 Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining and hopefully participating in this conversation on ASEAN after 50, what's next? My name is Tony Waterman. I work for Channel News Asia based in Singapore, and I'll be moderating this discussion this afternoon. I think that if you were to turn to the person on your left, there would probably be overwhelming consensus that ASEAN has accomplished heck of a lot over the past 50 years. There's been tens of millions of people that have been brought out of poverty, economies have grown exponentially, ASEAN is a manufacturing hub of the world, and it's a destination for investment. I also think, though, that if you were to turn to the person on your right, that they would probably agree that a lot of challenges still remain. There is a lot of work to be done. There are pressures and challenges within ASEAN itself. There are things like infrastructure deficits. There's rising inequality. And there are also pressures coming from outside. What is the normalization of interest rates going to mean for investment in capital flows in this region? What about growing protectionism emanating from the West and something that we should all be thinking about, what about climate change? This part of the world is going to be perhaps most susceptible to climate change. And then there is technology which could force people or push people out of the labor force. We could see high unemployment. But it could also be the key to unlock ASEAN's next level of growth. And because technology is changing so quickly, there are challenges that we cannot even imagine at this point. So those are going to be just some of the topics that we're going to touch upon over the next hour. And without further ado, please allow me to introduce our panel this afternoon. To my left is Nazir Razak. He's the chairman of CIMB Group Holdings. Sitting next to him is Dr. Tom Ping-Jin, PJ. He's a research fellow at the University of Oxford in the UK. He teaches the Southeast Asia program there. Sitting next to him is Manar Pimple. He's the senior director for global operations at Amnesty International. And sitting to his left is Mari Pandestu, the professor of international economics at the University of Indonesia and of course a former trade minister. And last but by no means least, we have Salomsai Komiseth, the minister of foreign affairs of Laos People's Democratic Republic. Thank you all so much for joining us this afternoon. I think that when we have these big round numbers, 10, 20, 50, it's an invitation to look back and take stock of what has been accomplished and what we have learned. So perhaps we can start there and we can just go down the panel and talk about what you think the biggest lesson that we have learned in the past 50 years. How do we take that lesson, improve upon it so that we're able to meet the challenges of the next 50 years? Nazir. Thank you, Tony. Good afternoon, Lisa. As I reflect on the last 50 years, I think I would agree that ASEAN has achieved a lot. Certainly in terms of peace, stability, and if you put it in the context of where we started. I think what got us here, however, won't get us there. I think that's my main point. And I think what got us here has been the so-called ASEAN way of doing things. And one of the key drivers of the future path, of course, is the economics. The ASEAN must deliver value to its people in terms of wealth creation, etc. And when you look at our achievements on the economic front, they're probably much less than there has been in the social political front. And the ASEAN economic community, the 2007 charter promised too much. They promised a single production base by 2015, and we're well short of that single production base. And as we look forwards, however, we can say that this ASEAN way got us here, so therefore let's continue with it. Or we can say the ASEAN way got us here, but the future terrain is really very, very different. So we have to find a new way, and I would go with that argument. I would say that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is going to be very disruptive over the next 10, 20 years to all businesses. I think it is imperative that we deliver economies of scale of ASEAN to our companies, to our people. And for that, we need a new ASEAN way of doing things, to accelerate integration. PJ. Thank you, Tony. And good afternoon, everyone. I think I want to make two points. And the first is that ASEAN actually has had the good fortune to exist during the time of the greatest economic expansion and the greatest creation of human wealth in all of human history. And how much of that is because of ASEAN, and how much of that is because of broader circumstances dealing with the end of World War II and new technology? That is a question that we need to ask. The second, I think, is to remember where ASEAN came from. The history of ASEAN is very important. ASEAN was founded for one explicit purpose, and that fundamental purpose has not changed. ASEAN was a strategy created by regional elites to prop up their regimes against internal and external challenges, in particular against irredentist movements and left-wing nationalist movements. And that hasn't changed, and we need to understand integration and what ASEAN has achieved in that context. So ASEAN faced two major crises. The first was the end of the Cold War, and the second was the Asian financial crisis. And the end of the Cold War and the so-called end of history in the triumph of liberal democracy led to this panic in Southeast Asian capitals, you know, oh dear, we've chosen the wrong side of history. And so the response to that was Asian values, and it's successor, ASEAN Wei. Now, this is actually a strategy to retain control of the dialogue, of the idea of values, to retain control of societies to maintain stability for the regimes. But the even worst crisis was the Asian financial crisis, which really exposed the hollowness of regional government's claims, pretensions to maintain regional stability. So the response to that was to embark on this reformist process, where they try to re-legitimize ASEAN, and in particular its economic claims, through mock compliance with international norms and values, through the imposition and the pursuit of neoliberal integration. And so integration really needs to be seen in that context. And integration works for the elites, and the reason why economic integration, as opposed to political or social integration, has succeeded is because it helps perpetuate the stability of elite regimes. Now, ASEAN faces a lot of challenges, but these challenges stem from the growing tension within ASEAN with this original goal of preserving the stability of the ASEAN states. For example, ASEAN says that we can solve regional crises in an ASEAN way. It complies with this. It talks about human rights and democracy, and the rhetoric of good governance. But in order to really effectively solve these issues, it needs to actually go beyond its current capabilities and actually intervene in regional governments, in regional societies, in ways which are completely unacceptable to governments. And that's, I think, the central tension of ASEAN going forward. Thanks, Tony. Building on the intervention that my co-panelists did, I want to start with the story of Tep Vani, who is a housing rights activist here in Cambodia, in Nampen, who is in jail because she was fighting for the housing rights of thousands of families, where the land has been now given on a 99-year lease for a tourist development. And that is a kind of emblematic case, where you see the issue of economic development versus the rights of the people. So how ASEAN is going to come to terms with economic social, cultural rights, civil and political rights of people while pursuing the economic development agenda and the prosperity is, I think, the key challenge that we need to be looking at. ASEAN, at this point of time, does not have an effective protection mechanism. There's a lot of talk about the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, the Declaration of Human Rights, what it means in reality and how some of the states are actually being able to respond to the issues that are coming up. So there are a number of challenges that we need to look at while recognizing that it has come a long way. There have been progress in a number of areas, but there is still work to be done for real integration, where people can see the dividend of the peace and stability that Nazir talked about. I'd like to... Prosperity and development. So if you take peace to begin with, what happened in the past where there have been instances where we have helped each other, including in this country, where ASEAN countries did come in to restore the peace and stability here. There are many instances, and we have the mechanisms within ASEAN to deal with it. We don't necessarily reach consensus, but we try to deal with the tension, we try to deal with conflicts and reasonably successful, I think. So moving ahead with the challenges of geopolitical security that's out there, whether it's North Korea, whether it's South China seas, or whether it's the U.S.-China relationship within the region and how we should engage, I think it's going to be even more challenging because you're trying to find a consensus to deal with external issues. And here I think the mechanism of ASEAN, whether it's the East Asia Summit, whether it's the ARF, and probably I think I was heartened since yesterday we heard from all the leaders that the code of conduct in the South China seas is finally hopefully going to be delivered this year. And I think that's an important sign of how we can reach consensus. So there are going to be a whole lot more issues in dealing with peace and security, but it's going to escalate, and we need to strengthen the mechanisms within ASEAN and whether the ASEAN way needs to be changed or not, I think becomes a big question. On prosperity we have seen growth, we have seen modernization in all our countries, reduction of poverty and so on, and it has been with the good luck of a very open world economic system, which is now, as you mentioned, being threatened. So the question I think for ASEAN is we have been able to grow because of openness and a world order which has allowed us to grow with openness. Now that that's being threatened, what's the role of ASEAN? Should ASEAN being actually the only, I would say the only game in town at the moment in terms of optimism in regionalism, should we be also paving the way for contributing, I guess, to this regional and then global world order, whether it's the ASEAN economic community, deepening, strengthening, widening it, or the widening of ASEAN, which is the regional comprehensive economic partnership, which is the 10 plus the six, which if you put it together, it's half the world and it's 40% of world trade and world GDP. So if we could actually achieve progress, I think on those fronts, we actually are sending a signal to the world that we are now that there's this absence of the world order, the guardians of the world order from the advanced countries, are we ready to play that role? And again, going back to Nasir's raising the issue about the ASEAN way, ASEAN has always been criticized as moving too slow. Consensus means you go to the lowest common denominator and all that. It means you cannot move very fast. But in fact, the ASEAN way, if you like to take the optimistic view, has maybe worked because at least we're still here, we're still progressing compared to what's happening elsewhere. And but we do need to pay attention to what has been the crux of anti-globalization, which is inequality. That's the issue that we need to address in ASEAN moving forward also. Thank you, Tony. I listened carefully to our panelists and some of the points that I fully agreed and shared. But I would try as far as the ASEAN 50 years and what's next, I would try to summarize what achievements ASEAN have made over the past 50 years in three aspects. As we are aware that ASEAN has emerged from a political security rivalry into a friendship and partnership. 50 years ago, I don't think that anybody in this region would be able to imagine that in this region, we would be able to maintain peace and security and harmony among countries in the region, especially within ASEAN. So I think one of the achievements that is outstanding among others is no doubt that the overall peace and political stability, this is very important and crucial because it is a prerequisite for social, economic development in our region, especially within ASEAN. Secondly, I think ASEAN is the fastest economic growth in the region, if not in the world. We think that across ASEAN, GDP growth averaged 5% on an annual basis. And today, ASEAN ranks sixth in sixth world economy. And we have manpower. ASEAN is one of the biggest economies and one of the biggest markets. We are talking about 630 million people. So this is also one of the achievements. And more and more ASEAN is a young nation. It's a young nation. The third aspect, I think ASEAN have already uplifted its role in international affairs. ASEAN has 10 dialogue partners and other external partners. So with this partnership, with external partners, reflects how relevant, how important ASEAN has. I will see that ASEAN is increasingly more attractive. If you look at the structure, if you look at the ASEAN meeting, we would have most of the major power in the world that are attracted to ASEAN, that are attending ASEAN summit. So I think these are some of the achievements that I think it's worth to highlight here. Of course, looking into the next 50 years, it is something that we try to imagine in what would be ASEAN in the next 50 years. For that objective, for that ultimate goal, I think ASEAN has already laid out its vision, ASEAN community vision 2025 and beyond. It's laid out a number of master plans that would bring ASEAN into a more prosperous in the future. But one thing I think ASEAN would continue to maintain is the harmony, is a community that share. Sharing here, I mean, it's not only share prosperity, but we share difficulties, problems that we have, and we try to help each other to address these problems. I want to go back to something, Mari, that you had just brought up, which is the fact that the ASEAN way may have been criticized quite a bit for being slow, but it is still standing and it's still intact with its members, a comparison to what's been happening in the UK with Brexit. In the wake of that Brexit vote, we had Indonesia's then trade minister, Tom Dumbong. He said that I worry that within ASEAN, there is a similar danger. That ASEAN becomes a project of the elites and we don't spend enough time, money and effort socializing it to the people. So really touching upon this idea that governments perhaps haven't done a good enough job in relaying the message and the benefits of globalization. I wonder now that we are just about a year on from that Brexit vote, has the conversation changed? Has it changed at the business level, at the academic level, at the government level? Has there been a tangible change in the conversation and make sure that there's not a repeat here? You're looking at me. Sure. Well, I think ASEAN remains very cohesive. Nobody talks about ASEAN exit in the business community or any of the government officials that I've met. I think we all talk about how to do better with ASEAN. And I think that's testimony to the strength of the organization. I think Tom was being a bit dramatic there. I think that certainly more work can be done to kind of enhance the ASEAN identity, to kind of sell it to the masses. But let me share with you that we just did, Ibu Mari was very involved in a survey of youth in ASEAN. We surveyed 23,700 youth in ASEAN and we found that 90% are very aware of ASEAN. Two-thirds believe that they will be better off because of ASEAN. So certainly the future generation are into ASEAN as well. And I think if you look at it, I actually believe the Brexit vote was more about the EU being out of hand. Rather than you getting out of hand, rather than the majority of Brits not wanting to be part of Europe. Actually, that's my belief. And I think it's very important that for the rest of the world that it's read in its proper context as well. Long live Macron. PJ, I wonder if you have a different view. You grew up in Singapore, so you grew up in ASEAN, but you now live in the UK, which was ground zero for this. Yes. Well, I think you have to remember, right? The ASEAN way and its predecessor Asian values is very much part of a state-driven sort of model of construction of society that emanates from post-colonialism and the need for individual ASEAN states to construct identities congruent with their new national borders. Suddenly we have Indonesia. What on earth is an Indonesian? What on earth is a Malaysian? It's a very artificial construct, so we have to build these identities. And ASEAN continues to speak in that rhetoric where we talk about socializing to the masses. I don't agree with that, and I don't think ASEAN is very relevant to the people. In fact, it survives because it sounds great and everyone's like, yes, it's very nice, but it's not relevant to the people of Southeast Asia. I think if you really want an ASEAN that is relevant, it has to be built from the ground up and it has to actually reflect the hopes and aspirations of the people of Southeast Asia who see Southeast Asia very differently from the elites. And that is the part of that big problem that I talked about earlier. ASEAN is a very elite-driven strategy, it's an elite-driven organization. Now with Brexit, I have to agree with Nazir about it's the EU getting out of hand because the sentiment in the UK against the EU was very much driven by the insularity of the elites. I don't think many ordinary people would have phrased it exactly that way, but the fundamental reason is that in the EU, you have prime ministers and finance ministers going to Brussels and stitching up deals with their counterparts and then coming back to their national capitals and saying, oh, Brussels forced me to do this. But I stood up for British rights and stood up for the British people in Brussels. But in actual fact, they realized that the EU was a way to evade political accountability. It was a way for them to go to Brussels, get what they wanted for their country, knowing that they would never be able to actually pass it through legislation in their own country without jeopardizing their electoral position. So ASEAN, I think actually a lack of integration in ASEAN is a good thing because we want to avoid the ability for elites to insulate themselves from popular accountability from the people of ASEAN. Minister, I wonder if you were to walk out into the streets when you get home and you walked up to 10 random people in Laos and you asked them, do you know what ASEAN is? Do you know what the benefits are? What response would you get? Well, when ASEAN launched AEC, back in December 31st, 2015, everybody was excited because a high expectation that ASEAN would bring, ASEAN community would bring to the country such as prosperity, development, and a measure to address poverty in the country. You know, Laos is one of the least developed countries. I think among ASEAN countries, probably Laos is one of the three countries that are still least developed countries. And we working, we partner with ASEAN countries not only because we are a family, but also we also have a high expectation that as part of ASEAN, we would be able to have access to development cooperation and so on, so on. The government is making a lot of effort in terms of public awareness about what is AEC, what is ASEAN community. But of course, the knowledge, the awareness still lacking among them because we are not yet being able to bring a more tangible benefit, a tangible something that can be filled broadly among the local people, I mean the community on the grass road level. So I think this is something that ASEAN would have to address in the next 10 or 15 years down the road. ASEAN has to make sure that in order to implement its master plan on connectivity, its ASEAN community building over the next 50 years, it has to be based on the principle of inclusive net. It's not only the government driven effort, it has to be participated in by all sectors of society in the countries. So this is something that ASEAN are still discussing and how to pursue this objective. I want to talk about the fourth industrial revolution, it's the big buzzword I think wherever you go and it has been for quite a while now. But unlike industrial revolutions of the past, there is a very realistic possibility that it will lead to a lot of job losses. And there's been this belief for a while that it would perhaps affect the developed countries first because of the low labor costs in developing countries. But that is proving not to be the case and it's actually coming a lot quicker than I think a lot of people realize. Nazir, you were talking about this window of opportunity. How does ASEAN make sure that they don't squander the opportunity to really grab hold of the fourth industrial revolution and exploit it for all that it's worth? Yeah, I think it's the age of acceleration. It's going to happen almost as fast in the developing world as a developed world. But I think if you take the age of acceleration plus the concerns about inequality plus the rise of new populism, all that added together suggests that actually what is emerging is this new world order. We just can't quite figure out what it's all going to look like. I think that companies, for instance, will have to change their priorities. I think the old focus on shareholder value is going to change dramatically. I think we need to certainly pay more attention to all stakeholders and certainly contribute more to societies that we live in. I keep parking on the India example where there's legislation for contribution to corporate responsibility, for instance. And then those kind of changes need to come into play. But overall, I stand by this imperative that ASEAN sees this very real revolution and takes and responds by accelerating its integration. Minar, I'd like to bring you into this. The International Labor Organization estimates that 56% of all salaried employment in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam is at risk of displacement due to technology in just the next couple of decades. A lot of these workers could be garment workers, which traditionally women do a lot of this work. How do we make sure that women, during this fourth industrial revolution, do not fall through the cracks? Yeah, and that's where I think the issue of how do we look at the socioeconomic rights of the people, especially the marginalized, the women, the youth. Now you're talking about the aspiration of the youth, that aspiration is always a double-edged sword. You have, if the aspirations don't get fulfilled, you'll have social unrest. So how do we really look at those, ensuring that those who feel left out of the present way of doing business and the present way of organizing our economies, how they feel part and how they actually benefit from the prosperity, even of the present stage of development and it will be accelerated in the way the technology is evolving. So it's not going to be another 50 years for ASEAN, maybe another five years we'll have to review, whether the institutions and the mechanisms that are put in place for protection, social protection, for political and economic rights protection, whether all those mechanisms are actually relevant and agile enough for people to be protected against the onslaught of some of the changes that are coming, they're not going to be late, they're not going to be delayed and that will cause some of those issues of people losing their livelihoods, people losing access to jobs, people losing access to the particular type of skill sets will no more be valued. So how do we deal with those? Because you have a large population, more than 50% of ASEAN is youth, young people who will be in the job market, who are already in the job market. So how do we seek their aspirations and fulfill those aspirations and create those institutions will be quite a critical way to go forward. And part of this is the fact that no sector is safe when it comes to artificial intelligence and robotics. You've seen in the past few years that robots can do just as good of a job, if not better job, than doctors, lawyers, insurance claim adjusters, and I have to say even journalists. So there is going to need to be a re-education, a re-skilling on a mass, mass scale. Is ASEAN prepared for that? Do they have the educators who are going to be the ones that are going to be educating for this re-skilling? Are they being educated now to be ready to start educating the next line of individuals? Well, I think that's the big challenge, of course, because I think everybody's kind of like scared at the moment, you know, where is this going to go? And we're all kind of frozen because we feel that this is all going to happen very soon. So I think we have to take charge and really address, I do think the key is the human capital issue. You know, how do we make sure that the people in our countries are going to be ready for the change? Because what's going to go first are obviously the routine jobs. And how do you re-skill the people to be able to switch and to become probably more self-employed rather than being working for people? And I think just computer literacy to begin with is the first step, you know, learning how to use the Internet, but knowing how to get, not just to use it for social media or to post your pictures or to make friends with Facebook, but how do you actually get economic value out of it? And this is actually a very key part of the inclusiveness agenda, I think, because I have seen many, many examples where SMEs or even farmers who work during the day and at night they're actually designing logos and selling to the world market, these are actual examples that are happening all over. But we need to focus on, first of all, physical connectivity at a low cost and at a fast enough space, pace so that they can actually be part of it. And once they're part of it, how do they actually utilize it to improve their economic livelihood or even self-teach, self-learn? Like this farmer example that I'm giving you, they taught themselves how to design logo and they were able to increase their income by 10 times because of that. You know, these are examples where if you could actually scale it up, that would be the key. And obviously the education system, the educators, there's a whole online learning out there that we need to probably work, maybe cooperate within ASEAN. And then you have to talk about standards, I think, because once the whole world is changing in the way you produce goods and services, let's not forget services. The future is actually in services and the way you deliver goods and services. So you can have a doctor somewhere in India. Telemedicine is already happening. They call it remote intelligence. So the know-how can stay wherever it is, but it can be transported in so many ways now. And we need to take advantage of that. Well, if I can be honest, this discussion is very technocratic. And we all saw this photo of the Trump White House where you had a dozen men signing legislation on women's reproductive rights and we laughed. But here in Southeast Asia, we have all these governments signing legislation on worker rights and not a single genuine worker representative among them. Labour does not have a genuine seat at the policy making table in Southeast Asia. And as a result, the whole issue of our economic future is being treated very much as an elite issue, as a technocratic issue, without taking into account the lived reality of workers. Now, the only way for us to actually deliver on this rhetoric of inclusiveness is actually to have greater political liberalization, free and fair elections, the ability of people to genuinely elect their representatives who can then go to Parliament and make legislation that genuinely represents the people. Without that, I don't see how we could deliver on all these great things we're talking about. Yeah, TP, this... I just have to respond to your colourful views that match your colourful socks. You know, I think if I was Filipino or I was Indonesian, I kind of say, look, we've got a furniture maker that's president with a completely overhauled system from the Suharto era to what it is today. It's a very democratic system. If you look at Philippines today, Duterte versus what they had. So I don't agree that ASEAN has been protecting elites. I think elites try to protect themselves in every country. And I don't think ASEAN gets in the way. There's been revolutions in various parts of ASEAN. And I think, you know, in terms of going forwards, I think different countries have engaged. The workers, et cetera, there has been... Of course, you know, we can say, we can pick many countries led by Singapore where we think there should be, you know, greater political liberalisation. Yeah, but I don't think you can generalise and say, you know, ASEAN's got in the way of political liberalisation. That's it. I want to take a little bit of an issue on that because if you look at, in the region, the issue of, you know, freedoms and human rights, there's a lot of regression that one sees in almost every ASEAN member state. And if you look at that, and if you don't see that as part of building inclusive societies, because for me, inclusion is participation and accountability. If we have rulers in the states which are not accountable, which enjoy impunity in number of violations, then are we really moving in the right direction? And we're talking about protecting the freedoms of citizens of the ASEAN states. We're not talking about protecting somebody else's freedoms. So I'm just trying to be a little more... Getting the response in terms of the mechanisms. I don't disagree. There's a lot more to do. But I'm just saying, if you look at Indonesia today versus Indonesia then, you're talking about the governor of Jakarta, you know, you're talking about, I think half the governors in the past have ended up in the slammer, right? There has been tremendous political change and transition in Indonesia. And I think, Ibu? Yeah, I think, you know, I don't think there's an end to liberalization. I think it's a process, right? So if you compare Indonesia 20 years ago, it's so different today. Of course, we still have a ways to go. But, you know, I think we're moving in the right direction. I mean, can you imagine in 1996, we can't even say the word corruption openly? I can remember 1996 because that's the first time we were able to say corruption openly, publicly. And that's like 20 years ago, right? So how much we have progressed. But I think we should not underestimate the role of advocacy from, you know, you say they're not represented. Maybe formally they're not represented. But believe me, the advocacy that comes because of openness of information is a real presence in all our countries, yeah? Even in China, you know, my friends in China said, well, maybe we don't have a vote, but we do have a voice. So the activity that happens in, because we have digital connectivity is I think a very important check and balance that can work positively. It can also work negatively, by the way, but let's try to take the positive aspect of it. I think that would lead quite nicely into talking about, I mean, is social media the equalizer when it comes to this? You look to the United States. Donald Trump is the president of Twitter. 140 characters or less. And it gets traction. And in a way, it spoke to people in a way that they'd never been spoken to before. Here, perhaps it's used a little bit differently where the people on the ground are able to have their voices heard internationally. Does that change the way that governments are going to be structured in ASEAN going forward? And does that also change the way that integration will take place? Minister? Well, technology, of course, has an impact on everything when it's come to technology. Well, ASEAN is trying to promote how the structures would be effective and efficient for community building as ASEAN as a whole. I think ASEAN is trying, I mean, individual countries of ASEAN is trying to improve how the structures both at the national level and within ASEAN can be improved in the coming years. But I think as we go now, as far as ASEAN structures is concerned, I think we are on the right track, on the right track. Yes, our distinguished panelists mentioned and advocate the ASEAN way. I think this is something that we would continue to pursue in maybe more year to come. And we haven't had yet make an assessment on whether ASEAN way is bad or good or the other way around. There is not yet an alternative to ASEAN way. I think ASEAN way over the past 50 years has served how ASEAN come today. How ASEAN come today. So there is no point that ASEAN way would continue to be pursued. And this is how we do. This is how Asia, it might be different from others. And of course, some people claim that ASEAN would hinder the progress of ASEAN. But I don't believe that that would be the case because this is how we do. And we would continue to pursue that. We have just about 15 minutes left in the discussion. I'd like to open it up to anybody that may have questions from the audience. No? All right, then we shall continue. I want to talk about trade. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you. There's a young lady, Annie. Thank you very much. Annie Koh, Singapore Management University. I think for the last one and a half days, many of the panels and the discussions have centered about lifelong learning. And whether there is an ASEAN strategy behind the disruptions that's taking place. We are all very bullish and very optimistic about the future of ASEAN and all the job creation that is to come. But what are we doing as a community for the disruption and how do we come together to think of a strategy in order to take the displaced talent and then upgrade them for the new jobs and the new careers within the region? Thank you. This is something that Singapore, Annie's from Singapore has done quite well, this reskilling and this retraining. And they have the educational systems in place. They also have very high per capita income. So it's much easier for people to be reskilled to a certain extent. Is there a cohesive plan across the region? I haven't heard any plans on the ASEAN front but maybe the minister can jump in. But I do think that's a very important area where you can actually, whatever Singapore has been able to achieve could be shared between the ASEAN countries and what some other country has come up with could also be shared because you can replicate easily, right? But so I think that the cooperation needs to happen to identify where, what are the reskilling issues? What are the issues? What are the skills that are in need of reskilling? And then focus on sharing, sharing whatever training programs or replicating scaling up. And you can do so much online these days. And for a country like Indonesia, which is an archipelago, it's online learning makes a whole lot of sense. But then you ask the question about the content, right? The content becomes so important. So I believe that's a very good suggestion. It's a very important area for ASEAN cooperation. And it will then obviously create your community. If people are learning from each other, you are creating the ASEAN community and people can be working together and the standards and the skills would actually then converge. I want to talk about trade just very quickly before we go into our closing part of the discussion because trade within ASEAN is relatively low when you compare it to other economic blocks. It's been pretty stagnant around 20, 24% for a while now. You compare that to the EU, which is 60%. What are the economies within ASEAN need to do to further diversify? So they're not competitors in the future. They're not competing with each other. They're more complimentary because I think of products like rice. There are so many ASEAN nations that are big rice producers and they are big exporters. How do the economies... Does it need to be something that comes from a top-down approach where economies are told, let's try to make a strategy so you focus on one particular area, we focus on other, but still be able to maintain diversity within their individual economies? Nazir? Sorry. Oh, sorry. So please. Just a few words. I think this is something that's... I mean, ASEAN leaders have a big concern because we're always talking about dialogue partner, external partners, enhancing cooperation and trade with other partners. But at the same time, we're really very little talking about inter-trade among ASEAN countries. I just give you an example. Just a couple of days ago, my prime minister visited Malaysia. Malaysia is the fourth biggest investor in the house, FDI. But in terms of trade, it's less than one million US dollar. So this is one of the examples that ASEAN leaders have a concern and try to discuss, try to put a plan and measures how we can promote intra-ASEAN trade. We are talking about a big market, 630 million market. So this is something that we would, of course, encourage private sector business community to really help the government to address it and try to diversify trade goods that are complemented each other. I would just add that I think the trade numbers can go up if we, without doing anti-dramatic, if we look at the non-trade barriers. I think the Malaysian prime minister pointed out recently that in the past 15 years, tariffs have been halved on average, whereas non-tariff barriers have gone from 1,600 to 5,970. So that's one issue. So clearly there's a correlation. Yeah, bring down tariffs, but let's kind of cover it with non-tariff barriers. So that needs to be addressed at the ASEAN level. I think two is information. I think I still hear from a lot of companies that they don't quite realize that suppliers can come from within ASEAN and what are the superior terms they can get within ASEAN. And then three is looking at areas of collaboration. I mean, there's always this argument. If you look at the huge advantage and progress that Thailand has made in the car industry, for instance, surely there's logic to say that we should converge into Thailand and in Rion as the sort of area for specialization in automotive. Can I just add to that? I'll just add two very brief points. I think e-commerce could also be another avenue where you can have intra ASEAN trade increase. But for that to happen, I mean, the last two days, what we've been hearing is that it's not enough to have the low tariffs. With e-commerce, there's a lot of facilitation issues and payment system, you know, because the underlying payment system and the connectivity and the technology has to be there. The second issue I would make is just because I was formerly also the tourism minister. Intra ASEAN tourism flows is actually 46%, right? So if you take trade and services, actually I think there's a lot more potential compared to goods. And that's because finally in 2013, I think Burma was, Myanmar was the last one to come in, not requiring visa for ASEAN nationals to travel between each other. And again, going back to ASEAN youth survey, you'll find that actually a lot of young people know about each other's countries quite a lot because they do travel. You know, the low-cost airline, that's another, I think, advantage of what happened with ASEAN, the low-cost budget airlines are making travel so much more easier. So, you know, that's another component, perhaps, that we don't talk about as much. We just have about eight minutes left, so I think that we should try to bookend the conversation just a little bit. I'd like to get your thoughts about what ASEAN will look like in 50 years and perhaps what a new ASEAN way would be looking like in 50 years from now. I know it's very hard to look into those crystal balls who are going to try. I can just go down the line. Can you go this way? I'll go this way. Sure. Minister, would you like to start? Well, a big challenge for me to answer this question because ASEAN way would continue to be a method of working among ASEAN. But of course, I would remain in my position, in my view, that ASEAN in the next 50 years would be an ASEAN that shares ASEAN that care each other, that would bring a prosperity to all ASEAN countries. Well, I would hope that ASEAN will still be ASEAN in other 50 years because I think, you know, while we criticize how slow it is and how much it's not addressing new challenges, you know, for whatever reason, it's there. And it will miss it if it's not there. And I think it's very important for us to retain and maintain ASEAN. And I think in 50 years, I would hope that ASEAN would be still the central part of the East Asia configuration where we have by then hopefully been able to have economic integration happen with our six main dialogue partners and maybe even wider. Who knows? We have open regionalism. Who knows? The U.S. will also join us from across the Pacific. We have open regionalism. And it would move forward in addressing the new challenges ahead. And, you know, people would really feel like an ASEAN community. I do feel there is already a very strong sense of ASEAN community now, even within the young people. That was a heartening result of the youth survey. And we need, I think we can do more. And let's not be scared about the digital revolution and the fourth industrial revolution, but look at it as an opportunity. For me, ASEAN is a unique opportunity because in Asia, there is no other block which is as structured as ASEAN. So there's a way forward for ASEAN to really build strong protection mechanisms to really ensure that the human rights of all people are ensured. The second point, I think there is a kind of a misnomer that the human rights or civil, political, economic, social rights are hindrance to economic development. No, they are actually building blocks to more inclusive and sustainable human development. So if you put it from that perspective, I think that change is quite important in perspectives to be had by the ASEAN leaders. Then ASEAN will become a strong, really people driven, you know, fulfilling people's aspiration kind of a block and be a model for other sub-regional blocks in the Asia Pacific. PJ? Well, I am very skeptical of ASEAN as you know and I don't think it will be very relevant in 50 years. If it exists, if it continues to exist, I don't want it to proceed very far beyond what it is today because quite frankly, an ASEAN with the ability to impose human rights on the member states of Southeast Asia is also in a position to impose some very, very bad things on the people of Southeast Asia. I think the people of Southeast Asia need to fight for human rights in their own countries at the level of sovereignty, at the level where they are genuinely representative. So I always tell my students, you know, don't, it's a common human flaw to extrapolate from the present and assume that the present will never change. But if you look at ASEAN's past 50 years, there's been dramatic changes. Borders have changed very significantly around the world. So I think ASEAN, if it still exists, it won't reflect anything that, it won't be very much like what it is today and I think the best thing for it actually is not to get any more powerful, not to integrate any further, but to stay as a talking shop. Can you invite me as a guest lecturer to your class? Any time, any time. When I look at ASEAN in 50 years, I think where I am today, I am enthusiastic but pessimistic. I think when I look at the Blueprint 2025, I look at what happened with the ASEAN Charter 2007. I'm pessimistic because there isn't a change in the execution plan. In fact, there's no real execution plan. It's sort of business as usual, the old ASEAN way. And I really think that we need to change the ASEAN way and what does that mean? I think central to execution is a body that's going to follow through with execution. Today, most projects are done in committees of 10 and nothing gets done. And if you look at the details of many of the integration exercises, if you look at the banking master plan, for instance, there was too much focus on how many license one country gives to another and missing the real point that value is created in areas like back office outsourcing for banks, like ease of movement of skilled labour, like flow of data and so on and so forth. I really think that we're missing a lot in execution. My strong view is that we should put together a plan to enlarge, to give more funding to make the ASEAN Secretary more effective, whilst at the same time still respecting the strong traits of the ASEAN way that has kept us together all this while. So clearly a lot of mixed views when it comes to ASEAN challenges that lie ahead, but I think overwhelmingly the people that I speak with are very optimistic about the future here. When you look at the demographics, you look at the economics, there's a lot of things certainly going in its favour. That's going to do it for our panel discussion this afternoon, but if you don't mind, if you could all just please remain in the room because we're going to be having the closing plenary happening right after this discussion, so please don't go anywhere. Thank you very much.