 Ladies and gentlemen, thank you once again for joining us. I'm very impressed with the wonderful turnout, even though we're all the way nearly to the end of this wonderful two-day session that we've been through covering so many interesting aspects of Indo-Pacific security. Let me once again extend our gracious thanks to the National Security College, to our supporters and sponsors from Japan, and to our visitors from abroad for joining us here in Canberra. It's really been a very enlightening and, I think, interesting set of conversations which just drive further home just how important, not only the concept, but the practice of understanding Indo-Pacific security is and how much more it's going to be going forward. I'm Bates Gill. I am a recently appointed Professor of Asia-Pacific Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center, Coral Bell School of Australian National University. And I think this is probably my first public opportunity in that capacity, so I'm very honored and thank Rory and all of his team for the opportunity to be here. Today's session with an excellent set of panelists. We're gonna be start talking, I think, in the broader sense about issues of developing strategic partnerships around issues of Indo-Pacific security. What are some of the opportunities before us for key partners to come together? I'm hoping we're gonna get some real outside of the square, outside of the box ideas about how some of the important partners in this region can begin to think more concretely about working together around the questions that we all face about Indo-Pacific security. Obviously this is not a new question. Issues of multilateral approaches to security issues in the region have been with us for a long time and a lot of us have been trying to deal with them for many, many decades. But I think as Rory and many others have tried to make clear the circumstances, the trends, the drivers, both internal and external, to the region are such that the demand for these types of multilateral partnerships is only growing going forward. I hope that our panelists will be able to touch on the opportunities and challenges that face so-called mini-lateral or ad hoc coalitions of the willing to tackle problems versus the larger architectural frameworks that we all know about, such as the EAS or the ASEAN Regional Forum and many, many others, which have their drawbacks, obviously. They have strong reasons for existing and good ones. But nevertheless, what can be done more in the way of mini-lateral ad hoc coalitions of the willing to drive forward or even take the lead in meeting that demand for multilateral solutions? I'm hoping too that while our descriptors of this panel makes no mention of China, per se, I am personally very, very keen to hear more from the audience and from our panelists not how can these coalitions move forward without China or even because of the rise of China, but rather what smart ways can we actually develop concretely to make sure that the many benefits that China's participation would bring to multilateral solutions in the region can be realized as difficult as that may well be. And of course, India is going to be a key player in all of this. I know that many of our panelists will be addressing just how India can step up and reach its full potential as a multilateral player and contributor to solutions in the Indo-Pacific, I think is gonna be an issue we all want to hear more about. So let me stop there. Just one quick reminder to everyone, following the closure of the conference today, lunch is gonna be served just outside of this room. So please do join in that for further networking and discussion amongst ourselves. You have the bios in front of you. We're gonna go along the lines here that are presented on the slide. And first I would then, would like Kathy Klugman from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to begin our session. Thank you. It's particularly good for me to be here and to speak to you all in front of people like Miles Cooper, my former boss in Singapore. He was High Commissioner when I was Deputy High Commissioner there, Murray McLean, a luminary like Miles in the world that I've grown up in, the career world that I've grown up in, with Serangus here and also with Richard Rigby, who was the first boss I had who enchanted me in the ways of Indo-China and North Asia. So it's a particular pleasure to be here. He could do that enchantment in most languages too. So that was quite wonderful. So this session, I guess, after yesterday and earlier today begins to draw our eyes a little westward, putting India squarely in the frame as it needs to be in any broad discussion of Indo-Pacific or Indo-Asia-Pacific security. You won't be surprised to learn that I'm attached to this concept, this notion that we've tagged Indo-Pacific and that can also be described as Indo-Asia-Pacific if for those who feel uncomfortable with the Asia word dropping out of the phrase. Like Professor Medcalf, like people like Peter Varghese, the secretary of my department, I believe that the paradigm encompassed by the Indo-Pacific term makes a lot of sense when Australia starts to look around ourselves and to try to understand how our interests are captured in the region and how broadly we need to cast our definition of the region. I am convinced that the sweep of geography that's encased in that descriptor, Indo-Pacific, does constitute the strategic system that will matter most to Australia and to the region in coming years. I'm quite convinced of that. A big factor, of course, in this is India. China has been the standout economic story of the last three decades, I said the word. But the next three decades may well see the India story play out on a similar scale. Today, India is the fastest growing large economy in the world. Its potential is palpable. If India can find the policy path to sustained high growth, it will be transformative for the region. India is the only country in Asia with the scale and the civilizational pedigree to match the China story. And it has the added advantage of the rule of law and a settled democratic political system. For Australia, this adds up to an important opportunity. We have a chance to forge with India a partnership pivoted on complementary strategic as well as economic interests. Geography and India's liberal democracy creates a strategic bond with Australia. There are important differences, but we see many regional issues through similar eyes. We share a commitment to respect for international law and international norms, fundamental human rights and the peaceful settlement of disputes. We are working well together to build regional institutions step by step. Our defense dialogue is deepening in real and substantial ways. Our broad security ties are thickening in the same way. We are both Indian Ocean states, which understand that the big strategic challenges of the future are likely to be maritime. Of course, this isn't a new discovery for Australia or indeed for India, but there are some new factors driving the complementarity of strategic interests and outlook between Australia and India. Some of this is about broader geostrategic developments in the region and the China story is obviously a very important part of that. But some of it's about India itself and the way India has begun to reconceptualize its role in the world and in the region. We'll hear, I think, more authentically about this process in some of Nitian's comments later. While its near region remains a central focus for India's foreign and security policy and its role in the Indian Ocean remains very important to it and very strong, India is showing that it has more expansive interests beyond its immediate neighborhood. There are a number of factors at play here. Like all of us, India is aware of the geopolitical shifts underway in the region and it knows it has skin in the broader regional game. India also has a new leadership and a new articulation of its sights under Prime Minister Modi's act east policy. Evolution of the earlier Look East policy under his predecessors. It's also fair to say that for India, like for all of us, the old patterns of thinking that derive from Cold War structures and Cold War thinking have been loosening their bonds of relevance in Delhi and elsewhere. So it's not surprising that this is the time of new thinking, new partnerships and new patterns of discussion and cooperation. So starting with the bilateral, we have seen a real escalation of Australia's engagement with India in defence and security matters, including in non-traditional security matters. Some of this has been put down in writing, as us diplomats and governments like to do. In 2014, the Prime Minister Modi and then Prime Minister Abbott agreed a framework for security cooperation, which was an umbrella agreement that outlined the ways in which we wanted to boost security and related cooperation between the two countries. It used the growing complementarity of our strategic interests as a starting point and set out a bunch of new mechanisms for closer discussion and collaboration in security matters. These included new meetings, for example, on maritime security, on cyber policy and on transnational crime, complementing the extensive existing architecture dealing with counterterrorism and with proliferation matters. There's also been a flowering of practical cooperation. For example, and I think importantly for Australia and for India, the inaugural bilateral maritime exercise held in the Bay of Bengal in September last year, involving ships, planes and submarines on both sides. We're also now looking to better collaborate, to talk more deeply and to understand each other in our foreign and security policies through a new mechanism, which is what we call a two plus two, bringing foreign and defence secretaries on both sides together for open discussion on an annual basis. We're trying to program that in the next few months. So bilateral is important and it's growing and it's sort of, in my view, the bedrock of the other stuff that we do with India, but it's certainly not all there is. And there are very important, there is a very important place for regional and other multilateral structures, which reinforce the international rules-based order many have talked about at this conference. And it's in some of these structures where the Indo-Pacific concept has its clearest institutional expression in bodies like the East Asia Summit. In the EAS, we see the Indo-Pacific footprint, bringing together the countries of ASEAN, that core role, countries of North Asia and Australia, New Zealand, India, the US, as well as Russia. So we need to continue to focus on the East Asia Summit and through it to build habits of cooperation and develop the understandings and expectations that will add to regional security in the years ahead. I think as Bates said earlier, that's very much a collaborative exercise and it's very much involving China in a constellation, as I said, that means a lot to all of us participating. There are other important regional bodies and I think they've been spoken off by people who know more, much more than I do in the course of the last day and a half. There's the ASEAN Defence Minister's meeting, ADMM Plus. That's valuable for Australia, India and Japan in building regional security, architecture and fostering practical military cooperation. There's also IAORA, the Indian Ocean Reim Association and IONS, which Admiral Swift referred to several times in his keynote address yesterday. Japan, of course, being an observer to both of these Indian Ocean-based structures. Another example I'd throw into the mix and it's less well-known is the growing role of Heads of Asian Coast Guard Agencies meeting that where India, Australia and Japan, among quite a few others, are taking forward real practical and often quite technical initiatives in the maritime area. So finally, I think a word on this mini-lateralism as it's coined, including in the program. For Australia, this is not an either or proposition. Australia acts bilaterally. We put a lot of eggs also in the regional basket, both in terms of regional institution building and just building habits of conversation. But there are, we do see opportunities for new ways of working together that are smart and nimble. Trilateral cooperation is one area that's been flowering recently and we've seen past experiments and current efforts in quadrilateral constellations. Some of it's formalised, some of it's not. Its purpose is to bring together to harness the common interests, which may be in very specific areas, subject matter areas, or to find new ways of interacting that go beyond the more traditional bilateral and multilateral habits. So we've got the well-established, I think a very good example, trilateral strategic dialogue bringing together the United States, Australia and Japan. We've also seen cooperation with a group of regional countries, especially with China and with Malaysia, on MH370. And we've had countries such as Japan, Australia, the ROK and the US meet at experts and at officials' level to discuss North Korea and DPRK sanctions. All of these are very worthwhile for collaboration and for common endeavour. A new initiative for us that's been front of mind for me recently has been a trilateral foreign secretaries-level dialogue that brings together foreign secretaries of Australia, India and Japan. I've just accompanied Peter Varghese to the second such meeting, which took place two weeks ago now in Tokyo. Those meetings are no threat to any other country. They simply take advantage of opportunities for discussion where we have common interests and there are clearly common interests growing between Australia, Japan and India and common perspectives. They also offer a platform for discussion where there are differences, where perspectives don't necessarily match and there was a fair helping of that also in Tokyo. So in conclusion, I think both Australia and Japan are focused on maritime cooperation with India. I think both Australia and Japan are doing it at various levels and in different groupings and certainly Australia, but I think others also see real benefit in the sort of mini-lateral cooperation that I think we'll continue to flower as we work together to build up the bilateral and the regional architecture for a safe and a prosperous future for the Indo-Pacific. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I'm going to make a presentation by the PowerPoint slides, many of that. And before that, I'm touch upon the importance of the sea, stability of the sea and including sea lines of communication, slug. Even during Cold War era. That is from the Cold War era and now current situation, no change. There will be no change for the importance of sea and stability of the sea and the sea lines of communication. During Cold War era, Japan made a commit to protect the 1,000, so called 1,000 North Carolina defense, which is equivalent to the almost the covering, the first island line and second island line, so called and including all of the EEZ area. This is a very vast area, of course, but we keep the 100 P-3C aircraft or more than 60 destroyers in the frigates and then we did to protect these area. After that, after that area, we have significantly relied on the US naval power, including Asia Pacific, Indian Ocean and beyond. Even after the Cold War era, we were engaged into the Indian Ocean of course in the Western Pacific Ocean. For Indian Ocean, we dispatched, first, the minesweeping flotilla into the Persian Gulf right after the World War, first during Gulf War and then we dispatched also oil, fuel, replenishment ship to support the replenishment of the fuel to the foreign destroyers in the frigates near the Persian Gulf. And then we now are contacting anti-piracy operation in the Western Indian Ocean. And not only such a military cooperation, but also the other operation for non-traditional activities such as HADR, SAR, and so on in the Eastern, mostly Eastern Indian Ocean. Such and such, Japan contributed many activities even after the Cold War era and after the Cold War era. Well, the threat, but also, but we must know the threat, a kind of threat or what changed during Cold War era. Yes, that is a USSR. But right now we need more complex situation. Some countries have very strong efforts to strengthen the naval power, behaving very hegemonic for us, hegemonic operation activities in this area and also the non-nation actor, such as international terrorist are going to the sea. So we should counter these area by not only the single country, even the US Navy couldn't act properly to these kind of threat, new threat. So I'd like to say this time to make a chain of coalitions with among the partners allies who share, who could share the common interests. Here is a Chinese hegemonic maritime expansion. We have repeatedly talking about this model in this conference. There's a cause of an unlawful expansion to our strong maritime power, attempts to change status quo. This is very, very important for us by question at sea and air domain. Rapid maritime and air force with that, they end also the supported by the space or SADAR or the other domains to accomplish A2AD posture. One belt, one roll plan, setting a string of parts, all the other concepts, but still the vivid in this era, string of parts throughout the Indian Pacific Ocean. Repeated intrusion into the Japanese territory water around Senkaku, fortified the South China Sea by developing a military system on disputed island. Such a stance causing a serious concern to regional and international community. Here is a Chinese maritime advancement. This I'm quoting this from the International Express News April 2010. There will be nine exits, 12 outer sea from the China. First, one to nine. One to six. Those are related to the Japanese territory from the Soya Strait in the most north and Bashi Strait in the most southern area. Which would be related to the, of course, the A2AD. There is some friction of the A2AD and then some supporting force. Something happened in this area. The US will dispatch the supporting forces and there would be a friction. Here there are lots of the flashing a point in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Mostly in the South China Sea, Vietnam and the Philippines have offered to China to seize these actions. And also, Sunda, Lombok and Singapore, Maracas Strait, those are the exits to the Indian Ocean from the Western Pacific. And through the Indian Ocean coast, northern coast of Indian Ocean, there is a so-called string of pearls along with the coastline of a huge vast area of the so-called South Asia. And now we are talking about the Debuchi last session that very recently the report said Debuchi would be used by the Chinese Navy for a permanent basis. Okay. Here is a core interest for China. I think this is just a case, showing the case of the internal or near sea coast area of China. Not only outer area. The A2AD is the points. And the strategy characteristics as you pass week for China is the first one is the barriers of chain of islands for China's maritime advancement of A2AD. First island line, absolute defense line, so-called area defense. The second island line must be a frontier line of maximum buffer zone, including inside of the first, between first island line and the second island line. Taiwan, of course, has a core of core interest. How about these areas in the near sea, are inside of the first island line? South China Sea, obviously, it's as a strategic core interest. They would like to keep the so-called SSBN or other important assets of the Chinese Navy in this area as a sanction. And it's like a maritime sanctuary. Is China Sea, instead, as operational core interest, which China might be controlling this area operationally? Because the first island line would be a very, very important choke point for China to go in and out to the western Pacific Ocean. Now, area of A2Z zone as a tactical decisive interest, which would be used for maritime interception for the maybe US forces from Hawaii, Guam, or other area. Here is one road line. And we are talking about that. So we need to, I think, to ensuring the stable seas in the Indian Pacific. That, as I showed you, what we already discussed on this matter, existing risk for free access to sea and air are being needed. Growing risk of incidents and possible escalation at sea and air. Unilateral action trying to change status quo by China. Those are the very unstable, called for the unstable situation. So we need open and stable seas. Sea must be governed by international maritime law or maritime practice, such as ANCROS. Required regional collective maritime security. This is my conclusion. Collective maritime security cooperation. Now, how should we do that? So setting a maritime security coalition essential to for stable sea lines communication. And then finally, we need to establish a seamless chain of coalition throughout in Pacific region. The collective maritime security cooperation, there is a majority of regional country. A maritime player seeks for a separation collective maritime security cooperation. And then they are seeking for some coalition in the specific sub-region in the Indian Pacific region as a matter of the fact. Not the total. Even the small country or a small Navy country, they would not have any such a big perspective on the security of the sea. But the specific area of the sub-region for that country would be very, very important and have a very specific situation. And in the last line, RRMP, I think the majority of regional maritime players views reliable regional maritime powers. RRMP, such as the Japan, Australia, India and the US. Those are the key players for the maritime coalition. Collective maritime coalition. Okay, sure. I think here is a easy picture of the cooperation. One of the example, this is the JAUS maritime security coalition as the Japanese ambassador said. Bukwens, the relationship between Japan and Australia is a Bukwens, like a Bukwens. Northern anchor would be Japan. Southern anchor would be Australia. If that is a kind of a question. The other one is the JAUS, Japan, India and the US maritime security coalition. And these are the RRMP. We have Japan, Australia, India, US as a maximum responsibility. Finally, we need to establish a chain of coalition, like that. And here is a chain of coalition. If we layer these efforts with some regional country, which we faced on a specific sub-region. Those are the, okay, if we can put those small red line, red circle, like Sri Lanka or other Indian Ocean country, we could do the seamless, seamless maritime security coalition throughout India-Pacific. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Well, I think I would be remiss without wishing you all a very happy St. Patrick's Day since I married to an Irishman. Just want to acknowledge that special day at least for my family. Thanks very much to the organizers. This is a real pleasure for me to be here to talk to you all today. So in thinking on the last panel, second to last speaker, what I could really add to this already rich discussion regarding partnerships and not being an Indo-Pacific expert myself, I decided to basically start to reflect upon the lessons that I've learned from some of the research that I've done at RAN over the years. So most of my career at RAN has been focused on security cooperation. And security cooperation to the United States is about, it's about building relationships, it's about promoting the building of capabilities and it's about promoting access to persons, facilities, individuals so that there will be established ties there and we can start to get to know how each other does business really. We do that through a variety of mechanisms such as training, equipping, exercising, workshops, key leader engagements, you name it. And that's a big focus of our Department of Defense is in this area of security cooperation. So I've also done some deep dive case study analysis in for the Department of, our Department of Defense in terms of learning operational lessons from recent HADR operations where our department was heavily involved. So I thought it would be useful to sort of combine the security cooperation expertise and background with some of the lessons from the operational lessons that I've done in HADR. And sort of interweaving it to this idea of mini-lateral cooperation so I'll see if I can attempt to do that. In framing my short remarks, I settled on this one key question to focus on. What are the key enablers to building partner capacity that could help to further operationalize this concept of mini-lateral cooperation? And what might such a new framework actually look like? Which my colleagues of course are commenting on and others have in this conference. So I figured last panel of the day we better start to try to get to some good ideas and I tried to think about a few. So I have four ideas for your consideration in thinking about mini-lateralism. The first, I think it's important, my first point is to try to find common ground and to identify the most pertinent issues that are most common to many countries. And a couple of ideas that come to mind of course are HADR, one another is countering violent extremism and the third is illicit trafficking of all kinds. There are many, many other areas that are common to all issues but I just wanna focus on these three. HADR as we all know is a huge focus in this region and unfortunately there is about 100% guarantee that disasters will occur every year in this region. And international responses and requests will be made for support. Some countries have invested significant resources over the years in building up particular niche capabilities to support HADR. And I think some of the efforts might be made in mini-lateral cooperation to try to identify which countries specialize and which capabilities so that we can draw upon those strategic advantages when it comes to HADR response. So another observation that wasn't so good is while the international community continues to send both civilian and military personnel into these disaster zones, there are still so many lessons that haven't been learned from prior HADR operations which is what our research found. To quickly summarize, I did this project for DOD and it looked at four different case studies but I'm most familiar with the great earthquake in Japan. I focused on that particular case studies. And while there were many, many issues across our cases, a couple of issues really stand out. The first issue is civil military coordination and command and control. The second is information and intelligence sharing and foreign disclosure. And the third is strategic communications, both communications between the countries that are all participating in this response and strategic communications with the affected nation and their people and their government. Civil military cooperation in HADR I think is particularly problematic and when you think about working and bringing in intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and not really having processes in place to really quickly share information becomes, keep seeing this again and again and I don't think we're gonna get it right without really thinking about it and trying to come up with better ways maybe during times when we're not in crisis to try to work through some of these issues. Now, every country in this region has and will continue to have and experience these disasters and they have their own lessons but I think it's important that those lessons be captured, shared, analyzed and ultimately learned rather than just identified. And these lessons can be incorporated into existing national plans and strategy but also regional plans and regional strategies. And then even into future security cooperation efforts so that the exercises are being tailored towards addressing the problems that kind of keep coming up again and again. So still heading under this heading of deepening relationships around issues that are common to all. I think having events and projects that facilitate dialogue in the area of countering violent extremism would be a useful endeavor in this region. Many countries including Australia have been focusing on CVE at the local level at the community level and there's a growing dialogue here in that area that I've observed in my year and a half being in Australia. And I think it would be useful to sort of start a dialogue perhaps perhaps it's already been done in the track discussions but I think it's something that may need a bit more traction. And also, elicit trafficking and border security is obviously a huge topic in this region, maritime border security and thinking about how each country is assessing risk and thinking about how each country is mapping their border networks at more of a systems level analysis. And I don't know how often countries are thinking about this, I know Australia is starting to think about this. So that would be a source of, I think a topic would be event trust at a mini lateral level. So my second point and the points get shorter. Second point is that I believe it's important to ensure that assistance that's being provided and capabilities that are being provided to partner countries in this region are appropriate. Meaning that the countries can actually absorb the capabilities that we're providing. So starting with basic equipment and training and much and moving into the more technical training and assistance areas such as ISR capabilities, portal monitors, those kinds of things only when it's the right time. And I've seen from my own research, major problems within my government in trying to resource for sustainment. So you go in, you build a capability and sustainment is unfortunately kind of an afterthought. And it's assumed that the partner country would be able to pay for some of the sustainment costs themselves, but often this isn't the case and capabilities quickly dilapidate, unfortunately. Another observation from my research along these lines is that maritime security assistance isn't necessarily coordinated between allies sort of working with third countries. I mean, sometimes there's good reasons for not doing that. Sometimes the Australians go into country X with a particular focus and the Americans go into and then the Indians come in and then the Japanese come in and others. But I think sharing more information about where we're engaging, I think is a really important point. Sharing key leader engagement talking points when that's appropriate on sort of one end of the spectrum and perhaps thinking about ways to kind of piggyback on each other's activities. One country might go in with a training event and then another country might come in with an exercise to actually validate where that training was useful. I've seen this happen in Europe quite a lot and in Georgia in particular, but you'd not so much, at least from my visibility of this region. Another really key point is thinking about institution building and not just capability building. Most, a lot of times when you're going in and you're working with a partner, you find out that they have issues or would like some help with things like logistic reform, budgeting processes, personnel resource management, professional education and training opportunities. And just being open to those dialogue, that broader dialogue about institution building, I think is really important. My third point is that I think it may be time, and we heard a little bit about this in prior speeches, but my third point is I think it might be time to think about some new ways to exchange information and to maybe consider some new topics for some of the dialogue that's going on at the trilateral level and the track levels, track one and a half, all the different levels that exist. I mean, I hear second hand that some of those discussions really focus on harder core national security topics like combating terrorism and ISIL, but also bolstering trade sort of broadly. But these topics, I don't discount their importance, they're extremely important. But my question is, could there be increased dialogue around new topics like emerging technologies, cyber policy, innovation, smart cities? And there's to your question about bringing in China where there would be a great way to do that, talk about smart cities. My fourth and final point is that I think it's important also to think about ways to assess progress in any new framework that's put forward, any new initiative that's put forward. So often our governments are just ready to charge in and not necessarily thinking about what they wanna achieve, setting milestones, establishing objectives that are achievable, that are smart, that are measurable over time. Because if you don't do that, you don't understand whether you're making progress. And then if you're not making progress, you've got no way to go back and figure out why you're not making progress. If you don't have some sort of a smart framework to kind of hang new initiatives and new activities around. I just think that's very important. You don't know whether you can continue, cut or alter existing initiatives if you don't know where you've started from and where you wanna go. But overall I believe a key success to improving maritime security in this region is to develop new partnership models and new arrangements and capitalize on existing ones even if they're nascent in order to integrate strategy, planning, resources and assessments in a new way. And to be transparent with partner countries we're working with in the region so that they understand our objectives and that we understand theirs. Thanks very much. I think over the last two days, we heard India being mentioned as part of the solution or part of the way we can manage some of the tensions in this part of the world. So what I thought I'd do is give you a sense of how some of us think about the Indo-Asia Pacific, the dynamics of the Asia Pacific and India's particular role in this process. I'm gonna split this into four sections. Quickly talk about how we see the geopolitical context which India is in. Then quickly run through what are India's interests in the Indo-Asia Pacific region. Some of the risks, economic and security risks that we foresee and what is the kind of role we see, some of us see. When I say we, I mean India is 1.3 billion people. I don't need to speak for the government nor for anybody else other than myself but this is an attempt to give you a sort of consensus of some of the thinking in India on the India Asia Pacific, Indo-Asia Pacific. First the geopolitical context. I think India finds itself willy-nilly as a swing power in the international system. We are a swing power between the United States and China in this grand contest between the United States and China and India's actions therefore make a material difference to the stakes or the prospects of the United States and its allies and China and its proxies. It is therefore in India's interest to have better relations with China and the United States than they have with each other. That's the best way a swing power can operate. This has happened, I mean we've proceeded on these lines. The United States especially has been moving the India-US relationship at a pace faster than we Indians can handle. Unfortunately the same has not been the case with China and for its own reasons, the evolution of cooperation with China is taking a far different route than we would have thought it would take. So what are the India's interests in the Indo-Pacific? Every single government for the last 25 years has said this very clearly. Our interests in the Asia Pacific region, now I'm talking about the region east of India has been is geo-economic, primarily geo-economic and the geo-economic engagement is designed to sustain India's growth and development in the 21st century. This is as true today as it was in 1991. Across governments, across political parties, across political leaders, this is the consensus view. How do we get to 8% growth or more and how can this region help us to get to that stage? For that the free movement of people, goods, services and investment is important. And any activity, any development which impedes the free movement of people, goods, services and investment is bad for us. So India's interest is in promoting the free movement of people, goods, services and I would even say ideas. The third area of where India's interest lies is to promote India's geopolitical imprint east of Singapore. For a long time, Singapore was sort of a geo-economic and a psychological boundary to India's look east policy but that has changed over the last five years and there is a greater engagement of the Indo-Asia Pacific east of Singapore. And this includes a large part of the diaspora communities, Indian diaspora communities which the present Prime Minister is especially interested in engaging. So the, he is, Prime Minister Modi is keen to engage Indian diaspora, ethnic Indian communities, peoples of Indian origin, wherever they might be, especially and there are a lot of them east of Singapore. And finally, to make all this happen, it is in India's interest to have and to maintain a stable balance of power in this part of the world. So these would be succinctly what I would imagine most analysts in India would agree on in terms of our interest in the Indo-Asia Pacific. But there are risks and I would split the risks into two parts, one is a geo-economic kind of risks and the other one are the security risks. The geo-economic risk, we've heard about the one belt, one road being spoken about in the last two days. And intrinsically, I think building infrastructure that improves commerce, livelihoods, economic development and democracy in the region is a good thing. So if China is investing in building of infrastructure to bring about an economic transformation in this part of the world and in some of the developing countries of this part of the world, it's inherently a good thing. The risk is of two areas in this. The concerns which we would have would be in terms of two areas. One is the word, the phrase one belt, one road is code I suppose for China's belt and China's road. And that's not something which we see as part of our interest. We would be much comfortable with an Asia, Indo-Asia Pacific, which is many belts and many roads where each country, each set of economies can invest and grow in the region, improve trade and economic intercourse without necessarily being locked in to one power. This is, even if we take our strategy, it's just bad geoeconomics to put everything in one basket. The second is the suspicion of some of the infrastructure projects under the one belt, one road scheme. We can all understand when ports, railway lines and roads are built where there is commercial justification. We cannot understand when roads, ports and railways are built to places where there is very little commercial justification. There are a lot of, if you look at the map of the Asia Pacific, you'll see many of these, and I think Admiral Kaneda pointed out, many of the sites have very little economic justification to build ports. So that makes us suspicious and wonder why China is interested in building infrastructure in these places. The second economic risk comes from the fear that our maritime spaces either to the east of India or the west of India will be locked up into maritime no-go zones, de facto maritime no-go zones. And as a country which imports a lot of its fuel, almost all its fuel, and is an increasingly trading nation, locking up of maritime zones into no-go zones is just not in for us. So that is a risk which we are consciously concerned about including hindrances to freedom of navigation in any part of the Indo-Asia Pacific. The second set of concerns, the risks we see are related to security. The first is, in this is the moral hazard of allies and proxies getting ahead of themselves. Because if you're an ally, you always have the insurance that the bigger power is out there to look out for you. That might make you more prone to take risks with the other side, and there are a lot of US allies who enjoy treaty relationships or semi-treaty relationships who might want to take situation much further than the United States might want to. Similarly, China's proxies might engage in behavior which might trigger off a broader conflict which China doesn't want. So whether it's China's proxies or United States and its allies, the US allies, we fear that one of these incidents might set off a tripwire in creating a larger configuration. The second is a direct confrontation. The risk of a direct confrontation between the United States and China. David Ignatius wrote about it in the Washington Post just yesterday, and that the prospects of a conflict in the South China Sea before Obama dimits office are real. We don't share the perception that they're real, but the risk of things getting out of hand are real. I mean, the prospects are not that real, but the risks are there. The third risk factor is the erosion of the rules-based architecture in East Asia, including the erosion of ASEAN as a geopolitical entity. Because we've seen in the last five to eight years a wedge being driven right through the middle of ASEAN, and you have a set of ASEAN countries which have disputes with China, and you have a set of ASEAN countries that don't. And now the question for ASEAN is, should it come to the crunch? Will ASEAN's solidarity hold, and will countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and the others support a fellow ASEAN member in its conflict with China? We are not quite sure of that. And because of that, the weakening of ASEAN solidarity or the weakening of the ASEAN-related infrastructure can be a risk to India's interests in this part of the world. Finally, the proliferation of violent non-state actors, fishing fleets, NGOs, migrants, human smuggling networks, smuggling networks, narcotics smuggling, arms smuggling, a whole bunch of pirates, the whole bunch of violent non-state actors are emerging in this part of the world and they are morphing as we speak. And these can present a major challenge to our interests in the Indo-Pacific. So if these are the risks and our interests, what do we see as a sort of a broad Indian role in this part of the world? And they're interestingly a mirror of what David Brucer prescribed for Japan. They sound very much the same. When I saw David's presentation, I said, hey, this looks very much like what I've got written down here. The first one is for India to demonstrate its credibility as a partner in the Indo-Asia Pacific which can contribute to the balance of power. And this is necessarily a naval-led kind of an initiative. We've seen a lot of this happen in the last four years and I think this is going to intensify as we move forward. The determination in New Delhi to be seen as a cautious, careful, responsible naval player in the east of the states of Malacca, Israel. Second, diplomatically I think the idea of strengthening multi-milateralism via the East Asia Summit and the ADMM++ process has broad consensus within the strategic establishment in New Delhi and you can see this proceed forward including in some of the initiatives which you spoke about this afternoon, which could be not necessarily the East Asia Summit itself, but mini-laterals among the members of the East Asia Summit. India will continue to insist on rules-based maritime order. There is very little doubt about this. India intends to cooperate with Japan in upgrading its maritime capability. So one of my conversations with Admiral just before we started is much of the action about Japanese submarines in Australia is very interesting to us because for the last year or so we've been making very strong arguments of why we need Japan to be able to be a defence partner for the Indian Navy especially in the submarine technology front. And finally, one of India's roles and this is where a lot of us have been arguing one of the best things India can do for the Indo-Asia Pacific is to be itself, upholding a liberal democratic internal order, upholding economic development in an inclusive way, upholding economic development when rights of individuals and the environment are protected and to sustain this economic tempo for the period to come. So the more we do this, the better it is for the region because it creates a lot more opportunities for the countries of the region whether it's China or whether it's Nauru. The opportunity has just increased when India remains itself and continues to grow at 8% or more. Really rich palette here of presentations from our panelists. I want to thank you all very, very much for that. We've got about 10 minutes or so that we could usefully employ for conversation discussion. Why don't I take a range of questions first to start out and then we'll turn to our panelists. Please. Masa. I'm Masa Nishihara from Japan. Listening to your excellent presentation, I've yet the impression that India is so cautious about developing a partnership with other countries. But the past last two sessions so since yesterday we have been talking about the importance of stronger partnership with India. I see there is a little bit of gap between two. Can you explain that? Thank you. How do you balance India's traditional adherence to sort of non-alignment and independence with these ideas of closer coalitions and partnerships? Please, thank you. Dr. Malcolm Davis, ASP. My question, this conference is focused obviously on the maritime domain. But whilst we have one ocean in terms of the Indo-Pacific region, space is also an ocean. And my question to the panel is how might countries like India and Japan and Australia work together in terms of space cooperation, in particular building resilience into space capabilities. When you look at how Chinese military strategy has evolved, they focus very much on winning the information battle at the outset before they bring into play anti-access area denial capabilities. And so countering their counter-space capabilities is a vital part of that. So do you see the possibility for countries like India, Japan and Australia and the United States working together to build space resilience through multinational constellations of satellites? Excellent question. Three powerful space-oriented countries. How do we cooperate? Okay, I've got five people now. Next will be Paul, I mean, all together. Next will be Paul, then John, and then Tongzha Chin. And I think I'll cut it off at that point. And if we have more time, we'll do so. Three quick points, if I may. And Rory has allowed me to refer back to the previous session, which is linked to this one. There was mention of Cocos Island in our new defense white paper. For shadows, we're going to substantially increase the length of the runway so that our new P-8 Poseidon, very potent long range reconnaissance aircraft can operate from there. And just think about its location with regard to the Straits of Southeast Asia and the Eastern Indian Ocean. Why wouldn't we ask Japan to use that capability? An associated one is somebody said rightly so that Fremantle and Fleet Base West is perhaps a bit too far south. But in a crisis, it could be a fallout secure position for Japan to have access to our maintenance facilities for surface fleet and, indeed, submarines. Second one, the point that was made just now of our Indian colleague, the erosion of ASEAN. For the last 10 years, I've represented Australia on behalf of Foreign Affairs at a particular meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, great title expert and eminent persons group. In 10 years, we've done virtually nothing. We've currently, I got up as co-chair with Barry Dexter two weeks ago, a terms of reference for a study on lessons learned and best practices for avoiding incidents at sea, including coast guards and fishing vessels. My view is, my personal view is, of course ASEAN is important, they've come a long way. We've had no war since China did not teach Vietnam a lesson in 79. But the future strategic throw weight of international organisations in this part of the world will be the East Asia summit. Final point. As a former defence planner, I struggle with Indo-Pacific. It covers half the world, if you're not careful, from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of America. That's fine for foreign policy and general security terms. What I don't want is our defence force treating the whole of that as what drives the force structure as distinct from the defence of Australia and projecting new maritime power at higher levels of readiness into Southeast Asia. Thank you, Paul. I hope some people can react to those good points. Two more questions to the floor, then John, and then Tung Ja Trun and Wolf. Thanks, Bates. John Blackson from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. I appreciate what you had to say, Admiral Kaneda. I'm just wondering, though, you know, as we think about the prospects of selling closer Japanese-Australian engagement, whether we've got a problem with the message that is being communicated between Japan and China, and it's a two-way problem, but the absolute terms, the terms that, when we describe the points of disagreement in absolute terms, in black and white terms, whether or not we're actually creating more of a problem for ourselves. And I'm just wondering if there's scope here for Japan to do more in looking to be the bigger country, the bigger person, if you like, over these contentious points that are the sticking points, the rub points, particularly in the East China Sea, that give cause for concern for pundits in Australia and elsewhere when considering closer engagement with Japanese military, maritime self-defense force and the rest of the self-defense force, the prospect of us getting entangled in something that's really not about us. And I guess there's a concern there about whether or not Japan's doing everything it can to be that liberal, democratic, open country that engages with a real, a genuine understanding of its own history and of the ambiguities around the San Francisco Treaty and around issues like Senkaku, Diayu, you know. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. And finally, last point on the floor for Tan Jianqin, and we'll turn to our panelists. Thank you. Thank you. Tan Jianqin from China Institute of International Studies, Beijing. Two questions to Vice-Miror Kaneda. You gave us a very interesting description on the construction of the seamless coalition. I listened very carefully on your presentation and I sensed some, you know, feeling of Cold War thinking and mentality to establish some coalition or airlines, you know. My question, first question is, are there any obstacles on the way to construct such a coalition today? And the second question is, does Japan prefer to invite China to be a member of the coalition or just as a target of the coalition? Thank you. Great. Thank you. Those last two questions, I think, trying to draw China into this conversation and I think we'll put, what does all this mean for the emerging power that China is and will continue to be in the region? So, we've been given a little bit of extra time from our organizers, but a very rich set of questions here for the panelists. Let me ask you, if you wouldn't, one by one take those that you'd like and be responsive and if we have a little more time, we can turn it back to the floor. Let's start perhaps with Admiral Kaneda. Thank you very much for your many, many questions. I have only six minutes. No, no, no. You have about a minute. All right. Okay. First of all, Mr. Davis talking about India and Australia with Japan should be more effort to work on the space issue, right? Okay. Space is a very complex issue and not an easy one. But if we translate this matter as, for instance, a maritime domain awareness, so we can do that to collectively to make up the maritime domain awareness issue. And I think in that case, space, observation from the space would be very, very vital in covering a very vast area. But of course, there will be a technical problem. But this is one of the solutions. And the second thing is Japan now preparing to setting up the so-called QOZI QG detection satellite system, which could be a, what do you say, a supporting system or like a GPS. Okay. It is quite a regional one, not a global one. But it would be a very good system. And in QGSS satellite, we could put the other purpose, small satellite unit. So in this area, we would be able to cooperate with each other. And, okay. Can you take just another 30 seconds to wrap up? We need to get everyone's voice on the floor here, I think. Okay. So Mr. Tang, from China first, a coalition said, this is a coalition, not alliance, right? And the coalition is emerging after the Cold War ended. So this is a very new architecture for collective self-corporation, collective security cooperation. The second thing is two plus two. If you wish to attend these kind of maritime security questions, we will be very happy. But maybe there will be some condition. The country, like you, pretty much promised to keep any action under the international law, or international practice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Admiral. Cathy, would you like to chime in on any of these points? I guess just on the Professor Dibb spoke about Indo-Pacific and his weariness about what that meant in terms of force structure. I think it's a very sensible point, but actually the way we conceptualize and actually operationalize that Indo-Pacific concept doesn't extend in any substantial sense to the sort of western shores that are lapped by the Indian Ocean, I think is the way it's put in the Iora foundational documents. And in fact, even for diplomats, if you look at where we put our diplomatic resources, the sort of diplomatic capability, alongside the military capability, you see where it's concentrated. That's why I guess I was focusing, making the point about the East Asia Summit, representing for us the footprint that matters, that sort of Indo-Pacific footprint that matters. I think you're right about ARF. And I think Iora also suffers from a membership that is too diverse. So you find the organization looking for a purpose. But for us, there are some good things we can do in Iora, including, I think this ties it into the mini-lateral ideas, including because we really care about India and we really care about Indonesia. And so for us, there's a trilateral sort of rhythm and logic to some of the stuff we can do under an Iora banner that sort of smooths the way and it helps sort of draw out the collective action or at least conversations that we want to have with India and with Indonesia, for example. I won't say anything about space at risk of being seen as I am, as someone who doesn't understand the space agenda. It would be even worse if I explained to you as a bureaucrat that's done in another part of the department that would reinforce all your worst ideas about, you know, silo, policymaking, so there you go. Certainly in cyber, if it's any consolation, in cyber there is, that is being taken up very much as a new frontier and you can see the structures, bureaucratic structures, international policy structures in Australia adjusting to that and you can see some many more conversations, you know, between Australia and Japan, Australia the US and Japan, Australia and India, but it's certainly a new area. Thank you, Kathy. Jen, would you like to make some remarks? I will take a stab at space, even though I've been full disclaimer that I'm not a space expert either, but your comment got me thinking about different ways of collaborative ventures here and I was thinking about, you know, just the idea of just increasing scientific exchanges to facilitate innovation and maybe something like a multilateral version of the, what are they called, the cooperative research councils that are here in Australia where you've got contributions from industry, academia and government. I think you've got to get the right people together to talk and that model seems to be quite interesting. I've only ever seen a CRC done here in Australia but there's no reason why that same model couldn't be pushed to a multilateral setting. Thank you. I think there were a couple of questions there directly impacting on India and its role, if you wouldn't mind just responding. So I'll take one on space first. I am a space diet, I've just had a satellite before and I also come from a city which is India Space Hub, which is Bangalore. So the answer is yes. You set the pace. The Americans launch satellites on Indian space vehicles, satellite launch vehicles just last week, so we can do it for the Australians too. You should knock on the right doors and the consulate in Chennai can set you up with whoever you need to talk to. So space is really exciting and I think it is, civilian use of space is probably the most exciting area in science and technology that we can all cooperate on at this time. The second question is about why is there caution in the way India looks at its strategic partnerships. Actually the most interesting thing in the last 10 years, India has had more strategic relationships with countries that you can even think of. We've got 40 or 45 strategic partners which sort of begs the question what is strategic in this partnership. But the most specifically to relationships with the United States with Australia, Japan and China, I think there is an element of caution in the relationship because the interests don't converge everywhere around the globe. For example, in the western to the west of India, the concerns which the US, India and the west have are similar, but the positions don't converge in terms of what the solutions are and how the solutions ought to be implemented, whether it's transnational terrorism, nuclear proliferation, even piracy. So that's one set of issues. Whereas the convergence is a lot more to the east of India, the Indo-Asia specific. So overall you would therefore see that the government and the establishment is a little more cautious than it ought to be because of the divergences to the west and the east of India. The second is, I think we've got to remember that India has got a long unsettled land frontier with China. And this is not something which, there is no luxury of distance or the luxury of a water body intervening between India and China which can give us that kind of ability to take risks. We have a long unsettled line border. There are skirmishes along the border which happen all the time. We do not want any of these things either to escalate into a bigger conflict or be used as instruments of coercion of our foreign policy. So that explains the question. But I would just put it this way that the caution which you see now is more verbal than on the ground. So there's a lot more happening on the ground than the Indian policy makers are willing to admit. All right, well thank you. Thank you very, very much. I think this has been a great concluding panel in that we have received a lot of really interesting and new ideas about what partnerships might be out there going forward, in particular as they relate to India, Australia, Japan. Some new ideas at least to me that I found quite interesting and some real food for thought going forward. But at the same time I think the right degree of caution and wariness about just how far and how fast we can move forward on this. Anyway, very rich. I think Rory and your whole team ought to be very, very happy with this last day and a half and I think this panel in particular. Please join me. Panelists, you will receive a special gift in thanks for your contributions today, but let's as an audience thank our panelists very much. I wanted to firstly say that when we planned this conference some time ago, we were confident it would be good. I don't think we realized quite how engaged, how sustained and how valuable this conference would be. And I think that's all thanks to you, not only the speakers but also the participants. I think the fact that we've seen your sustained interest in engagement and new ideas emerging even in the last session of the conference shows that we've approached the right issues at the right time. And this is only, this is certainly only the beginning of the conversation. This brief closing session I guess is titled Policy Recommendations. I'm certainly not going to try to find any kind of consensus in this room that is certainly not for me and I think it's certainly premature for us to try to do that. But I think what I'd like to do in the next few minutes is identify a few principles that we can perhaps all work on in developing policy ideas from this point. I note that I'm listed as a moderator for this session but I'm only moderating myself, I'm afraid, and my colleagues will tell you that I do need moderating from time to time. So thanks for bearing with me. Look, firstly, I would suggest that in the presentations in the past few days and any of our presenters could easily have each spoken for 45 minutes or so. So thank you to them for being so succinct. In our presentations, we've seen a clear sense that we need to define the problem. We need to define what is the problem of regional security, whether you call it Indo-Pacific, Paul, or you call it something else. What is the problem? And of course, part of that problem in my view, as we discussed on the first day, is how we manage the impact of the rise of China, how we manage the uncertainty and the wider implications from that others may define the problem in different ways. The second question for us to think about going forward, and I pose these partly to our colleagues who are, I know, writing papers based on their presentations. So it gives a sense of the kind of policy impact we want to have here at the college. What can policy achieve in this context? How changeable is the future of our region, the future of the Indo-Pacific, the Asia-Pacific or otherwise? How determined is it to what extent can leaders and policy makers and perhaps new arrangements among countries make a difference? Thirdly, what is the right strategic canvas to be looking at? What is the right theater to be looking at? Is it the Indo-Pacific for some issues? Is it subregional for other issues? Are the dynamics different in the subregions? Or should we be trying to develop a set of principles for the wider region? I know that, Rithki, your countryman, Marty Nuttalaga, a few years ago suggested an Indo-Pacific treaty, which perhaps may have been too grand an ambition at that moment, but I think was a worthy aspiration. Are we right to be talking about the Indo-Pacific or other venues? And I thank you for humoring me on allowing us to use this map throughout our proceedings. But it's a serious question. Is it one rule for a wide region or is it different rules for different subregions? The fourth of the, I guess, five principles that I think we should be thinking about as we try to develop policy ideas out of this conference is what are the options for frameworks, for relationships that will be useful for achieving the right policy outcomes in terms of security and stability and prosperity? When is bilateralism the right approach? When is multilateralism inclusive, region-wide, multilateralism right? And incidentally, which forums are we talking about here? I think the East Asia Summit has certainly had some very positive publicity here, and I'm glad to see that it's only 11 years old. It's still far too early to judge that the East Asia Summit has not been a success, but nonetheless, we need to look very realistically at what a forum like that can achieve. So bilateral, multilateral, and then, of course, the third avenue that we pursued today, mini-lateral, self-selecting coalitions. How can they be valuable as perhaps the more nimble vehicle for policy, for coordination, for managing problems in the Indo-Pacific region? And then finally, what are the principles themselves for those mini-lateral coalitions? On what basis should or can or should countries be selected or select themselves to be part of those coalitions? Is it to do with capability? Is it to do with interests? Is it to do with a rules-based order and who defines those rules? And of course, I guess the core question for some of us, and that is, in which mini-lateral arrangements is it likely that China will and can and should play a major role in which mini-lateral arrangements is it appropriate that other countries essentially choose who they talk to or operate with and about what, without a veto or suspicion from another country? I think they're key questions for me. And I particularly thank Jennifer Moroney, I think, for her points in the previous session about some ground rules for effective coordination, whether it's bilaterally or mini-laterally. So I guess that's my brief take-out from the conference as a whole. I'm just going to emphasise that this is only the beginning of the work that the National Security College will be doing on these issues. I know that many of you personally on your own institutions or in your own institutions are doing a lot of work in this space and I would like to offer the National Security College here at ANU as a vehicle for any kinds of coordination that we can help with. We're going to be publishing a collection of papers from this conference, and so to our speakers in particular, I invite you to please respond to the pleas from my colleagues in the weeks ahead to provide us with very policy-oriented short papers that we can publish. But other participants here, too, are certainly welcome to get in touch with us. If you've got ideas you'd like to see us help to promote, we'd be delighted to include you. The last thing I will say is thank you. Thank you to our speakers in particular, particularly our speakers who have travelled from overseas. Thank you to our friends at the Embassy of Japan for the support they've given to us in being able to resource and arrange this conference. Thank you to our moderators, who are usually the unsung heroes of these activities, to your management, your timeliness, your good humour. Thank you to our particular speakers from last night's dinner, to James Goldrick and to Sir Angus Houston. Thank you for really making that a very memorable occasion. I think that truly added an extra dimension to this conference. That was tremendous. And thank you to my colleagues who've done all the hard work in putting this conference together. To Chris Farnham, David Brewster and the team from the National Security College. Also to our friends from Conference Logistics, who I think did a great job. I received an email last night from Pacific Fleet saying this was one of the smoothest events they'd attended. And I thought, well, that's reasonable praise coming from them. So I want to thank you all for that. Lunch is served outside. And I think on that note, I will close proceedings. So thank you.