans, it's just never been a real attractive area for Americans to go if it's because of lack of infrastructure or the lack of the lack of advertisement or what, but there just aren't a lot of American tourists in that area. But tourism is alive and well. I mean, you've got Angkor Wat and, you know, other other historic sites in Southeast in mainland Southeast Asia that are big tourist destinations for other Asians. Yeah, you know, we talk about in our shows, Carl, we talk about the glory days of the Peace Corps back when back when. And you know, it's interesting, you find people that you like and lo and behold, you find that they were in the Peace Corps years and decades and generations ago. And they're enlightened because of that experience. It's sort of a citizen diplomacy, which is, you know, what you do. And I think there's a tremendous benefit to them and to us for having launched them into, you know, these developing countries over the years. I don't think it's safe to go to Eastern Europe for somebody who wanted to have that experience right now. I don't think it's safe for that matter to go to the Middle East. It hasn't been safe in most places in the Middle East for a long time. But query, you know, is it safe? This is out of the marathon, man. Is it safe, Carl, to go to, you know, Southeast Asia and go, you know, with a backpack to go as a citizen diplomat, to go as an air sauce Peace Corps member and relate to the people and, you know, exchange ideas and views and food and all that and do soft power at the citizen level. Is that something we should be doing? Will that benefit the United States? Will it, you know, connect us better? Well, sure. Well, I mean, anytime you engage people to people relations, I think it helps. You know, in some ways, Southeast Asia, some of some of the bigger countries have kind of moved past the Peace Corps sort of mindset. You know, when I look at Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, I don't think that those countries would be particularly receptive to that. And even Indonesia probably wouldn't be very receptive to that. But certainly it's safe to go in. I mean, there's there's no there's not a lot of animosity. I as long as you don't try to introduce religion, you know, I mean, religion, religious aspect becomes problematic in almost all those countries because of because of the dominant religion in the region in in the particular country, I think that then it becomes problematic. But certainly the Peace Corps is something that is acceptable. I don't know that there is a big Peace Corps presence in in any of those countries anymore. Asia Foundation has has operations that work in all the countries. I've certainly been to all the countries and have never felt threatened in any way. Maybe maybe Myanmar has changed since I was there last. I was I was last in Myanmar in 2019. And, you know, now that now that the home is there, probably isn't a great place to go visit. But prior to that, I mean, it's always remarkable to me the extent to which the dollar is accepted in many of the countries, including Cambodia, the dollar is the prominent currency. I mean, the people in Cambodia themselves use use the dollar and everybody speaks English. You know, you never going to find being there where someone doesn't speak English. So, you know, so it's it's westernized in that sense and it's very comfortable for a for a Western tourist like me to go and and and not have too much trouble getting around in any one of the countries, including Laos. You know, that even though it's small and it doesn't really have a lot of interaction with the United States, there's there's there's fairly widespread use of the dollar in the end of the English line. So it's it's it's yeah, I mean, there's there's certainly opportunity for for people to people, kinds of exchanges. But I I don't think that it's particularly prevalent that that we do any Peace Corps operations in those areas anymore. But mostly mostly development related initiatives, I think. You know, you mentioned religion and it strikes me that at least Malaysia, maybe other places in Southeast Asia, are predominantly Islam Islamic. Indonesia is the largest, the largest Islamic population in the world. OK, so Malaysia and Indonesia. And, you know, if you go there and you, you know, just walk down the street, they don't look like, you know, Arabs from the Middle East or Central Asia. But they don't look like and they don't talk like them or behave like them. But I I can't tell, I'm just a visitor. And so my question to you is, are they politically aligned with what happens in the Middle East? What happens with Islamic organizations in the Middle East? What's happening now? Well, sure, I mean, you know, Indonesia didn't recognize Israel. And I'm not sure they do today that I don't think I don't think. If you're flying from it, I don't think you can fly. A Israeli airplane into Indonesia that there's there's limits on what they do. And certainly, there's there's an alignment with the Palestinians with what's happening today in Gaza, in both Malaysia and in Indonesia. But, yeah, there's not there's not a. There's there certainly is extreme extremism in Indonesia. There's there's a fair fair amount of. Islamic terrorism in Indonesia. In Indonesia, but it's mostly in the rural areas. It's not really in the in the cities. You certainly is. It's a very, very open, open society where you have you have some some very developed Muslims and some who are much more, much more cosmopolitan in their view. And last question, Carl, because we're really running out of time. And that is looking at her from, you know, the Department of State point of view, Tony Blinken's point of view from Joe Biden's, you know, world view point of view, how important is Southeast Asia? Is it as important as Europe or Africa or Latin America? And what kind of, you know, what kind of attitude should we the United States have overarching view of of the relevance, the importance of that region in our diplomatic relations? That's that's a tough question to answer in a few words. I mean, I think Southeast Asia is terribly, terribly important. It is the the area where China and the United States compete directly, most directly, I think maybe maybe Central Asia is a little different. But I think Southeast Asia is where the real competition between the United States and China is today. Because again, you know, the old the old relationship United States provides the security guarantee, but China is the economic engine. And that's the that's the dynamic that continues in Southeast Asia. And that's an important dynamic. And somehow the United States needs to figure out how to accommodate that Chinese activity and and not supplanted, but complement in a way that Southeast Asians maintain the relationship, the economic relationship with the United States. And that's where we struggled, I think, you know, I think, you know, there were opportunities for the United States to be much more economically engaged in the past. And we've sort of muffed those chances. I don't think IPF is going to do that. And so what what we really need is a good, strong economic relationship with Southeast Asia to sustain what we have, because the security relationship in and of itself isn't going to work. The Chinese are going to supplant the United States in terms of security relationship, if we're not careful, we can maintain, you know, the freedom of the seas and those sort of very national interests of the United States, but maintaining that broader security relationship with Southeast Asia. We're going to have to figure out how to integrate ourselves and integrate Southeast Asians economy into the economic relationship of the United States. And we do that by by encouraging French shoring, call it what you want, supply chain resilience with the countries in Southeast Asia. And I think that that that is what is going to be our success. And we have to do that in conjunction with Japan and Australia, because they are a much better partner in the eyes of the Southeast Asians than we are, because first, we're further away. And second, we're too focused on the military component. And that is not going to work in Southeast Asia, because they want to maintain the relationship. They want to be friends with everybody and take advantage of that friendship. Thank you, Carl. It's so important that we make people aware of these things so that Southeast Asia doesn't fall off the side. We should all be aware of the importance of our connection with all those countries. Carl Baker, Senior Advisor, Pacific Forum, thank you so much. Thank you. Aloha.