 Hello everyone, my name is Richard Mord and I'm the Director of the 2020 A&U Crawford Leadership Forum and it's my great pleasure to introduce this webcast. This is the third in a series of public discussions by the Australian National University on some of the biggest global questions raised by the pandemic. Through this series of events, we're seeking to sketch the contours of a change in world but ask what the pandemic might mean for Australia and our place in the world. Today our focus is on Asia. Before going any further though, I wanted to acknowledge that today I'm joining you from Canberra on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Nambri people and our Australian audience join us from many different parts of the country. So today we acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands each of us meet. I pay my respects to Elders past and present and I extend those respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be watching today. Asia's rise in recent decades has changed the world and shifted relative economic, geopolitical and even cultural power towards this fast-changing region. Now Asian governments and societies are grappling with the immense change and damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. So how will Asia recover? Can we still talk about the possibilities of an Asian century? How will the pandemic affect the geopolitical competition for power and influence that's been rising in Asia? And has Asian regionalism played any significant role in coordinating responses to the pandemic? I'm really delighted that we have today four foreign policy specialists from Asia to discuss these questions. And I'm equally delighted that the university's own Evelyn Goh, Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies, is able to chair our discussion. Evelyn specializes in East Asian strategy and security. As today's discussion has been broadcast live, I encourage you to submit questions to our panel throughout the discussion using the Q&A function in your toolbar. Now one last word before I hand over to Evelyn to introduce our speakers. I just wanted to say that I'm really delighted that we've got four foreign policy specialists from Asia joining us today. I'm equally delighted that the university's own Evelyn Goh, Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies, is able to chair our discussion. And Evelyn specializes in East Asian strategy and security. So now I'm going to hand over to Evelyn to introduce our speakers and get us underway. Evelyn, over to you. Thank you very much, Richard. And welcome everybody to the latest in this big picture series on Asia and COVID-19. Asia, of course, is a huge and diverse region. And the challenges, responses and impacts of the pandemic vary greatly across this region. COVID-19 has spurred intense debate and further complicated politics within and between countries in this region. To help us to understand some key trends and to analyze the region's prospects and possibilities, we have four eminent experts from Asia today. Let me introduce them to you briefly in turn. First up, we have Professor Dewi Fortuna Anwar, who is research professor at the Center for Political Studies of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and vice chairman of the Habibi Center. Ibu Dewi has also served in government in 2010 to 2015. She was deputy secretary for political affairs to vice president Bodiono under President Yudhiono. And in 2015 to 2017, she was deputy secretary for government policy support to vice president and use of color under President Jokowi. Welcome, Dewi. Next up, we have Professor Suk Jong Lee from the Graduate School of Governance at Songkyeong Kwan University in South Korea. Professor Lee is former president of the East Asia Institute and has directed the Asian Democracy Research Network since 2015. It's good to have you with us, Suk Jong. Next up, we have Professor Huang Renwei, who is the executive director, executive director general of the Institute for Belt and Road and Global Governance at Fudan University in Shanghai, as well as an academic committee member of the Center for International Strategy and Security at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Thank you for joining us, Renwei. Finally, last but not least, we have Dr. Dhruva Jaishanka, who is joining us from Washington, D.C. He is director of the U.S. Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and a non-resident fellow with the Lowy Institute. Dr. Jaishanka was previously a fellow with Brookings, India, the German Marshall Fund and the Rajaratnam School in Singapore. Welcome, Dhruva. Now, let's get started on what is a rather full agenda. We'd like to divide this initial discussion with the panelists into two segments. In part one, we'd like to address some big picture questions for the region as a whole first. So I'd like to begin with two or three general questions, which I'll invite the panelists to weigh in on as they see fit. First up, then, in your view, what are the top two impacts that you see COVID-19 as having had on the Asian landscape as a whole? Would you like to start us off on this, please? Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for bringing me to this discussion through webinar. As you know, prior to the pandemic crisis, we are talking very much about regional integration. The focus was very much on intensifying regional cooperation in all pillars, political security, economics, social, cultural. Within ASEAN, we are well in the progress of developing an ASEAN community. And within the wider region, connectivity is very much the vast word. And that also focuses on people-to-people, the focus on trade exchanges, tourism, people exchanges, and so on. And this pandemic clearly has hit at the nerve center of all that interaction, because we have total disruptions of trade, tourism, people-to-people exchanges, and so on. Now, the two top impacts, there are so many impacts, the two top impacts is that we are forced to carry out physical distancing. We have closed our borders, so there's a real hardening of the borders. People coming from other countries, for tourists and for meetings, you know, are no longer allowed to come. So we have returned to this very hard border situation. And each country has had to draw very much on their own national resources to both to contain the pandemics and also to deal with the social economic impacts. So then we have seen, you know, the very harsh economic fallout of this. Economic growth in some countries have gone to minus, and there are large numbers of people who are going into poverty. So each country will have to grapple with the social economic impact at the same time, you know, when instead of going full force at integration, regional integration, you know, we are being, again, you know, we have people are very worried now, you know, how much complex interdependence can be saved in the long term. Because when you have a pandemic like this, you have to be able to deal with your own health crisis on your own, provide your PPE, provide your medical supplies, and then also make sure that your people are fed, you know, you have sufficient food supplies internally. So there'll be questions later on, you know, to what extent we need to develop national capacity and not rely too much on international trade. So this is going to have an impact. But at the same time, while we have disruptions on this physical connectivity, we have this acceleration of the digital economy and, you know, this webinar and so on. So the process of doing business in Asia will probably be different. We need to refocus later on, you know, in prioritizing in areas which could enhance integration, which could ensure, you know, the ordinary lives that we can live as normally as possible by using technology and, you know, and dealing with this crisis. So in the long term impacts, I think, you know, how to deploy new technologies to mitigate the negative impacts of this crisis will be the top priorities. And I would argue that global health issues, pandemic issues, will become a much higher priority for all of us, including in Asia. Thank you. Thanks, Dewi. Could I invite any other of the panelists to weigh in as you? Well, I think we have to think about the global impact of COVID-19. And there has been a kind of backlash to globalizations before the arrival of this pandemic. I think the pandemic has speeded up. This is not totally universal, but the weakening globalizations in trade and investment ties and so forth. I guess many industries and economy sector are trying to adjust the global supply chain. In the past, the global supply chain was based on the economic logic of saving the money. So, you know, looking for cheap labor costs and that kind of things. But now many countries are trying to diversify all this global network in order to make sure the supply chain will be very secure. And they have the concern about also public safety issues when they are engaging economy activities. So, therefore, I think the pandemic is pushing for kind of ensuring or ensuring. So, we see, you know, whether it can help the regionalization of Asian countries. Because in Asia, we are pretty much, you know, dependent on the western market as well. So, we see whether this alignment, the alignment of a productive and investment mechanism actually facilitating the deepening regionalization that are the very important issues. And Asia in particular will be influenced by the US-China competition. And here, already the competition of this G2 has been great before the arrival of this pandemic. We remember all last year and until the beginning of this year, the keen competition spreading from trade and then technology like AI technology competition and so forth. And this pandemic seems like the speed up, the strategic competition between two countries who knows the direction because we didn't know, you know, what kind of who's gonna lose, who's gonna win in this strategic competition. And pandemic has accelerated, but we don't know, you know, who will lead in this competition. And I think this competition is very important in the future of Asia because if we look back at the post war, economic prosperity and peace in Asia-Pacific region, we based on the US-led hub and spoke alliance system, you know, helping the national security of many countries in the region. And then, since the 1990s with the rise of China, our economies in the region are very much aligned and tied up to China. So therefore, if Asia century continues to the future, we still need the strong Chinese economy that will benefit the other countries in the region. And at the same time, we need a continuous US presence in the region. That's very important. And if these two conditions are not met properly, will be in difficult times. And I think it's very important for Asian countries to provide and to strengthen the multilateral many economic institutions and security institutions as a hedge. Both David and Sook Jong have already set the scene with, you know, a quick sketch of some of the key problems and opportunities as well that the region faces. The two sides of the short term connectivity cuts that we face as a result of COVID, the longer term potential backlash and harm to the kind of globalization based economic models that those of us in Asia have not just grown dependent upon but have grown rich on and developed on the basis of. But David has also emphasized the opportunities that come with new tools and opportunities of the digital age that we have. And of course, the thorny problem of great power competition in the region and uncertainty which has been there already prior to the onset of this pandemic, which is being exacerbated by it. This leads me to the following question, the second large big picture question of, you know, will these impacts really cause Asia to become fundamentally different, right? Then what we were seeing prior to the onset of the pandemic. Sook Jong mentioned the Asian century, for example, can we still think of an Asian century given the scale and depth of these challenges? Perhaps I could invite the other two panelists to share some thoughts on this question. No, I would agree with the previous two speakers, you know, in terms of framing what the challenge is, but you know, we are living in a period of great uncertainty right now and trying to make sense of that uncertainty is sort of what we're all tasked with doing. Obviously, you know, I think the first layer of analysis, the first way of thinking about this is the public health dimensions of it. And different countries are obviously dealing with different ways and are suffering to different degrees from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. You have countries that have recovered quite quickly, you know, Vietnam, Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong have done quite well amongst other South Korea, of course, but others where India, where I'm from, where it seems to be peaking now, and then we have about 12,000 new cases every day being reported. So I think, you know, that's the first sort of level of analysis. The second, of course, is the economic impact, not just of the coronavirus pandemic itself, but also the countermeasures the various governments are taking to address it. And I think, you know, we can break this down to a number of ways. One is the globalization itself that is trade, travel, foreign direct investment and how that has been frozen. Second is consumption patterns and how that has changed. The third is investment and how that's, you know, particularly at this time, where we will have some investors who are taking advantage of this situation, it'll also lead to a lot of risk averseness. A fourth factor I think is manufacturing, which will, as a result of a constrained investment of dropping consumption and of disruption to globalization, manufacturing in certain sectors will suffer. And finally, I think energy factors, and particularly energy and resources, something of particular importance to Australia, we'll see now some very, some changing patterns of energy consumption as well. Now, what does this mean geopolitically? You know, in some ways this all spells a great intensification of competition and not just at the national level or between states, but also within states where it's finding as well. So states and municipal governments are now competing with each other for scarce resources in a way that wasn't, we thought we were over a little while ago. And so what does this mean for the Asian century? I mean, obviously there will be some countries that will be worse affected, some will be better, some will recover more quickly. We saw with the 2008 financial crisis how many Asian economies, in fact, rebounded much better than a lot of European economies. And so, you know, I think each major economy, if you look at its profile, will have certain vulnerabilities. China will be particularly susceptible to drops in investment and exports, whereas other countries will, you know, energy exporters will be disrupted in different ways. So, you know, I think while it's too early to say this will have an impact for the region as a whole, there will be immense variation in terms of how coronavirus affects different countries in the region. May I say something? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's my honor to participate in this conversation and the dialogue. And the question is how Asia's future will be. I'm more optimistic seeing based on the reasons below. Firstly, Asia up till now is the best region controlled the pandemic situation. This is the region firstly outbreak the pandemic. But in only two months, we control the situation. And now Asia, mostly East Asia, is the least cases of this pandemic and the least number of deaths. And you European more than four million cases are close to more than three million cases. And the US more than two million cases. And in Asia, I think about East Asia, about 100,000 cases. And the many Asian countries, the death number is only lower than 100. Some Asian countries, even they have only zero, like Mongolia, Cambodia, Vietnam. So this is almost marvelous, comparing with other regions in the world. So we can see the culture, the institution, the governance, you see during this crisis of pandemic Asia is the best. And the second, our economy is recovering from the recession. I think now we can see US and the European, Western European or the whole European is falling into very serious economic recession. How long will it be? I believe more than two years, the recession of European and the US economy. But in Asia, we can see a positive growth rate working this year, 2020. Maybe the growth rate is much lower than last year or before. In China, maybe two percentage growth rate. But comparing with negative growth rate, about five to eight in Europe and the US, two percent growth rate is still high. It's still high. And like our friends in Korea from Korea said, the supply chain is changing fundamentally from global wide to regional wide. So the supply chain will be shortened. Like East Asia will become some kind of block of supply chain. And we have Japan, South Korea as the top level, China in the middle, South East Asia, ACR in the middle and lower. So this is the whole system of supply chain. And I believe this will be more sufficient and more efficient and more sustainable. And about how about China and the US? I put the ideological and political factors aside. If we just talk about the pandemic, we China, we are tied to choose. We sincerely want to cooperate with the US in this pandemic control. We should cooperate with each other. We should do all the coordinated work together and to exchange information and exchange the technology on this control pandemic and distribution the materials necessary and also work together with WHO. We send many messages and the proposal, these kind of cooperation with US, but they are all refused rejected by White House. So it's a great pity we lose or we are losing this chance, this opportunity to have two powers cooperating working with each other. But we still have time. The US wants to work together with China in pandemic control. We still will be very eager to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Huang. Thank you, Ren Wei. Now, perhaps I can move this conversation on to the second part of where we'd like to go, which is a slightly more in-depth look at the particular countries in the particular subregions we have represented here by our various experts who have a better sense of defined great detail in these particular areas. But before we get there, of course, a reminder so far from Druva about the variation that we see across this very large region, which we now can think about in a bit more detail, also a reminder from Ren Wei about the comparative perspective, what Asia looks like when we compare it with other parts of the world, and some reasons, perhaps, to be optimistic here about the prospects economically particularly as we go forward. And finally, again, the reminder about great power politics, whether it's about the pandemic by itself or more broadly. So these are themes that we will come back to. I'd like to spend a bit of time with each of the speakers in turn now again coming back, circling back to Dewey and looking at Australia's closest neighbouring region of Southeast Asia again. Dewey, if I may, let's think about Southeast Asia in a bit more detail. Obviously, again, a very, very diverse subregion in itself. What would you say some of the major differences in COVID-19 impacts and experiences have been so far across Southeast Asia? Eveline, as you say, Southeast Asia is very diverse and Southeast Asia is very diverse. Indonesia is one with the largest number of sufferers and also the largest number of deaths. Also the Philippines and Thailand, while in some of the smaller countries, there have been zero deaths. In terms of the effectiveness of responses, Singapore and Vietnam, they've been cited as being very, very effective. I must say that Indonesia, there's a mixed record here that some delay, but at the end of the day, there's been improved state capacity in dealing with this crisis. On the whole, one death is too many, but in comparative perspectives, given Indonesia has 260 million people. Although the testing is still too low, it's not sufficient yet, so we don't really know how many people are there at the moment. We have about 30,000. But when you look at the recorded deaths of confirmed COVID deaths, there have been about 2,000. But people say there are many people who are suspects, but the results have not really been out yet. So it could probably go up to more than three and a half times of 2,000. So maybe about the large-scale population, maybe it's still comparatively lower than if you go to this, you compare it to the US or Italy. So variations, some countries are much more effective than others. I must say that while ASEAN has a lot of good intention at the practical level, each country really has to rely more on its own national resources because of the enforced control of the borders, disruption of traffic and trade and so on. So each country really has to look internally. And here, the national capacity is very important, the ability of the state to respond to crisis. And maybe one of the good things about Southeast Asian region is that we are very prone to crisis. Indonesia itself has from tsunami to earthquakes and then we have the financial crisis and so on. There are improved capacity to deal with that. ASEAN plus three have come together. The leaders have met. They want to deal with crisis better in the future, though in real terms now, each country is still very much reliant on its own resources. Do you want me to ask? I might pick up the point about ASEAN, which you've already brought up, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. What has been interesting for many observers in the region is ASEAN's relative lack of high-profile coordinating role in dealing with the pandemic in Southeast Asia so far, which is a little bit surprising, I suppose, for some observers, given that ASEAN does have some formal mechanisms for cooperation, for health security, information exchange and so on. Do you foresee that as this crisis pans out, that ASEAN may be able to contribute more towards Southeast Asian management of COVID-19? Well, the ambition is that, as you know, ASEAN already have the AHA Center, the center that dealt with more humanitarian and disaster risk management. The problem is, of course, in the past, crisis was localized. You have a tsunami in Indonesia or you have the typhoon in Myanmar and so on. So countries that are not affected have been able to get more assistance, but now countries are affected. And ASEAN, as you know, is reliant very much on physical interaction, on meetings and so on. And now you cannot, you know, you can only go through Zoom and so on. So they are able to communicate at the virtual level, but the real, you know, the physical level, there are restrictions. So that means that, and countries that should be in a better position, for example, to send assistance, you know, that they've also been very much forced to focus on their own. But this is a lesson learned. The ASEAN countries and the ASEAN private countries now are talking about better risk management, both at the public health level, as well as a social economic impact. And I think that's one thing from ASEAN, you know, that from each crisis, the regional organizations and the partnership and the partners have tended to to have, you know, better mechanisms in place, you know, they are willing to invest more money and also, you know, create the mechanisms necessary to do that. You also mentioned, Dewi, that, you know, unfortunately, many Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, you know, are used to having to deal with crises, natural disasters and so on, so forth. The other thing that is interesting about Southeast Asia, of course, is that, you know, there has traditionally been a fairly strong status emphasis. The status is a bit clear in many of the countries in Southeast Asia. Do you see the management of the COVID crisis so far reinforcing that very state-centric tendency in Southeast Asia? Yes and no. I mean, the good thing is that when we are talking about crisis, when you're talking about public health, it should be public, it should not be private, you know, it should be made easily available and affordable and, you know, with equal, the equality of access of everybody and that could only be provided by the state, you know, not by private institutions. And also in terms of the social economy impacts when people have lost their jobs, when you suddenly have a large pool of new pool who have not been in the roasters of those who have received government hands-outs, you know, so it's only the government that can do that. And in Indonesia, you know, we have a lot of trial and error here. There have been some good examples, but there have also been, you know, some poor examples of correct data and so on. So the importance of the state is very important here. But at the same times, we cannot simply rely on the state. It's also, and this is one of the good things also. It has to be a whole of government and whole of society approach. In Indonesia, the government has been, the pandemic crisis in fact has shown both the good, the bad and the ugly, you know, in the system. We have seen both the strengths and the weaknesses. From the Indonesian case, typical late response, you know, denial and going off in completely different direction. As you know, in the beginning, when people are already talking about the pandemic, our Minister of Health said, y'all don't worry about it, you know, we are a tropical country, you know, we are not going to be affected. The good thing is that because we have so many crises in the past, there's already a system in place. Since the tsunami, Indonesia has this national agency for disaster management. And after chaotic communications and incoherent policies by the central government, then the central government appointed a task force chaired by this national agency for disaster management. And each region, you know, also has its own chapter. So responses have been much more coordinated. And with Indonesia, we have a decentralization system. And this is both a headache and a good thing, you know, one of the bad things about decentralization is sometimes, you know, the policies are incoherent and lack of coordination. But at the same time, when central government is a bit slow, some of the regional governments are much more up to speed. So, you know, and they've been the one, you have seen the emergence of very effective regional leaders with good communication and who have been able to put, you know, both the public health side and also the social economy impact together. So as I said, you know, Indonesia is a very complex mix. We have problems of enforcement. And we have problems, you know, civil society has been great, there's been great generosity, outpouring of philanthropic activities, be our medical practitioners, you know, health care, they've been wonderful, they've been wonderful support for them. At the same time, they've also seen signs of intolerance, where nurses have not been allowed to return to their rooms because the neighbors were worried about being affected by COVID. We have seen, you know, some, you know, denial of COVID victim who died, the neighborhood will not allow them to be buried in that area. But at the same time, we, you know, so there's this fear paranoia, but at the same time, you still see markets congested with people. When malls and supermarkets have been closed down, you see people, you know, the informal sectors defying this. When governments are restricted travel, you know, you see large scale of people still going to their villages during Ramadan. So it's a bit chaotic, but at the same time, you know, the state does function. And here I might mention about the military because the role of the military has been under scrutiny, particularly under Jokowi's, you know, there's been increase, incursion of the military that have been brought into the cabinet and been involved in a lot of military operations other than war, including terrorism. And the current chair of the, of the agency for, you know, disaster management is an active military general. And he had to get the president has to ask for special dispensation because that position is not supposed to be held by military officer. And now he's the chair of this task force, but he's been wonderful, you know, when, when you see different government ministers talking about different things and not getting their act together, the fact that this task force is being held by someone who is firm and decisive and, and, and try to get everybody on the same page has been very welcome. And also the role of the military and the military transports from bringing our citizen from, from China and bring, always setting up the emergence, thanks for example, their role has been very well welcomed here. So if there are two things here, regional governments have been doing quite well. The role of the military here has been largely positive. And the role of civil society has been very, very positive. Thank you, David. Thank you. That's very helpful and actually allows us to move across in a comparative perspective to, to Subchong on the, on the Korea case. Korea, of course, South Korea, of course, you know, is considered one of the success stories and dealing with the containing the pandemic so far. And has some rather different, I think, factors that offers lessons for others in comparison with what David was saying, you know, has been positive about the Indonesian experience so far. So, Subchong, do you think at first start that, you know, the South Korea should also engage in, in pandemic diplomacy and, you know, sharing some of these lessons with, with the rest of the region? Hi, Evelyn. Yes. South Korea has been asked to share our, the epidemic model and we call cane model, which is based on aggressive testing and then contact tracing based on all this IT technology and then successful social distancing with active participation from civil society. So our model has been praised internationally as a democratic model without a lockup and so there has been a very much demand to share our model. So in that aspect, I think it's our first time to use our domestic health crisis model for public diplomacy and our foreign ministry has been quite active in translating our, the governance model to the public diplomacy. For example, our foreign minister has been active in making announcement through the MIKTA network. MIKTA is a Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Australia and South Korea, middle power networks created by the initiative of South Korea and the South Korean government is chairing this network and they made a special statement about the COVID-19 corporations. And then also they're using the United Nations global arena as a stage. The foreign ministry has organized group of friends of solidarity for global health security. So that's been also quite active part, but I should say that it is more like the global network rather than the sub-original Northeast Asian network. For example, the European countries are talking about the bubbles, right? So with the similar impact of COVID-19, they are going to open up gradually. So logically considering the low infection rate with the low death rate, China and Korea and Japan could have created bubble quickly, but not until this moment. And of course, between China and South Korea, we have a rapid corridor panel so the businessmen can travel without much hassle. But unfortunately, with the quite negative bilateral relations with Japan, we haven't created the kind of the fast corridor. I think it's very important for us, at least China, Korea and Japan work together to ease the kind of travel bans. And also we have to work together to consolidate the health issues, sharing information, and also working closely with the vaccines and whatever. And that part is still lacking. That's interesting. So, and this picks up on what you said, you talked about earlier, about economically the prospects of actually looking for opportunities to shorten those supply chains in a COVID world within the Northeast Asian context and what Ren Wei talked about earlier also about the possibilities of doing that within the broader East Asian context, including Southeast Asia as well. And I note actually that to bring the two, both of you together into this conversation, I note that Ren Wei published an article last in March, I think, making the argument that the pandemic should really have a positive effect in the end of bringing together the three main Northeast Asian countries, China, Japan and Korea in a period of cooperation economically and with health and travel as well. I wonder if both of you might offer an opinion of how likely you think this would be. Can COVID-19 actually spur the kind of Northeast Asian cooperation that has been so elusive for such a long time? Okay, if I may. Yeah, actually we talked a lot. Our foreign ministries and also Japanese foreign ministries have thought about this opportunity, using this opportunity of COVID-19. They can just engage more, kind of, reversing our vicious cycle of diplomatic relations into the positive one and then include China. However, during this quarantine period as well, you know, with the staff of the free visa entry of Koreans to Japan, South Korea also banned the free and free visa from Japan as well. It became less pro-proc. So, as a PD, I think we need a great political leadership to change this atmosphere. Still, these three big Northeast Asian countries are looking only the domestic side, just concentrating our resources to combat this pandemic. And then they are very much concerned with the domestic politics, how, you know, the political support will be linked to the successful management of COVID-19. So, I think I haven't seen a great leadership from three countries to pushing and using this opportunity to combine three countries in Northeast Asia to come up with the more valuable dialogues that can expand it to the other countries of the region. So, John, I wondered whether I can draw you out a little bit more widely in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on South Korean debates and thinking about other great power relationships so far. Has there been any implication for how South Koreans have been thinking about the alliance relationship with the United States, for example? The alliance, I would say, overall, the soft power of America, I think in my opinion, has been declined. After all, this USA, the richest and then technologically most advanced countries has hit hard the worst by the COVID-19. So, the world is puzzled. How come USA is doing so badly? Now they have a political unrest following the killing of George Floyd. So, the Asians are looking at whether the especially Trump administration can have the credible leadership in the Asia Pacific region. However, however, in terms of the alliance, the attitude toward the USA, I think South Koreans have embraced very strong support for aligning with the USA. And I think that attitude has been very much strengthened after the Chinese economic retaliation over the introduction of the missile defensive mechanism called THAAG to South Korea. So, that aspect, yes, we worried about all this transactional approach by President Trump pushing South Korea to pay more in hosting American troops in South Korea. And we were concerned about the President Trump is trying to bring 9,500 American soldiers stationed in Germany. So, we worry about this kind of move. However, so up to now, America has shown their commitment, for example, to the security of the South China Sea by showing all this force. I think it was last week. So, that kind of signal is important to allies in the Asia Pacific region. So, yes, we see some declines of the power in terms of this health issues and democracy issues. But as for the security commitment from the USA to the region, we are still optimistic. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Sung-Tong. Maybe we can stay with this issue of U.S.-China strategic competition, which has been exacerbated and made even more uncertain in many ways by COVID-19. And here, I'd like to bring Runway back in again and also give Dhruva a chance to comment on this particular issue. Let's try Runway's line again. I think China-U.S. religion is going down since last year, the trade war between two major countries. And this year, with the pandemic, the situation is worsening than last year. So, it's still going down. We haven't got a real turning point to be a more positive side in the next half year. And the non-U.S. is facing two or four kinds of crisis, the pandemic, the violence of racial contradictions and economic recession, and then political presidential election. So, four kinds of crisis put together. And how White House to deal with these four real crisis, one of their ways to go out is works on China. The media, the public opinion and the White House together blame China as the responsibility of the crisis in the U.S. and in the world. So, recently, we read the new, released official report on the main Chinese White House in the strategic document on People's Republic of China. And even this official document much worse than the National Security Strategy report in 2017. But I don't believe new Cold War is happening between two major countries because it's very cost, it's cost too much for U.S. to to decide. And also, it cannot really mobilize all the allies countries to go along with this new Cold War against China. And also economically, no one can pay this cost to stop all the links between China and the U.S. economically. And also the Chinese American in the U.S. now suffering from this kind of discrimination. So, I think this is the last part of Trump's policy towards against China. And for China, now we are focusing on ourselves to improve our inside economic and social issues and try to open wider to outside. So, recently, the financial market is opening almost completely to foreign capital and the U.S. financial institutions are moving very fast into China market. Also, manufacturing many capital from U.S. is moving into China. So, there are two trends. One is toward the new Cold War. The other is toward closer economic integration. So, I don't know which one is the main stream. We will which energy if Trump's policy can work, they will give up. If it doesn't work, it will maybe change it. This is a really interesting point, runway that, you know, and Asia is often like this, isn't it? We often have, you know, dualistic, you know, things that should not be happening at the same time happening together. So, on the one hand, that intensifying economic interdependence still between China and the United States. On the other hand, the descent into something like a new Cold War, these two things are happening at the same time. And I want to bring Dhruva in and then come back to you, runway. You know, Dhruva for the rest of us in Asia, of course, you know, that kind of uncertain dualistic dynamic between the U.S. and China just makes life a lot harder, right? You've written recently that intensifying competition between the U.S. and China means increasingly tough choices for the rest of Asia. There is also the popular idea in India for a long time now that a multipolar world is a better one for India, you know. Where do you think the current dynamics leave the prospects for that kind of a multipolar, Asia at least? You know, I think the question is first, to what degree, as Professor said correctly, what degree will there be a U.S. China, an intensified U.S. China competition? And, you know, I would say my sense is actually there's a growing bipartisan consensus in the U.S., not just amongst Trump supporters and the Trump administration, but actually increasingly also Democrats, both in the U.S. Congress, but also Joe Biden and his campaign to take on a more competitive approach to China. And so I suspect we won't go back to an era where there was a more cozy interdependence between the U.S. and China. There will be much harder lines drawn in this respect. I think that that's becoming increasingly clear. I'm also not so sure that the U.S., you know, barring a certain, you know, the investor community and so forth, that there will be the kinds of costs, you know, that the cost-benefit calculation will necessarily adhere to what many expect in the sense that I think there is a growing consensus that on many areas the U.S. has been a relative loser from this engagement that it has engaged in with China over the last 30 years or so. So, you know, the long term is I think we will see a great disruption to supply change. We're already seeing this discussion underway when it comes to 5G telecommunications. But just today, actually in the last 24 hours, we saw an announcement, for example, of the creation of a new body for artificial intelligence, a new partnership body. And that includes the Five Eye countries, the European Union, and several EU member states, but also Japan, Korea, India, and Singapore. And noticeably, China is not participating in that. One of the COVID contact groups that's being led at the vice ministerial level on the U.S. side involves the U.S., Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam. So, again, so we're seeing in all of this is to suggest that we're seeing a kind of a greater fractured, a more fractured relation, dynamic in Asia. And in some ways, you know, one of the things why we may see more of intensified supply chains within North East Asia, within East Asia, the fact is, though, there will be a huge demand for market access that will continue. And those two, the two other very big markets beyond mainland China will remain the United States and the European Union. So, again, I do think we need to question some of the assumptions that we've gotten very used to over the last 20 years or so, and whether these are really sustainable relationships going forward. Absolutely. And, you know, your point about the continued importance of the European Union as a market, of course, is something that I think the Chinese policymakers have have been well aware of. And maybe this is the point of bringing runway back into the conversation and to think about one of the remaining sort of, you know, obvious areas of focus in the economic recovery ahead for China, the Belt and Road Initiative, which after all is a way for China to, you know, deepen and leverage the European market, ultimately, as well. Renwei, you know, how do you see COVID-19 as having affected the BRI, the Belt and Road Initiative? And can we expect to see some alterations and changes in the way BRI projects and initiatives are carried out from now on? Yeah, I recently published an article on Global Times in China on this impact of Biden on the Belt and Road. Obviously, there are several negative impacts that is many projects on the Belt and Road have been stopped since many Chinese engineers and the laborers cannot move to outside from China to these countries. And also second the many local government of the foster countries believe it's too heavy, the burden of debt from Biden Road project. So some of them put Biden Road as part of the debt program of Biden League. So there is a debt crisis on Biden Road too. And also US and some other alliance countries believe it's more geopolitical issue than globalization of markets. So these are more negative part. And also we can see some bright positive signals from Biden Road. One is it is the only one part of the world market that is still keeps on growing early part of this year. The trade volume is 5% larger than last year. So it's very positive. And the second is China is we adjust our projects along the Belt and Road and the more efficient to more less risky projects will be put on the focus. And some projects will be delayed or stopped or suspended. And also we put public health as new items of Biden Road. So last several years we didn't put this on very important position. And the industrial parks along the Biden Road we think is more healthy than the infrastructure projects. So China enterprises is going to work harder to work harder in the industrial parks. However maybe the speed of Biden Road will slow the scale will be shorter, will be smaller than before. But it will be more efficient and more safe. Thank you. On this related issue you know obviously many countries in Asia are thinking already beyond the immediate crisis of the pandemic and thinking about recovery. One of the major issues for the region as a whole of course is this question of prospects for China's economic recovery in the coming months and years. And also issues about how China plans to cope with weak domestic and global demand as a global production center. So would you be able to give us some key highlights on those points please. Thank you very much for this very important question. And I think China, Japan, South Korea and ACM is going to complete our FTA free trade agreement by the form of temporary. And this will change the integration will be much closer. And also last year by the end of last year ACM is number one trade partner of China now surpassed the European Union and the US. So ACM is about 400 million population. EU is 400 million population. US is 400 million population, the same population. But ACM is much lower per capita than US and EU. But trade volume with China is number one. What does it mean? So you can see. And also I think China is the better road is the number one part is in South Asia, in Thailand, in Myanmar, in Indonesia, in Jakarta to Bandung, highway railroad, high speed railway like this. And also we think we should be very careful. Don't make too heavy burden and to the countries of these young members. Thank you. Dhruva, turning to you with a similar set of questions. Again, India's economic importance for the rest of Asia is growing. What do you see the prospects for Indian recovery, Indian economic recovery from the COVID crisis? And particularly how do you see that debate about self-sufficiency playing out in India? Right. So I think the two things. One is that I think we will see a very sharp drop in the Indian economy in the coming year or so. And the question would really be how faster recovery it faces after that into negative territory possibly for the first time since the 1990s. So this would be quite a significant shock for the Indian system. It already is India put an unprecedented nationwide lockdown in two phases. They're now in the process of partially lifting that phase. So I think there's no question that the consequences would be very severe. And particularly for a low income country such as India, this has very important human consequences as well, which can't be overlooked. Now, what does that mean in the longer term? I mean, I think there'll always be certain opportunities. In some ways, this is an opportunity for India to put in place an industrial policy, which it had not been able to do in the past, at least not on a nationwide state scale. So I think that this is what we will probably see happening in the near future. The one question, there has been a renewed focus on economic nationalism. But I don't think that that is as different or as contradictory to globalization as many people see. India has the third largest trade deficit, oh, I'm sorry, third largest current account deficit of any country after the U.S. and UK. And so it's seen as globalization as being something that has benefited other countries relatively more than it has the Indian economy, except in certain areas. So I think we will see a sort of an attempt to rebalance that. Already we've seen the trade deficit shrink to its lowest in, you know, since 1994 or so. But again, how the nature of Indian industrial recovery after this will really be what's in question. Thank you very much, Druba. I'm afraid that we are out of time, comprehensively out of time on this panel. Thank you very much to all of our panelists for a very wide-ranging and also quite in-depth discussion of the varied trends and patterns of COVID-19 impacts on Asia.