 Okay, we're going to formally start the session. Thank you very much for joining us here at this year's Crawford Australian Leadership Forum. I've been lucky enough to come to almost all of the Crawford forums and each year they're one of my favourite things on the timeline. I'm sorry that this year we're not meeting in person, that's again one of the fun things, but we're going to try today in this session, particularly as it's the last session before the final wrap up, to make this as interactive as possible. So please do treat it like being in the room with others who are fascinated by the same issues that you're fascinated by and we're going to try to make it as interactive as we can. Now my name is Melissa Conley-Tiler. I'm the program lead of the Asia Pacific Development Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue. This session is looking at at multilateralism and the rules-based order and we have a fantastic panel with us today. I want to acknowledge that I'm speaking today from the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and pay my respects to their elders past and present. It's a good moment to actually think about Indigenous knowledge on international relations. The continent of Australia, the same size as Western Europe or the main core of China, is a place where the differences between different nations, between language and cultural groups have been managed very successfully without the sort of large-scale conflict that we've seen in other parts of the world. The Indigenous knowledge on how that was achieved is something that I think we could all learn from and it might help us be perhaps a little less fatalistic about the relationship between modern nations in the world which we're often inclined to see through a realm of inevitable conflict. Now multilateralism and the rules-based orders are a way that we try to deal with some of what we see as that inherent anarchy but at this point there's a lot of concern about what's happening with the rules-based international order and with multilateralism. So to try to tease out those issues for us we have a fantastic panel with us today. So from the Australian government side we have Caroline Miller, who's Deputy Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Caroline, thank you for joining us today. Pleasure to be with you. Thank you. From Singapore we have Sarah Chou from Nanyang Technological University. Thank you for joining us Sarah. Thank you Melissa. I'm glad to be here and I'm very much looking forward to the discussion. Thank you. From beach side Sydney as we can see we have Hang Wang, who's a professor of Chinese international economic and business law at the University of New South Wales. Thank you for joining us, Hang. Thank you very much for having me. It's been great to be here. Look forward to more discussion. Thank you. And we have Thomas Wright from Brookings Institution. Thank you for joining us, Tom. Thank you. It's great to be with you all. So I'm going to start off with the big question. So this rules-based international order, multilateralism, is it broken, Tom? It depends what you mean by it but I think it fundamentally doesn't work in the way that it used to mainly because I think of great power rivalry. So you increasingly have a constellation led by sort of the US and other democracies on the one hand and a constellation sort of led by China on the other and they're heavily interdependent. They have to work together but they have very different sort of geopolitical interests and worldviews and that I think is the novel you know development that really means the multilateral order as it exists now is not what it used to be. Not what it used to be. Sarah? Well I mean I don't think the rules-based or multilateral order is broken per se but I would say that I mean it has always been it has been contested for the last few decades and I think it is evolving because I think for all we talk about the rules-based or the order being something that I guess triumphs over over raw power or coercion I don't think we can escape power dynamics when it comes to talking about the rules-based order. Okay not broken but contested. I think it's being not sure whether it's being broken but I think the multilateral reasons face serious challenges we have to manage that carefully and also another side we see more engagements or dynamics in at the regional level among the like-minded heads but also at a really natural level as we see for example at in the tension in area like trade. Thank you and for our last word Caroline. Thank you well first of all I absolutely agree with Tom that geo-strategic competition is playing out not always very hopefully in the multilateral system as elsewhere but it but I'm not sure there ever was a Halcyon era if you think about it the exception of the decade after the end of the Cold War when the UN and the multilateral system finally looked like was able to fulfill its purpose the sort of fractures we see now in different forms have been there really since the beginning and also and again this I think also reflects Tom's point it's not a monolithic system we're talking about a vast array of international treaties institutions UN specialised agencies funds and programs some of which are no longer fit for purpose some of which are in need of serious reform some of which are very politically driven but many of which continue to do extremely practical useful things you know through delivery of services and humanitarian assistance standards governing law of the sea or telecommunications whatever so I think it's a it's a very simple question for a very complex subject. Well I might go back to Tom I think you're the the most pessimistic that it didn't doesn't work how it used to from a US perspective what are you seeing as this huge alteration in the system? Well let's just take the pandemic you know we have a threat to all of humanity that emerges quite quickly it's the very definition of a shared problem that we all sort of agree upon over the last 17 years after SARS there were numerous reforms to the multilateral system numerous reforms inside China to make sure the response the next time it happened was more transparent cooperative and rapid among COVID hit like literally none of that mattered right and there was no cooperation we had many more institutions now than we had in 2018 2019 there was virtually no more cooperation now than there was 100 years ago China's reaction was basically the same or worse than it was in SARS in terms of cooperation with the international community the US reaction under Trump was you know to pull out of the WHO in the middle of a pandemic and Europe and others were really unable to fill the vacuum so I don't know how anyone could look at that and say you know that's not broken now the question is why I would argue the primary reason there is a combination of geopolitical rivalry and nationalism that caused us to regress and I think what we need to do going forward is accept that as a reality and try to figure out how to deal with these problems if the world remains broken right what do we do if we have these types of regimes or governments around the world but it clearly you know clearly there was a regression there and if it doesn't work in something like pandemics then you know what are we what are we talking about like because that is what it's meant to do right it's meant to be on things that we do actually agree or a problem that it will be effective but it wasn't effective and it's still not effective even as we're living this in real time well I suppose part of the problem is COVID itself was not neutral there was a huge blame game and still is a huge blame game between the US and China on the origins of COVID and how it was handled so can I go to Yuhang we're talking about contestation as being you know huge challenge to the international order tell us more from China's perspective what that looks like yeah I think it's been China's been quite different from what happened in the past being you know one of the top two major economy and also China also wants to have a stronger role in international governments including you know rule making of the China preferred or China style rules and also in the recent years we see the Beotian religiosity of his China led you know unprecedented large-scale movements so you see that actually it's natural to see those kind of tensions between US and China because you see China kind of tried to upload you know the China style practice you know technical standards now recently also about central bank digital currency and another side you see the US for example being the you know pre-existing superpower who has been dominated in large to that extent the rule making so you see the tension of between you know China shifting from in the WDXG stage downloading to now a kind of upload in their practice which will also affect say you know for example pre-existing rules of the US and also that helps explain what we see what I call China trying to synactively reshaping you know international governance through institutional development like AIB you know through the technical standards along the BRI you know more recently digital yuan you know China tried to be the first major economy issue digital currency another side you see you know other countries like US also tried to respond to China's practice you know like they also think you know digital dollar as another example is different from what happened in the past we're trying to respond to the US behavior and what happened at the end of day is that you know US and China for example are much narrower engagement than before so what I call synactive engagement you can see that in the trauma era when they have seen you know US China trade deal is much narrower than our free trade agreements and it's much more technical because it's hard for them to cooperate on in only very except uh mine you know a small number area like climate change but we'll see how they will proceed on yeah thank you well and Sarah I mean how is this being seen in the region you know is this seen as this competition this breaking down of this rules-based international order well I think the developments are being watched with some concern especially in Southeast Asia because for for many of our most Southeast Asian states you know they are small and medium sized states and in that sense a working or functional rules-based multilateral order is generally better than an order that is based on raw power or coercion or even the threat of coercion so when it comes to ASEAN especially I think I see two kinds of related concerns you know as we know since the early 1990s ASEAN has always espoused this kind of big inclusive multilateralism that brings together a range of powers to the same table right whether they are like-minded or not so this is what ASEAN regards as being in its best interest for the past few decades and ASEAN itself has worked very hard to be at the center or the hub of this multilateral order so the two concerns I see here given increasing Joe's strategic competition and the worries about multilateralism is that I think firstly there is a concern that ASEAN type multilateralism is being regarded or may be regarded as increasingly irrelevant you know multilateralism potentially dividing into exclusive or like-minded coalitions that they are built around the major powers so that is fundamentally I think it goes against what ASEAN has has always espoused the second concern is that you know in some event although I think it is quite unlikely but I think the the risk there's a small risk in the sense that the major powers would become I guess too committed to ASEAN to the extent that ASEAN then becomes a platform for for Sino-US rivalry which is also not good for ASEAN because that will eventually mean that the pressure on ASEAN to pick side will increase so I think the two concerns they do seem a bit contradictory so ultimately I think it's a fine line to balance between you know continuing to keep the major powers interest on the one hand in that sort of multilateralism but ensuring that that the range of control still remains very much in the hands of the smaller or the medium-sized things well Caroline what Sarah said sounds pretty familiar wanting a functional order rather than threats of coercion Australia is very keen on that but we've been talking a lot about rules-based international order in Australian discourse how do you contrast it with multilateralism are they both in the same sort of trouble or do you see differences I'm never quite sure what people mean when they try and make a difference between the rules-based order and multilateralism in a sense I mean you're looking again at systems of treaties and multilateral international organisations or the the rules that underpin the multilateral systems I'm never I it always seems a little bit of an academic argument to me I've never quite understood that the distinction but basically I think for a middle power like Australia we have no choice but to work very constructively with other countries to build coalitions of interest to support our objectives so the so the sort of a stable regional and global order underpinned by liberal democratic values is more important to us now than ever before but I think it's it's very hard to do and it's it's harder now perhaps than it was a few years ago I think one of the things that Australia has traditionally been very good at is building a cross-group coalitions it's partly because of the combination of our history and our geography the kind of culture that we are the society that we are and where we live and we've been able to bridge some of those divides I think across development and politics quite quite well over many years so when I look at where we are now I see us flooring on those strengths in a more contested and difficult environment to take forward our interests one other point I'd make is that you know people can get very cynical about the multilateral system or they can get right at times can be very idealistic about it I don't think either of those two things are helpful I think you need a very pragmatic approach to look at how you pursue your national interests and the multilateral system or the rules-based order is a vector hope for you and those interests and a very important one. Well I think we've got some of our first ideas that I want our audience to get interested in so let's get some discussion happening the Q&A is open at all times and I'd love as you hear something that you want to respond to that you want to analyze further for you to start to put in there if you'd like to be called upon you can write live next to that and I will then call upon you and we can start having conversation if as I often do you're having a bad hair day your camera isn't working just put not live and then I'll be your voice and I will put that question in so please do start looking at the people in the room I know you've got a lot to contribute to these discussions start putting into the Q&A so that question on rules-based international order and multilateralism that's certainly one people might want to get started on I think if I was going to respond on that Carol and I'd say someone who sees a difference between those two is China and so China has said very explicitly that it's absolutely supportive of multilateralism by what it means the UN system universally based but it's not supportive of what it's hearing as when people are using the words rules-based order which it sees as code for American-led rules-based order so it's interesting even that that the way that that's been used rhetorically and do you want to come in on that at all on China's views between between US-led order and multilateralism? Yeah I think it's been a different understanding on China and also US for example and actually it shows the difficulty of engagement the neck of common language net alone you know first engagement sensitive on all regulatory issues like you know data regulations you know issue like you know epidemics you know and and so on so forth and what do we see that's actually in those kind of issues it unlines the different model you know two countries live with you know US one or the Chinese you know governance model internally and also that explains that they are down the track we like to see more you know difficulties or dynamics in in those kind of engagement because it's to major economies okay have more difficulty to reach on consensus that makes more difficult to set more to provide more predictability for businesses you know for the NGOs and for other stakeholders so I think it's been likely that they are able to agree on those common interests here like climate change but it's much more difficult to see common grounds in area like subsidies you know data technology and and also competition and that other sensitive issue for China I think their interest would seem to be that say they want to benefit from the WTO for example multilateralism in terms of market access you know because that's good for China's exports you know of products and and so on so forth and on the other side China hesitated to take more strident rules regulatory disciplines so if you look at China's for example free trade agreements you know you should prove you know prefer WTO based rules but when you go to new area like environment and and labor issues being touched upon and the rules are quite general even if they have some new issues getting involved so they could be our potential issues down the track to see how to find a common ground understood well Tom you won't be surprised I'd like to come to you on this so around that that issue on rules based order American led order versus multilateralism what what is it the US is most worried about out of these well look the the multilateralism system and the rules based order system and the US led order they're all interchangeable right because the reality is that they were set up you know either after World War two at the end of the Cold War and it reflects inherently reflects a set of you know relatively liberal sort of values and and and a relatively liberal you know status quo that was in place and you know when China talks about sort of a UN system obviously it has a veto on the UN security council and would like to redefine some of those norms but it's basically challenging you know that norm set internationally to make the world safe for for the CCP right for its regime type which is probably what you would expect them to do sort of in that situation but it does fundamentally change you know the world that we're living in because it means that those sort of norms and institutions you know and organizations that we sort of took for granted and that status quo that we sort of took for granted amongst major powers or you know amongst most you know countries outside of a few areas that were always sort of unstable like the like the Middle East you know that that is now you know contested in terms of your direct question what is the US worried about I think the US is worried about a world in which you know frankly put I think a world in which it no longer leads and China leads because then the system will reflect sort of a you know the CCP's interests and its sort of interpretation of values but I would say if you push further you know Americans probably will be okay if they were replaced by you know other liberal powers right if you saw the US withdrawing and you know you know democratic Asia and the EU and the UK emerged and took on more I think there will be a very relaxed sort of view about that right there might be some sort of problems on the margin but it'd be pretty relaxed I think the real problem is this alternative vision that's out there that is now I think you know undeniable and so that's the you know that's the problem there is no objective sort of multilateral system that China is actually in favor of and they're just against alliances so they have a I think a very different way of looking at this and you know I think we see that playing out pretty much every day particularly in Australia obviously but in many other places also you know this contest is unfolding yeah so it's clear that you know what might follow would be based on different non-liberal norms and that's a very uncomfortable place for the US not to be top dog anymore yeah okay well we're getting lots of questions and I think I really should get some of them talking so I've got a couple that have come in not live so the first is from Michael Wadley he's thanking you Tom for coming out in your time zone which we do appreciate if there's to be a reorganization of multilateralism isn't the solution to ask what can be done with China post anchorage assuming there is a place for a so-called non-liberal democratic system yeah look I think we ought to try to work with China on a lot of different things you know it's pretty hard to do that I mean the US sent its number two diplomat the State Department not that long ago and found it very difficult even to get appropriate meetings right so it's difficult to do that it's difficult to get outcomes as we're seeing on the on the pandemic and on COVID but I think we ought to continue we ought to make every effort to work on you know to work on shared interests but the issue that people have to confront which they're I think keen to sort of generally avoid is if we look at the empirical track record of that engagement and we acknowledge that it's unlikely to come up to what we need and clearly cooperation with China did not yield what we needed on the pandemic and I wouldn't just talk about the US and China here look at the EU in China look at the WHO in China you know it didn't yield what we needed it to yield so what do we do then like what's our backup plan if we're not getting cooperation on critical issues of shared interest what's our backup plan and that I think is is key so we absolutely need to engage in global institutions we absolutely need to sincerely and really try to work with China and we also need to be prepared to work with others as well when those global efforts aren't aren't satisfactory and I think the pandemic is you know exhibit a in that but I wanted to go to Sarah and one of the things you've written a lot on is minilateralism as an alternative to you know some of the problems in the multilateral system do you like to tell us more about what you're saying happening with that growth of minilateralism in the region? I'm sure um so well I guess from again from this region uh minilateralism has always kind of existed you know we have we have had um uh the six party talks uh smaller functional groupings like um the Malacca streets patrols that originally involved Malaysia Indonesia and Singapore and of course when when the Indian Ocean tsunami happened in the mid-2000s there was also kind of the original Quad countries that got together to provide assistance and aid um and those have those minilateral smaller initiatives have always existed alongside the bigger multilateral cooperation um but what what I think you know is happening today is that these minilateral initiatives are taking on a more strategic dimension especially when in the in the context of Sino-US rivalry um and there's a growth of minilateral platforms I think for two reasons one is you know the perceived whether rightly or not ineffectiveness of multilateralism in addressing you know very critical questions for the region and the second is kind of this sense that under especially under the previous Trump administration the US may not be as committed to this region as it has in the past and so I think regional countries are getting together in small groups to kind of advance their own collective interests um but don't worry I think for this region is that eventually you know with the Quad and with this potential idea of a Quad plus minilateralism is going to grow bigger into multilateralism and then we are going to see kind of different spheres of multilateralism if there's a term to use right one led by the US and and one led by China and again I mean not to keep coming back to ASEAN but you know where does that then leave ASEAN because if if the multilateral role is taken away from ASEAN and is being run by China versus the US basically you know ASEAN is is going to become increasingly irrelevant or you know its function is gone so I think the increasing minilateralism in this region would be something to watch um so not just in terms of what it means for the multilateral architecture but also in terms of what these minilateral coalitions are doing right if we look at the Quad for example it has I think three working groups now on on vaccines on critical and technologies and the last one I think on climate change um but as far as I know I think that the vaccine working group has run into problems with India I'm not sure where where the status of that cooperation is now um you know but I think what would be important to watch is what kind of substantive outcomes uh eventually result from such minilateral cooperation thank you well I haven't seen another new question come in Susan I'm coming to yours at the end because it's a really positive one I love it um what I might do then is is go to Tom I mean uh Sarah just raised that issue of US commitment to the region and US commitment to the rules-based international order um if we'd been having this talk a few years ago we would have been talking about the Trump administration also as a threat to the rules-based international order for a range of reasons um this comes down to a domestic politics question for the US I mean how confident can the region be that the forces that favor multilateralism and a rules-based international order will win the battle of domestic politics in the US and I know you've written that it's more difficult now for leaders who favor multilateralism to mobilize support can you give us a bit more on that domestic US angle look I think that the differences are very real obviously between the parties and also uh you know Trump adds a unique sort of wild card to the mix in terms of his attitude you know on all of this um so I think that's a very fair question and obviously you know many of us are making the case in favor of multilateralism and leadership it's not guaranteed that that will continue I would say though that you know even the Trump administration you know you know did sort of deepen cooperation you know in the Quad did try to deepen America's presence in Asia wouldn't quite have done it how I would have liked to see it done but I think there was sort of a commitment there and while they were resistant to multilateralism the UN and the WHO you know even there there were sort of the bones of sort of a strategy for engaging ages so I would say that in terms of Asia's role in America's foreign policy that's probably the the region with the most support for engagement you know Europe is more is more divisive now there's the the parties are more divided politics is more divided about America's role in Europe obviously in the Middle East the one where there's most agreement on is Asia there's still a lot of issues there to be resolved um but I think the picture is maybe you know a little bit brighter than um you know than in other aspects of US foreign policy now I'm going to go okay well I'm going to finish off with our question our last question which is about repair and renewal which I understand is the overall topic of the whole Crawford forum um it's been a very interesting couple of years for pretty much everyone involved in public policy in all areas um and it's been a very interesting couple of years on multilateralism in the rules-based international order so whether you think it's broken or whether you think it's mulling along about as it ever did what quit what suggestions do you have for repair and renewal of that multilateral and rules-based system so I might start with you Thomas and we'll go around sure you know I think um we ought to try for pretty broad-based reforms but as I mentioned earlier I think we also need to be ready you know to act with like-minded countries you know if those reforms aren't forthcoming and I just go back to the pandemic which is obviously what we're dealing with now but there's absolutely no reason why like-minded countries can't provide more you know vaccines do more on diagnostics and testing more on pandemic preparedness than is required under the IHRs and the WHO you know there's no reason that a group of like-minded can't adhere to higher standards of transparency cooperation and coordination at a time of you know a pandemic at a future epidemic or pandemic so those are ways in which I think you know we could we could do more even if the global system you know doesn't do as much as we would like and that is reinforcing the global system it's not undermining us so I think we need to be ready to take on a greater share of the burden if we believe as I think is the case that these threats and challenges are you know very severe so that's what I mean that we need a backup plan and we also need to be willing to be bold and ambitious and while a lot has been done and I agree with Caroline on this you know we have seen improvements on you know providing vaccines we're still falling far short of what is needed and so there's still a lot of scope there for us to do more and we don't need to wait for you know everyone else to get there to do that. You can show leadership right now yeah so Heng. Thank you I just wanted also to add that I think multi-naturalism need to adapt to the new dynamics we're facing and I would like and also to try their best to promote good governance although we face a lot of challenges once I want to say that multi-naturalism is crucial and also has its own advantages so for example this bill settlement is very difficult to see you know by natural free trade agreements arrangements where you issue a case against another you know particular larger power or even at the regional level but I think as we see for example double CO there are much more many more cases that's been brought and also I think multi-naturalism has their own advantage in promoting their engagement you know which has been standard setting you know it's a standard context where the countries will engage with each other even if they have a difficult you know relationship and even for negotiation perspective you know besides the disperselement it can negotiate for poor natural agreements you know like-minded countries can try to force their own you know consensus so I think that's it's crucial to have multi-naturalism and we just try our best and to make sure that they promote good governance as much as we can. Thank you very much, Sarah. Yes, I'll just put up three I guess three points so first would in terms of repair and renewal would be to continue engaging with rising powers of course I mean not just China but also others like India it will be challenging but I think it's necessary if we are talking about a more inclusive order second I think I mean thank you Caroline for responding to that so my second suggestion would be to kind of look at a function of mini-lateralism as a complementary to multi-lateralism right to kind of get things moving among smaller groups first before before going bigger and third would be I think it's a good opportunity for middle powers to step up and manage this given that you know their interest in a multi-lateral rules-based order as we've heard throughout this session is you know it's very strong so what is working together with major powers or whether it's working together with other actors I think middle powers do have a vested interest in this and they do have the resources and and hopefully commitment to towards such cooperation. This is also positive I'm loving it Caroline. Look I really like Sarah's point about about using mini-lateral or smaller groupings as ginger groups and I think that's that's something very valuable that they can do. Look I think you know multi-lateralism is up to us it's up to the member states to make it work and so I see it very important for countries like Australia to work with others to promote the rules-based order to promote the kind of system that we want it is very challenging there is no question about that but perhaps I'm a little bit optimistic as well I think it is possible to work with countries I think there are some big players that overplay their hand and you can see a bit of a reaction against that in ways that are actually not entirely unhelpful to us. I think it's incumbent on us to put forward really strong candidates to run these multi-lateral institutions and to back each other in with those candidates and and to work very hard to promote the outcomes in these forums that we want it is I have to say it is really hard work having one major multi-lateral campaigns they are very hard work to run they're very resource-intensive it's hard work to get outcomes in multi-lateral forums because at any point you have a huge disparity in political objectives economic development that creates different tensions in the system and now you have the geopolitics political challenges as well so I think it's incumbent on us to work all the time for renewal and reform I'm not in favor of big huge processes to do that in the UN they tend to become a sort of a what's the word a victim of their own processes I remember in the 90s working on the never-ending reform of the UN system working groups in New York and we just don't want to go back there but I think I think that sort of day-to-day renewal and trying to make organizations fit for purpose is just a very important way to proceed thanks. Thank you well and I'd like to thank all of our speakers it could have been I think a somewhat depressing discussion and I haven't found that at all I found those opportunities for repair and renewal for for doing the hard work of making multi-lateralism work certainly for a country like Australia there's no real alternative we need to make multi-lateralism work we need to have a rules-based international order that protects our interests and I think those who are trying their best to make that happen day in day out so if I can thank Caroline, thank Sarah, thank Hung and thank Thomas for their time we really appreciate I'd like to thank the organizers of this whole event so Richard Mord who I'm glad he is still running given all of this all of that he's taken out of his system in making this happen and to Lauren and to all the team that has made this possible now we'll just have a quick break now I think it's just about a 10-minute break so go and get yourself a drink whatever break you need but do come back for the final session if you can one of the things about the Crawford Forum is it's a whole palace full of discussions and you can't attend them all the final sessions a great way to hear about some of the sessions you weren't able to come to and get a sense of the feel overall so thank you again to our speakers to our audience members and look forward to seeing you in that final session