 Well, hello everybody. Thank you for being here. I apologize for us being slightly late. My name is Jamie Ho from the Straits Times in Singapore. I have the privilege of moderating this very distinguished panel. Let me just get straight into it, as I said, because we are slightly late. Let me introduce my panel. I have Prime Minister Han Duk-soo from the Republic of Korea, Kais Ollengren, the Minister of Defense from the Netherlands, Foreign Minister Javier Gonzales Ollichea from Peru, and Mike Froman, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, who obviously brings to us in public service in the U.I. red states. What I'll do is let me frame the discussion that we'll have today. First, obviously, we've seen the title of this session. We'll talk about how the Pacific can and must continue to be the vanguard for growth, especially inclusive and sustainable growth for itself and for the world. Second, we'll also then talk about the unique sort of security aspects to which the world, and that's where the Netherlands probably, by the perspective, looks to the Pacific as well. I'll ask these questions in the first instance to the panelists. They will have opportunities to respond. Let me just say that I will, after their first remarks and their first answers, open the floor to questions from all of you. It's my intention to have as much of that as possible. And then after that, we'll see whether there are follow-up questions, and we'll keep this open and free-flowing as possible. Let me start the conversation first with Peru. Peru will have the very unique responsibility this year leading APEC, and I was very keen and very interested to see that they had a little theme and tagline to outline what they plan to do, empower, include, and grow. So I'm going to ask the minister to outline for us why he chose those themes to guide his presidency of APEC, and the floor I now turn to you, minister. Thank you very much, Mr. Ho. It is a real pleasure and an honor to share this panel with distinguished speakers and with the audience. For Peru, it is a real challenge that we are taking on for the third time in the presence of APEC, and we've been favored with chairing it in 2024. This is the space of greatest growth in the world, and we believe that this is the best possibility, the best opportunity among economies that make it up. I'm speaking about 21 countries in order to cooperate in the increase of investments and trade, because as we understand things, there's no possibility, there's no chance for development without a flow of investment, without understanding and valuing private companies at full and without respecting conditions offered by each country. And in my case, conditions that are absolutely stable in Peru, and in equal macroeconomic conditions for national and foreign investors. But this opportunity that is being given to us is something we don't want to project to Peru. We believe that all economies should benefit from this encounter that has three goals, three main goals. That is the possibility for the host countries that has been fixed in the agenda, mainly to approach trade and investment for an inclusive growth, and also promoting the economic transition from informal sectors to sector reformers. Almost two-thirds of the population of the world lives in precarious conditions. And this is not just a challenge for economies and the world, but also for the destruction of jobs in this disruptive era. And where we see three factors, and that is the new ways of communication and bioengineering, something that has changed the world, creating social pouches that put at risk political and social governance, and finally sustainable growth for development. Because it's a good thing to differentiate growth and development, but nevertheless to just leave it as statistics without reflecting the reality in each country. And this is how this was approved by the 21 countries which, throughout the second week of December, in Lima, set as a priority agenda. But we know that this forum also allows to make different proposals from different perspectives in different areas. And this is what we hope that APEC 24 will do. That is, we hope that it will come out of the box in order to promote cooperation, not just in Asia Pacific. But we hope that this will be a great opportunity to tell the world that we are going to prioritize trade and investments, but we want to be part of global solutions. We are quite fortunate to have Korea here as well, because they do take on the presidency immediately after Peru. So I'm going to ask the Prime Minister to provide his perspective on what his goals are. But obviously at the same time, Korea has put forth quite coherent Indo-Pacific strategy, which I think will sort of frame the approach to the region in the coming years as well. So I wanted to ask him to take the floor now to talk a little bit about Korea's perspective. Maybe bring in, I suppose, as a good segue to talk a little bit about your perspectives on security and climate issues, supply chain issues, if you may. And maybe frame everything in the, again, a very nice tagline that you have framing your Indo-Pacific strategy, which is free, peaceful, and prosperous. Maybe talk about the free and the peaceful part as well, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you very much. I'd like to, first, would like to emphasize and that I was surprised recently that, yes, previously there was a rather more coherent emphasizing of the importance of this region. But as we went through some of the countries, now many European countries are very much interested in the Indo-Pacific, and they actually publicly presented their Indo-Pacific strategy, including France and others. So this Indo-Pacific region is now getting a renewed attention quite a little bit different from the previous one. But two things are clear in this region. One, this is the most economically dynamic region. And second, this region has the elements and characteristics of diversity from a very high-tech, advanced, technologically advanced country to the countries who think that they are being left behind, and also the countries with great resources while the others are very much poor in their natural endowments. So, but one thing is clear. This region, because of its diversity and its dynamic characteristics of their growth process, mainly from globalization, not enforcing more regulatory framework or, you know, restraining some of the private initiatives, but always we went into the, you know, characters of market economy, globalization, cooperation, and cooperation with the world. I think that there are three elements now at this juncture we can emphasize in this region. The first one, the fact that was taken for granted that globalization will continue should be subject to some kind of, you know, a little bit different way to look at that globalization. Geopolitical situations are changing in this region. Whether we like it or not is a fact that we must take for granted. Then certainly some responses should be made. And this supply chain, whether I should say disruptions, but some supply chain, you know, the challenges are actually occurring in this region. And some kind of dynamic shifting of their, or relocation of their production consumption, you know, structures should change. So this region is subject to the exposure to the result of the, you know, global supply chain shifting. But at the same time, without this region, the acceptance and accommodation to respond to that, you know, supply chain shifting, it will be a little bit hard for this region to go to completely very different continents or to the countries very far from this region. So the problem is occurring here. And this region should be subject to accommodating those, you know, impacts in a minimally, you know, frictionless way, I should say. That's the challenge which we are now, we should address in this region. Of course, intergovernmental as well as private cooperation is important in taking this issue into a more acceptable level of accommodations. Businesses are understanding the issues. And at the government level, we have, you know, some kind of Indo-Pacific economic framework of prosperity, supply chain agreements that are actually acting to address these issues. The second issue I'd like to emphasize is how to address the climate change as a whole of this region, but also as an individual country. You know, this region accounts for 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions. And the key, yes, we have a lot of areas that we should, you know, react to this kind of quite unfortunate fact. But the most important one will be the energy transition. And I don't think that this region is so good at renewable energy, solar or wind. They still have a lot of challenges to make a real dent in energy transition. So I'd like to propose a new initiative by Korea, which was made public at the General Assembly session by our presidents, which is called Carbon Free Energy Initiative. That is just a kind of consultation body, which will take into account all the general emission impacts of the sources of energy, not 100% limiting to solar and winds, including hydrogen, including nuclear, and renewable, of course, and the new sources of energy that will emerge in the process of our technological breakthrough. So with this initiative, and by joining from a lot of countries and members of this region, we would like to make carbon neutral Pacific. We are also cooperating with Pacific Islands countries where climate change is an existential threat, and Korea would like to be a green ladder to breach the climate gap. We will use our ODA, and Korea will increase its contributions to multilateral climate funds, including Green Climate Fund and GGGI. The last point I'd like to make is that we should cooperate on reinforcing the platform, cooperative platform, for making our growth potential in this region. That is cooperation for sustained and inclusive economic growth, and importance of rule-based open and fair economic order, digital innovation, inclusive growth will be the main elements of the directions and ways we would like to pursue corporations in this region for growth in the future. APEC is very important. APEC has led regional corporations through rulemaking, command vision, and action plan. And APEC set forth through Zaya Vision 2040 in 2020, three pillars, trade and investment, innovation and digitalization, sustainable and inclusive growth. So we will cooperate on a collective as well as individual basis by members. So there's some worries and concerns whether in these geopolitical situations APEC will be capable enough to draw some agreements and so on. But in San Francisco I really would like to command the United States for its leadership in making under these situations, making agreed statements, which has a lot of very important elements. Korea will continue these efforts next year and we would like to leverage APEC again on the basis of government as well as private partnership. And we would like to reinforce the corporations among the private businesses in this region with close corporations from the government. Thank you. Thank you Prime Minister. Minister Ollengren, if I could now turn the questions to you as well. And I think you will provide a very interesting perspective as we sort of segue to include the talk about security issues as a partner of the region from the outside looking in. Maybe you could explain the context to which obviously the EU and your country the Netherlands has very recently stepped up its cooperation and engagement with the Pacific. Tell us why this is sort of a new step forward for you and to what extent external partners such as yourself see the importance of the Pacific in setting sort of the groundwork for the rest of the world. Well thank you for that question. I think for the Netherlands it sort of comes natural because we have been a seafaring nation for centuries and that means for us that principle is something that we value very much because free seas mean free trade. And Indo-Pacific is an important region to us. We were one of the first countries to have such a strategy as the Prime Minister of Korea mentioned, a strategy for the Indo-Pacific and many other European countries have followed suit. And I think it's also important to show our partners in that region that even now as of course we are very preoccupied by the war in Ukraine that does not distract us from continuing to be a reliable partner to the countries in the Pacific and a credible partner to the countries in the Indo-Pacific. And there are several reasons for that. I think first of all because the globalization and the interconnectivity is on every level and in every area. So as Minister of Defence I deal with security issues but you cannot discuss security issues without thinking about cyber and hybrid threats without thinking about the economic resilience that we need or climate change as was just mentioned that is really interconnected. I think also for our global economy and the prosperity that we want for people we need to uphold the principle of the free seas. We have seen it you know the Black Sea when it was not free the whole world was disrupted. Africa was directly affected by the fact that the grain from Ukraine couldn't pass through the Black Sea and that was a bit of a wake-up call. We're seeing it today in the Red Sea as the vessels cannot pass through anymore have to make a detour it's two weeks extra and that means that a lot of people are being affected by this and businesses being affected by this. So the principle of the free sea is very important and it's part of our rule-based order that we also must uphold and the question is how can we do that and how can we cooperate with the partners in the Indo-Pacific. To give you a concrete example is that we have decided that we will dispatch a frigate every second year to do the route through the region and it's much appreciated by the countries in the region. And of course we do not come alone we partner up with other countries European countries United States and of course the countries in the region and I think that is very significant to contribute to the principle of the free seas and by actually showing presence by actually reaching out by cooperating by doing joint exercises together also to show that in there is really not a far away and that also means if we ask something of our partners in the Indo-Pacific because we are concerned about something that happens in Europe it goes two ways. We are of course very impressed by the Republic of Korea and the defense industry that they built and we now see also the necessity of having reliable partners in that field and those partners and we will talk a lot about strategic autonomy in inside Europe and I think that is something we have to work upon but that does not mean that we turn a blind eye to those partners who are extremely reliable and important and innovative and the last point perhaps to make is the geopolitical situation I think we really have to take that into account. We see tensions building up in many places in the world and I already discussed Ukraine Middle East of course as we speak the Sahel in Africa but also in the Indo-Pacific and be it North Korea China Taiwan the maritime presence in the South China Sea there are so many possible threats that could occur and that could lead towards further instability to prevent that and also to work on deterrence I think these partnerships are extremely important and we feel it's very for us it comes natural as seafaring nation but also I think being part of the European Union knowing the importance of this economic prosperity and knowing how economic prosperity and stability and thus security are linked to each other thank you minister obviously the Netherlands being a seafaring nation is obvious and close to the heart of those of us here from Southeast Asia so glad to hear that Mike I'm going to turn to you now and you are the only non-politician on this panel so the question I'm going to represent diversity the question I'm going to ask you therefore maybe a little bit more academic in making you sort of provide a perspective as well on the United States obviously this is a complicated year for many of us all around the world with elections you will have one too you see ongoing wars that are going on in the Middle East and Europe with all this sort of as the backdrop how confident are you that the United States will continue to lead in the ways that has that have already been outlined by this panel economically strategically and what is the capacity to do so this year and how would they do it well let me start by building on the prime minister's comments about the dynamism of the region this region and I'm defining it as the Indo-Pacific the word half comes to mind this over the last few decades this region is accounted for half global GDP growth half manufacturing growth half the growth in trade half of all patents almost half of all research and development spending half of foreign direct investment half the from a demographic perspective half the growth in working age adults it's a very dynamic region now it doesn't mean that doesn't have its problems the demographics it's grown a lot of working age adults but many Asian countries specific Indo-Pacific countries face serious demographic challenges including Japan and China also 97 percent of all of the global emissions growth come from this region and yet it's some of the most vulnerable countries in the world the island nations of the South Pacific who are facing the challenges of climate change I just say that by way of context that the US has made it clear that it is a Pacific nation and while it obviously maintains very strong alliances with Europe and it's very strongly engaged in the rest of the world the Middle East and elsewhere it is also a Pacific nation I think endemic or a symbol of that was the fact that even while these wars were going on President Biden did convene the APEC conference that the Prime Minister referred to in San Francisco and demonstrated the continuing commitment of the US to the region the last few years has been this debate about in the region about don't make us choose between the US and China Singapore chief among those who make that argument I think we've actually sort of moved on from that argument in terms of US engagement in the world I think we've done it for a couple reasons one I think there's more of a consensus within the Asia Pacific region in the Pacific region of the nature of the China challenge whether it's the use of economic coercion against Japan and Korea or the South the militarization of the South China Sea or the challenges to the Philippines most recently on on its stake in the South China Sea or the Belt and Road Initiative which has been seen to have downsides as well as upsides US at the same time I think has come forward with a number of additional pieces of architecture for the Indo-Pacific the Quad, AUKUS, the trilateral engagement with Japan and South Korea, IPEF this new IPEF investment mechanism to attract investment focus on infrastructure the global infrastructure initiative for the Asia Pacific and I think rather than asking countries to choose one or the other I think we're all getting used to a world in which there's not a China block and there's not a US block in the Indo-Pacific but in fact it's more polyamorous one might say right the countries use India as an example since they're not represented on the panel India loves the United States for technology for nuclear cooperation it loves Russia for munitions it loves Iran for oil and I think we're all getting used to the fact that we'll be loved by some for some reasons and they will love others for other reasons and all that does is point to the need to be much more a much more complex world and the need to be much more sophisticated in how we engage in our relations across the Indo-Pacific we can't expect people to be in one camp or the other I think we're getting the US is getting used to that to answer your question about the nature of US leadership but we can provide alternatives and provide mechanisms to cooperate with others where it matters most the last thing I would say is and this I think has been very important really since Prime Minister Abe's rise in in in Japan the Asia Pacific is not waiting and the Indo-Pacific is not waiting for the United States to coordinate ASEAN continues to strengthen itself CPTPP continues to grow Singapore has been a leader in developing digital economic partnerships and agreements and it's finding its own way to develop alternatives and to balance the other natural forces in the region including China while attracting the United States to be continuously engaged thanks Mike as I said I was going to open the floor up to questions after this but you have another two minutes to think about them because Minister Gonzalez Soletre you've asked for the floor to respond to something which is very good please go ahead yes thank you very much I would like to build on what Mr Prime Minister of South Korea has said he was talking about globalization just like the minister from the Netherlands was saying making emphasis on armed conflicts at the same time Mr Fromman was talking about mechanisms for cooperation well besides all of that I think that today more than ever today more than ever we can paraphrase what a Nobel Prize awarded has said which is that beyond war and beyond politics we cannot deny reality and possibly the mother of all battles will not be the current conflicts that are very serious we must say and we need to solve them however I think that the most important thing will be the consequences that derive from those conflicts for example for example job reductions um illiterate or what we could we can call a neo illiterate people people who lose their job after 50 years old and they cannot be reinserted into the working life so with all these armed conflicts we are creating a world where inclusion will not find its place anymore however because we are experiencing many threats to social security in many countries in just a couple of tickets of this millennia things have changed radically only we have foreseen actually that in 15 years old jobs will disappear children going to school in america and preparing them themselves for the future when they grow when they when they're gonna grow old they will not be prepared for the new world so this is disrupting current and future markets and it's creating this asymmetry of economics in the region so we are facing a moral dilemma what should we do as economists and as governments and at the same time we have the possibility of managing in artificial intelligence and to make good use of it so this is an existential dilemma as well as a conclusion i would say that development and the better economy is are not enough we need to focus on the social insecurity and injustice that we are living today such as in exclusion and job losses in japan for example there are certain hotels with no workers hotels that are managed by an artificial intelligence so this is a challenge we need to increase the amount of investment but at the same time we need to find disruptive solutions and solutions that will provide us with alternatives to face the world of the future and so that the people who were born during covid are going to be able to face this new social Darwinism that's the final comments that i wanted to say thank you very much i will now have a little bit of time for questions from the floor the only thing i would ask is when you do put up your hands the mic will come to you and please stand up as you ask the question thank you hi brad olson i'm an economist from new zealand and also one of the global shapers just a very brief comment before the question i i fear that the panel might have forgotten the second half of the pacific that's in the south and i recognize that there's not many of us representatives here but i guess a question to the panel how do you see that engagement going with those countries that don't have as much resource that don't have that much ability to be on the global stage there's not representation here at davos from australia from new zealand from most of the pacific islands um you know we are quite literally a world away how do you see that engagement happening is it country to country bilaterally is it through multilateral organizations a peck asian how does that engagement look as you know there is a lot of fraction in the region there is a lot of concern there is a lot of other issues how do you engage with those other countries thanks thanks a lot i think the prime minister made reference to that as well in terms of the assistance and the focus that they will have career as far as the pacific island is concerned about i'll probably make the prime minister take that on if you could and the floor if anyone else would like to take it on as well after that please let me know well there is no single solutions to this problem uh we should do it on an individual basis uh you know individuals individual countries that are in this region and private sector is also very important in in reducing and reducing the size of the problems by cooperating with the with the government and at the same time in some kind of you know platforms like a pack will be a quite an important platforms for us to engage we have been trying from 1989 through the a pack we made a vision we we made a concrete discussions on trade and investments how how can how to ensure inclusivity in that process i don't think that we have been successful 100 but the focus was always there so but what is good in this region is that yes there are some disparities and discrepancies among the members but in overall as mike has just said we are getting stronger and we are getting much better than before we have some rooms for maneuver so i think that uh you know on an individual basis through oda and also you know cooperative oda i should say maybe japan korea us can work together to help those countries left behind through various ways and also individual countries we can do it korea this this year we increased 43 percent of our oda and by 2030 we will double the current you know amount and pacific islands countries are clearly our one of the main targets for creating and working platforms to work together we had a summit meeting with pacific islands last year may and we will do it with some of the cn members yes so so i think that future is it's not so bleak it's bright and here there is a potential there's a willingness and there is some financial you know leveraging process we can do it maybe i'll ask a mike to help chime in as well because i mean when we look at a pacific and i and i and i sympathize with the question because the a large part of the pacific obviously we look at in terms of the potential and the strength of the the main countries like united states and china and korea in the pacific but on the other side you have the pacific islands the south pacific who on issues like climate change will be the worst affected as well maybe take us back to your time at the us tr and in the administration how you approach those questions in terms of approaches towards assistance in terms of strategic issues for that part of the pacific well i i think that excuse me i think the uh those vulnerable countries are getting more and more attention in fact eight out of ten of the most recent climate disasters came from this region uh and you see a lot of competition for the attention of the pacific island nations between the us china other uh other forces in the in the in the region as well are engaged with them to try and figure out how to take this forward the world bank under ajabanga laid out a toolkit for climate disasters very much with the small island nations in mind and how to make sure that they had what they needed in order to address this but it's going to be an ongoing set of issues including what happens in islands where it becomes increasingly uninhabitable i don't think of australia and new zealand as poor nations in the south pacific by the way new zealand punches way above its weight internationally including on trade and on on on climate and australia obviously plays a very critical role including on security issues around around the world we just saw it in the in the red sea their participation as well but i think collectively we all need to focus on the most vulnerable countries and do what we can in terms of mobilizing resources finding ways of using blended finance there's issues around climate resilient debt covenants i'm sure you know more about it than uh than i do and how to and that that work has begun at the mdb's the multilateral development banks but there's still a lot more work to be done to refocus their balance sheets and what can be done through insurance and other mechanisms to try and address their particular needs of adaptation we've almost run out of time before i get to wrapping up i just want to make sure that there's no one final quick question um to be asked i'm mr maru the trade minister papanikini good morning everyone and thank you again for the panel um i wanted to say this is uh the leader of the pacific in terms of the biggest nation of the pacific i want to remind our audience papanikini is a third of the nations the world's rainforest we are the lungs of the world after now court meeting after court meeting our people have not been able to monetize carbon credit or able to access any sort of funding from all these climate funds that we talk about they all want to preserve forest they want to support the world but there's no incentive we have a choice of deforestation continuing to do logging operation or to bring it to a halt and assist the world at this time but right now all the great nations like the us they keep talking they keep polluting but we have the funds to support nations like ours who are the lungs of the world we want to do more but there's no incentive and this esteemed audience need to be reminded of that the other factor our small vulnerable island states were really affected by climate change you don't see funds available to even build seawalls for that matter no one is stepping forward to provide assistance in this area they are really innocent island nations and they're really being affected by major industrialized nations of the world and your actions to continue to follow the environment I think something more needs to be done and I came here to echo their voice and to stress that the time for talking is over we must see action now to support island nations who are really affected by climate change and to support nations like Papua New Guinea to preserve our forests so we continue to be lungs of the world thank you thank you minister um on that note I think your message has been heard loud and clear I think at least the panelists here would be fully aware of the responsibilities and the next steps forward um on that front can I ask each one of the panelists um unfortunately these things uh time often flies and we wish we had more time if you could recap uh if you imagine yourselves now in 2025 we're sitting here again in January and we're looking at sort of a post-mortem of how we did in 2024 would you see and how what would you see in terms of the good news that will come out of the Pacific in terms of the leadership it is going to provide whether it is within the realm of APEC or external partners looking in um give us a sense of what you hope to see uh this coming year might maybe start with you and then we'll end with the prime minister well I'd say if when we were here last year uh there was a lot of concern a lot of discussion about the U.S.-China relationship around decoupling etc and I think this year we've already seen some significant progress in terms of stabilizing the relationship based on the summit meeting that President Biden President Xi had in November in California I think one of the areas of potential good news while there's so much other less than good news out there in the world is that the U.S.-China relationship may be stable throughout 2024 and that hopefully in 2025 we can continue to build on that stability to actually make progress on outstanding issues very good thanks minister so you talked about leadership so you were talking about leadership how our leadership is going to be in 2024 and 2025 and here I come with my own perspective the perspective of a very peaceful country a country with a long-standing tradition for peace we consider and thought hegemonic leaderships and individual leaderships should open the way for a collective leadership with shared values avoiding the dichotomy between what we say and what we do let me give you an example yesterday in a closed session sorry I cannot disclose the comments that were spoken and who said those comments but I can tell you that one of the participants said that there was this like these double standards because people make wishes that concern everybody good wishes best wishes for everybody however when we look at what they do we see a very big difference and that difference also remains in the public opinion so I would I would prefer a shared leadership a collective leadership with shared values and this does not imply becoming a big powerful country but having the moral authority and the exemplarity of doing what we say and saying what you what we do so in 2025 I would like for this a shared and collective leadership to be appreciated and shared at the end of the day excellent thank you minister all in good now what's your office well as a minister of defense of course I see that defense spending in the Indo-Pacific is is on the rise I also see alliances that are are being being formed and tensions that are there rising diminishing but still there in a very complex situation so I think it's crucial to have dialogue continued dialogue also between our part of the world and the Indo-Pacific United States and all countries involved we have the European Union and NATO to organized contexts in which we can have that dialogue also with other parts of the world it's extremely important to keep that going I think but the most important thing is that we all agree on the rule-based order that we all agree that we can we can have our differences and we have we make different choices as nations and as countries but that we all uphold this rule-based order because it profits all of us every single country and that would be my wish for next year that there that we have that common base that we have that common ground and that leads us towards well maybe increased defense spending but also in the understanding that military conflicts usually don't solve things they only increase instability and lead to different questions on how to stop military conflicts so for deterrence yes but for actually starting military conflicts that would be very very bad step thank you thank you Prime Minister you have the final minute of this panel well on a macro terms I think next year will be much more price stabilizing here and you know with the subsiding of the inflation very high interest rate will be will not be accelerated on the basis of that I think some countries in this in the specific countries like Korea will put more emphasis of his policy on some kind of solidarity and we will work more closely with Pacific Islands and ASEAN members mainly in digitalization processes how to make how to contribute to not increasing the disparities but you know contributing in its own way with the projects with those countries that they are not be left behind in this in this AI world which will be critically will emerge as a as a you know great great equalizer thank you thank you Prime Minister thank you distinguished panelists all of you I'm sorry we extended a little bit over time but thank you much for very much for staying with us thank you