 Welcome to CSIS and the Banyan Tree Leadership Forum. I'm Ernie Bauer. I'm the Cemetery Chair for Southeast Asia Studies here at CSIS. We have a special treat for you today, the Foreign Minister of Singapore. Mr. Shanmugam is here. This is the first day of a week-long trip to Washington. As you know, Singapore is a close friend of the United States, and a visit by the Foreign Minister for this many days at this crucial time is very important to all of us. It's a deep honor that you chose to come to CSIS. Thank you, Mr. Foreign Minister. I'd like to also introduce our moderator for today's event, Stape Roy. Stape Roy is no stranger to any of you who have been here at CSIS before. I think he's a man who we would really like to clone if we were actually pivoting to Asia. He's a career ambassador. That is the diplomatic equivalent of a five-star general. He's been a US ambassador to China, to Singapore, and to Indonesia. So he's the right man to conduct this discussion. Our guest of honor today, as you may know, is one of Singapore's best minds. He was elected or selected to be counseled to the Singapore Supreme Court at the age of 38, one of the youngest people ever to have that honor, and then was instantly recognized as leadership talent by the Singapore leadership and invited to join the cabinet in 2008. He's been minister for home affairs, and he's concurrently minister of foreign affairs and law for Singapore. So I will hand it over now to Stape, and please take it away. Thank you, Ernie. Welcome, Foreign Minister. Thank you. We're glad to have you back in Washington. You've been here many times before, but you always seem to come at interesting times. Maybe it's always interesting in Washington. Well, it's particularly interesting right now because the hot issue in Washington actually directly impacts on Singapore. It's the Trans-Pacific Partnership issue. The President had a setback on Friday. The issue has not played itself out, but Michael Green, an Asian specialist here with CSIS, has said it would be a disaster for American Asian policy if TPP were to fail in Congress. Larry Summers had a piece in the press this morning in which he said it would neuter the presidency if it fails to go through. Singapore was in at the very beginning of TPP. Back when four geographically relatively small countries started the process, and since then it's really become a very significant initiative. But at the moment it seems to be hanging in the balance. And I would be interested in your thoughts on what are the implications of success and the implications of failure in terms of the TPP in Congress. My views on this are fairly public. I gave an interview last year in Washington when I said it's absolutely vital to get it done. You look at this first from an American perspective, what does it mean for you? Two, from our perspective, what does it mean for Asia? And of course the two are connected. You're talking about a region that contains 40% of the world's GDP. It's growing, but I'm not one of those who believes, oh, well, it's going to be the Pacific Century, it's going to be Asia, the rest of the world is going to be left behind. I think most parts of the world will grow, but the biggest growth is going to come from Asia. Everyone knows China, but there are other parts of the story, India, Southeast Asia, ASEAN, the 10 countries of ASEAN together are the seventh-largest economy in the world, something that not a lot of people realize. $2.4 trillion today, but within five years it will be $4 trillion. And linking up very strongly with Australia with another $2 trillion today. So you look at it in five years, ASEAN and Australia together, you're looking at upwards of $78 trillion, which is half the American GDP in today's terms. Of course Japan, China. And what is happening there, a huge need for infrastructure, a huge need for a trade is exploding. And the kind of fields in which America is dominant, energy, IT, a lot of other middle and higher value items are going to be in demand. History is also being rewritten because of new institutions coming up in Asia, multilateral, as well as existing institutions are being reshaped to adapt to the new norms. In all of this, where is the United States? It's been the guarantor of peace. It's been the guarantor of progress and prosperity up to now. But if you don't do this deal, what are your levers of power, how integrated are you into the Asian economies? And meanwhile, there are a whole series of other trade deals that have happened, will happen, and from which you will be excluded. So the choice is a very stark one. Do you want to be part of the region, or do you want to be out of the region? And if you are out of the region, which, as I said, is 40% of the world's GDP, not playing a useful role, your only lever to shape the architecture to influence events is a seventh fleet. And that's not the lever that you want to use, or you can't really use it every instance. You've got trade is strategy. And you're either in or you're out. And what does it mean for your jobs, for your investments, for your prosperity from your perspective? I mean, it's very, very serious. And your credibility. And let's be frank about it. The president once said, everybody knows this is important, and you can't get it through. How credible are you going to be? And then if you look at it from our perspective, you want to do deals with the United States. You want to bring in the US. You want to talk to the US. You will start having many more questions about, look, can we get anything done? And the world doesn't wait, not even for the United States. New histories are being written every day. A new chapter is being written every day. And you're either in or you're out. That's how stark it is. That's a rather impressive statement about the importance of the issue. I was hoping you'd predict what the outcome would be, but I think perhaps that's asking too much. However, you've made a very good case that this has a lot to do with our position in Asia. But let's start with Singapore. We have a very mature relationship with Singapore. I was ambassador in Singapore almost 25 years ago. And a lot has developed in terms of the bilateral relationship between the United States and Singapore. Is there room for further development in the future? I would say certainly yes. I mean, this year is an interesting year because it's the 25th anniversary of our first signing the agreement for use of our facilities. And the 10th anniversary since we signed a free trade agreement with the US. And the 10th anniversary with the strategic SFA as well, strategic framework agreement. So very important year and 50th anniversary for us, Golden Jubilee. In terms of what we can do with the US, again, if you look at ASEAN, I told you, we have seventh largest economy within, I think, five years. We're going to move up on current growth rates. With the ASEAN economic community coming in to play by the end of this year, what it means is you are looking to moving towards a single, common base for productions, movement of goods, services, personnel. Not all barriers are going to come down far from that, but much easier. Easier in goods, less easy in personnel. There's always a little bit more protectionism, services somewhere in between. But we'll get there. There is a certain logic to this. 600 million people, lots of resources, young population, vibrant area, and which is the one center in all of that region with rule of law, with safety, security, ease of doing business, and where you can have confidence. And is it international financial capital? There's only one place. So we can really be the New York of ASEAN. But this deal won't go through if only Singapore benefits. It's got to benefit all the ASEAN countries. So each one has a certain advantage, a certain benefit. Everyone benefits, everyone prospers. But our value proposition is that we bring international financial, legal accounting standards. And if you look at US and Singapore, the US can have different value propositions with each country. There are many things the US can do. But what the US can do with us is something that plays uniquely to American strengths. And we are one of the few countries you run a trade surplus with. And we also place where American companies, I think, still make the most amount of money in anywhere in Southeast Asia. So there is a lot more that we can do economically and take the relationship further. But again, I think TPP, or the lack of it, would cast a significant shadow on how relationships across the region progress. I agree with you. I think there's enormous potential for the bilateral relationship. But Singapore, after all, is an island nation. And while I'm not a geologist, I suppose that one could imagine some shifting of the tectonic plates. And Singapore suddenly ends up in the middle of the South China Sea. Now, fortunately, that hasn't happened yet. But Singapore, clearly, is close to the South China Sea. And although it's not a claimant in the area. I see that Filipino ambassador is even closer. Maybe you should direct the question to him. I think that the interests of both the Philippines and Singapore, and frankly, of all of the ASEAN members, are affected by this issue. Because it does involve the cohesion of ASEAN. It involves relations with China, which is a very important country needless to say in Asia. It's only the largest country in Asia. And the second largest economy in the world. That's right. By some figures, actually, it's now listed as the largest. But they're all in the $17 trillion range by purchasing power parity figures. In any event, the South China Sea issue is important. 13 years ago, the ASEAN countries in China had signed this declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea. And it looked and made a commitment to negotiate a code of conduct. And it looked as though the issue was heading in the right direction. I would say that the current trends are the reverse. It looks as though the issue has been moving in the direction of rising tensions. And that has enormous implications for the region. Since you have been following this issue closely and because it involves the relationship with China, I'd be interested in your thoughts. Is this an issue that is ripe for stabilization? Are there actions that the various parties ought to take? How should big outside powers long involved in East Asia, such as the United States, position ourselves on the question? Any thoughts you have in this area, I think, would be constructive in terms of helping our thinking on the subject. Steve, you're right in saying that the way events have moved is not in the best possible direction. Tensions today are higher than they used to be. And we really don't want it because why did East Asia, Singapore included, prosper and progress? Because we've managed to keep tensions down, focused on improving the lot of our peoples, and focused on trade and economics. When you get tensions, that's going to be impacted. So it's not in anybody's interest, not in China's interest, not in the claimant's interest, not in the non-claimant's interest, not in your interest. I think it is unreal, not realistic to think in terms of there is going to be a solution, or there is going to be an understanding on the sovereignty issues tomorrow. That's not going to happen. Because none of the claimant states, not China, not Philippines, not Malaysia, none of them, can give up claims. I think realistically the only thing that can be hoped for is some kind of agreement on how you behave in the context of claims. Everyone has claims by definition that when there are disputed claims, both sides have claims. How do you behave? What can you do? What can you not do? That's what the Code of Conduct seeks to achieve. We have not made as much progress on the Code of Conduct as I think we could have. There have been different pressures on moving forward in the Code of Conduct. We would like to move forward as a non-claimant state. We would like to see ASEAN moving forward on a Code of Conduct. And we think that's in everybody's interest. That's, to us, what is an ideal achievable outcome. What can everyone else do? I think everyone else can encourage that process. Miscalculations at sea, miscalculations in the air, ship captains getting it wrong, these things could have a very adverse impact on overall sense of peace and also on progress on the Code of Conduct. We are going to take over from Thailand as coordinator for ASEAN-China relationships towards a later part of this year. And that's our hope that we can move the process along. It's, if you look at it from an ASEAN-China relationship, what is not, what is the truth but not often appreciated is that actually the relationship, the economic and strategic relationship is very, very significant. And the South China Sea issue is a small part of the overall equation. China is either number one or number two in terms of investments, in terms of trade, for all of us, a very significant player. And if you look at all the good things that are happening and that we are doing as a result of China's rise, they are tremendous. And it has the prospect of uplifting the lives of the entire, the peoples of the entire region. At the same time, a mishap in South China Sea can be very debilitating. So our hope is to see a code of conduct in place, to see something that is reasonable for everyone and then move from there. Thank you, that's a, let's turn to China. It's hard not to turn to China because it's such an important factor in Asia. At a recent discussion, somebody asked me the question, if I were to meet with members of Congress, what is the one message on China that I would give to them? And I fumbled around and my response was, it would be that in many ways, the U.S. handling of our relations with China is the test in Asian eyes of our Asia policy. If we manage our relations with China in a way that controls tensions and enables China's economic growth to continue benefiting the members of the region, then people will have greater confidence in our overall Asia policy. And if on the contrary, Asians think the United States is riling up China, making it a more dangerous neighbor, feeding Chinese nationalism, then their confidence in U.S. policies in Asia will be adversely effective. Now that may not be accurate, but I think that there are two really important issues for all members in East Asia. One is the question of how China behaves as it gains in wealth and power. And the second is the question of how the United States manages the adjustments in our policies that will be necessary as China becomes more powerful and influential. Singapore can't dominate these trends, but it's heavily influenced by the trends and it thinks very seriously about these types of issues. I wonder if you could share some thoughts with us on this question. Well, there are three parts to it, right? What's in your interests, what's in China's interests, and what's in the interests of the rest of us? And what do you see the dynamics of it? If you look at U.S.-China, that is the most important relationship in the world today. If something goes wrong there, a lot of things go wrong in the world. What does China want? It said about $7,000, $8,000 per capita GDP. They want to get to $15,000, $20,000. They really don't want anything that becomes an obstacle to that. A dispute with you, a fight with you is an unnecessary obstacle that they really neither want nor desire. They are rational actors. At the same time, they, as they grow in power, they demand their rightful place in the world. And if the United States and the West does not accommodate legitimate requests, then China will look alternate means. I mean, you take one example. They are the second largest economy in the world. But their legitimate requests in respect of the IMF, which your administration has negotiated, have been blocked in Congress. And China today is in a position, you block them there, they are able to set up another international bank to which a lot of countries subscribe to. So you have to understand it's a multipolar world. It's not a world where you can completely dominate all by yourself. It's a world where you are still the single most important power, you are the superpower. You influence a lot of events, but you cannot completely control all outcomes. And you have to accommodate the rise of China. And if you don't, you will find alternate multilateral institutions being set up where you are completely excluded and your influence will not grow, it will reduce. So that's one aspect. It requires a certain, for want of a better word, an adult approach towards dealing with some of these issues. And on the part of China, just like any other big power, it will look at, it looks at how the United States behaved in the 19th and early 20th century. Your regions of influence, and they look at it. You know, international law, yes, you have observed international law by and large. You were primarily a force for good, but when it didn't suit you, you haven't always observed it. And China looks at it and says, well, these laws and rules were made at a time when they were weak, and they don't see why they need to observe all of them. The real question is, how do you accommodate their desire for change, which rules can be changed, which rules cannot be changed, and what's that process? Is it going to be one fraught with tension, or is it one that is going to be more accommodative, where, you know, they understand, as a responsible actor in the world, what role they can play and what rules can be changed and how they can be changed. For the rest of us, we look at this. You know, at least in Asia, we really don't want to be choosing sides. We would like and we have benefited and prospered, as I said earlier, from a very strong American presence, and we think that if America is present only in the form of Seventh Fleet, it doesn't do America any good. Your tax payers will start asking why the hell are we paying all this money. You need to be there and taking part in the prosperity of the region in a sensible way, and you are a force for tremendous good. The only reason Asia has prospered post-Second World War is because of you. My, our first Prime Minister, Mr. Lee, is on record, record is saying that many times, and I don't think that's seriously challenged, and you can continue to play that role. And we have to look at you and say you want to be engaged. If you are not, then the region will make its calculations and you know, history will be written differently. So that's how I see the dynamics working out. US-China relationship, how we see US presence, how we see China's intentions. And will China push? As any growing power, it will push. And will it compete with you? Of course it will compete with you. China is not like Russia, as many people have observed. It's not just a military competitor. It's not like Japan. It's not just an economic competitor. It is a competitor in all fields. Its geographical size is as large as the United States. And in population terms, it's four times your size. And Chinese, by nature, are industrious, hardworking. They absorb science and technology very quickly. And you have to be prepared for competition, but that's how the world progresses. You put the United States at a disadvantage because after all, you are both minister for foreign affairs and minister for law. Whereas in the United States, we treat foreign affairs and law as separate. Maybe we should integrate the attorney general into the State Department, although I'm not sure people would consider that a desirable outcome. I want to get the questions from the audience, Mr. Minister, but before I do so. You haven't been very good at signing up to international treaties yourself, either. Well, we sign off on them, but we don't ratify them. That is a problem. Let me close with some questions on ASEAN, just briefly. You've already made some very interesting points about the ASEAN region. But ASEAN is committed to be setting up a ASEAN economic community by the end of this year. Americans don't know a great deal about the economic community. And I wonder if you could say a few words about the significance for the United States of the emergence of an ASEAN economic community. I think you have to look at it more from the economic terms because when you look at an ASEAN economic community, people sometimes look at a comparable and they say, oh, like the EU, it's not like the EU. As I tell our European friends, the Europeans have had several centuries of fighting with each other and up to the second world war exhausted each other and then decided that coming together in some sort of block might be a better idea. And also, if you look at the commonalities across Europe, a relatively small geographical continent, you have the cultural similarities are greater, a religion that's largely shared. So religious, cultural, historical experiences that would allow for the kind of integration that you see in Europe after 50 years. And even then, you have people questioning whether the project was, should have been done in the way it was done. If you look at ASEAN, you have Singaporean GDP per capita of US $60,000. And then you have some countries close at $1,000, $2,000. And you have Philippines with, Catholicism as a main religion. You have Indonesia and Malaysia with Islam. And then you have Thailand with Buddhism. And then of course you still have communism as a religion in some places. So different religions, ethnically very diverse, economically very different. If you try and integrate them in one community in all senses, it won't work. So you do what is doable. What is doable is try and integrate and make sure that goods, services, people can move more freely. That you can locate your manufacturing, say in Thailand or Malaysia or Indonesia, raise capital in Singapore, list in Singapore, ship worldwide. Do things in mainland Southeast Asia, whether in Cambodia or Laos, and move it around the rest of ASEAN. Take the advantages of factors of production. What is that going to require? It's going to require heavy investments in infrastructure, which is happening. Ports, airports, railroads, roads. Reduction, equalization of tariffs across ports. Easier rules for doing business. All of that is happening. And of course, the middle class is emerging, which creates a market. So those are the things that are happening. And you're looking at within five years an economy of four trillion. And as I said, if you integrate, you look at it closely with Australia, which is really integrating with ASEAN. You're looking at six, seven trillion dollars. So a very significant economy. Japan is heavily invested, and it's just announced that it will set up a fund for 110 billion US dollars. China, of course, is heavily invested. And it's a market for Europe. Europe is looking at it. It is something that I think Americans would be well advised to look at closely. Thank you. Ernie? Thank you. Let's open the floor for questions. I just ask that you introduce yourself and your institution. And one point, we have a large online audience and they're following us on hashtag CSIS live. So if there are questions from those of you in cyberspace, please send in your questions and the guys in the back will carry them up to me and we'll try to get you on too. Let me start with our former Assistant Secretary of State, Stanley Roth. I introduced you, Stan. You don't need to do it. Thank you. Good to see you again, Mr. Minister. It's only two weeks, I guess, since Shangri-La. As always, State has asked the most important questions, but let me ask you to look forward. What would you like to see accomplished this year at the East Asia Summit and the US ASEAN meeting this fall? East Asia Summit and the US ASEAN? Well, Stan, I would like to have said that by then, hopefully we are over this little blip on TPP and TPA because if we are not, I can tell you, it will take a very different hue when we meet because American presence at EAS, American presence in ASEAN, US dialogue is going to be significantly colored by, look, are you serious? Are you real? You come, you want to take part in the region. Are you able to do trade? Are you able to do trade deals? Because look at the alphabet soups, whether you talk about the comprehensive economic partnerships that are around the region, the trade deals that are being done between ASEAN in Australia, ASEAN in Japan, ASEAN in China, between China and a variety of countries, including ASEAN, you look at all of that and then where is the US? I think if we look at it from that scenario, if we have got this under the belt, I think you're looking at a very positive meeting where we can talk about a whole lot of other issues. We talk about, as I said, what else we can cooperate on? I think we have only scratched the surface in terms of what we can do with hue. IT, communications, energy, disaster relief, a whole lot of issues. If we don't get over this blood, then I think we'll be back to, what is it that we can do with the US? And we can buy a few more jets from you until they get produced in Asia. So, but that again, the TPP will help you. So that's, you'll get the picture anyway. Let's go over here and the gentleman in the front. Hello, minister. It's a pleasure meeting you again. May pose a threat to Southeast Asia and the region. How is Singapore in partnership with other Southeast Asian countries mitigating this threat? Well, if I can deal with that in two parts. One, what's the threat and two, what are we doing about it or what we can do about it? The threat is serious in that today with the internet communications, you get a very romanticized, highly attractive videos coming out of the Middle East from ISIS, specifically targeting the Indonesia and Malaysia in their languages. And last count, as I said earlier, about 700, maybe 800 fighters from the region by the Middle East. There is one organized radicalization in that money comes in from the Middle East to primary schools, religious schools, not all, but some. And those schools are then used to spread a very radical message to young children who grow up in that creed. Second, the systems for dealing with people who have already been radicalized are variable. I mean, in prison, for example, whether they are kept separate, whether they are isolated, or do they go in fact a whole lot of other people, those are serious issues and it happens. I mean, you get fairly senior personnel of the movement being able to give interviews from their prison cells and that's telecast. Just these are just anecdotal examples, but the issue is real. Malaysia has arrested several people, including civil servants and people in the military and police forces. So has Indonesia, Southern Philippines. There are suggestions of people being becoming radicalized there. Provinces, ISS declared its villiards, which are provinces and provincial governors in a set up in structure. Separately from that, individuals who look at what's happening, sometimes it's a sense of grievance that fellow Muslims are being dealt with poorly and the west is oppressing them. Sometimes it's as a result of feelings of unhappiness and deep despair over the Israel-Palestine issue. And sometimes it's just outright corruption of religion. But even in Singapore, where you have a Muslim population which is well integrated and economically successful, we announced the arrest of two young men a few weeks ago. One of them was planning to go to Syria and if he was not successful in making the trip, he was going to go out and try and assassinate our president and prime minister. And relative to how senior officials of certainly the president and secretaries are here, the president and prime minister in Singapore are fairly accessible. So this is a serious issue at different levels. If you look, for example, underlying issue also is with democracy comes some factors of appeal based on along religious lines. So you get parties which are formed along religious lines which then appeal based on their religious creed. And they have to be more Islamic than others. And that encourages over a longer period of time, slightly more radicalized society. So that is, as I see a medium to longer term problem in the shorter term, this is a quite a serious issue. It's not something to be trifled with. What have we done about it? Apart from the measures to make sure that you prevent these things from happening. And you know, no society can be absolutely sure. How do you prevent someone going out on the streets with a kitchen knife and killing a few people? You can't turn the whole city or whole state into a prison state. It's not possible. It's really your focus on how do you recover from that? So we put a lot of emphasis on recovery from any such attack. Assuming that some day some attack might succeed. But recently under the EAS umbrella, we held a rehabilitation conference on how we pick people like this up and how we share our experiences on how we rehabilitate them back into society. We share our experiences. This is something that we worked with the rest of the ASEAN in the EAS countries. So we do a fair bit of this. Let's have a young lady here, Lynn. Thank you very much, Minister Shamugam. I have two related questions. The first is whether you could shed some light on what concrete steps Singapore is doing to push the Code of Conduct negotiations forward. There isn't a great deal of clarity around the terms, for example, that are being talked about and what terms might be posing stumbling blocks between ASEAN countries and China. So that's question number one. Question number two relates to President Maingdeel's recent initiative, the South China Sea Peace Plan, where he calls for parties to shelve sovereignty disputes and promote joint development. The U.S. Department of State has actually come out to support this plan. However, ASEAN countries have remained silent as far as I can see. Is there any thoughts, is Singapore considering or will it consider actually publicly supporting this peace plan? If not, why not? Thank you. And would you just introduce yourself? Oh, sorry, I'm Lynn Kwok from Brookings Institution. Thank you very much. Thank you. Singapore, as you can imagine, other than Brunei, is the smallest country in ASEAN and a non-claimant state. So I think the views of the others should matter if I have it, particularly those of the claimant states. But with that caveat, I would say this. On the first point on what the code of conduct we think ought to contain and why is there no greater transparency. You know, in international diplomacy, transparency doesn't always aid the conclusion of a deal. You go out there and you say these are the terms we are negotiating. You will have people who want to prevent that deal from happening. That's not to say today we have buttoned down all the terms or we have a fairly good idea on what the terms ought to be. I think the truth is we are trying to push towards identifying areas where there can be commonality. What you would call, I don't like the phrase, but low hanging fruits, identify some do's and don'ts, get that button down, and then move on. The real problem has been you need both sides to be able to agree that the COC is worth doing and should be done at a certain pace. Today, up to today, there hasn't been a clear agreement on the pace at which those negotiations ought to proceed. And that is why you haven't had a great deal about what it ought to contain. Our own view is it's possible to identify some things which are not so controversial. Put that down as a first step. At least we agree that these are the do's and don'ts, and then we start talking about the next level. As to whether we can achieve it, I don't know. I was asked earlier this year and last year and I said that the progress is not as we would have hoped for. It's been disappointing. The second part of your question is to join development. It's a, it's an interesting idea, but I can see from the perspective of the Cleveland States, if they feel very strongly that a certain area belongs to them, let's say it's 20 kilometers from their shore. They will say, well, joint development in what I claim, but I don't really think belongs to me is a good idea, but joint development in what I absolutely believe is mine is not such a great idea. So you will have endless arguments about what is disputed and what is not disputed. One of the things all the Cleveland States agree is whatever they claim they think is not disputed. So how do you have joint development in such a situation? Right here in the back. Right? Greg? Hello, I'm Greg Rushford. I publish the Rushford report on trade and national security. How seriously does Singapore take China's so-called nine-dash line, the claims it owns basically all of the South China Sea? And do you think it's a mistake that the Philippines and Vietnam's desires that ASEAN speak with a stronger voice? Well, it's a mistake that they haven't been accepted. All right. Two questions. How seriously do we take the nine-dash line? And second, is it a mistake for Philippines and Vietnam to push for a strong ASEAN statement? If I got your question, right? Don't vote opposite. Why haven't we supported them? Was it a mistake that ASEAN has not taken a stronger position as the Philippines and Vietnam have asked? All right. On the first question, I think our position has been, look, claims have to be made in accordance with international law. And we have asked all sites, China as well as the others, to clarify their claims by reference to international law. That's what we can do, and that's what we have done as a sovereign state, as a non-claimant state. With no specific interest, it doesn't really matter to me as a Singaporean foreign minister who owns which piece of rock or submerged piece of rock, as long as people don't go and fight over it. And as long as the freedom of navigation is not impacted and is in accordance with international law and unclose as we understand it, right? It doesn't matter to me whether Vietnam owns something or Philippines owns something or China owns something. But we have said to all the claimants, including China, can you please clarify your claims in accordance with international law? The on your second question, I think ASEAN works, well, not I think, ASEAN works on consensus. What is, statements can only be issued when all 10 countries can agree on a common position. You have two types of viewpoints, at least one that viewpoints that the claimants have and the other the viewpoints of the non-claimants who have no particular interest in the dispute and whose main interest is to make sure that there is a peace, there is progress and that the larger relationship with China has to be seen and the South China Sea dispute has got to be seen in the context of the larger relationship with China. I'm not talking about my position, I'm not talking about Singapore's position, I'm talking about the non-claimants generally. And even amongst the claimant states, there is no uniformity of view on exactly what should be the baseline that's adopted. So within that framework, if you can extract one principle that is everyone wants a good relationship with China and B, they want the disputes settled peacefully if possible. And you then get an action and reaction and you see that the nature of the statements have varied over the years and in the last ASEAN meet, there was a statement that expressed some concern over the activities in South China Sea. Mr. Minister, we haven't talked about India yet and I wondered if you could share your view on whether India under Prime Minister Modi is actually looking, acting, participating East. Have you seen a change under Modi and what does that do to the concept of the greater Indo-Pacific and broadening out the discussion at the East Asia Summit? India certainly acting, thinking differently under Prime Minister Modi, but there is a distance between thinking and acting differently and achieving all the outcomes that you want achieved because if you look at Prime Minister Modi's entree, it's full, right? His domestic preoccupations is the Prime Minister of a continent, 1.2 billion people at varying levels of economic development. He today faces the difficulties of getting his economic policies through, getting his electoral program, the program on which he was elected through because, for example, he doesn't control the upper house and he can pass bills through the lower house but they get stymied on the upper house for a variety of reasons. So, he's got to get that sorted out, he's got to get jobs sorted out, he's got to get investment sorted out, he's got to get the manufacturing base sorted out, he's got to get something as not simple but something as basic as a single tax system, GST for example, VAT sorted out. So he's got a whole lot of issues. At the same time, foreign policy as well, like all countries, you would be focused on where the problems are and the problems for him are around India. Those are the security issues that India faces up to. So, this look east, look west, I think his relationship with the US has improved, his relationship with Asia has improved. He made it a point to go to China before the one year of his prime ministership to make a psychological point. I think it's a more strategic, more forward thinking policy but one must view that against the very real challenges that the Indian political system imposes on any prime minister. Thank you very much. I think you'd agree with me that today's discussion has been very valuable. We can see why Singapore is such a crucial friend and I'd like to thank the foreign minister and Ambassador Roy for their kind time and thoughts and please join me in thanking both of them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a very good answer. Thank you.