 opportunity to bring you another exciting show. This is our special program, by the way. It's called Point Count Point. And this week, we have the first in a series of sessions where we have a chance to explore the world around us. Today, we're going to take a look at Southeast Asia, the Philippines, China, and India. And hopefully, we will be able to generate some discussion among those of you in the audience. If you have any questions, I would like to actually encourage you to send your questions in, because we enjoy hearing from the people that are listening to us. So let me begin by getting you acquainted with our panelists this afternoon. We'll start off with Shrini. Shrini, tell us a little bit about yourself, please. My name is Shrini Sitaraman. I work for the Daniel K. Inoy Asia Pacific Center, which is the Department of Defense Regional Center. We work along with the US Indopee comm and our bosses out in DC. And we look broadly across the Indo-Pacific security issues. And I'm originally from India. I did all my schooling in India. And I did my graduate school in the United States. I was a college professor just outside of Boston before moving here about four years back. And my regional focus is South Asia, economics and security. And I also work tech issues, particularly AI and open networks and things like that. So that's from me. I look forward to chatting with you. Thank you. Thank you, Shrini. Christopher, tell us a little bit about yourself. Thanks, John. Hi, everyone. My name is Christopher Cottrell. I am a Thailand-based independent journalist and analyst. I cover ASEAN and Pacific Islands development issues and Indo-Pacific current events. I got my master's in Pacific Islands history from the near-urban ship Wai Manoa in 2002. And I spent 18 years working in media of all kinds of stripes inside of China. So I speak Mandarin and I watch the region literally from that perspective as well. So I'm glad to be on. Thank you. Well, welcome, Chris. You know what I did want to ask you is, where exactly are you at this moment? You can say I'm in Bangkok. That's Faridah. Bangkok. I'll be in Hanoi next week. Actually, I move around quite a bit. So yeah, no one knows where Chris is at. Thank you for I'm going to ask, because everybody out there wants to know practically 90% of the people. What time is it in Bangkok? About 5 a.m. In the morning. It's now 12 noon in Hawaii. And the crow flies. Yeah, it's just a little after 5 a.m. So the sun's coming up. It's very beautiful here. So yeah. All right. So we're going to move over to Jim. James, tell us a little bit about yourself and the country that you're going to help us understand. Well, that was a foreign country, I should say. I was a Foreign Service Officer, a U.S. diplomat for 36 years. I served primarily in South Asia and China and Taiwan. Highlights included being head of the political sections at both the American Institute in Taiwan and Embassy Beijing. And then Ambassador both in Kathmandu, Nepal and Dhaka, Bangladesh. I just recently finished up six and a half years as chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, which is the nonprofit set up by Congress to manage the U.S. relationship with Taiwan after we broke relations with Taiwan to become formal diplomatic partners of the People's Republic of China. So there, that's all I'm going to say. Thank you. Thank you. As you can see, folks, we got a really extensive knowledge base right here that I want to take advantage of, so which I will start to do. I'm going to do that right now. Trini, you got the first question today because it's been on my mind. India recently held the G20 summit. And some of the reports that have been coming out of that event have been very positive actually for India. Now, I understand, and this is the question I have, and I understand that the post-conference declaration, so however you refer to it, that came out of that conference for the first time were unanim that all participants supported. Tell us a little bit about how that was achieved and what it means. Yeah, sure. G20 was particularly interesting because it was held in New Delhi. India was first time chairing the G20. And it just concluded last week. And as you mentioned, Governor, it was a big success for India. Modi rolled out the red carpet. President Biden was there. Justin Trudeau from Canada was there. And Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister Brickin was there. But importantly, what was missing, who was missing from was President Xi Jinping from China. And obviously, Vladimir Putin from Moscow was missing at that particular summit. Did those countries get to vote on the decorations? Well, they sent in their, like Sergey Lavrov was there at the summit. And he obviously was taking directions from Moscow. And the equivalent of Chinese Foreign Secretary was there. But what I understand is that they developed a consensus document. It was a consensus document. And the language was made in such a way that it did not ruffle the feathers of Russia and China. And it probably got in a few words about Ukraine that the US, Canada, and the European partners wanted it. So the consensus document, which actually was unusual because they released a consensus document on the first day of their conference, which normally they didn't do. They do it at the end of the meeting, but they released it for the first day. So obviously, they've been working on this document even prior to the beginning of this particular summit. So talk, well, James, tell me, China wasn't there. But they signed on to this document. And as Srinig just informed us, they probably were part of some kind of a discussion prior to the issuance of all of that. So what's China's game? I mean, what was all that about? China's trying to thread a needle there. I mean, there was a big, frankly, very rarely mentioned competition between India and China for leadership of the global south. The third world countries we used to call them in Africa, Latin America. And recently, that friction has been picking up. The Chinese have come up with a map that shows much of a large Indian state as being part of the People's Republic of China. And so Xi Jinping didn't want to go. He didn't want to give Prime Minister Modi face. So that's why he did not. That's the back story, right? Yeah. And the other part of that, the other edge of the needle he's trying to thread is not to back out of a forum, not to have China back out of a forum that includes a number of those third world countries that they want to appeal to, like, for example, Indonesia. And so I saw that as just a, hey, look, we're not pulling back entirely. But going forward, I think China is going to want to be most active in these multilateral forums that it controls. I saw some reports, actually, in Canada, which is not necessarily in your range. But Canada kind of worked over a little bit by Modi because of the way that, I guess, is the Sheikh issue. Have you heard anything about that, or are there? See, what happens is that there is that part of India on the Western side bordering Pakistan, which is called Punjab. And as you know, the region from what is traditionally what is known as Pakistan today, to Myanmar or Burma, including Sri Lanka, was part of the British Empire until 1947. It was the Queen's Crown colony. It was directly ruled by Queen Victoria. And when the split happened, the province of Punjab was split into two pieces. It's like Ukraine because it has a lot of, it's one of the largest grain producing states in the world. So there's a group of all this Punjabi started migrating. These are the guys you see with this big turbine that you see them more commonly in the mainland and other places, but they migrated in large numbers, UK, Southern California, and Canada. They've been advocating to create that own state. And there's various, and it was a big problem. There's a problem with Mrs. Gandhi in 1984, who solved it. She sent in a team of commandos into the Sikh temple and they took out the leaders of this cell who were agitating for this. But she in turn was assassinated in October of 1984, our own personal bodyguards gunder down. And since then the issue kind of died down a little bit, but it has dropped up. But the argument against Mr. Trudeau is that he is not doing enough to control these elements which are targeting Indian leaders, particularly the Indian High Commission in Canada in Ottawa and Toronto and other parts, and that they are allowing these restive elements to function in the country. But my understanding as an analyst, not as a government servant here, to say that I think there's some electoral dynamics in why Mr. Trudeau's unwilling to go after them. That's been a big sore thumb. And apparently not just India, other countries also kind of gave them the sideline. Yeah, Trudeau really didn't come out of that summit too well. And here it is, we have this great declaration, one earth, one family, one future coming out of the summit. But Trudeau, unlike Biden, unlike almost anybody else who attended, this didn't seem to make well. Now, one of the interesting things, Chris, is the fact that one of the countries that was actually praising India, actually saying India really scored by all of this was Pakistan. And I noticed that one of the interesting things about that entire summit was that your part of the world was really not part of it, including Pakistan. I mean, Vietnam is not a member of the G20, as far as I understand, but Marama, obviously. How are they affected by all of these events? The G20 was looked at very closely on ASEAN as a hope for economic restoration in the face of what all analysts are talking about, which is a cool in China. So there is engagement in Southeast Asia, hopefully for tourism business within India. And there's a lot of excitement for sure about India's prosperity coming up, and that's watched very closely in the region, from ASEAN perspective. Well, let me ask you a question. There's the African Union in the G20. There's the European Union. Will we be seeing some kind of an ASEAN Union in the future? Is that anywhere? I don't think that's on the cards yet, but that would certainly be something that is something that will be discussed. What about the Philippines? I'm aware of how I don't know. And what role would the Philippines play in any of this? The Philippines is actually quite strategic geopolitically and geoeconomically as it shifts very closely with the United States. So that's where I think you would see Philippines rising within that ecosystem. But the Philippines at the minute, it's very close with Washington and signing a lot of trilateral agreements. So it'll take a bit of genesis before they're at the level to talk about fully with the G20. So James, you know, China's sitting back and seeing all of it. This is the fallout in the world. And I don't think it's unusual to say that China and the United States at least are in some kind of competition for influence in the region. So where does China go from here? And how does that affect Taiwan and the rest of the world? Well, we've all hinted at the problems that China is going through economically. I mean, we're not talking to depression, but we're talking about an obvious slowdown in growth. A lot of people assume that that might make China more cautious going forward, maybe not as aggressive with respect to Taiwan or the South China Sea. I would point out we're not seeing any signs of that. The Wolf Warrior diplomacy seems to continue. The exercises on the going around Taiwan, threatening Taiwan continue. And I would say that the real issue now is that our previous ways of judging China probably don't hold true anymore. China has shifted from a collective government to a one-man dictatorship. I can say that because I'm no longer working for the US government, but that introduces a lot of uncertainty. We don't know how Xi Jinping measures various factors. We can bet that the people around Xi Jinping, all of them are loyalists who've gotten their jobs because Xi Jinping thinks that they're gonna do what he wants them to do. All those people when they describe the problems to Xi are trying to figure out what Xi wants to hear. That's how one man or one woman shows work. So it's very hard to predict what's gonna happen, but you can say that Xi Jinping has made recovering Taiwan as one of the center parts of his rule, of his legacy. He wants to have Taiwan reunified with China under his rule. And he wants to leave a legacy of China being the greatest power on Earth. I'll stop there. Well, let me ask you a question about that because the last time in Asian country wanted to exercise that kind of dominance in the region, what happened was that Pearl Harbor here in Hawaii got bombed. What, tell me, what are we looking at here? I'm gonna bring this home, you know? I'm gonna bring it home and say, that's why the fall of Taiwan to China would be absolutely horrible and threatening to US national interests. You know, the US needs to be able to get through that island chain that stretches from South Korea, down through Japan, down through Taiwan, importantly, and through the Philippines and Indonesia if it can protect its interests. Conversely, if a hostile power can get through that island chain at will, US interests in the Pacific, including Hawaii are a great risk. And that, you know, we're looking at the mirror image of national interests here. China wants that free access. They want to deny us access through that island chain and Taiwan is absolutely key. If it's taken over by the Chinese, it will be run by the People's Liberation Army. They will establish the bases and the capabilities necessary to go out will any place in the Western and Central Pacific. And because of what James just said, Christopher, seems to me that the importance of some of our former enemies, like Vietnam, and the role that they might play in balancing all of this off because we're important Vietnam, or some of our allies like Thailand and the rest of it. Give me a little bit of sense on the region in terms of this dynamic. Yeah, sure. People are scared. They're genuinely scared of the dragon and eagle entangling one another. And you'll hear that in Manila. You'll hear that in Bangkok. Vietnam is trying to balance itself. Vietnam has a variety of challenges coming out of the pandemic economically. It needs to engage with Beijing for cross-border issues. Their neighbors share borders, and also they have tit-for-tat in what the Vietnamese call the East China Sea. So the East Vietnamese Sea, right? That's one element. They purchase a lot of their security kit from Russia, which is a challenge that supply chain diminishes. Meanwhile, Washington, Biden after the G20, arrived in Hanoi and signed a comprehensive strategic partnership that elevates the diplomatic status of Vietnam to a very high level, I think it's the highest level, with the United States Ambassador, or already correctly defined titles of what that really would entail. But overall, Vietnam talks a lot with the Philippines for more exercises monitoring coast of waters. And that's something that is daily. It seems like the United States went out of its way in recent months to make Vietnam the new Japan, the army enemy, and now all of a sudden our best friend, you know? Well, I think since the early nineties with Senator McCain's engagement with Hanoi, which this new deal actually has continuity with, there's always been an urge and need to have better relationships to make one makeup of the war, but secondly, move forward. And finally, I think we're at a neat stage of moving forward in a way that Vietnam wants to move. Washington's obviously happy about this. China will always have mixed opinions about this, obviously not welcome Washington's presence on their border. But you know, what's interesting to me is the fact that there are thousands and thousands of Vietnamese in America who are very clear about their continuing opposition to the government, the communist government in Vietnam, and whose political leaning are actually opposite of that position. So is this recent re-approachment or whatever we wanna call it? How is that gonna play out? This may be an unfair question, but let me ask it anyway. How is that gonna play out in the American politics? How's that gonna play out in what we see in America now? Which is a pretty divisive political scene. Okay, despite being an American, I get my optics sometimes with the United States because I don't live there. So domestically, I'm not sure what they would play out with, but yeah, it's in the new cycle. There are criticisms that human rights weren't raised, but I've seen no evidence that human rights were not raised diplomatically. The State Department has not changed its position on human rights whatsoever. So let's see if this really has legs going into the 2024 election. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but certainly those issues are all valid for discussion. Well, you know, we just talked about the fact that Trudeau may have some domestic problems or what his actions in India may affect him politically, domestically, but I'm watching the world now. And so Trini, India can't just be sitting there and think, okay, boys play nice. I mean, they've gotta be involved in this old scenario somehow in the entire Asian region. I mean, what is India's response in the region regarding all of these other people coming in and attempting to exert influence? Well, as you know, and this cuts into many of the issues that Ambassador Moriarty, you know, alluded to, and it really speaks to PRC here, right? That's really the crux of the matter. India and China have a long standing border dispute. The border dispute predates India in many ways, but it is with the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the Republican China and the Communist China conflict and then the ROC running off into Taiwan. At the time, Britain had a lot of this control over Tibet. So in 1950 to 1959, what Mao did was the PRC started asserting military control over Tibet. If you look at Tibet today, it's an occupied territory. The Dalai Lama lives in the India in Dharmashala and the Tibetan exile government runs from India. There's a minister, prime minister, they have exit and they've been there and the Dalai Lama is 86 years old, I think, and there's going to be a next new Dalai Lama and they don't know where he's going to incarnate, maybe in Mongolia, maybe Taiwan, we don't know. The process is controlled, but the Tibetans never really posed any threat to PRC. They just took over that land now. And the border areas with just Tibet, not China, is an India which is open, right? But China and India, once they became communist China in 1949 and India became independent in country 1947, the borders have been clashed. They fought one big war in 1962, the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis and since then it's been conflictual, right? And they've had major skirmishes along it. In June of 2020, 20 Indian soldiers and five PLA, People's Liberation Army soldiers died in that hand-to-hand combat up in the Himalayan mountains. Since then, the relations between India and China have broken down, India has cut off all links with China, did not participate in the regional comprehensive economic partnership, RCEP, they pulled out of that. So they are not in any China-centric with the exception of BRICS, which is now expanding. The exception of BRICS, they're not in any China-centric modes of order. So India has conserved most about China, particularly submarines now operating in the Indian Ocean and its special relationship with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives and China's putting a lot of pressure on Nepal and Ambassador Murari can talk about it and to a certain extent with Bhutan and they're also encroaching about Nepal and Bhutanese territory. Let's talk about that. Jim, why don't you tell us a little bit about what Shrini was just talking about, which is the tension in the region that's going on. Yeah, you mentioned the folks in the Vietnamese diaspora who oppose warming relations with Vietnam. And I would say the ballast there is the fact that US opposition to what China is trying to do is about the one foreign policy issue where you have broad-based support by the US public and broad-based support by US political parties and individual politicians. That's reflected in a lot of the countries we're talking about now. I mean, if you see the polls out of India, if you see the polls out of the Philippines, the distrust and fear of China is as widespread as in the United States. It's tough for some countries to manage just because China's market is so important to those countries and many of them share borders. Nepal is a classic case. I mean, China did not take much interest in Nepal up until the past 15 years. And they ended up building high-speed railways into Tibet. They all of a sudden realize that, well, wait a sec, India doesn't, India has assumed that Nepal is their client state as a buffer state. We want to change that. We're not going to accept that. And so they've pushed hard. Srinu is absolutely right. And frankly, I think that in some ways they're pushing too hard and they're going to get a blowback inside Nepal. That's one thing that has been happening with what they call welfare diplomacy is the diplomats, the official statements can be so harsh and so aggressive that the Chinese speakers end up doing more harm to their national interest than if they just left the issue alone. Well, you know, it's really interesting because India is aligned with Russia, somewhat anyway. And so you've got China, you've got Russia, you've got this, and we're going to take a short break now and we're going to bring some of this home to Hawaii. The reason why I mentioned some of that is that very few people know, for example, that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs actually passed a resolution supporting a free Vietnam that was lobbied by the Vietnamese community in Hawaii. And even expanding that just to show you how all of this international intrigue affects us in a political, in an international political way, is the fact that one of the Wall Street Journal just had an article showing reporting how China is using, I guess, false information accusing actually the U.S. of destroying Lahaina itself because it was testing some kind of weapon. So there's obviously a linkage. Hopefully, point counterpoint as we discussed the impact of Hawaii. Hawaii is the home of the major command for the United States. I think it's called, what is it called this time? Christopher, you take us into this and what it means for the Philippines. Used to be called Simpak, but I think it's something else. It's Indo-Pakam. Oh, that's it, go ahead. You are seeing all the branches of the U.S. military organized out of Indo-Pakam, whether it's Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy. And as the waters are contested in the South China Sea or parts of which the Philippines claim is the West Philippine Sea and the Vietnamese claim has the East Sea as well as claims from Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia. You're seeing far more of Indo-Pakam presence in the region primarily in Manila. This year has been an explosive year of tensions, if you will, between Manila and Beijing. It didn't begin that way. President Marcos went to Beijing, signed some MOUs and came back to Manila and people seemed very happy. That maybe this would alleviate the tensions, it didn't. I was in the Philippines for two months earlier this year when those tensions began to just sort of spiral, if you will. There were fishing ships in the Philippines. They got flashed in the eyes of lasers by Chinese coastal. They've been host with cannons. And I spoke with strategic, the strategic and analysis unit within the Philippines Coast Guard and they explained to me that this is not new. During the Duterte administration, they were not publicly reporting that these incursions were taking place. They were using back channels. That position shifted earlier this year with Philippines Coast Guard encouraging their citizens to report any kind of incursions into the waters on social media. And the Philippines as a social media landscape is massive. It is extremely active with social media. So that also has been driving a lot of the domestic politics in the Philippines. You know, for us in Hawaii, it's interesting that we are, you know, the president is Marcos again. I mean, you know, I forgot what his nickname is. Bong Bong Marcos. Yeah, Bong Bong. You know, he kind of grew up in Hawaii. I mean, his dad was exiled here for a while, right? I mean. Correct. So anyway, the point, and I want to get back to you, Jim. I mean, well, how much trade, you know, trade has been mentioned as the possible offset to some of these tensions. How much despite all of these things going on, how much trade, if you know, does America have with China at the moment? I mean, we're doing this period. Some idea, has it gone down up? People like, what's his name that runs Tesla seems to be keep going and it doesn't seem to affect him at all. Yes, he's been very careful to have good relations with Beijing. The trade actually went up during the pandemic. If you take the three years as a whole, you know, we were all staying at home using computers and new gadgets and a lot of those were assembled in China. You do have a movement now though, you know, some, a lot of small and medium sized businesses, US investments in China are pulling out just because they're too nervous about what's going to come next. They do have a lot of tariffs still in place that make it harder to export back to the US from there. The Chinese have a habit of trying to develop local champions to take the place of cutting edge industries that are invested in China, cutting edge US trade. And so, you know, there's a lot of businessmen who are just saying, well, wait a sec, you know, this is really hard. The market is huge. I mean, you know, you're talking about a middle class of 400 million people. The market over time becomes less attractive as local champions. And this is happening for folks like Nike and Adidas right now. They're seeing the local brands take over. I think everybody's covering a lot about the electric vehicles now where the Tesla's place inside China is dropping rapidly as Chinese companies like BYD, I think that's the name of it, now build, you know, first class electric vehicles. They've done that with a heck of a lot of support in terms of subsidies and tax breaks from the Chinese government. And I assume a lot of technology from outside. So Srinu, does India step up? I mean, you know, how does all of this economic watch, trade watch, what does this mean between the US and India? Well, India is doing quite a bit of trade with the United States. You know, all the back office processing, cloud computing, all the major tech CEOs are Indian origin, you name it, Microsoft's Google, many of the major companies are there. So the tech world is trying to move where India is probably facing a little bit of challenge is setting up those manufacturing facilities. You know, moving, manufacturing, and that's why Vietnam is really key and maybe Chris can talk a little bit more about it as he is from the region. So moving, manufacturing has been a little bit easier. Vietnam is emerging as an alternative up to China. So is India, but India definitely is a step behind compared to Vietnam, I would say. Some of the iPhone processing is going to come to India, but Vietnam has actually got the edge on that. So pick that up, Chris. Tell us a little bit about how that fits. So over the course of the pandemic, a lot of those factories were mothballed in Vietnam. So Vietnam, this was reports coming out yesterday, are struggling in some ways to recover their factory sectors. And so there's opportunities for investment, but it's not gonna sweep away Guangdong province. Guangdong province is still going to be a powerhouse of manufacturing without question. However, there is mass interest within Vietnam to restructure and continue to develop IT. And Vietnam also is looking to India for its solutions for collaborations in IT. So is Thailand for the matter? We've talked about some of these major players, but in your region of the world, in addition to Vietnam, what's happening in Thailand and what's happening in Malaysia and what's happening in some of those places where, in prior years, were cornered as potential partners of the United States. Okay, well, one of the biggest ones is almost an unspoken one, which is really important for Hawaii, but a lot of Americans recognize that there's a civil war in Myanmar. It's a brutal civil war and refugees are pouring across the region, not just into Thailand, but into Bangladesh, into India. So there's a variety of ways that reporters are looking at Myanmar. So following what's happening in Myanmar, it's tragic, it deserves far more attention, but that is another thing that the region is paying attention to. But then Thailand itself, Thailand has a new government. This government has ended the dictatorship government or that was the criticism of it from the previous government that had come into power in a coup in 2015. So they held parliamentary elections and the more progressive move forward party came into power, but the way that the parliament works, their coalition fell apart. So there is a new government in power that is pro-investment and pro-everyone. They're not really interested in the larger ticks between Beijing and Washington. They pay attention to them, but that's where Thailand is at right now. Singapore. Singapore, go ahead, yeah. Yeah, Singapore is also becoming a regional option to Hong Kong. And you're seeing a lot of attention in Singapore with subsea cables. So Singapore is positioning itself between this new end of the Pacific dynamic with rising India, yes, and as some people de-risk from PRC. Well, just as a quick, we've got to add a little bit in for as we say, for ratings. With Thailand had that king who was hanging out in Germany with about 20 wives and all of that stuff. And in Thailand, apparently, you can't say anything bad about the king. But the ledge mass rules have not been changed. In fact, that was one of the things that the move forward party was pushing for and they lost. So people here do not do that. There's a high reverence for the institution, but in general, yes, it is illegal to do so. And with the penalties. All right, so as we go through the region again, Taiwan, Taiwan, Jim must be booming, I think, given what's happening elsewhere. Taiwan did great during the pandemic and now with the global slowdown and particularly with the slowdown in the Chinese economy, it's doing much more slowly. And so that's gonna be a big issue for the election coming up, which is gonna be a huge issue in terms of stability of the entire region. The PRC really despises the most likely, the candidate most likely to win the election, who would be a continuation of the current ruling party representing continuation. But what is the, you know, Taiwan used to be, tank I checked, left the mainland, took over three million Chinese, took over Taiwan. It was actually in a sense, some people think it was actually occupied. And now what you have is basically younger Chinese who had moved over and younger Taiwanese and they have their own ideas. How reconcilable are these new forces with the old Chinese position, which by the way was the spouse vote by tank I checked involved, that there was only one China? I mean, is that realistic? Well, what the Taiwan body politic coalesces around is the concept that independence just way too dangerous. We're never gonna declare formal independence from China because that would force the Chinese to invade. And God forbid, we're never gonna be part of the People's Republic of China because they're brutal. They're gonna do horrible things to us, probably to our economy. So you got, actually when I was there in the 1990s, you had 85% of the people say that they supported maintaining the current cross-strait relationship. And- Because Taiwan does a lot of trade with China. I mean, as you pointed out, you get your visa in Taiwan, right? Yeah, you know, it's a huge part of Taiwan's market. There is caution on the part of Taiwan businessmen now, many of whom are pulling back, particularly the small and medium-sized businessmen that can do their manufacturing of apparel or shoes in Vietnam or Bangladesh or Indonesia. A lot of them are getting out now just because the rules of the road are unclear. The really big companies that make most of their money just are desperate to find a way to appease the Chinese while continuing to do business as usual. That's getting tougher than ever before, particularly in the high tech sector where we have a lot of sanctions that are affecting Taiwanese businesses that have invested heavily in mainland China. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you we got a question from the audience. And this person wants to know, how does all of what we've discussed, what does that mean for Hawaii in terms of potential investment? Is it realistic to look at, say, any of these countries, any of these countries, is it realistic to see them as potential investors or markets for Hawaii? Maybe start with Srinni and then we'll go to Christopher and maybe Jim, you can just give us your take on the whole thing. I can tell you that in terms of Hawaii's biggest industry, which is tourism, right? The Indian footprint could be larger. They are looking at 1.4 billion plus people there, but Hawaii's not really in their radar because it's seen as somewhat remote and outside of their budget. And that's really a problem, but I've been hearing stories of some movies being shot here and some of the community members going to participate as extras in the movies. Some people took time off from their work to do it because they wanted to do it. I heard about it only after the fact. This was, I think, at the ranch on the other side of the island. I forget what movie apparently they shot a dance sequence and it was over a couple of days or more than a couple of days. So the Indian movie industry would love to come here because the lookouts are exotic, beautiful. They love to shoot the dance and song sequences here. Even when I'm driving around on the island, I'm thinking, hey, this would be a great site for a song. You know, Bollywood. Bollywood is a production. They can afford it. Yeah, they're making global films now with audience and beyond India. So they have Indian diaspora, which is very strong in mainland USA, as was in Canada, across Europe and other parts of Asia. So there'll be a good opportunity. That, I think, is a big, big opportunity. And a more scaled-down version here is I would think the tech sector. I know a lot of people come from India to work here and its temporary is retaining Hawaiian Airlines, I believe, as a big employer. HMSA is a big employer. Walmart is an employer. Bank of Hawaii is an employer. Many tech workers come here. So converting Hawaii or creating a base in Hawaii for tech companies, start-ups could be great because the location is ideal, especially if you think you wanna do business with Asia. And it's just eight hours by flight to Tokyo. And it's equidistant from mainland USA, roughly equidistant from mainland USA to Japan and other places. So what about the rest of Asia? Is there an opportunity for investment or business? Vietnam, for example, there's... I think there's many lessons that Hawaii can take away from the current events, taking it that they're transforming very rapidly and remapping the region. I don't mean the remapping that Beijing puts out that upset Malaysia and India. But Thailand is a great case study for Hawaii because it's massive tourism also. So they're diversifying their nuanced approaches to different markets, including the Chinese people. Despite what other governance issues might be, the Chinese 400 million middle class and beyond want good medical care. They want good fresh air. And Hawaii has opportunities, especially with the governor of Korean as a doctor to look at medical tourism as a way to diversify the tourism sector. Japan has a good model to study. So to South Korea, so to Thailand, all of these have official governance of medical tourism boards for vetting this. This would also give confidence for those in South Asia, also Indonesia, who want to come to Hawaii for a longer care surgery like cardiology, and then they stay for sports medicine, the aloha spirit is very calming and the organic food that you get in Hawaii. There are traditional Hawaiian medicine clinics for lomi lomi and these sorts of things. So putting together, I think governance that organizes medical tourism is something I would really hope that Hawaii could consider doing across all sectors. Okay, China a few years ago was considered the new exciting market for tourism. I mean, it wasn't that long ago when we were encouraging travelers from China to come to Hawaii. In fact, I remember it wasn't that long ago when Japan before the Olympics, the Tokyo Olympics was talking about the fact that Chinese were invading Japan and that they had to build casinos and all of these things. And it seems, where's all of that? Where did it go, or is it still there? Chinese overseas tourism still hasn't really recovered much of what it was doing before the pandemic. You can get different perspectives on that, but even at a lower level, it is still significant. I love the idea of medical tourism because I've seen how well it works in places that practice it. I do think that there are possibilities in terms of, if we have our act together in specific tech fields, this is attractive enough a place for Taiwan, Japan, some of the more advanced economies to explore possibilities. Can you come up with a functioning model to make foreign investors look at Hawaii, not just at Silicon Valley or the Boston, Massachusetts area? I think there are a lot of folks looking for alternatives, but that takes a whole of government approach. It takes attention by the universities, but it is doable. Well, Bob, just building on that comment, we have a question again from a member of the audience. And he is, what he's asking basically is that what can our delegation congressional delegation do to enhance our own relationships with promoting the kind of economic possibilities that we're discussing? Is there anything centered to shots of Hirono or any of these people? Oh, you're with the Inoi Institute. I mean, the father of that place would have been on all of this. Right. I'm just thinking a slick campaign, a media campaign is necessary in other parts of the world. And that could be done with technology now. They can run it in online or visit Hawaii kind of program to attract tourism or make it a location attractive for filming or anything like that. It's just, I think the awareness is lacking is that, oh, you have to open up the aperture and let people know that places exist here that could potentially serve as, it's a very well-developed place that's got the infrastructure and the materials and the resources necessary, the hotels and everything to host the large delegations, have it a convention center. And I think COVID played its part. I remember in 2020, in March of 2020, there was going to be a large international relations conference right here in Hawaii Convention Center and they had to cancel it because our state shut down because of COVID concerns. So I think we need to launch a promotional campaign at the very least and that, I think is going to draw people in. And they're like, huh, okay, well, I'll think about it. It's not that far. As people think it is, India is not that far. Singapore is not that far. Japan is not that far. Korea is not that far. Well, let me ask you, again, I'm just picking up these questions. We got some interested people out there that are actually listening to us guys. So they're sending stuff in and one thing is for you, Jim, is the press doing a good job in presenting a balanced presentation, I guess, around the China-Taiwan issue? I mean, are they? Yeah, I think the press has gotten much better precisely because much of the press has been kicked out of China and a large portion of those kicked out, a large number of those have ended up in Taiwan, forcing them to look at what things are actually going on there. With respect to what's going on inside China, it's become so much more difficult. We have many fewer reporters from the West inside China now. They're watched very, very closely. It's very tough for anybody who's within the government or party or even just universities to have real heart-to-heart conversations like the ones I used to have when I was there 15, 20 years ago. And so it's, and the last comment on that is the Chinese love of saying that we have in English, one man feeling the elephant, of the blind man feeling the elephant. The country's so big, 1.4 billion people, you can get any sort of anecdote you want. Now, having said all that, I think the press are doing a pretty good job trying to cover the fact that China has changed. It's no longer the place where engagement opportunities seem limitless, that it's one where, you know, the national interests of the US and Western slash Asian democracies in general are at serious risk and it has to be treated at least partly through that prism. Most of the issues you're gonna be dealing with, including trade and economics. We're talking about the Hawaii place and all of this in this region. Chris, I'm a board member of the East West Center. And so obviously I'm taking advantage of, you know, my use of this microphone. What can the East West Center do? If you, I'm presuming you know what I'm talking about. The East West Center at the University of Hawaii Manoa. What can they do to make Hawaii's place in this region a little better known? Again, to Ekashwini, a media campaign would be extremely effective in languages like Bahasa and Hindi and continue to hammer point home that Hawaii is open. Hawaii has a loha. It's not burned in the ground Maui, okay? There's a lot of things that can be done to have reporters come and visit. One of my mentors there was a Dr. Daniel Kwok who used to run the China seminar lectures every month for journalists in particular and he did journalist training. So increasing journalist training on issues of the Indo-Pacific, but also from the Indo-Pacific, already the East West Center does bring a variety of folks from Vietnam. They have Indonesia, Fiji to study within journalism programs. But more programs like that would be helpful. And then again, a last point, we need to figure out how to diversify media businesses. Yeah, I think that... We got really quick questions. We got about a minute left, I saw real fast, real fast. Right now, India is siding with Putin and then this is an audience question, siding with Putin and China. China and India both siding with Putin in the Ukrainian situation. Where is the rest of Southeast Asia on that issue? Chris. Largely neutral, largely neutral. I mean, okay. And let me see, for India, they're building, what's happening? Will India step up and take over the building of the road that highway? So sorry, just my mind just slipped. Does India step into any of the foreign investments that China was doing that they may not be doing any? Let me step into the previous point. India is not siding with Putin. Just to put it in a historical context here, you remember India is in many ways, the current Indian military is many ways, the byproduct of a British military which leans Soviet during the Cold War. From 1949 to 1989, roughly, right? During the Cold War period. The military architecture of India and the military hardware was Cold War base. And they run the Russian military hardware and Russia was willing to, or Soviet Union then was willing to sell them. So what the posture they have adopted now is I would also say it's neutral. They do not want to make enemies of Russia and they're buying Russian oil because it's available at half the price of global but they're paying them in Indian rupees, right? They're not paying them in dollars and which is becoming a bone of contention between India and Russia. So they're paying them in Indian rupees which does not have that much usage because it is not that highly transactable. So they are not agreeing with Putin on his war against Ukraine, but at the same time, they do not want to necessarily directly poke him in the eye because they'll have direct consequences for them. It's their national interest to not anger Putin. We are getting over time, a little bit over time, but we're getting great response from our audience. So I'm gonna real quick, as one question to all three of you. If Trump gets elected president, will any of the current situation change? Yes, no, or maybe, you know, it doesn't matter. So maybe Chris. It would certainly, it would certainly create a different dynamic altogether and that dynamic would be so chaotic. It would maybe not pay to the best for her American interests, I can say that. What about you, Jim? I'm a little more cautious. I look at the current China, Taiwan policy as being basically a continuation of what started during the Trump years. And so with respect to the big issue, I'm not sure that there's gonna be that much of a change, but of course, the overall things, you know, does he try to pull out a NATO or crazy things like that? That's hard to predict. But again, I think there is a consensus among both parties that China is a competitor that we need to deal with effectively. You got any thoughts on that issue? Well, I agree with Ambassador Moriarty here is that China is going to be a persistent issue and Ukraine is going to be an issue. The respect of war is the president of the United States. Ukraine, you know, the longer the war stretches out, the long and Putin now has gone to North Korea to get North Korean weapons from them. If North Korea gets more nukes, that's really going to mess up the international order in ways that we can only imagine. In, you know, we do those games and simulations and we introduce the scenarios to check what we're going. So I'm actually worried about the long running war in Ukraine, the impact on oil prices, the impact on grain supply and how disruptive it is going to be. So whoever comes in to power, they will have to confront with major international challenges, which, you know, if Henry Kissinger's language, you're just basically kicking the can down the road until the can kind of bounces back at our face. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. And especially, I really want to thank our panelists for a most interesting discussion. Christopher Cartrell, James Moriarty and Shrini Sita Rahman. Thank you for participating with us. The audience, we have enjoyed having you. We will be having another one of these point counterpoints in October. So again, aloha, everybody. Thank you for your attention.