 My name is Marina Tservis. I'm Head of Policy Engagement here at the National Security College and it's my pleasure to be chair and introduce the panelists for the next session entitled Regional Security Challenges for the Alliances, including the South China Sea. We've already heard a little bit about some of those challenges from the earlier speakers, including the risks of unpredictability and concerns about US engagement from the region. We haven't heard but I hope that the panel will bring out some of the concerns around an increasingly provocative and emboldened DPRK. The military or the threat of a military buildup in the region, of course the South China Sea and what it means, whether the South China Sea is a litmus test, the Chinese behaviour in the region, whether it's sui generis or whether the appetite comes with the eating, so to speak. And of course the challenges to the rules-based global order, which we see challenged by both Russia and China globally. And finally how to ensure continued economic growth and prosperity, which underpins some of the security and stability in the region. So with that brief introduction I might call to the chair our first speaker, Professor Yuichi Hasoya from KO University. Professor Hasoya is Professor of International Politics at KO University in Tokyo. He was a member of the advisory board at Japan's National Security Council front from 2014 to 2016 and a member of Prime Minister Abe's advisory panel on reconstruction of the legal basis for security in Japan. He has studied international politics and is an expert in this field and without further ado I invite you, would you like to speak from your chair or from the stand? I've asked speakers to keep their comments to a maximum of 15 minutes, enabling some 10 minutes of Q&A at the end of the session. Thank you. Thank you very much for your very kind introduction and also thank you very much for inviting me for this wonderful conference. I think that the timing of this conference cannot be better because of the timing of international events and the inauguration of President Trump. And after 10 days of his inauguration I feel that there are more panics or anxieties than real accusations because of the news. Every day we receive some news about Trump administration and I think that there are some reasons that we feel anxiety about the future course of American foreign and security policy. Of course we are allied to the United States and alliance at both the Japan alliance and also the Andro-Street alliance perhaps the hub or the center of regional stability has been the hub of regional stability so that's why because we like to maintain that structure but at the same time we have seen many new trends like anxiety and unpredictability. That's why I think that it's a really good timing to exchange views and to discuss what we should do. I mean both Japan and Australia should do to respond to these new trends of international politics. And I only prepared three fries. The first one is I feel there are four main sources of change, radical change in this regional stability or regional order. The first one is of course the rise of China but what I want to say is that Japan, sometimes there is some misunderstanding, Japan has been the biggest in total the biggest provider of ODA to China and also Japan has been the biggest provider of foreign direct investment to China. So of course Japan has been long for a long time desiring more prosperous and stable China because of course China is Japan's biggest trading partner. We don't want poor and unstable China. So we are happy to see quite richer and more stable China close to our own country. No prime minister of Japan has ever criticized the rise of China. All of them basically welcome the rise of China but the rise of China should be peaceful and should not destroy regional stability. So what Japanese prime minister has been saying is or opposing is that China should not destroy regional stability and China should respect international law or rule based international order as long as China respect rule based international order and as long as China has no intention to destroy or damage regional stability I think that every Japanese prime minister can be quite relaxed about the rise of China and we welcome it. This is a point as long as China will not damage it, I mean the regional stability I think that Japan can construct better sign of Japan's relations. And the second point is of course that Trump administration, of course Trump administration can bring some opportunities as previous speakers already mentioned but of course we all know that there are so many predictability and that's why I think that we have to prepare for some unexpected events because of the new trend in American foreign and security policy and I think that after the inauguration of President Trump in Tokyo I think we can see more shocks and anxiety because as you know November, in November Japanese Prime Minister Abe met with Donald Trump, Mr. Trump, President-elect Trump and it was a very good conversation, much better conversation than Prime Minister Abe and his staff originally expected and also Prime Minister Abe made a telephone conversation soon after the victory of Donald Mr. Trump at the presidential election and also during the telephone conversation it was a very good conversation, Prime Minister Abe could enjoy a very good and friendly conversation but the fact is that so we can have many many good remarks by President Trump but the point is that it seems that Trump really, President Trump doesn't really respect what he said previously so he can easily betray what he said and he usually as a business person he usually made a very good remarks like to Prime Minister Mei or even to President Xi Jinping or any other business person so we can have many many good remarks but the point is that he is not like previous U.S. President so maybe he might not respect his own words so we have to in a sense prepare for many many unpredictable events and the third point is that nationalism and populism it means that it would be more and more difficult to have international agreements both multilateral and bilateral because not just in the United States but other countries I really like to know what happened in the Philippines as well in many countries partly including Japan perhaps nationalism and populism are stronger than before it means that it would be more difficult for any political leaders to present a big concession to other countries so if both sides are not willing to provide concessions of course there will be only crash of national interests so President Trump will present and presenting American fast policy maybe other countries like the Philippines and Vietnam, China of course it's natural that China will present the China fast policy and the Philippines fast policies or Russia fast policy anything so in the coming years I think that it would be more difficult particularly for officials and diplomats to create a compromise rational compromise which would be the foundation of stability or the foundation of public goods in the region the fourth one is of course the decline of liberal international order because it seems that President Trump shows no particular interest in respecting norms and rules in this region as a scholar of international relations I would say that basically conservative scholars of politicians usually prioritizes order to justice and on the other hand in general liberal scholars or liberal politicians usually prioritizes justice to order the problem is that it seems that President Trump doesn't show any interest to both order and justice only interest is important for him so both order and justice must be the foundations of liberal international order if he will show no particular interest in both justice and order it means that there will be the clash of particular national interests so it will be very difficult to create common understanding in this region so I'm not official so I basically I'm quite pessimistic about the future particularly current future and also I'm a historian I'm teaching international history to students and I think that this year is quite similar to 100 years before 1917 what happened in 19...100 years before 1917 there was of course Russian revolution Russian revolution means that people destroy ancient regime old order and now some sort of American people tried to destroy the previous order which was basically created by elites so elites establishment are quite defensive in the United States or in many countries in the world so we are seeing the radical change not just in foreign policy but the social political structure in many advanced democracies and also 100 years before we saw American entry into the first world war it means that this marks the beginning of I think liberal international order because America has become more responsible to sustain to maintain stable international order by joining in the first world war and now we are seeing the quite opposite trend the United States is retreating from its own responsibility to share the burden of maintaining a quite stable international order of course it's not decided we can encourage the United States to respect previous commitments and to respect international law and there are many in US administration who fully understand the importance of that so the future course is not yet decided so we can be optimistic but at the same time after 10 days of his inauguration we have some reason to be more anxious about or more careful about dealing with new American president and so it's not sure to say that we are seeing the crisis in American alliance system of course we are ready not just Japan but other American allies are ready to take a broader burden to larger burden to sustain the system but the point is that we most of us I mean the American allies have some financial problems it's really difficult to rapidly increase defense budgets this is the one thing the thing is that because of the unpopularity of President Trump it would be difficult for rational political leaders of American allies to parachute their own people on the importance of the alliance with the United States or to do something more to help the United States if the US administration is doing something quite good to stabilize international order to create norms and values which contribute to more prosperous stable international order maybe we can help more but if this is not the case it would be difficult for any democratic political leaders to fully encourage their own people to help American new course of American foreign policy so values and norms first we need to share it we need to share these norms and values within the United States otherwise we cannot have the common mission to create the same goal so it means that without sharing values and norms as I said it would be difficult to parachute their own people or voters to increase defense budgets or any budgets this is one thing the second thing is that regional stability because of the unpredictable and expected nature of new American foreign policy we will see many many unexpected results coming from that policy particularly because I have some reason to fear about Chinese foreign policy or signed American relations because China really really dislikes unpredictable things unpredictable events because it's a huge ship it's difficult to quickly change direction so that's why I think that in the last several months Chinese government has become much kinder to Japanese government to understand what's happening in the Washington DC or to try to influence American foreign policy by using Japan or to try to use Japan to stabilize this region because fortunately Prime Minister Abe is much more predictable in his own foreign policy that's why it's easier for Beijing to cooperate with Japan so we are seeing much better sign of Japanese relations and war of course the worst case scenario is war and wanted an expected war because of the difficulty of presenting showing compromise to other countries like China and the United States the two countries are now more arrogant before and the two governments have become more difficult because of some of the its domestic political reason to be weak to concede on some points so if the US new administration seriously would seriously damage the core interests of China of course it would be very difficult I think for Chinese government Chinese leaders to radically change its own previous stance on these core interests particularly of course this year Chinese government will reshuffle Chinese Communist Party will reshuffle the top leaders so this is a very sensitive year the point is whether the US new administration would be fully mindful about the sensitivity of this year actually four years before Japanese government had a problem on the Senkaku Islands at the same time China reshuffled top leaders so it was a very bad timing perhaps for China that Japanese government decided to transfer the property from private order to the government but anyway the timing is important so this year would be the worst that's the timing for the sign of American relations to present some of the provocative and expected stance particularly at the side of the United States so finally I would point out several points what Japanese government should do what Japanese government are doing first more practical contribution to peace of course Prime Minister Abe has been presenting a new foreign policy security policy based upon the concept of proactive contribution to peace Japan should become proactive contributor to peace by changing some of the security legislations and actually I joined in the Prime Minister's advisory panel to help it and also I joined in Prime Minister Abe's advisory panel to draft a national security strategy for the first time in Japanese political history in 2013 so Japan now clarifies what Japan should do and is going to do and of course one of the biggest aim perhaps the most important aim for Japan is to stabilize Asia Pacific region now of course in the Pacific region but anyway the first priority is not to contain China but to maintain regional stability if China is willing to maintain or strengthen regional stability China will become Japan's really important partner and based upon that understanding which was actually written down in 2014 November 2014 the two governments between Japanese government and the Chinese government agree on four principles on cooperation and I think that after that the two governments now can collaborate more deeply on each point and this is the third point, the third point is balancing because of the difficulty of deepening cooperation both with China and partly with the United States near administration perhaps maybe it will be wise for Japan to strengthen, Japan's cooperation with both India and Russia India and Russia are very important international player, quite unpredictable still but at the same time Russia and India are quite, they have a very strong pro-Japanese feeling so they are willing much more than Japanese government to strengthen bilateral collaboration between the two sides so it is easier perhaps to some extent to deepen bilateral cooperation even including security and the defence aspects between the two sides, between Japan and Russia and between Japan and India so that's why Prime Minister Abe is eager to strengthen bilateral collaboration many media wrote that this, I mean that Russia-Japanese rapprochement is mainly for the purpose of returning some of the Arab northern territories I think it's right but at the same time in addition to that more important thing is much more strategically, strategically it is important for Japan to use Russia to create perhaps more stability in the region but of course Russia has its own problems and Russia has its own difficulty to respect international law or international order so there is clear limits the third important element is of course enhancing the alliance between Japan and the United States the US-Japan alliance remains and we remain the centre of Japanese security policy in the coming years still so there is no alternative to it so even under President Donald Trump Japanese government needs to pressure the new administration on the importance on the value of the US-Japan alliance because it serves to American national interests undoubtedly so the first priority is to try to encourage the US new administration to learn something on the importance of the alliance I think that Prime Minister Abe can succeed in doing it because it is important for the United States as well not just for Japan and the next one is enhancing Japan's partnership with Australia Australia is the most important security partner next to the United States and of course to countries Japan and Australia share values and norms it's much easier for Japan to collaborate with Australia than with any other partners like Korea, China, Russia, India so it's natural for Prime Minister Abe or the current Japanese government to focus on the importance of Japan-Australia security cooperation and I think it continues it's a good timing to organize this kind of conference to focus on the importance of cooperation and lastly I would like to comment on the importance of regional cooperation in the last two years the three governments China, Japan and ROK have been refocusing on the importance of trilateral cooperation, regional cooperation mainly because of each economic difficulties but rational speaking it is really imperative for the three countries to strengthen trilateral security cooperation particularly on economic issues and I think that this continues that's why I am quite optimistic about the regional cooperation in the region thank you very much Thank you Professor Hasoya our next speaker is Associate Professor Stephen Fruling and Associate Professor at the SDSC here at the ANU who published widely on strategic and defence policy and was also a member of the panel of experts on the development of the Australian defence white paper thank you thank you now a lot of good things have been said already in the first panel about the uncertainty and the volatility that we're facing following the US elections so I won't kind of like rehash a lot of that as originally intended and I'll come back, come straight to you like my bottom line which is I think that the main challenge that we're faced with as allies in the Asia Pacific is that for two decades or more almost any kind of trend line in the Asia Pacific has been running against us whether that's in the economic shift of power in the military balance of power in the expansion of Chinese military activities or also in the acceptance if you like what we thought would be the inevitable victory of democracy, global march to victory of democracy in many ways I think the pivot and in many ways fora like these of the trilateral cooperation are attempts of us to mitigate or delay at least some of those trend lines and I think that one of the things that we're faced now whatever happens in the next few weeks and months is the prospect that that aspiration of even just delaying those trends may well not be achievable anymore with the Trump administration so the bottom line is I think the main challenge for our alliance is that we know that the long term we've faced very significant challenges and I think the long term is a lot closer now than it was a few months ago why do I say that? well I think historically US alliance is in Asia very much focused in their activity on territorial defence and we've seen some of that strengthened in recent years US, Korean extended deterrence dialogues, increasing integration in the US Japanese alliance in missile defence for example and it has those aspects have already thrown up some quite difficult political questions as we saw in the Japanese US debates about the Senkaku islands in the treaty for example it's not necessarily a development in Australia's alliance yet which is something that I'll come back to in a moment but in terms of the debates that we had in forums like these most of our concern was actually not really on territorial defence but more on what we might call cooperative security in the European countries of many using working together not necessarily because we're allies in the sense that we've signed a treaty but because we share common interests and values to influence what's happening in the region well short of any events that might actually trigger the alliance treaties themselves and I think one of the particular difficulties that we were faced with in the context of the South China Sea in the lead up to the US election those months and years was moving from words to action on that front in particular the whole acrimonious debates about joint phonops whether we should do something together, what that should be what aims we would actually try to achieve, what signals we would try to send and I guess in the end how it was all put in the two-heart basket and both politically and maybe also operationally because ultimately I think moving from words to action in the way that and I just used the joint phonops here as an example that came up but one could think of different examples it's difficult because it ultimately takes the step from words to actually committing military force with all the political treaties and decisions that no government would take lightly and again for all the close talk about close cooperation it's useful to remember that the last time that Australia's actually deployed military force in Asia to send political signals was probably the deployment of the sabers to Thailand during the Vietnam War and notably in parts part of the CETO context rather than our bilateral alliances so I think that if we wanted to like if we had wanted to move or if we want to move from joint declarations and things like I guess repurposing if you like politically repurposing exercises and so on to actually joint action we would have had to start thinking more about the institutional underpinnings about our alliance and I think it's quite imaginable that under a Clinton presidency we could have found if you like Asian solutions to the problems that ultimately led to the creation of the NAC on the joint commands in NATO but I think even if Trump was interested in doing anything like that the idea that Asian allies or that certainly Australia would sign up to a greater political institutionalization of the alliance in the next few years that would enable that is something that just simply won't happen so I think what this means is that we need to rethink the assumption that we are actually going to be able to stall or delay or let alone reverse the trends that are running against us in Asia and ask what that actually means once those trends arrive much sooner than we thought might be the case so I just want to highlight a few consequences in no particular order and look forward to discussions later first I think building regional order is a long term game and I think ultimately support for rules based order has to be rooted in support for domestic rules based order but if you look at the region and also globally democracy is actually in retreat 10 years ago there were still expectations about democracy even expanding in Asia but if you look at Southeast Asia the last countries I think that actually had a peaceful transition of government in recent years were Indonesia then Burma of all countries and the Philippines during the Cold War it was quite common or you could actually expect of any decent western politician to be able to mount a semi-coherent intellectual justification and defense an argument for democracy as a form of government I think you heard that much about that anymore in recent years so I think that in many ways look arguing for an international rules based order has to probably in my view go hand in hand with starting to argue again for the domestic roots of rules based order as well which I think raises some uncomfortable questions about I feel like the nature of all the current preoccupations of our own political class second when we look at the global context in which this plays out I don't think maybe we're not alone in this situation and I think in many ways there's a greater importance for us now of the European allies and their links to the US than arguably there was before when Trump obviously comes from the east coast elite I think it would be in the jury I think is still out whether his thinking of allies will really be influenced about what Asian allies do or what NATO does so it may seem like an odd time at the moment but I think maybe it is now that it is worthwhile looking at upgrading Australia's presence in Brussels and linking more with the debates that are going on in Europe and also in NATO about how to manage the US as an ally I think we need to rethink the assumption that we had in the last few years that European and Asian allies are competitors for US influence and it may well be that I think our joint interest in influencing the US conception of its own role in the world in general outweighs those geographic differences Interestingly, I like this Japan has a dedicated ambassador to the North Atlantic Council but Australia does not Third and closer to home I think we need to another point there I think for example if we think about using global fora to have that conversation in Australia we have been very happy and supported of the G20 but I think the G20 is probably not the right forum for global allies to interact with the US and strategic matters in the way that the G7 has served as several pivotal times during the Cold War so again the balance between G7 and G20 might well be an element that we need to consider about global allies managing the US Third I think we need to understand and influence how regional countries adjust to the regional changes that we're faced with and the consequences of Trump administrations that I've just discussed I think we need to have a good think about what of the real space order currently we actually really want to salvage and what maybe we need to let go I think we need to have a strategic dialogue with Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam and the Philippines and really understand what are their red lines as opposed to the red lines actually like we've projected into the region but we haven't actually been supported as much by regional countries as we would have liked Third and here we come to implications for Australian defence I think if common action of allies to roll back Chinese expansion and common action of allies to deal with security or adverse security trends will short of an outright attack on one of the allies has become more difficult we need to start thinking more clearly about how the instances where the alliance would really come into play in terms of territorial defence I think for Australia that means looking at the timelines for the defence white paper if Trump actually manages to increase the size of the US or create the prospect of increasing the size of the US Navy in the way that he plans to Beijing may well see that or find that the strategic window opportunity that they saw for themselves might clue sooner than they thought so I think we need to assume that strategic trend, not just the strategic trends but even events may get far worse in Asia far more quickly than our leisurely approach to shipbuilding and some of the other assumptions that we've made in the recent white paper the same I think goes for Aaron Cruz missile defence, if China is not opposed or judges that increased militarisation of those bases will not be opposed we can't assume that the North will simply go unharmed in a future regional crisis so we need to start thinking about the necessary infrastructure and capability including in the reserves to maintain air operations in the North under attack what does that mean for our alliance cooperation and in particular Australia yet Japan cooperation I think to some extent if our concerns about the US are political we need to think of how we might maintain what we value in the alliances even if US policy largely gets set by Twitter and Trump's kind of bright thoughts of the day so I think the Australian influence and links with the services with policy with programme offices and so on will be very important not least because I think the benefits of jumping on the bandwagon if the US really re-arms could be very significant and ultimately it also might serve us to remind Trump that we already have some deals with the US that work quite well for them for example through our payment into the joint strike fighter consortium I think it's also worth remembering that one of the most important agreements between the US and Australia about how to cooperate in regional war was the Red Fort Collins Agreement which actually predated the political alliance alliance treaty between our two countries so I think that there is a lot that can be done in formal understandings between our countries even if or hopefully even if they feel like the political level we might see be a lot more reticent at the political level to closely engage if the long term is not so long term anymore I think we need to start talking with our allies about for example how COMPACOM intends to defend Harold E. Holt Station in Northern Australia if things go pear shaped can we support the cocos islands from Diego Garcia in the west rather than from Australia what should be the retrospective roles and AORs for the navies of our three countries in the protection of shipping let's say west of Hawaii I think those are questions that we will need we probably always knew that we'd have to face in the long term which is worthwhile starting to talk now even if just informally with our service colleagues so I don't think all is lost but we certainly do live in interesting times thank you Stefan and thank you for sticking so assiduously to time very well, our last speaker is here from the Philippines Professor Hadarian is an international commentator who has worked for several think tanks and is about to publish a book on Duterte so I think we are all very interested to hear from some perspectives about the new president and also perspectives from the Philippines about some of the strategic challenges in the region alright, thank you very much good morning, thanks Rory for the invitation considering I'm not from any of the three countries at the center of discussion today but let me remind everyone that before there was a potus Donald Trump, there was a poro Rodrigo Duterte and in many ways as I equip to my American friends we gave a dry run for you guys or as a strategic implications of bigger-than-life figures with mercurial characters is concerned and I think as much as Donald Trump brings back the theory of how great men can shape history depending on how you measure great men I think Duterte also shows that great men quote-unquote can also have outsize impact on the region even if they come from relatively small sized countries so today I'll discuss the tragedy of small power politics and how Duterte in many ways has grappled with his tragedy and of course Duterte this year has even more significant because he is the chairman of the ASEAN and contrary to the propaganda of his supporters he was not elected as a chairman that was rotational and what was the impact on the South China Sea disputes okay so very quickly first I'll talk about small power dilemma or subaltern realism in academic lexicon second Duterte's shock limits of the recalibration or policy revolution that Duterte has engaged in and lastly very importantly the role of Japan, Australia I made this combo of Duterte and Trump shaking up the regional geopolitical landscape at least in terms of discursive aspect now very quickly I mean small powers dilemma I think this is something that is not unique to the Philippines a lot of ASEAN countries face or have similar characteristics but Philippines has some also unique characters I mean first of all in the case of the Philippines over the past four decades much of the focus of the country has been more on internal security and much of the external security has been actually outsourced to the Americans and then this is where Philippines is unique there is actually constitutional restriction based on the 1997 constitution that the defense spending shall not exit education for that reason as a security scholar I'm also now an education advocate because I want the defense spending to go up so I have to push for education spending going up aside from the fact that I'm an academic myself but largely the Philippine foreign policy has been reactive rather than proactive and this is where Duterte is a little bit of a breath of fresh air depends on how you see the breath whether good or bad but and the fourth thing is the susceptibility to interest groups, lobby pressure external powers not one not two but multiple and also media scrutiny and lastly there is more shaped by medium-term consideration of specific administrations rather than long-term national interest calculation now just to give you an idea of how much swings the Philippine has gone through since the fall of the markers dictatorship you could see from Koryakino to Fidel Ramos you had first tilting the United States and normalization of ties with China and then continuation of that under Ramos under so-called equilateral balancing strategy and under Joseph Estrada I don't know if you're familiar with the guy there was essentially strategic neglect so if there's a 1999 news article by Time magazine that essentially said Joseph Estrada was sleeping during his first national security meeting concerning the mischief rift which was usurped by the Chinese in 1994 and it was not until 1995 that the Philippines knew that oh we lost by the way in land future within our exclusive economic zone and the other Gloria Macabal administration first we continued the Ramos approach of equi-balancing and then suddenly things went wrong we were almost bandwagoning with the Chinese and then when corruption scandals came out we went to equi-balancing so we had triple swings within one administration and then under Benigno Aquino we had soft counterbalancing against the Chinese essentially Aquino branded China as the Nazi Germany of the region to the delight of a lot of countries including Japan and then suddenly Rodrigo Duterte comes in and some people are asking is he bandwagoning is he the toppling from the United States in favor of new alliances now for some of us who really bothered to follow Duterte who really got my attention since late 2015 if you look at these campaign period statements I think these four quotes if you came across them you would not be surprised you would have not been surprised at all by what has transpired in the Philippines and by the things that the president has said over the past seven months first of all he said that I will be charting a foreign policy course for the Philippines on its own no problem with that you have to have independent foreign policy per the constitution but his definition of independence was not dependent on the United States this was a very clear clarification he made just few days after he won the presidential election and he actually said that also earlier in his campaign period he also intimated that American access to Philippine bases will not be like before it could face restrictions and there's going to be some re-bargaining and negotiation he said the US military could not use any other place in the Philippines without the knowledge of or until there is advice from the Philippine Armed Forces now this is what got my attention this was around March I think he said that he said if China will build the Philippines a train around Mindanao build me train from Manila to be called north to south build for us a train going to Patanga so on and so forth for the six years that I'll be a president I will shut up essentially on the South China Sea issue he made it very clear and I'm surprised that media lost that because of all their nasty campaign period so this is where you see the phenomenon of bed of nails right when the guy throws a lot of controversial things you lose sight of things but for a foreign policy scholar I was purely focused on what he said on foreign affairs matters now the other thing he also said is this I know that the media in the world paid attention to when he said I'm going to go to the disputed islands and then plant a flag there and I'm going to go there with a jet ski that got the attention of people but it actually was a two paragraph statement you know half comical statement that he made he actually said I will not go to war with China because we will not really mean it it will be a massacre and I will not waste the lives of Filipino soldiers and policemen what am I a fool I will not that and then he made a joke on the jet ski and all because he had to make the jet ski statement so that he doesn't look like his treasonous or is giving up on the Philippines and in many ways if you look at Duterte he uses tough man image to present himself as a Nixon who could go to China and it sells as we will look at the surveys later on now shortly after his inauguration he made very clear as far as the arbitration award is concerned which was at the center of all discussions in the region Shangla dialect among others he was ultimately a party pooper he said essentially I won't flaunt the arbitration award to taunt the Chinese in the South China Sea he made it very clear few hours after his inauguration Foreign Secretary Yasa he said we want close the friends from how the previous administration described China and before going to the ASEAN summit and before saying certain unsavory things about Obama he actually said he's not going to raise arbitration issue on more in the multilateral fora because he believes that this is a purely bilateral issue which is again a remarkable departure from the previous administration which presented arbitration award as a matter of global rule of law now now five factors and I encourage you to buy the book later on in series of joint articles I think explain why the territory has been such has been able to bring such level of change in Philippine foreign policy the first one is the anti-establishment rejection of status quo sounds familiar right I mean his campaign was not about just getting presidency his campaign was about discrediting the liberal elite that replaced the Marcus dictatorship for the last three decades so when he kicked them out of office he didn't just kick them out of office in terms of their domestic foreign policy domestic policies but it was also rejection of the entire policy of the liberal elite that occupied the Philippines in the last three decades including the liberal elites alliance with the United States or unconditional alliance in the United States the second factor we have to be very clear with this is the phenomenon of authoritarianization and concentration of power in the US when Trump won the Democratic party is still the Democratic party you still see protests I was there during the elections in US I saw protests every single day after the protests but in the case of US there was massive defection the moment that the one the opposition party won from 110 to 30 people and suddenly the you know the previous party became a minority and whoever there to challenge him was essentially destroyed on social media in terms of the reputation and among other things and the supreme court has not also shown much independence so you have a massive defection of the state institutions so the principle of checks and balances is in a state of hibernation in the Philippines and that's a process of authoritarianization not to mention he came into office with one of the lowest trust ratings sounds familiar right but right after he became president he got the highest trust rating ever at 92% so you also have a culture whereby if you win the office suddenly people will also give you the benefit of the doubt something that we don't see in the case of Trump now the other thing this is where I think sometimes the threat that makes sense sometimes of course it makes sense on foreign policy issue and it's issue of doubt over American security commitments we have an alliance with Americans but under the Obama administration there was a little bit of wishy washiness on how far the alliance is relevant to our claims in the South China Sea and our disputes with China personally as Admiral Harris of Pacific Command I asked James Steinberg among others does that mean that in an event of conflict between Philippines and China over Scarborough shore or over other land features will the mutual defense treaty be activated and I never got a straight answer and for Duterte he used that opportunity to say the Americans are never really that reliable and they're using the Philippines as a dagger to point at China and we should not be used in this situation and let the big powers just slug it out and let us out of the picture that was his position and later on we'll see that he actually has affected public opinion with that argument. The fourth thing is this while the US was a little bit wishy-washy on how far they were willing to go for us in an event of conflict the Chinese were very clear about the matrix of carrots and sticks if Duterte did not change Philippine foreign policy if you know Duterte met the Chinese ambassador more than any other diplomat before and after his presidency and I'm very sure the Chinese made it very clear if you continue what your predecessor did we're going to make life hell for you guys and we're going to squeeze you in scar partial we're going to squeeze you in the spread the chain of islands we're going to impose sanctions on and so forth but if you change your tone and potentially your policy we'll give you heaven and heaven could mean 25 billion dollars of economic assistance among other things and then lastly is the personalization of foreign policy this is very unique with Duterte but now with Trump in the picture it's not very unique if you notice with Duterte he always use the term he tends to use the term not always but he tends to use the term I I will separate from America I will join China's ideological flow I don't like Americans so on and so forth and whenever he feels his policies are being criticized he takes it personally and he lashes back and that explains why he also is personal when he causes other leaders so these five factors explain why the Philippines has had significant amount of recalibration of foreign policy nonetheless these are the prospects and challenges without the question I think is the most powerful man in the Philippines since Marcos without even declaring martial law and then the thing is this yes he has taken a strategic leap of faith in terms of engagement with China but it's not clear whether there'll be any breakthrough I was with the Chinese foreign ministry and I've met some of their directors in charge of maritime delimitation last December and I didn't get any idea whether there has been even a modus vivendi between the two sides on how to move forward and score a partial but if you look at media coverage and public opinion it's as if there's already a modus vivendi so there's a gap between actual policy and impression outside as I've been arguing since June Duterte will not dispense with the alliance with the United States he knows that could be a red line for the military and it's only the military taking out of power at this point in time nonetheless there has been a recalibration there has been a cancellation of two major military exercises so far the FIBLEX and the CARAT exercises and then the the Balikatan exercises will be relocated from the South China Sea to a less controversial area so these are all the concessions that Duterte is giving to the Chinese while he's engaging in the strategic flirtation so there has been a downgrade but not for the bilateral relationship but things could change under Donald Trump and we'll discuss that very quickly later on now the thing is this the situation is very fluid public sentiment continues to be negative towards China and public sentiment continues to be positive towards US most Filipinas as we'll see in the survey later on just here so this is public opinion of China until 2015 by SWES but this is the latest one it got December 6 to 11 United States is the most trusted country there in Japan I don't know what happened with Great Britain maybe this is the cost of the Brexit even the awareness of Britain is lower than Russia so you see EU and Britain have a very low I think it's really the Brexit thing but you can see how low China and Russia's approval rating is compared to Japan and United States so despite all of the things that Duterte has been saying still United States continues to be popular among Filipinas now people were asked should the Philippine government assert its claim in the West Philippine Sea it's not the permanent court of arbitration it was an arbitral tribunal this is a mistake everyone makes so you can see that 84% believe that the government should stand its ground on this issue now the question was security-defense relations with the US have they been beneficial to the Philippines this is where Duterte has made a difference multiple instances I've been going to when I went to the airport as a driver as some sort of reflection of public opinion I heard them lecturing me about how US is unreliable country how US is the number one by a letter of human rights these are things that I thought are unimaginable in Manila these are things I used to hear in Amman in Tehran in Turkey but I never thought I will hear these things in the Philippines and I asked them where do you get your idea I listened to the president during his radio talks and as you know President Duterte is kind of like Hugo Chavez he shows, he talks for 3-4 hours and eventually has an impact so if you look at it people are asking do you think US is beneficial to the Philippines only 47% said yes 33% are undecided which is fascinating so doubt is creeping in and Duterte has done a good job of planting doubt about the utility of the Philippine alliance with the US and that has allowed him to make these shifts otherwise he would have risk a popular backlash now nonetheless people still have a high approval rating of what the US has done to help the Philippines which is at 85% so there is some element of schizophrenia there but on one thing the public is clear there is a very low support for diversification of Philippine foreign policy towards China and Russia both China and Russia have a similar levels of very low trust among the public so there is no clamor for the Philippines to diversify towards Russia and China maybe there is a clamor for more independence of foreign policy but not towards Russia and China nonetheless very quickly I am just going to wrap this up as ASEAN chair the Philippines will not raise the arbitration award there will be more focus on infrastructure connectivity and macro-micro regional economic integration and I think Duterte will do his best to use the ASEAN as a showcase to do some sort of PR rehabilitation because the Philippine image has not been on its bets over the past few months there will be two initiatives that will be pushed forward by August or September one is the Manila Declaration to combat the rise of radicalization, ISIS is a big problem particularly in the Philippines and the second one is the ASEAN joint declaration and Decade of Maritime Cooperation essentially it's the usual ASEAN process of pushing for negotiation of COC I am very pessimistic it's going to go anywhere that's why my proposal is why not sign a COC among ASEAN claimant states per se and then later on shame the Chinese to join it again I talked to the Chinese officials they have given me no indications that they are interested in any COC legally binding COC things to watch out for I think Duterte himself made it very clear that if the Chinese unilaterally siphon off resources within the Philippine EEZ like what the Chinese did to Vietnam with the old rig deployment in 2014 he could change that but for him to change that he also has to see a change in the US administration policy so far the indication is the Trump administration will take a softer stance on human rights issues Rex Tillerson repeatedly refused to categorize Duterte as human rights violator when Marco Rubio grilled him during the hearing President Trump according to Duterte actually said you're doing the right thing on your war and drugs and I haven't heard a single denial by the Trump transition team back then and the Trump administration right now and apparently so far the Duterte administration is very optimistic that probably they can try to deal with the US where but the US will continue the shipment of firearms to the Philippine National Police continue the Millennium Challenge Corporation fund which is $400 million but was postponed by the Obama administration based on human rights ground in exchange Duterte may return some of the military exercises that were cancelled out and open the basing access so some sort of negotiation behind the scenes could be in the offing so if the Chinese opt the ante in the South China Sea Duterte finds a new modus vivendi with Trump he could go back to the previous policy of the Philippines which is a little bit keep a health distance from China which is not the case right now lastly since we are here okay what happened okay never mind lastly so since this is about Japan and Australia I think so far Japan and hopefully to a certain degree Australia have done a very good job in terms of engaging Duterte my advice consistently to our allies was that you have to understand that as much as you have to be concerned with the human rights issue 80% of Filipinas support the war on drugs albeit with certain caveats he's a very popular president with more than 80% approval ratings so the best way forward is to notch the president towards fighting the war on drugs in the right way and that means drug rehabilitation with 1 million people surrendering we need to at least rehabilitate 2-3% of that so you're talking about 20-30,000 patients needing high level of rehabilitation and that's going to be quite expensive so the EU has finally moved forward in that direction the Abe administration during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit made it clear that they will support us I think the other thing that middle powers like Australia and Japan should do is to convince the Duterte administration to give the US shot the fact that Abe met Trump to share with Duterte and say don't worry this is a different guy this is not Obama and for sure that's what Abe did when he visited Duterte not to mention Prime Minister Abe has done a very good job of engaging in proactive personal diplomacy he didn't only visit Manila he also visited Davao but he didn't only visit Davao he visited Duterte's home and had a breakfast there these small subtle things matter in Asian diplomacy and not to mention Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has tried to match every penny or renminbi or yen that the Chinese have put on the table so if the Chinese offer $24 billion in pledges Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has offered almost $9 billion which is the single biggest package of aid to a country in addition to $15 billion I think of business to business deal it's important for allies like Japan and Australia to make sure the Philippines is not overwhelmed by the Chinese statecraft and to support the war on drugs by changing the president towards rehabilitation and lastly I think the best thing that the allies could do is to not get a little bit more of a moderation and sense into the new administration in the United States we have heard some names like Victor Cha we have heard of course General James Mattis we have a number of folks within the Asia team of the Trump administration that are very nuanced in understanding what's happening in this part of the world we have to strengthen those voices of nuance and moderation within that administration so I still have hope that despite all of the unorthodox statement coming out of the Philippines and the United States policy-wise there is still an optimal balance that we can find but nonetheless nowadays it's very difficult to ignore extraordinary marks by the presidents thank you very much Richard and three very rich presentations then with some common themes I think expressed differently we have about 10 minutes for questions if I can call for questions from the floor before we go to lunch Bill thanks Marina I'm struck in a session on regional challenges that nobody has mentioned Korean Peninsula whereas many I think in Washington see a provocation and potential escalation there was a potential early challenge for a Trump administration and contingency on the Korean Peninsula the US would be looking to Australia obviously and Japan in a different way to assist this would immediately provoke dilemmas for the ROK and for Japan in terms of a Japanese role even if that were largely a passive one my question I guess for the panel is what calculations would there be if China intervened to seize North Korea weapons of mass destruction or to challenge a US move north of the 38th parallel what would a Trump administration do in these circumstances there's also been speculation recently fuelled by Kim Jong-un about the possibility of North Korean ICBM test President Trump said I think before the inauguration that it won't happen but what policy options are in fact if there is such a test because in action or in effectiveness could undermine confidence in the US commitment to defence of its allies I'd be interested in views of the panel on that I think that's a good question I didn't say much about the Korean Peninsula because the issues that we're dealing with in Korea are the same that we've discussed for the last 10-15 years I think what Trump would do, God knows I think it is worthwhile reflecting that the last country to really acquire a working ICBM capability to hit the continental US with China what was it 40 years ago we've talked so much about the North Koreans achieving that that I think them actually doing and demonstrating it may well be a lot more significant than we've conditioned ourselves to believe I think it quite imaginable that Trump would order if possible to just shoot down test missile that's been discussed with tests in the past certainly in terms of if the missile veered towards Japan I do think that in many ways what James discussed in that scenario but also in this scenario that you mentioned about Chinese invasion there's a lot of uncertainty about what he will do I think it will decrease the willingness of allies to queue too closely to the US line not really understanding what that line is on the other hand I do think that it will also give more pause for thought to the Chinese about what that reaction would be so I think in that sense I'm not sure that the Trump administration I think things will be maybe even more interesting than they otherwise would have been under other presidents but I'm not sure that in a case like that the balance really is all that bad for regional stability joining the conference in Beijing together with North Korean delegates and the head of the head of the North Korean delegation said it was reported I couldn't say the content but it was reported in the news media that she said six party talk is dead and it means that we cannot continue to use the previous policy towards North Korea but we cannot adapt to the new policy which fits to their desire so now we are in a deadlock and also the more problematic thing is that Korean ROK politics maybe this year we will see perhaps progressive president perhaps Moon Jae-in or some others and of course he will show perhaps quite new policy towards North Korea and there are so many game changers in the Korean Peninsula and of course they are both North Korea are targeting at the United States not Japan their target is the United States and the United States has not yet of course shown its policy towards North Korea and until then maybe there are also many things that Japanese government can do to adapt to this crisis thank you perhaps two more questions and we might batch them Amy and one up the back we might take them together thank you great presentations my question is for Richard on the Philippines you made some very interesting arguments about the potential for the Trump administration to perhaps sort of make a deal with Duterte and move back towards closer alliance cooperation but I think the missing factor here is Capitol Hill and Congress and you know of course the other side of the Rex Tillerson questioning in his confirmation hearing was Marco Rubio who is a Republican and so I think there may be a fair number of both Democrats and Republicans that are going to continue to be very concerned and speak out perhaps with some new legislative initiatives on Duterte's drug war so I'm just interested in your take on how that would play out if Trump and his team move to soften the rhetoric on human rights you know but Congress individual or perhaps selectively Congress speaks out very forcefully on human rights how would a President Duterte react to that how would that be Ron Huskin strategic and defense studies center one of the most widely commented and I agreed phenomenon the last decade or so is that dialogue in the sense of genuine communication and engagement between Washington and Beijing has become more distanced and more difficult at the same time people have been engaged in what there's this static between the two capitals and what they're not engaging on is a rules based order in the Asia Pacific or the Indo Pacific and one of the natural responses is why don't some of the smaller people in the region if you like form what they consider to be a credible coalition engage their finest public servants to actually craft what they understand to be the foundations of order the rules and norms of order and stability in the Asia Pacific and we've proposed that in a seascape one an organization I work with a little bit so when Stefan said we might have to consider in the near future distinguishing between core and non-core rules and norms because the adverse trends are not going to get any lighter I'm tempted to ask all the panelists is that in any sense a promising regional initiative for some smaller member of the Asia Pacific to find four or five maybe not more than that partners to craft a charter if you like these are the rules and norms of stability. Okay, thank you Richard did you want to take the question on? Yeah I'll just try to be quick on both questions so I mean first of all actually last October I was in the European Union I met folks from both the European Parliament and the European Union including the Mogherina office and the thing that the EU folks were telling me and the EU commission was we didn't file any resolution against your president it was the EU Parliament and yet the president is giving us the middle finger to both of us so there seems to be a problem in the part of the deterred administration to distinguish between executive and parliamentary branches so that is a legitimate concern that's why they say power tends to crop and power points tend to crop also equally so I don't have enough time to discuss that but I think with the deterred administration there is some concerted effort in the part of his cabinet to convince him that there should be some nuanced distinction made between the Trump executive branch and the Capitol Hill which clearly will go against him including Marco Rubio I won't be surprised if McCain will also go against him on that issue but I think the deterred administration now has no choice but to make that distinction but at the minimum they will appreciate if the Trump administration will try to stand up to the Congress on the issue of deployment of firearms to the Philippine National Police and that's $400 million Millennium Challenge Corporation fund so there's going to be some tussle for sure interagency inter branches of government tussle but Duterte will appreciate at the very least at least Trump will not go after him or the State Department will not go after him and then of course the other assumption is Duterte will continue his war on against drugs in the current form which may not necessarily be the case that's why our friends in the EU in Japan and others are coming in and trying to notch this administration towards rehabilitation and guess which country first established rehabilitation in the Philippines China so this is my point it's not done deal yet I see some complication but so far it says people in the Malacanian are very optimistic with the Trump administration it could be a little bit unfounded but you know that sense of naive optimism could still work to revive by latter relationship and if that helps our alliance why not and on the issue of China US why not in a smaller country stepping up to the plate I mean this is where the whole point of ASEAN was right ASEAN centrality was precisely to make sure that the regional order is not defined by the business issues of the policy and temperament of the two big guys in the town the problem is that ASEAN centrality is now more of an aspiration than reality because ASEAN is not only based on consensus it's based on unanimity so all foreign power needs to do is to just bribe one country and in the case of ASEAN it's half of ASEAN being bribe not to agree to even disagree on issues and this is the biggest problem we have and now the Philippines as the chairman of ASEAN at its 50th anniversary I see no indication that the arbitration award will be mentioned at all and last year shortly after the arbitration award I didn't see any mention of the arbitration issue and the biggest problem I've noticed in the ASEAN countries because right after the arbitration award I was across the ASEAN countries giving speeches on the impact of arbitration and guess what the number one question I always got was this what will U.S. do it was never about the rule of law about ASEAN about Philippines so sometimes in a strange way I'm going to be a little controversial the elephant in the room doesn't seem to be China it seems to be the U.S. everyone's asking what will Trump do what will U.S. do so long as the mentality in this part of the world is that what is Trump and we have no self-reliance I believe that kind of coalition to make sure that we preserve norms of peaceful conduct and rule-based resolution of disputes will never happen and in some twisted way if Trump new isolationism will push us to be more self-reliant maybe this is the thing that the region wants that's why I love what Admiral said a while ago about sometimes unpredictability is not a bad thing but I think the biggest challenge is for the U.S. to make sure that burden-sharing which is a legitimate concern will not be burden-shedding because we still will need U.S. even if the U.S. wants to play a role from behind the scenes so we need burden-sharing but not burden-shedding and this is what we're now very concerned about Thank you Yurichu did you want to address the comment on that order? Well I largely agree with what you just said well the ASEAN centrality is in crisis and the U.S. and China have no particular interest in respecting it and maybe Japan is one of a few powers who really value the importance of the ASEAN centrality but of course Japanese influence is quite limited in the region so there are four scenarios one is continuing American leadership in the region the second is the replacement of American leadership by China the third one is a further deepening of regional cooperation and the fourth one is chaos I bet for the fourth option or the first one I mean the continuing American leadership if Donald Trump wants it if Donald President Trump does not want it continuing American leadership in the region maybe the fourth option would be quite probable in addition to perhaps the second one including China's influence in the region but anyway maybe the only reliable option is the continuing American leadership so that's why I really want President Trump to really respect some of the previous foreign policy which the United States has been constructing