 If current economic and demographic trends continue, Asia will contribute over half of the world's gross domestic product by 2050. And that will most likely mean profound changes in the world's economic and political order. You've heard it all before. We are entering. We have entered the Asian century. But what does this mean? What are the economic, political and strategic challenges in the region? And how should Australia position itself for this impending reality? Soon to be released is the federal government's White Paper Australia in the Asian century, chaired by Ken Henry, former Treasury head. The White Paper is examining how Australia can maximise the potential of the transformative economic growth and change in Asia. Just policy strategies have tended to focus on defence and security. This new White Paper will, for the first time since 1989, look at the economic impact of the rise of Asia. Who will lead the Asian century is the theme of today's discussion. And let me introduce you to our panellists. At the very end, we have Dr Asa Durran, fellow of the ANU School of Culture, History and Languages. To Asa, we have Dr Nicholas Farrelly, research fellow in the School of International Political and Strategic Studies. In 2006, Nicholas co-founded an academic website called New Mandala, based at the ANU. It provides daily analysis of social, cultural and political issues in the Southeast Asian region with particular attention to Thailand and Burma. Next to me is Dr Shiro Armstrong, research fellow in International Development Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy. He is also editor of one of the leading policy forums in the Asia Pacific, the East Asia Forum. And he is the program manager of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research. And last but not least, we have Dr Joanne Wallace, lecturer and convener of the Bachelor of Asia Pacific Security at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. Would you please make them welcome. Let's start first of all with you, Shiro. To what extent are we witnessing a significant rebalancing of global wealth and power with the rise of Asia? We've talked about this for so long now. Are we witnessing something quite profound here? Thanks, Paul. Yes, we are. We are already in an Asian century. China, India, already very large economies. China's the second largest economy now, continuing to grow very rapidly on an unprecedented scale. Just behind India, we have, sorry, behind China, we have India with a larger population that's going to continue to grow faster, but longer I think. So we're in an Asian century. Japan, the third largest economy in the world is in Asia. And right now, after the global financial crisis, we've had the United States, Europe have a bit of a setback. They've moved to a slower growth trajectory facing some problems that will take a while to sort out. And so I think the Asian century is on upon us faster than we could have expected. And the type of growth we've been seeing is likely to continue even if in slightly reduced growth rates? Yes, I think that's fairly reasonable to say. There are obviously some risks and there will be some slowdown as countries reach that next phase of growth and development where they can't grow at 10% per year. For three decades, I might drop down to 8% or 7.5%. But that's still a doubling of your economy every seven to 10 years. So it's rapid growth and it will continue, most likely continue. But I think it'll be here for a long time. Yeah, Joanne, how do you see it? Is the rise of Asia as massive as many people are predicting at the moment? Yeah, I definitely think it is. And I think it raises very serious issues for Australia to consider in the coming century and that's why I'm glad that the white paper is happening. I just hope that some of my concerns are raised in the white paper. I think, I mean, Shirou has talked about the rise of the Asian powers. We have to add to that the changing nature of US power and how US power is being rebalanced in the region. And that is going to have quite serious impacts, I think, for Australia's security and for the security of the region as well. So it's definitely something that we need to be paying serious attention to at the moment. You're talking there about the interaction between China and the US, in particular the fact that the US feels rather insecure at the moment with the growth of China. And of course, we've just seen the US reach a deal with Australia for a greater military presence up north, highlighting the difficult position Australia is in here, as we call it, the discrepancy between our history and our geography. We've long had a close strategic relationship with the US. Our principal economic relationship now is with China. It's a sort of interesting illustration of some of the dilemmas ahead, isn't it? Yeah, it definitely is. And I think we all hope that Australia doesn't have to face a choice in the near future. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we may have to between our strong economic power, so partner, which is China, and our traditional, you know, alliance security partner with the US. And, you know, it will be difficult for Australia to make the decision. I think to an extent, we might have already foreshadowed the way that we will decide by agreeing to have the US troops stationed in Darwin and by other moves that we've made to bring ourselves closer to the US in recent months. But that's not to say that, you know, as our economic situation changes, that we might find it very difficult to turn our back on China if we were forced to make a decision. Nicholas, are we looking mainly at an economic ascendancy when we talk about the rise of Asia? Or is there more to it than that? Certainly, I think there is more to it than that, Paul. What we're seeing now is a shifting of cultural and political weight towards Asia as well. Countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Korea, these aren't the ones that we usually think about in the top tier of Asian nations. But there's no doubt in my mind that in the 21st century, these will be countries that will be throwing their weight around, a great deal more. Some of them will be working in partnership with the Indias and the Chinas. This will for a country such as Australia require all sorts of fancy footwork. Perhaps, as Joanne suggested, some of the decisions have already been made. But there's no doubt in my mind that there'll be further decisions, further pressure points, further opportunities for Australia to recalibrate its positioning as conditions emerge over the years ahead. And this will be a challenge for absolutely everyone. So we'll see an ascendancy in political power and influence in the region as well with some of these countries. Indonesia, I suppose, the country on our doorstep. Well, we've had a historically sort of interesting relationship. I mean, how do you think that political ascendancy will manifest itself? I'd anticipate that for those Australians who still labor under the misapprehension that Indonesia is weak, Indonesia is a basket case, Indonesia is anti-democratic, Indonesia doesn't need to be taken seriously, will, one day very shortly, get quite a serious wake-up. And we're all going to need to be coming to grips with the fact that Indonesia and its leadership will be hoping to shape this region in its own image. Australia will be an important partner in that process. But this is a process that is likely to be led not by the United States or by Australia but by the Indonesians themselves. They see the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as the key vehicle for doing so. And I'd expect that Australia needs to be working in concert with their priorities if we hope to get the most out of that relationship in the years ahead. And what about China? When we talk about China and its political power, what are we talking about there? Are we talking about hegemonic leadership by China? Or what are we talking about? I think we're talking about a return to much older patterns. And across the areas of Southeast Asia that at least I study most seriously, the Chinese never really went away. There are large numbers of Chinese, overseas Chinese, as they're sometimes described, who have fanned out across that region over many centuries. They're now being pulled into the Chinese orbit ever more consistently. Chinese migration to countries like Burma and Laos is a really serious issue. I think we need to be considering the Chinese as the most significant power in our neck of the woods for the foreseeable future. This means that the Chinese will call some of the shots and all of those countries that have close relationships and borders with China doing whatever they can to make sure they can do this safely and effectively. I think, Joanne, you might have wanted to respond to that. Oh, I'd like to respond, but I can let you. Shiro, OK. OK, thanks. I agree with a lot of what Nick said. The rise of Chinese political power, it's a different political system to what we're used to. As it becomes the largest economy in the world very soon, depending on the projections, it will become the largest economy in the world. And then by far over a few decades, no doubt its political power will grow, but there's a lag. And so it's how the rest of the region in the United States comes to terms with dealing with this new kid on the block, new big political power in China and India. And I think just getting back to Indonesia and Australia, that's where we can play a role. So these middle powers, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia, I think that's where we can play a role in facilitating more dialogue, smoother transition to the extent that we can. But when you talk about China becoming, Joanne, the world's biggest economic power, political power comes with economic power. And I suppose the nervousness which some people feel is just how will that political power be exercised in our region? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I probably disagree with Nick slightly. I mean, I think we've talked a lot about the rise of China, but we shouldn't write the US off just yet. And there is a difference between economic and political power and military power. And as Shiro has highlighted, there is a lag between the time that you develop your economic power and then the political power and then the military power that follows. And yes, China will be a force to be reckoned with in the region, but we shouldn't write the US off equally. We shouldn't write off India and Indonesia and the fact that they're going to have. And I think this is the real crux of the issue for me in this coming, or this Asian century that we're living in is that we've been very comfortable for the last 40 years in an Asian Pacific that has been dominated by the US and has had the security guarantee effectively provided by the US, which has allowed all this economic development to happen. Yes, China's rising, but we're going to have to get used to a system where there isn't a leader anymore, where the US is no longer the great power, but nor is China a great enough power to dominate the system either. And I think when we talk about China, we always have to take into account how the US will respond. And I think we shouldn't focus too much. I think China will have an influence, but there will always be a level of US pushback. And I think we should also take into account that a lot of Southeast Asian states have already indicated their receptiveness to the US becoming more involved in the region, even more than they are. And I think we can see this in the moment with the way the Philippines has been encouraging the US to become involved in the issues that are happening in the South China Sea. So I think we do really don't need to write off the US. Why is that? Why are the Southeast Asian countries encouraging US presence? Is that as a balance against Chinese power in the region? Yeah, I would perceive it as a hedge against Chinese power for sure. And at the same time, we shouldn't be too hasty to assume that China necessarily wants to exercise its power in the region for any kind of malevolent goals. I mean, everything that the Chinese government has been saying and their recent Congress has indicated that China's preoccupations are primarily internal. They're concerned with regime consolidation with territorial issues. So I think that Southeast Asian states are looking into the future and seeing that perhaps China in the future might want to exercise its power externally. But for the time being, it does seem to be primarily concerned with internal issues. That's why these Southeast Asian states are just inviting the US in as a preparation for what might come. Asa, feel free to come in on this if you want. I was going to come to you on Southeast Asia in just a moment, but I just wanted to stick with China for a little bit longer because we're asking this question today, who will lead the Asian century? Will China lead the Asian century? And if it does, does that imply a change to the Western style of leadership that the region has been subjected to? Any thoughts on that? I mean, I think we're a bit obsessed with China, unfortunately. And I mean, maybe we're in the Crawford School of Economics and it's all about economy. But as an anthropologist, I want to throw some culture in. And it seems to me. We need some culture. Yeah. It seems to me that what we're missing here in the elephant in the room is that China simply is not a democratic country. Whereas India, which is the second largest country in the. Come in. In the area is very much, at least, adhering to the values, aspirations, and wants that many people in Australia certainly abide by and see as something to follow suit. And likewise, in terms of India's influence, in terms of the cultures that it disseminate, whether it would be its film industry, its literary industry, there's many things that I think we can look to India, rather to the Chinese economy as the beacon of the Asian century. So I think we need to de-center China a little bit. Yeah. Yes, China has tended to overshadow the remarkable growth in India, hasn't it? And you're correct to make that point, that India may be a flawed democracy, but it is a democracy nonetheless. Nicholas, how concerned should we be that the world's largest economic power is likely to be and likely to remain a non-democratic country that will be exerting considerable political influence on our region? Paul, I think this is a tremendously important issue, and it's an issue that we tend to shy away from when we focus our attention on those remarkable growth figures and everything that goes with it. Anyone who's been to China in recent years appreciates the galloping pace with which Chinese society has been transformed in at least certain aspects. Are they going to be exporting their model of political administration more broadly? Perhaps there'd be those who would, on the Chinese side of the equation, expect that that's a smart way to go, but I reckon they will run into serious pushback all over the world if that was to be their approach. They expect that not everyone would like to embrace that model of political organization. Certainly in Southeast Asia, there have been so many experiments with democracy now that have taken folk who never had an opportunity to have a say and given them some voice efforts to recalibrate political organization along Chinese lines, I think would be very dangerous indeed. Well, contrary to wanting to export that Chinese model, I suppose the flip side of that, as you may well be, is that model going to be sustainable in the long term? It's brought these phenomenal rates of growth now. Will it continue to be able to be able to deliver that in the next decade or two? Right, I think you're spot on. That's a key question. Yes, the current system is not attractive from where we sit. We have to remember it's all very dynamic. And as the economy develops, as people become more economically free, economic liberalization continues, political liberalization is already underway. There are a lot more freedoms than there used to be. Sure, it's not what we recognize as a very representative system, but there are forces moving in the right direction. And so I think we can't discount those and look at it statically from where we sit now. Let's move on to Southeast Asia. As a Malaysia, Singapore, much of Southeast Asia, we've seen remarkable stability with the political elites. Not much change for a considerable period of time. Do you expect that to continue in those countries? I mean, we're seeing some change, obviously in Burma, in Myanmar, a slight liberalization occurring there. How do you see that happening, playing out? My focus area is more the South Asia. And that's what I think is quite fascinating when you compare it to Southeast Asia, because the South Asian region itself is the ruling elites, the government have been very much kind of cemented in their ways. The ruling parties, the military regimes in Pakistan, in Sri Lanka, what we've seen, and other places, except perhaps, again, India is the outlayer where you have a very much vibrant democratic system where there's much more representative government in power, currently in the central government, but also in the states. I think the Southeast Asia question, like you just mentioned, yes, it does show remarkable stability as well as dynamism. But I think what we need to really focus on is the other states in South Asia and to see whether some of these so-called failed states will fare in the near future. Yes, we will come to that actually. Joanne, I was talking about stability there, but if you look at Malaysia, North Korea, Thailand, Myanmar, we are seeing significant leadership transitions in those countries over the past few years. What do you think those changes tell us about leadership in the Asian region today? To be honest, I'm not really that well-qualified to speak about Southeast Asia, so I might pass that to someone like... But is there... Is there going to lead onto a question really, about is there an Asian way of leadership in the region? So I think if you listen to some of Southeast Asia's strongmen, they'd like to convince us that there's an Asian way of leadership and it's their way. I don't think we should take that at face value, though. Certainly, Asian leaders tend to conjure up certain cultural resources for purposes that then prove important, especially at transitional moments. And as you noted, Paul, there have been countries all over the region that have had relatively recent leadership transitions. Those are transitions that are seeing new waves of leaders emerge in certain countries. It remains to be seen exactly how they see fit to present themselves internationally. But as the economic weight shifts ever more to Asia, surely there will be confident Asian leaders who will want to insist that their way of doing things needs to be considered an international norm. That would be something quite different for those who've imagined leadership in parliamentary terms, in the terms that have emerged in the United States and Europe in recent centuries. Perhaps the Asian century does give us different kinds of leadership. These are big and as yet untested matters, but it strikes me that this is an important discussion to have. Shiro, if we were having this conversation 20 years ago about Asian leadership, Japan would have been at the very forefront of the discussion. This is a country that had incredible post-war growth and restructuring. Now, it's had two decades of economic stagnation. It's of course got many domestic challenges following the tsunami, the nuclear crisis, the earthquake. What's the position of Japan today? It's a difficult position, but it's a good question. Japan often gets left out of these discussions. Not because it's not important, it's because it's, for the reasons you mentioned, becoming increasingly inward-looking. And they do have some big problems they're dealing with. Weak political leadership. We were on our sixth prime minister in six years. It's amazing. There's a demographic, huge demographic crunch. It's like the Italian, really, isn't it? Right. Actually, a nice statistic is, since the Democratic Party of Japan came into power two and a half years ago, the average tenure of a cabinet minister is less than nine months. So talk about leadership. And so it's got a huge aging population that's shrinking rapidly. These are big problems you have to deal with and a massive government debt. And so these are big problems on top of all that throw in a nuclear disaster and a tsunami. And you can't blame the country for not showing proactive leadership in the region. But at the same time, I think it's always important to recognize things do get done in Japan. Not major reforms, but bureaucracy is strong. It's a very strong society. Things do still move. It's very prosperous and safe country. So it can't be discounted. It's still a very large, large economy. Does the region, I'm interested in how the panel feels about this, does the region need a stronger and more outward looking Japan? Because these domestic crises have tended to make Japan, I suppose, necessarily look inwardly at its domestic challenges. But would the region benefit from Japan once again, looking outwardly? I'll jump in first. Yep, sure. You have the stage. I think we really would like to see a return of Japanese leadership. They have a large economy. They have resources, they have technology and capacity to show leadership. And they have in the past, the APEC, Asia Pacific Economic Corporation body. It was crucially Australia and Japan led and created. That was a public good that both countries provided. And we need that sort of leadership, institutional reform, the Asia Development Bank was a Japan led initiative. I think it's a crucial time actually for Australia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, these middle powers. Japan can be considered now middle power, if you will, to play a role. Nikolas? So if you take the example of Burma's current transition, and as I do, you make a habit of reading the Burmese government's mouthpiece newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, you might know that in The New Light of Myanmar, there are almost daily reports trumpeting the investments, the donations and all the rest that are coming from Japan to Burma. We might ask ourselves, how is it that the Japanese at a moment of particular crisis in their own society and economy are looking to a place like Burma to wield some of their current influence? They're still I think quite active on the international scene in all sorts of quiet ways, which wouldn't otherwise be recognised unless we took the time to read The New Light of Myanmar. I commend it to all of you. But just on that puzzling and disturbing figure of six prime ministers in six years, of course, Koizuma was in power for a relative stretch of time before that. Six years about. Yeah, so to what do we attribute this period of political instability? Well, the simple answer is the electoral system there and it's difficult to create a majority and so you have fluid factions and low popularity, low opinion polling, not dissimilar to Australia where you have the minority government. But more interestingly, I think it's these huge problems and no leader has been able to articulate a strategy. And so on top of all the bad ratings without a big strategy and because of the fluid factions, there's no ideology between the parties. They're looking very similar between the factions. There's not much difference in policy or policy convictions. So it's open slather and a revolving door of leaders. Yes. So okay, as this Asian region gets wealthier and countries economically develop and we see these huge growth rates. What also happens of course is that we get economic inequality developing in the region. Some countries growing at far faster rates than others, a gap widens. Nicholas, what will happen as a result of that economic gap widening? Can we see on the horizon some tensions developing as a result of it? I think this is a huge issue for basically every Asian society to deal with. How are they going to manage inequality in the decades ahead? If we were to take the example of Thailand, one of the key drivers of political conflict in Thailand this past half a decade or so has been not absolute poverty, but relative poverty. Poverty based in inequality. Perhaps the poverty of envy. There's a pithy line. If you want to understand Thailand's redshirt movement, they are the aggrieved with assets. So they are the ones who've done okay. Maybe they have a motorbike. They've got karaoke at home. I've got the big flat screen TV. They can send their kids to a good school. But they'd actually like more out of life and they see more in Thai society. They feel like they're missing out on it and so they want to do something about it and part of Thailand's recent episodes of political conflict can be explained through that lens. How does that play out in India? I think it's a very similar case. I mean, the Indian middle class is growing and it's becoming a major consuming power and they also want their fair share in the sun, like us. And they're unable to get it. But they're unable to get it. I think the source, at least the day attributed is to the government. There's no infrastructure. There's power cuts constantly. There's no water. There's sewage. These basic amenities that they want to enjoy as participants in the global economy are just not there. And so they are mobilizing around key movements. The latter is the Anasari movement, which actually championed the whole idea of let's make this government more transparent. Let's stop the corruption. Let's provide the amenities, the infrastructure that we need in this country. So people are venting and it's a huge concern. Infrastructure provision in a country like India too would be incredibly expensive. I know you've looked at the issue of mobile phone use in India and all contemporary citizens of a modern society want the best mobile phones, but I'd imagine that setting up a comprehensive mobile phone network through India would be a rather big challenge. Well, there's two things. I mean, one thing, if you look at the last census of India, they found out that more people have mobile phones than toilets in their homes. And that's actually, I mean, it's ironic, but it's quite sad in some ways because what you have actually two days ago, the Indian Minister for Rural Development also noted that why is India so obsessed with its agony missiles rather than actually caring for the population to have these basic amenities like toilets and so on? In terms of the mobile phone, India is remarkable. There's over 900 million mobile phone subscribers in India. There's about out of those, let's say 600 million headsets, 200 million entering each year. The infrastructure for mobile phone is just staggering. India is saturated with towers all over its landscape. And what does this mean? When there's power cuts, these towers have to have diesel operated engines. There's hundreds and hundreds of thousands of liters of diesel pouring in to maintain this infrastructure so people can speak on the phone. And the air pollution, now it constitutes the majority of air pollution in India. Now this is just, I'm just giving you the tip of the iceberg, but just sustaining this remarkable infrastructure of mobile telephony has been a major feat in India and they've been quite successful in that. Hopefully they look to renewable energy in that sense. Joanne, I suppose if you look at the other end of the spectrum in the region, we're talking about these poor countries and the Pacific, some of them states that are struggling to keep it together, the Solomon Islands in recent years. Is there any likelihood though that they, that those smaller Pacific island states can benefit from growth in Asia? China, for example, is a reasonably big aid donor, a very big aid donor in the region. So could they benefit from the rise of these, you know, the super Asian growth giants? Yeah, well the Pacific, I mean quite a few Pacific island states have adopted a look north policy where they have specifically chosen to look to China as opposed to their traditional relationships with Australia, New Zealand and to a lesser extent the US. And look China is a large aid donor, as is Japan incidentally as well. But Chinese aid can have quite perverse consequences in the Pacific. There's no doubt that the money is needed and that there are high levels of poverty, but the fact that a lot of Chinese aid is provided without conditions and in perhaps less than transparent circumstances means that it can fuel corruption and patronage, which can have quite negative consequences for democracy. So yes, you know, traded investment from China is a positive thing, but at the same time, their aid program can have quite negative effects. Yeah. Shiro, what scope is there in this rapidly changing Asian region for Australia's role? I mean, how will our role change? Is it likely to be mainly an economic role or should we and can we play a major political leadership role in the region? Well, we have to be pretty careful, I suppose, not to overstate the role we can play politically. Economically, I think, we are already playing a major role. We're a secure and stable energy supplier to a lot of Asia, Northeast Asia, with a single largest source of raw materials to China, Japan, and so we're helping fuel their growth. And so I think that's a pretty important starting point. We are important to these Asian countries and keeping our supply secure and open to them is important. And as for the role we can play politically, I think we're not going to be able to do anything alone. That's a good starting point. We're going to have to continue to create, reform, and shape institutions in the region and globally so that we can facilitate more dialogue, cooperation, and understanding, I think, between these big powers. How do countries in Asia perceive the role of Australia in the region, I suppose, is another way of phrasing it? Yeah, that's, I guess, that's an interesting one. A lot of the audience here will have opinions about that because I think the audience is broadly from a lot of, throughout Asia. I think the fact that we are such an important energy supplier is often under looked because there are no problems. Really, there's a few hiccups here and there. Sometimes you look like we're discriminating and not letting investment in. But for the rest of Asia, I'm not sure I can really speak for the rest of Asia, but I think this, when we try to push too hard too quickly on setting up some institutions, or I think we need to do it the Asian way and talk more instead of trying to lead. And I think Australia is in no position to play a vocal leadership role. But I think I said this is important to play a leadership role. Well, I suppose the point I'm getting at here is do Asian nations in fact want Australia to have broader engagement in the Asian region? Nicholas, your thoughts on that? Thanks, Paul. Certainly there's an appetite out there for Australia to remain a partner in regional fora to continue to be a broker in various region wide arrangements, but we need to temper our ambitions. This will be a region that is determined by the jousting of major players. And Australia in the foreseeable future will have no role at the very highest tables, perhaps at the second tier though. Australia can play a very productive role. We can be a moderating influence. Perhaps we can encourage those countries that are unsure about the virtues of a more democratic system that actually they'll benefit from embracing the institutions of a free media and more open political participation. This is something that Australia can in very quiet ways, perhaps insist would be in everybody's best interests, but we need to go about it with utter respect and humility and at least under some circumstances that doesn't come naturally to all Australians. Yeah, that's an understatement. Joanne, how well prepared is Australia for intensifying that engagement in those relationships? Do we have a clue, frankly? I wish we did, but I don't think that we really do. President and company excluded, of course. Yeah, well, I mean, it's hard when you're at the ANU, you can get quite a biased view because of course we're all in the College of Asian Pacific, we're occupied with Asian Pacific, but in wider Australian society, at the level of the government, I don't think the government has really come to terms with the fact that they are living in the nation's century, that the power structure is changing and that Australia's reality is going to have to change with it. And I think a large part of that, I would agree with what Nick said, and I think we need a huge dose of modesty in our approach to the region. And we also need to get to know the region a lot more. I mean, my colleague, Hugh White, the Strategic and Defence Study Centre, has put forward this proposal that Australia send a lot more students to Indonesia and to other Asian countries to learn a language, to familiarise ourselves with the culture and then for also vice versa for those Asian countries to get to know us. And I think that would have a lot of legs and would be a good first step in that regard. We saw this play out with India, didn't we? Also, recently, the attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and there was big news in India. And they weren't impressed, really, with how it was handled in Australia. To put it mildly. I did some field work about my current project on mobile phones in India and I went to interview someone who repairs mobile phones on the street. They kind of tweaked the mobiles and repaired them and he asked me where I'm from and I said, from Australia, he said, I'm not talking to you. Really? Simply like that. I mean, just at the level that the Indian media has taken this to, I don't think that it's all justified, but what I'm trying to say is that it really perforated down to the lowest common denominator. And the kind of view that Indians have of Australia is really, really gone down. That's very unfortunate. And again, I agree with what's been said here. I think, you know, A and U, we're in a position that we're really trying to kind of lead that the study of Asia and there's really productive and important efforts to try and boost Asia and South Asia, but you don't see that in Australia by and large and language is remarkably important. I mean, Australia needs to wake up that, for example, in India, only a miniscule amount of people speak English. We all think they do, but they don't and there's dozens of languages there. So it's incumbent, I think, upon Australia if we want to engage with Asia more rather than be seen as an outpost of British colony or somewhere. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that we are genuinely engaging? Is this the responsibility, chiefly, of the government or is it all of our responsibility, the responsibility of citizens in Australia as a part of Asia, the business community? Nicholas? Hey, of course, it's got to be everybody's responsibility to take the Asian century seriously. It's in every individual Australian's personal and private interest to do so, but I don't actually imagine that the transformative investments that are required, the changes to national ideology and all the rest will come from some groundswell of support. In fact, that's very unlikely. It requires leadership and it requires leaders who are prepared to put something on the line, perhaps take a few risks, perhaps be in a position where they might be vulnerable to getting burned. The sorts of engagement that Joanne just flagged, channeling Hugh White's proposal, is exactly what Australia will need to accept in the decades ahead. It will be expensive. Things will likely go wrong, but over the long term, there will be incremental changes to Australian society which will better us all and I don't see any alternative to that. What type of changes? What are you talking about? How could we be influenced? So, if you were to go out on the streets in Canberra or anywhere around Australia this afternoon, I think you'd find that there's a fair amount of superficial affection for elements of Asian societies and cultures. We all delight in eating our Pad Thai. Australian restaurants of Chinese derivation have been a fixture of every Australian country town for at least two generations. Everybody's pretty comfortable at that level, but it's the deep stuff. It's the politics, the history, the culture. How do you do business effectively? This is the hard stuff. It'll take time and it'll take money. It'll take a lot of effort. But Joanne, it's clear that Australia is benefiting enormously economically from growth in Asia. Do we therefore have a responsibility to dig deeper, to reciprocate those economic benefits with making a considerably larger effort at engaging and understanding the region? Yeah, look, I think a really simple thing to do would be for our political leaders to change their rhetoric. I mean, harping on about boat people and the threat of asylum seekers, I mean, that dominates our relationship with Indonesia. Yet there's so many more important and deep issues that we should be addressing in Indonesia. We have an Indonesian leadership at the moment that is perhaps the most receptive to Australian contact and Australian overtures that has ever seen. Yet we're, you know, we harp on about boat people and we harp on about the live export of beef. These are quite side minor issues that are being played out for domestic political gains, but they're not having any sort of long-term calculation about what this will mean for our role in the region. So I think just a very simple change of rhetoric would have a huge impact on top of all the other things that we've spoken about. Okay, if we can turn to have a look at the internal politics in some of the countries in the region. And Asar, I'll come to you again on India. We do continue to see mass movements rising from amongst the disenfranchised in India. Indeed, throughout the Asia-Pacific, specifically protests against corruption, for example, in India. What does this tell us and how much influence can those grassroots campaigns have on the entrenched political structures in a country like India? That's a good question. There's a guy who was one of the founding leaders of the untouchable caste in India in the Uttar Pradesh in North India. His name was Kanchila. And when people interviewed him on TV, he used to say that as untouchables, we occupy this side in numbers of the pen. The others are the upper castes. My aim is to turn the pen upside down. And what he did was remarkable. And he did that because UP, Uttar Pradesh, the sixth largest populated state in the world, has been ruled for some years now, recently by other backward castes, by a Dalit untouchable-based party headed by a woman called Maya Vati, who is an untouchable herself. And he himself was very much part of that engine that spearheaded this movement for the Dalit rise in Uttar Pradesh. And he did so with basic communication means. He used to go on the bicycles from village to village, on the train and stop on trains and make rallies and increase the consciousness of these oppressed untouchable castes that they too have a voice and they have the numbers. And then comes Maya Vati, his student, and she says, okay, let's use another communication technology, the mobile phones. Now, because in India, you're not human if you don't have mobile phones, everyone has a mobile phone, right? And they began to mobilize these oppressed, these people were feeling castes on a daily basis and mobilizing these people across mobile phones. And it wasn't the instrument that won the election, but it enabled the mobilization of these people in 2007 to win the elections. Similarly, with the recent ones, the OBC, the backward class by Kleshiyadab, again, another remarkable movement of people who are not upper castes who are able to turn the tables around. So real opportunities then for those grassroots movements because of their sheer numbers to actually have a democratic influence using new forms of technology like mobile phones. Yeah, let's look at another country closer to home, Joanne, the newest country in the region, Timor-Leste, what's been happening there? We've seen a bit of a surprise with the presidential elections. How is politics playing out in East Timor at the moment? Yeah, well, that was just the parliamentary elections just happened this weekend and the results are now shaking out and with that the coalition building that will be necessary to form a government in Timor. I think that the elections, both the presidential and the parliamentary, are very promising for Timor-Leste's future. They were both relatively peaceful. It shows the success and maturity, I'd say, of Timor-Leste's democracy. There are interesting things afoot in Timor-Leste in terms of their negotiations with the Australian mining companies over the Timor gap. But by and large, I think Timor-Leste and the Pacific Islands more generally are doing relatively well. It's sometimes quite aggravating if you work in the Pacific Islands. They do get quite a negative press in Australia. But if you look at what's happened in the last five to 10 years, I think that we should be relatively positive about what's happening in Timor and in the Pacific Islands. They're moving into a new phase. Some of the old faces that we've associated with the East Timor-Leste independence movement have moved off the stage. Are we seeing a maturing of politics, perhaps in East Timor? Yeah, for sure. I mean, we have to keep in mind that the Timor-Leste people had lived under an occupation for 24 years and had very little experience of democracy when they gained their independence in 2002. When you consider that Timor-Leste is only 10 years old, it's amazing how far it's come. I mean, yes, there are challenges. The primary challenge is how to achieve even development. You know, Timor-Leste has very high economic growth, but that tends to be focused in dilly and does not trickle out to the rural areas. But considering that the country is only 10 years old, I think we should be very encouraged by what's going on there. It is a very encouraging take, because we do often hear talk about that part of the region very much in the context of failed states that these countries don't have a sufficient economic base. Their political structures are somewhat shaky. How do you see the prospect of sort of destabilisation and arctic political systems emerging in some of these countries? We had to come and play a role in the Solomon Islands recently, the Australians. How are you seeing that? Yeah, I mean, the Solomon Islands intervention was in 2003, so, you know, a long time has passed since then, and Solomon Islands is relatively stable now. I mean, Papua New Guinea would be the obvious place that we would look to and that the press loves to report stories of cannibalistic killings and horrible things going on in Papua New Guinea, but they only represent a very small fragment of what is going on. We have to keep in mind that in places like Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, that grassroots political organisation is very strong and that people can live in these places relatively untouched by the state. So, people do go about their everyday lives and they're getting on with life. They're very pragmatic. They have their own social and cultural orders. What goes on in the capital city is actually a very small fragment of what actually happens in people's lives. So, when we hear about the political machinations in Port Moresby, for example, that's not actually affecting a lot of Papua New Guineans who are just getting on with their lives. So, I think when we talk about failed states, we're talking about failed institutions, but they're not failed societies. And I think we need to look at the strength of these societies when we look at the region. And if we do, I think that offers a lot more optimism for what can happen there in the future. Yes, Shiro, last year we saw some tensions with Indonesia over the live animal exports and the suspension of that industry. And there have been tensions with India over uranium exports, with China over human rights, going back a considerable period of time, that 2009 Defence White Paper actually identified China as a growing threat in the region. Australia lack a bit of diplomatic sensitivity and awareness when it comes to exercising its position in the region. We have touched on this, but is this something that we really do need to pay a bit of attention to? Definitely, yes. That's a short answer, it's most definitely. I think that's why we're looking for, often these things get dominated by the immediate, the political, and that's why I think the Asian Century White Paper that the government's preparing now is very welcome and it's got high expectations. The country's looking for a strategy. We all want to engage and we have to engage on an individual basis, but we do need big investments, a big direction put forward by the government so that all these smaller skirmishes can be handled in a broader narrative. And we actually have a strategy for engagement and know where we want to go, know what we have to do, beef up language, spend more time in country. And so I think hopefully, if the signals are clear, if we have an ongoing narrative that the country takes up, these, I'm not saying the defence white paper and that are minor skirmishes, but they tend to dominate the news. And we can put all those in perspective. This issue of Asian languages, we've seen such enormous change in our understanding of Australia being a part of Asia. We've seen enormous growth in the economies and the presence of Asian countries. Yet, Nicholas, we haven't seen really anything near the uptake in Asian language study that you would think would occur at the same time. I mean, is this, why not? Is this a lack of leadership or? Because I mean, I was at high school, as you can tell, a very long time ago. And Indonesian was offered when I was back at high school. My son studies Japanese today, but still we don't see the penetration. We don't, Paul. We've tended to have very modest ambitions when it comes to language learning in Australia, full stop, and that's reflected in how we go about learning Asian languages. We do so in piecemeal fashion. We do so very inconsistently. We don't consider fluency in an Asian language to be good preparation for anything, except for perhaps sitting on a panel like this and offering your thoughts on the Asian century. In fact, if you went into most boardrooms in Australia, you'd struggle to find a serious speaker of an Asian language who is not from Asia themselves. Same goes in many schools, many government departments. Decision makers in Australia don't themselves tend to have all that much direct experience of Asia from a young age. And that's what really counts. Like you, Paul, I studied Indonesian at school. It was, for me, a very formative experience, and I appreciate the fact that my school would offer it to such a very small number of students, and they would beg, borrow, and steal resources to ensure that there was a functioning Indonesian language program. If you were to explain this in the context of European education, average European would find this ludicrous that Australia has remained willfully ignorant of its behemoth neighbor. This is something that could be changed, but I'd expect that, say, in my lifetime, it may only be in my waning years that we will actually see Australia and Australians fully get to grips with this. Look, I should actually say, I should clarify, that although Indonesian was offered when I was in high school, I did French. Not very well, either. So, but we haven't clearly gone very far in the last 30 years or so. And there's this television show doing the rounds at the moment. It's a, what is it, dumb, drunk, and racist. And it is about how Indians perceive Australians. And you were talking about this earlier, about trying to have a conversation with somebody in India, and there's a lot of bridge building that needs to be done. And do you think it needs to be from a position of genuine engagement, learning languages, really understanding these countries that we're talking about? And not only understanding, those countries are now homogenous by any means. I mean, just back to your French for a second. Because exactly, that's the look West that Australia has. It's almost in its fiver. I mean, the idea that India is a homogenous entity, it's flawed. There's many states in India. Actually, the states command more power than the central government at the moment. If you wanna do any business in India, you need to go to the state capitals rather than Udeli. Udeli is jammed, it's corruption. It's really in a block. So, not only understanding India as such, but also understanding the variety that India encompasses. And not simply in terms of the Bollywood cricket and all these kind of benign aspects of it, but rather understanding the political economy, the politics of India, and the geography of the place itself. It seems to me like it's ridiculous that only 1.5 universities in Australia offer an Indian language, which is Hindi and Urdu. And we're lucky that it ain't you, it's still preserved, but yeah, this is 1.2 billion people. Yeah. I suppose that one of the things we haven't talked about in terms of relationship building in the region are the, is what they call the regional architecture, essentially the important regional institutional structures. Shiro, how do you see ASEAN has been a giant of the region in terms of the institutional structure in the region, there's the East Asia Summit. Are those regional structures going to be able to carry us forward into the next phase of the Asian century? Well, you've forgotten also APEC, which is very important. And APEC is. ASEAN, we have the ASEAN Regional Forum. So we have these fora, these frameworks in the region. They've served us well, especially the economic ones. So it's a very diverse region, different systems of government, different levels of development, and amazing shares of trade and investment between them. So economic cooperation, we've done extremely well by some measures, we're further ahead, further economically integrated than Europe, in fact. But politically, I think that's where we need a lot of institutional reform in these bodies, some more coordination between them. And something that hasn't come up today yet is the G20, the group of 20 largest countries in the world, largest economic powers in the world. And Asia has six members in the G20. And so I think it's important to start connecting some of these regional discussions to the global level. A lot of what Asia is experiencing, a lot of the impact that Asia is having is a global phenomenon, not just a regional one. So I think there's a lot of work to do and the politics and the strategic side of these forums have not been developed fully yet. I think that's where we need to start putting a lot of thinking and innovation into it. Our former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, proposed the Asia-Pacific community concept. This was dismissed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Was he onto something? Will there ever be an Asia-Pacific community? I'm happy to throw this one open to the panel as well. Asa, have you got any thoughts on that? Initially there was, at least from the Indian perspective. I mean, you have all the nationalists under colonial rule who were kind of envisioning this Asian civilization that India can promote, Pan-Asian unity. You had Nehru, you had Tagore, you had other foundational figures. And then Nehru in 1947, March, April, convened this big conference all about promoting Pan-Asian unity. But unfortunately, once they got independence, RealPolitik collided and we haven't seen that. I don't think India is particularly engaged in this sense and these lofty ideals of a Pan-Asian community, I think are kind of being diminished. Nicholas? I think in the Asian region, we just need to accept that nationalism is, at the present moment, just about the most potent organizing force. And while that remains the case, we probably need to think pretty carefully before we put too much of the emphasis on the supranational institutions, at least in Southeast Asia, while there are many who are very proud of ASEAN and its achievements, there are at least 10 times as many who disparage its outcomes, who consider it merely an English-language talk shop for regional elites so that their wives can go shopping and the boys can play golf. It sounds harsh, but there is something of that with still about the way that these top-level regional fora operate and for there to be more genuine regionalism. I think we do need to get past that pattern and have links at all sorts of other levels too. Perhaps within ASEAN after 2015, when the ASEAN community is in place, there'll be some opportunities to see how those lower-level links will further enmesh things, and that may make ASEAN, as one example, that much more palatable to the region's people. Yeah, I know that the comparison with the EU is not a terribly useful one. However, this is a group of countries that transcended their own nationalist interests to come under one banner in the interests of a region. We're not seeing anything like that in Asia at the moment. Is that a concern that we're seeing a more intensified nationalism at a time when this region is growing? It's intriguing to consider this Europe-Asia comparison a bit more fully precisely because the European experience required that the furnace of two world wars and all of the hardships and tragedies that went with them to finally catalyze something like what we see today, that is a very, very heavy price to pay before everyone's been able to get along together. In Asia, I'm sure we all hope that such a price will never need to be paid, and it's up to those in a position to steward these regional integration efforts to do their best, but I wouldn't pretend it's easy. I think it's actually quite an unenviable task. It's a rather hard time to promote a supranational entity when you do look at what's happening with the Eurozone and the EU as well. Not a great advertisement for how well those entities are performing at the moment. Indeed. Just on that, I think it's important to still recognize I'm a little bit more optimistic than Nick on the institutions we have in Asia. It's a very different form of community building. In the EU, there was much more similarity in types of government, in levels of development, and so it was easier, in a sense, to have these, and there was the history, made it easier to have these binding, legally binding, and enforceable agreements between countries and coming into a union. I mean, Asia has been very different because of the diversity, and so I think these talk shops, ASEAN, they get a bad rap, but they do play a role in constraining the nationalism at some levels. They do promote a whole lot of understanding between countries, especially in the economic field, and I think that's where we need to focus our energies and to make sure that we can talk about the politics without it being the zero-sum type game where one country has to lose for the other to benefit, but in the positive-sum economic sphere where it's actually served the region very well to this day. Okay, I think I'm gonna throw it open now to some questions from the audience. There must surely be many questions indeed. In fact, the hands are raising quicker than I can see them, and I think that there has been some instruction about taking questions from this sort of part of the room so if you can bear that in mind and maybe shift across if you want to, this is for the purposes of getting filmed on TV. And as I said, if we can wait for a microphone, I might go to the gentleman just there in front of us and we can bring a mic down, a boom mic down to catch the question. Don't be intimidated by that rather large microphone. I don't know. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. I'm Prakash Chakir from University of Tokyo. My question is like, over here we are talking a lot about, maybe my question may sound a little bit off the track, but I feel like we are missing some fundamental things while talking about the Asian century because we are talking a lot about like rise of Asia talking about economy, security, even we had a great develop between Asia and Europe and we're talking about art, philosophy, even shocker and all those things. But I'm missing some fundamental things like health because we are not that much talking about health because I feel like health, without being healthy, you are not at the poisson to talk about the security things and issues because regarding the health issues, I'm especially worried about Asian countries. We are talking about Asia as a 21st century especially there are a lot of developing countries in Asia and they are like, what do you call, finding a big problem of double body of disease, I would say health transition. They used to have a problem of communicable disease like HIV, TB, malaria, and they're still having that. And on top of that, due to the globalization and economic growth, we are having another body of disease like non-communicable chronic disease like half attention diabetes. Sir, I'll join you to get the panel to respond to the issue of health. I want to ask like, especially to Nicholas, how we are going to, especially in this kind of developing countries in Asia, how we are going to address the problem of this double body of disease? How we are going to tackle? So to ask a support to point that Asia of century is the joint innovation century. Like regarding the issues of health economics and how we are handling this question. Nicholas. Great. Thank you very much for the question. I think this is a really important question. Perhaps if we were to turn our minds to the case of Thailand, a country which for so many decades has struggled with what might be called poor people's illnesses, the diseases of poverty, the diseases of lack. Thailand is now being absolutely pummeled by a wave of rich people's diseases. So you have in the Thai case at least for the moment, those tracks side by side. That is a huge burden on the Thai health system. There have been recent Thai politicians of some renown to include the post-former Prime Minister, Taksin Shinawa, who have taken health as the core priority of their governments. I don't see health dissipating as an issue across Asia. Elections will be won and lost on the electorate's perception of the ability of political leaders to deliver on their health promises. And for a country like Thailand, with only modest resources to devote to its health system, that's really hard when, as I said, you have these two prongs and in Thailand's case, they're both breaking on the shores at the same time. And that will be a pattern I'd anticipate. We see replicated pretty much everywhere. Okay, let's take some more questions. As I said, let's keep them brief and to the point. And I think we're seeing as we're up the back, why don't we take the gentleman right near the microphone? Hi, my name's Eric, I'm from Anu. And I've just got a question for us, so Nicholas, enjoy it, because I think you all touched on the issue of engagement with the Asian region. And what I just felt just went missing is that Australia is a multi-cultural country and we have new people from a diverse range of backgrounds, especially from the Asian region. And I think this was born out, especially in the recent census. And why aren't we sort of levering on this to sort of increase our literacy in the region? Or is it that we still have angry values that are just prevailing too heavily in our current society? Thanks. Who wants to have a go at that one? I completely agree with you. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, Australia has got such a variety of people from across the globe. And yet again, I come back to John's point that it's obsessed with maintaining its kind of purity of kind of body politic, this kind of integrity, which is fed by these Anglo values. And I think indeed it should leverage those resources at hand, rather than constantly try and fortify against all these so-called invading both people. Okay. I would just say, I think it's strange. I've just spent the last four years living in the UK, which has also become quite a multicultural country. And it's much more visible when you live in the UK that it is a multicultural country. People with different faces appear on the TV. It's just taken for granted. I think one of the problems in Australia is that it still appears as a very Anglo-Saxon country in just superficial things like your TV, your TV news readers and so forth. And I think that needs to change. I think we really need to recognise that Australia is a multicultural country and reflect that in our public life more. Because we do have a vast Asian Pacific population that it just isn't reflected in visibility, is it? Okay. I think, given where the microphone is, I think a lot of the questions are gonna have to come down this sort of strip here. But you can reach a fair way, obviously. Let's take the gentleman there on, yes. Hi, I'm Syam. I'm from the National University of Singapore. So I remember reading this article from Time by Fareed Zakaria, who's a major voice in the foreign analysts scene in the United States. And he actually said that we keep talking about Asia. And the thing is that no one's really sure if there is a thing called Asia because there's mostly India, China and Japan and they don't particularly like each other at the moment. So what I wanna ask you is that as we see this power shift from the West towards the East, do you think this apparent divergence at the moment is gonna increase in the future? Or do you see a convergence of interest between the major powers in Asia? That's a good question. Who wants to take that one on? Nicholas, I think you're primed for it. Hey, I'm brave. I'll take a stab at that. As Paul said, great question. I don't foresee convergence of interests in Asia, quite the opposite. And with that in mind, we need to become ever more precise about how we deal with the region in its individual parts. This requires savvy, requires education, requires a fair open-mindedness to the changes that will occur. Quite likely in 50 or 60 years time, a conversation like the one we're having this afternoon will be considered profoundly anachronistic, right? People will look back on this and consider that some of this just sounds so dated, so old-fashioned because we will come up with better ways of explaining and conceptualising the Asian century. Luckily, we will not call it that for all that long and we'll come up with other language which will allow us to be more creative and more imaginative with our engagement. Joanne. I think I'd also say, I mean, what is Asia, too? I mean, we're here at Asia Pacific Week. I teach courses at Asia Pacific Security, but there is no settled definition of what Asia is or what the Asia Pacific is. Or the Indo-Pacific, is it Maritime Southeast Asia? Is it Continental Asia? I think we need to... It's very hard to speak about regionalism, a lot of these issues without that settled definition, but I think it would be a braver woman than me that would come up with a settled definition, so... Yes, it's a convenient descriptor, but it's also almost meaningless. I mean, we use the term Europe and I think more of us understand the regional differences in Europe, even though we use that buzz term. But I do suspect that when we use this term Asia, many of us, we do see it as rather monolithic, which is nothing could be further from the truth. Well, just on that, when I'm travelling around the region, I make the argument that Australia is very much part of Asia. And this isn't accepted in a lot of places in Malaysia or Japan, but if you look at... I'm an economist, if you look at the economic interests, we're so dependent on Asia. We're actually more Asian than any Asian country for our trade shares than Indonesia, and that's pretty close. And so I look at Asia as these big economies that have something in common. They share the interest converge of wanting to continue to have their populations prosper, bringing people out of poverty, and to maintain that growth, which requires, you know, minimalising the conflict between these states. Okay, let's keep going. They're heaping that back row, actually, three in a row, let's knock off a few of them. Hi, Patrick Williams from ANU. Nicholas mentioned that in Southeast Asia, they've had experiments in different types of democracy, and we've learnt a lot this week about how the Australian view of democracy sometimes is quite different in our neighbouring regions, for example, in the Pacific. It takes on, the system of governance takes on a local flavour, so to speak. And maybe the panel could discuss the Burma and how it's moving towards democracy. There's been, this is also in light of some violence which seems to have sparked up in Burma, and maybe the panel could discuss how democracy would be much different to how we view it in Australia in these emerging democracies in Southeast Asia. Burma. Okay, thanks. Is it Burma or is it Myanmar? What's the politically correct term here? Okay, good question, Paul. So for so long in countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, we've held fast to Burma. There have been various political reasons for that, although the tide is starting to turn and Myanmar is becoming ever more ascendant. Some of you may have heard that in recent weeks, the current government of Myanmar has decided to try and pressure pro-democracy leader Ong San Suu Kyi into changing her usage to Myanmar. This is a debate which will likely go on for some time, and in fact, it may never end. Those of you who study Thailand would probably be aware there are holdouts for the old Siam. And so when it comes to Burma, Myanmar, this is one that'll go on for a while. When you're speaking Burmese or Myanmar, you probably don't have to make so many distinctions and it just flows. The problem with Myanmar, from my point of view, is that the adjectival forms are that much clunkier. But Burma, Burmese, Burman, really precise. Myanmar, Myanmar, Myanmarese, really hard. So this is the sort of thing that we just all have to deal with. But coming to the question... Yes, we haven't answered the question yet, have we? So the question, I think, should give us all reason to stop and take a deep breath and consider exactly what it is that's going on in a country such as Burma. Burma isn't the only country in our near-neighbourhood that is dabbling with various forms of democratic transition. But the Burmese case is remarkable precisely because they're juggling all the balls at once. There's an economic transformation. There is an effort to bring long-standing civil wars to an end. There's an effort to build new political institutions, including parliaments at both the national and the regional levels. This is all amazingly ambitious for any country to take this on. In one short period of time, it would be a huge ask. Burma remains poor. Its people don't have so much experience with this kind of development. And so my sense is we need to be doing our best to support these reformist-minded leaders, but we also need to have, at least for the time, being modest expectations about what they can achieve because they have to do it all at once. And that's just a massive, massive challenge. OK. We'll take one more at the back, and then we might just see if we can get a question on the right here. Quite also for me. And I had a quick question for Dr. Armstrong. In terms of maintaining a healthy counterbalance to the growing powers we've been talking about today, how important is it that European nations don't abandon the euro and the union? OK, I think it's actually very crucial. It's going to have to be some pretty big changes in Europe. I don't want to make this about Europe, actually. I'm not a specialist on Europe or anything, but I think it's pretty clear to everyone who pays attention to these things that if a set of countries leave the euro, that's a huge hit to the global economy. If the euro spans as a currency, that's another huge. We're talking about another global financial crisis. And so Asia is now the engine of global economic growth, but it's not a region that is separate and debunked, delinked from the rest of the world. A lot of Asian trade goes to Europe and the United States still, so with the caveat that I don't know too much about Europe, I think that's a fair enough answer that Asia is pretty important, but still relies heavily on the industrialized world. I've had an interesting chat with Warrick McKibben about this actually not long ago from the ANU and former Reserve Bank governor, and he basically said that he thought the wash-up would be a two-tiered euro, that that's probably how it would all end up with a Premier League and a division one underneath, but exactly how they get to that position is the question. But it's not about Europe. Let's see if we can take a question down. Can you get down to the front a bit here? This section's been rather neglected. You've got a mic right above you. Hi, this is Zhiyin Zhang from the University of Toronto. I am personally more interested in this worldwide phenomenon, like the whole world attention on Asia, and many of you mentioned there's a lag in many aspects in this region, and I don't think there is yet to be a valid theoretical framework that can explain different modes of development in this region. So how can you, how do you view this conversation or discussion or speculation that arises during this conference, or any other similar conferences matter in this process of globalized changes? Are we betting on the rise of Asia, whatever it is? Yeah. I think that rather than a broad theoretical framework that would apply to this very diverse region, we might be wise to focus on historical moments to understand how various Asian countries and trajectories have developed. So again, if we take, for example, India, if you take the 1980s, I think everyone in the room would have said that India would never be sustained as a country with all the strife, with the Sikh problems, with the murder of Indira Gandhi, the various secessionist movements, and everyone would have put their money on the Soviet Union. And what happened? The Soviet Union completely crumbled and you have a formidable democracy in India that continues, however flawed. So I think if we wanna understand Asia as such, each case is very different. Hence I think the problem that we all identified with trying to view it as a monolithic entity. And so rather than try and find something that fits all, perhaps like we do in language, focus on each one in depth to engage with them. Okay, we're really getting close here. I think this may have to be the last question. Yes. It's above you. Thank you so much for the opportunity and privilege. I am abstract like from the Philippines, I study in Tokyo right now. My question has to do with power and leadership. But before that I wanna comment, sorry, I really have to comment on the idea of Asia. Professor, it wasn't actually far in Sakarya, but first it was Professor Amitabh Acharya who theorized on the Pon Asia. And we have to be reminded that when we think of Asia we are not thinking of an essentialist definition of what Asia is. So it's a given that there's a diversity. The second thing is Professor Amitabh Acharya also asked the question, can Asia lead? Because you have different countries and major countries of that. And to the question, China's the most important question that Paul raised a while ago is on China's leadership in the Asia Pacific century, if that would come in the offing. I think when you ask that question it presupposes that we know the kind of power that China will be. We have yet to answer the question, what kind of power will be? Alistair Ian Johnson of Harvard University would say that it's status quo power. David Carr would say that it is a benign power based on its history. But can we actually project that to the future? I was told in my elementary that history cannot be a basis for the future, only to a certain extent. So the question is if we're talking about China's leadership in the Asia Pacific century, we have yet to know what kind of power China will be. And that will also give us a clue as to whether or not the kind of rules based in the national order that we have now will be the same or if ever China will revise it. Thank you. I mean, I think you've sort of almost answered the question that you've put in a sense. I mean, can any of us with any degree of confidence predict the type of power China will be? I don't think so. We can say that until now China has benefited from the current system a lot and it has played by the rules and there's no reason to expect it won't. But what is important is as China becomes even larger we give it space to fulfill its global responsibilities and it'll have global interests. And so I think the system can't stay the way it is. It's just a matter of whether we try to constrain the system around China or let China change the system in its interest and make sure those interests are consistent and we can adjust to the new system and those interests. So I didn't really answer the question. Anybody want to make a bold prediction? I would just say that of course we can't look into our crystal ball and know what any state is going to do. And that obviously applies to China. I mean, I work in strategic and defense studies. We have to obviously think about the worst case scenario. It would be irresponsible if it's not to. So that's why we talk about the rise of China and what would happen if China were to exert its power. Because hopefully the system works itself out and peace reigns in the Asia Pacific. But we have to think about these worst case scenarios and think how we will respond to them. It would just be irresponsible not to. And it's in thinking about them and in articulating the fact that we're thinking about them that we create the problem. Well it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And we've got enough international relations student here that can tell us about the security dilemma and so forth. But we have to have these considerations and I think it's a shame that our government doesn't pay more attention to it. Look, it's been a terrific conversation. I travel around the country and do quite a lot of events like this. But one of the great things about coming to the ANU is I never see so many people put up their hand wanting to ask a question. It's fantastic. So I do apologize to all of you who didn't get a chance to ask a question. We are over time. I wanna thank all of you for coming along for being so engaged in the discussion body. In particular, I wanna thank today's four excellent panellists, Dr. Nicholas Farrelly, Dr. Shiro Armstrong, Dr. Joanne Wallace and Dr. Asso Doran. Will you please give them a hand? As they say, that's all folks. Thanks a lot for coming. Cheers.