 Welcome to the latest Long Distance Low Institute event. We're focused on Australia's decision to cancel its French submarine contract in favour of partnering with the US and the UK on nuclear-powered boats, and indeed on much closer military and technological cooperation generally. Rarely has an Australian foreign policy decision sent so many ripples around the world. The announcement has implications for US, Chinese, European and Southeast Asian diplomacy and defence policies. I'm Richard McGregor, a Senior Fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute. Tonight, I'm delighted to be speaking with Bilahari Kausakan, the former head of the Singaporean Foreign Ministry, Yun Sun of the Stimpson Centre in Washington DC, and Ades Roland of the National Bureau of Asian Research in the United States. None of our guests obviously speak for any government, but they do have a great deal of knowledge about what the respective governments think. Yun, I want to start with you. America's relations with China, Australia's relations with China were already poor before this decision. Against that background, how would you characterize the reaction in Beijing so far? Has this decision fundamentally changed anything? Well, Richard, thank you for the invitation to be here, first of all. I think you're absolutely right. The relationship between China and the United States and also between China and Australia have already in a pretty bad shape. And this announcement of the nuclear-powered submarines to be provided to Australia certainly has led to the deterioration of the relationship further. I would say in China, the Chinese see the severity of the challenge from Australia obtaining the nuclear-powered subs as high, but the urgency of the threat has moderated so far, because the high threat perception is due to the fact that nuclear-powered submarines will be armed with US cruise missiles, and even the United States may not have the ability to deploy that many nuclear submarines to the region, for example, in the South China Sea. But on the other hand, I think Beijing also maintains a wait-and-see attitude about the assessment, because the details are not yet worked out, and the consultations will take time. So the Chinese are not yet sure whether the submarines will be built in Australia or they will come from a retired US fleet. To build the submarines will require five to ten years, which means the threat is not immediate. But in terms of the official reactions, we have seen two focuses, basically. The first one is focused on the geopolitical impact of the deal and the attack on the United States, UK, and Australia for their so-called Cold War mentality. So some have equated this alcove as an Asian version of NATO, with the potential to expand to include other like-minded countries. The second and the most significant reaction is focused on the nuclear non-proliferation issue. The Chinese permanent representative to UN in Vienna has already made a statement on the second day accusing the deal as, quote-quote, undisguised nuclear proliferation activities. He also called for IAEA to publicly condemn alcoves, which demonstrates a double standard US and UK pursue on the nuclear export control. So these are primarily the Chinese reactions so far. And I would say that all the signs and signals are pointing into a pretty dark and abysmal direction. Just a quick follow-up. I mean, China has had a very large military build-up in the last couple of decades, Navy, cyber capability, missiles and the like. Public statements are one thing. Privately, certainly, China must have expected a reaction in the region of some kind eventually. That's a very good question. So where did this regional arms race really start? And the Chinese have been modernizing their military capability, they have been expanding their fleets. So using that criteria, other countries' reaction would be natural and normal. But unfortunately, that's hardly a perception that Chinese will share because the Chinese feel that their military build-up has always and will always be a response to the US predominance militarily in the region. So they were not anticipating that other countries in the region would follow suit. But in my view, that is the negligence on the Chinese part, not to understand or expect the reaction to their military modernization. Okay. Thank you. Nadezh, if I could move to you now. Now you live in the US, but you worked previously in the French Defense Ministry. The French reaction has been furious on many levels, that's clear. But to quote a French journalist, is this a spat or is it a crisis? How big a deal is it for France and of course for Europe more generally? Yeah, I think the past week really has been, France has been in shock, I think first, shocked by the lack of consultation, shocked by the unconscionable behavior of two very strong allies, and a lot of anger after that shock coming up. And a lot of puzzlement also about the logic behind this, because it seemed like what the French had been trying to build with Australia was responding pretty much to what Australia wanted and made perfect strategic sense. So a lot of emotions, as everybody can see it, I think things are going to calm down a little bit. Obviously, French leaders are not just moved by their emotions, they're also state leaders. And so they're starting to reconsider what is the best position that they're going to take out of this. But I think it's not just a spat. Obviously, France has been one of the strongest American allies for a long time, and I don't think that this is going to change anytime soon. We've been through various crises over the past few decades. I think one of my friends who's a diplomat told me recently that I think it's Lee Kuan Yew who said that the Americans are betraying one of their friends every 10 years, but that seems for the French that it's more often than that nowadays. So this is not a great position to be in. At the same time, I think there are things that will not change, and we're going to try to find ways to go through this crisis. In the longer term, this agreement with Australia was really seen by the French authorities as the backbone of their Indo-Pacific presence together with the strategic partnerships that they have built over the last decade, both with Japan and India in particular, but also other countries in the region, Singapore, Malaysia, among others. But this one was really a strong commitment, political one, strategic one, and now we're going to have to recalibrate a little bit of that, keeping in mind that our national interests have not changed. China is still a nation in the Pacific. We have territories. We have economic zones. We have citizens. We have lots of strategic interests, economic and others, and so we're not going to go away. It's just how is it that we're going to translate this presence militarily and in other terms with partners in the region. So that's the big next question, I think, keeping this focus on the region, finding other ways to do it. A quick follow-up. President Biden, he angered many in Europe with his handling of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan withdrawal. I think the French foreign minister described him as Trump without the tweets. Is there a sort of a hardening view of Biden in France and Europe? I'm not sure. There's a hardening view. I think there's a lot of interrogation really about who was behind this decision because the Biden administration really came in with this idea that they're going to rebuild the fractured relationship with American allies in Europe and in Asia. And so this doesn't bode well for this kind of policy if this is how you're going to treat your allies. And so I think it's possible that in the next few months we're going to perhaps have some many more elements about what happened inside of the US and also inside of Australia because it seems like this has been an agreement that has been kept very, very secret and perhaps even inside of the administrations in the US and in Australia, not everybody has been included in making that decision or perhaps not really seeing the potential damage that this could do in other areas, including in the relationship with France. So there's going to be a lot of things coming up, I suppose, in the coming weeks and months. So yeah, everything is a little bit up in the air right now. Okay, Billahari, let me bring you in if we can turn to Southeast Asia. Now, that's obviously a diverse region. There's been a variety of reactions. Are there any threads out of those reactions that you can pull together for us so far that are meaningful? Yeah, well, you're right, Richard. There have been a variety of reactions. Indonesia and Malaysia have not been very positive about it, Singapore more so. Philippines has been positive about it. Vietnam hasn't said anything that I know of, but I don't think they will be upset by this decision for the obvious reasons. Myanmar has its own problems and Thailand is preoccupied with its own issues. But that said, I think over the last 15, 20 years maybe, there has been a growing understanding in Southeast Asia that a position that Singapore has never been shy about publicly stating that the US presence is a vital and irreplaceable element of any balance in the region is not just an eccentric Singaporean attitude, but a strategic reality. And what is driving this realization is concern over certain aspects of Chinese behavior. Nobody wants to shun China, but everybody has some degree of concerns about Chinese behavior. Not just about the South China Sea, my new, but more generally. You can see in the reaction in 1990 when Singapore signed the MOU with the US to allow the use of some facilities, our neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia reacted hysterically almost. But when we renewed that MOU in 2019, there was no reaction. And when we concluded a strategic partnership agreement with the US in 2005, there was no reaction. I think Southeast Asia is diverse. You will always have a variety of diverse public reactions, but privately in all, but maybe one or two countries, what I have just described is the general attitude and this new agreement between the US, UK, Australia, and the agreement to provide nuclear submarines must be seen in that context. Yes, I guess one of the themes that comes through in discussions with Southeast Asian countries is that they don't want to be drawn into great power competition between US and China. Is that for ASEAN, for Southeast Asia, is that a realistic position? No, it's a really stupid position. In the 1970s, we had this idea of zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality based on the idea that all the world's ills came from the major powers and you keep the major powers out, everything milk and honey will flow. If it's a really stupid idea, the offshoot of that is the Southeast Asian nuclear weapon free zone, something that is completely unrealizable in practice and has no practical strategic effect. That undercurrent is there. It is considerably weakened by events, particularly since Mr. Xi Jinping came to power, but that undercurrent is there, but it is not the main undercurrent. In fact, the way ASEAN conceives original security is fundamentally changed from thinking that if we just keep all the major powers out, everything will be wonderful. We now want to engage all the major powers so as to create a kind of omnidirectional balance to try to enhance the natural multipolarity of this region that maximizes maneuver space. That's the fundamental underlying purpose of things like the ADMM plus the East Asia Summit and even the ARF, which was our first experiment in that direction. But the old attitudes still linger on because the hardest things to change, as you know, is somebody's mind. And old ideas, antiquated ideas linger on. In fact, I think the new relation Prime Minister in responding to this new deal between US, Australia and the UK actually referred to Zofan. I could barely stop myself laughing. Excellent. We'll move on from that point of humor. You and I have come to you now. One of the criticisms in Australia is that Australia has basically bet the house, doubled down all in with the United States at a time when the US domestic politics is highly unstable and when the US is in relative decline, not decline, relative decline compared to China. What do you think about that? I mean, you're looking on it as an outsider. Is that a smart foreign policy decision for a country like Australia? Well, whether it is smart, we'll leave it to the Australian people to decide in their next election and also for the history to decide. Because in at least the Chinese narrative, there are a lot of people who predict that Australia in the end will cry in despair. And that's in Chinese pronunciation also equates to alcus. So alcus means Australia will eventually cry in despair. So I think you have to take into multiple factors into consideration. For example, this deal is extremely expensive and is potentially going to cost Australia an arm and a leg. Of course, if Canberra believes it is necessary, then strategically speaking, there's no there's no price tag for it. But on the other hand, there's also the impact because these are nuclear powered submarines and US is the one who possesses the technology. So coming to the maintenance, the training, the staffing, the equipment to sustain these nuclear powered submarines is going to be a permanent deal for as long as Australia keeps them, Australia will have to rely on the United States to provide those support. So the question then is that, well, is Australia really willing to be forever bound to the US strategic agenda in the region? And is that a smart move for middle power? And I think, at least from what I read on Australian media, the former three prime ministers of Australia also have very different views as for whether this is indeed a smart move. But I will say that looking from the perspective of Sino-Australia relations since last year, the Chinese has done significant amount of hard bashing of Australia, especially in terms of the diplomatic interaction, in terms of the rhetoric and in terms of the some of the trade issues. So I would say that Morrison's decision is did not come out of nothing, did not come out of sin air. And there is a significant background of deterioration of relations between China and Australia. And this deal is part of the reaction or part of the consequences to that reality. Yes, I mean, that's an interesting point. I wonder whether that has any impact inside China at all. It's hard to tell that there's let me ask you the similar question. You obviously have criticism of how this was handled diplomatically by both Australia and the United States and the damage on the French position on a strategy on Indochina. But from where you said, does this look like a full, hardy bet to go all in with the United States in a project like this, which binds us to them in sovereign ways for decades? I think I will have the same response as you in soon. It's really it. This is a sovereign it's a sovereign choice. It's a sovereign decision from from Australia's part. And I think I want to give the Australian government the benefit of the doubt deeply inside of me thinking, okay, this is a this is a deeply thought through decision that has been made. And the overarching strategy answers a worsening security environment that supersedes every other consideration. And perhaps Australia has decided that it is a middle power and that befriending or getting closer in terms of new security partnerships with other middle powers is not going to be enough in the face of the challenge that is at stake. So if this is the calculation, I mean, this again, this is this is Australia's decision. And I am not going to go against it. I'm just wondering, really, whether abandoning something that has already been going on with a lot of progress being made with an extremely important transfer of technologies component in the long run is going to be easily replaced by a by something that we don't really know about yet. They're saying that they're going to have an 18 month period of consultations. How what is it going to happen exactly what kind of agreements at what level is are going to to be made. This is really a big black box right now. So when everything is in place, perhaps we can come back and discuss about it and saying is it was that the right decision to make. Right now, I still have really questions that I suppose the Australian internal debate is going to be about as well. I would think so in terms of budget, in terms of human resources, in terms of implications for transfer of technologies, implications for the building that industrial base that Australia doesn't have right now in terms of guarantees. I don't know. Yes, well, that's certainly true. I think I mean the French contract was difficult enough. This is of dimensions, which is even more complex. Bilahari, I mean in the past you've praised Australia's toughening of its policy on China, but more recently, I think you were a little wonder whether the pendulum had swung too far. How does the decision look from where you sit? Okay, let's not be hypocritical about this. The US has always been an Australia's major security partner. There is no alternative. Who's going to be your security partner if not the US? Russia, China, Singapore? We are your security partner, but we're insignificant, right? So this is a continuation. It's not a new situation except for the nuclear submarine deal. And that's one part, but the overall strategic situation for Australia has not changed. When I was in the US recently and I was constantly asked in different ways, is the US reliable? That was vis-à-vis Afghanistan. And my answer was always the same. The US is, of course, not reliable. Every four years, worse sorts like me when I was in government had to go to the US and tell them the same thing over and over again. How can that be reliable? But that's the wrong question. Is there an alternative to the US to maintain a balance in our region? The answer is obviously no. So if the answer is no, there is no alternative. You adapt yourself to the reality of the US. And that is a new adaptation. Now, how this submarine deal will work out, I don't know. It's now just an idea. But let's not lose sight of the fact that Australia has no other alternative for a major security partner. Japan, South Korea, these are allies like Australia is of the US. And that, by the way, is true of France too. I think French are understandably upset for a variety of reasons. If I was them, I would be upset too. But I think the French are not, despite the reputation of being emotional, you are also very pragmatic. And I just have read in the South China Morning Post today that France has decided to send its ambassador back to Washington. Because the hard fact is France, since I think Nadine will know better, I think four or five times a year is naval vessels to its specific territories. And that's very welcome by everybody, particularly in the current circumstances. But the hard fact is without the Seventh Fleet, you cannot maintain your access to those specific territories by yourself. And in time, as China builds up its blue-water navy capability, that will be also true of your Indian Ocean Territories. So nobody has very much choice in the matter. And that's the fact of the that's the hard strategic reality of where we are now. And how did we get here? We got here because China, for no doubt, very good, probably mainly domestic reasons in my view, has decided to adopt a certain foreign policy posture in this region. All right. And therefore, it has elicited various reactions. And this is just the latest reaction. Yes. Speaking of those reactions, Jun, if I could go back to you, we discussed Southeast Asia and ASEAN. Perhaps more important are the Quad countries, India and Japan. Again, they seem to have welcomed this. Well, China doesn't seem to be too worried or, at least in public, about criticism from any of these countries these days. If you've got India and Japan, the US, Australia meeting a first in-person Quad summit this week, we've got the Sub's decision. Do you sense any, plus, of course, Chinese domestic politics, the party Congress next year, etc., etc. Do you sense any recalibration on China's part? You might wonder why China would recalibrate, particularly as China is still growing and adding to its military weight and the like. I mean, can you give us any sense of that? Sure. I will try. I think for China, one of the most important criteria in evaluating whether China should adopt a different position is that whether these countries' policy towards China can be influenced. In other words, if China adopts a softer or a more conciliatory approach to Australia, would Australia still insist on the tracing of the origin of COVID, which has been identified by the Chinese as a major irritant? And in the case of India, if China adopts a more conciliatory position towards India on, for example, the issue of the border dispute, would India stop regarding China as a security threat? And coming to other countries like Japan that will Japan ever feel that China's rise is good news for Japan? So I think when the Chinese put things in that comparative perspective and try to understand to what extent these countries' China policy is really subject to Chinese influence, I think they realize that India will always see China as a threat and Australia will not stop blaming China or insisting on tracing the origin of COVID-19 in China. And the Japan will always identify U.S.-Japan alliance as a pillar of the regional security and that sees itself as U.S. most loyal, the best partner, the best ally. And therefore, a Sino-Japan improvement of relations will never exceed the level of the security alliance Japan has with the United States. So I understand this is quite a binary black-out-white perception on the Chinese side, that whether in the end we could really influence these countries' policy, and when they determine that the answer is negative, that these countries are going to see China as a threat regardless, then for China, the answer seems to have become easier, that okay, then we will just adopt the most direct approach to pursue our national interest. Then of course, there's also subject to debate as for whether things like AUKUS or Quad is indeed in China's national interest. But I think a key point that I have observed in the Chinese policy community is that this is inevitable and it has to happen anyway. That's, I must say, that's a very fatalistic view of things that China is going to rise whether we like it or not. I mean, Ladesh, let me bounce that off you. I mean, can China reassure its neighbors in any fashion at all? Or is this just the way it is? I think we've passed that point a while ago already. The charm offensive dates back several years now. And this is about rejuvenation. It's about raising, like it or not, China is going to rise. I think what we're seeing is just, it's an illustration of how those tensions are going to be more and more difficult to manage. For a while, I think people were in the region, were thinking, you know, in economic integration or interdependence with China and balancing either between ourselves or, as Bilahari just mentioned, under the American umbrella to guarantee the security, is this going to be perpetually possible? It's going to be, this is its fundamental question. I don't have any answer to that. But maybe if I can just for a second go back to what Bilahari just said about, you know, let's face it, the only security guarantor in the region is going to be the US. I think this is very true. What I wanted to point out is that it's not either only the US or nothing. There is still a lot of mini-lateral or a web of corporations among regional partners that can supplement and complement the American presence without conflicting against each other. And I think the problem with the, it's not the problem of AUKUS, it's the problem of the way AUKUS was born and delivered to the world. That makes it much more difficult, I think, in the future to restart the trust that we had with each other very quickly. And this is going to take some time to, I think, to recover from this. And this is not because of China. This is the damage we're doing to ourselves. And I think this is really detrimental. Bilahari, you were the representative in the United Nations. You've had a lot to do with the Middle East in recent years. Are there any genuine issues of proliferation, nuclear proliferation that are concerning about this latest deal? I will answer that. But before that, can I say a word about the other issue you raised with Sun and Nadine? I think when the history of this period is going to be written, an objective historian will conclude that Mr. Xi Jinping spawned a great advantage that China had, maybe 10 years ago or so. China's rise was not perceived as threatening until relatively recently, 10 years, 15 years. And the Chinese themselves were very careful to ensure it was so. But sometime towards the end of the Huzhidau era, and certainly under Mr. Xi Jinping, the old approach of hiding your light and biding your time of reassuring countries that the rise or the development of China, because even rise was considered too provocative a word, would be peaceful. That seemed to have gone out of the window. And recently, Mr. Xi Jinping, a few months ago anyway, told a group of I think Communist Party cadres that they should look to make China more lovable, look to make China more respectable, more credible, and expand China's circle of friends. It seems to me that that is a remarkable implicit recognition that Chinese foreign policy has failed. Because the purpose of foreign policy is to complement your strategic interests by making sure your strategic interests are accepted as widely as possible, but China has not succeeded in that. That said, look, let's again not be hypocritical. The NPT regime is effectively dead and only awaits a decent funeral. None of us is prepared to say so, governments I mean, but the fact is that it died quite some time ago, and it was a lingering death, but we need to understand that reality. I don't think we should discard the pre-T because there are other positives in it that we should preserve, but nuclear proliferation is a reality. All right. The last nail in that coffin was actually when between the US and India's civilian nuclear deal in 2008, despite the India's acquisition of nuclear weapons. The Middle East is seething with countries that want to emulate Israel's undeclared nuclear capability. Iran, Saudi Arabia, even Egypt, Turkey. I think the trajectory is set. The trajectory has been set in East Asia, Japan, South Korea have that idea. I mean, I don't think it's going to be easy for any of them. Not going to be easy for Australia, but unless there is a fundamental change in Chinese behavior, which is the main driver of this, which I think is unlikely, that we are on that trajectory. The Middle East, and it's not necessarily a very dangerous trajectory, is going to be a very fraught trajectory. But in the end, if I am right, and I hope I'm not right, but if I am right, and there will be more independent nuclear deterrence under the overall nuclear umbrella of the US, it will be a fairly stable situation. The same thing happened in Europe many decades ago, almost 70 odd years ago, once the Soviet Union got nuclear weapons. China is improving its nuclear second strike capability, and there is nothing sinister about this. In fact, it is the correct thing to do for any nuclear power. It will be irresponsible not to try to improve your second strike capability. But once you have done that, the question will arise as it did in Europe before, will New York or San Francisco be sacrificed to save Tokyo or so? The answer is obviously no. And many things follow from that. So the Middle East is a bit different because East Asia, these are coherent states, these are rational states, even North Korea whose only goal is regime survival, and that's a relatively limited goal. Middle East, you have a whole host of rather unstable countries, intrinsically unstable, internally unstable countries with nuclear ambitions. That is another matter. But I'm afraid it's too late. The genie is out of the bottle long ago. We just don't want to omit it, that's all. Okay. If I could go back to a point that Billahari made before claiming that China had squandered a strategic opportunity or a strategic leverage. You spoke a little bit about this before, but there's a lot's been happening in China recently, mainly on domestic policy, but also foreign policy as well to do with the United States, everything from military issues to management of data and the like. But to go to Billahari's point, how would a Chinese official explain that in private in terms of the domestic politics of China that perhaps to counter that claim? Those are very interesting questions, Richard. First off, I agree with Billahari. I think the Chinese certainly has squandered a lot of good will that it was able to accumulate throughout the, I would say the 30 years between 1979 and somewhere around 2008. But how was that this year made and whether that was a predestined direction that China would go into? Yes, people do talk about China was hiding its strengths and biting its time, but don't forget, hiding your strengths and biting your time is not the end. It's a means to an end. It was a process, but the end game through that process eventually is some sort of China regaining its status in the world. Deng Xiaoping did not say that. Deng Xiaoping only said that, hey, well, we should hide our strengths, but hide our strengths to do what? Hide our strengths by itself is not a goal per se. So I think that partially or in a major part provided the justification was the legitimacy for Xi Jinping changing China's foreign policy posture. Because before Xi Jinping took over, Chinese people some of the nationalists were sending calcium pills to foreign ministry for the Chinese diplomats to grow some backbones. You'll probably remember that there was also this view that China was rich, but China was weak. So therefore, the narrative goes that even small countries like Vietnam and the Philippines could even bully China in the South China Sea. So I think Xi Jinping's assertive turn his foreign policy certainly has a historical and has a, I would say, a popular justification to it. So he successfully catered to a certain opinion in China. But coming to Chinese domestic policy today, we always hear this version or this view that while China has to be assertive in its foreign policy in order for the Chinese leader to gain is to protect his domestic agenda so that he can extract popularity and legitimacy to push forward his domestic agenda. Well, that might be the case, but today I think the things have certainly got a little out of hand, but probably not from Beijing's perspective. In Beijing's view, everything in China should be under the party's control. And there should not be groups of people or groups of business that would be so strong and so powerful that would put the government in defense. So a lot of the recent domestic changes that we have seen, including the structural and regulatory changes that we're seeing, I think is a very clear sign that the state is reclaiming its dominance of the national economy and of the Chinese society in a holistic manner. I think that's pretty clear. The days before we go to audience questions, just let me ask you about Europe. France, it's a collection of different countries, but also with an attempt to build a foreign policy. There's no European military in the like, but there's greater interest in the Indo-Pacific and certainly urging from many countries for the Europe to be more greatly involved. There's also talk about how this decision sets that back. The so-called pro-American factions, whatever in the French foreign ministry have been damaged by this, and people who want to engage with China more intensely will be empowered in Germany as well. What's your sense on Europe? China, Europe relations have been difficult, but not fractured. Where are we going for Europe's China policy in a security sense from here? The announcement of AUKUS coincides with the publication of Europe's Indo-Pacific strategy, which is very ironic and has been completely sidelined by the other news. I think, yes, it's fractured, but also in Europe, I think the perception of China has dramatically changed over a very short period of time, perhaps three, four years. There's more doubts also about the way to conduct our diplomacy with China nowadays. It used to be seen as an economic opportunity more than anything else. Now, it's more, it's seen as a, and I'm using the words of the EU, a systemic challenge. So, and I think these appreciations of where China's trajectory are not going to change anytime soon. The decisions that are being made at the level of Brussels are also here to stay. They have been long matured and they're going to continue to, I'm not sure it's, this is in other words, sorry for being not so clear, but I'm not sure this is going to change, radically change anything in any direction. In other words, it's not going to be suddenly that all the Europeans are going to turn their back on America and it's not going to be the case that they're going to radically go embrace Beijing. They're going to find their own strategic autonomy. That's the best word today in Europe, meaning something that it's not aligned neither to Beijing or to Washington, knowing perfectly well that to take Bilahiri's word, let's not be hypocritical, knowing perfectly well that both our values and our interests are actually coincide better with Washington's vision than with Beijing's. So that's the current discussion in Brussels. Okay, so I want to go to some questions which were sent to us. The first I'll go to is John Moore from the ANU. Just the second part of his question, I'll ask Bilahiri this first and others can chime in. The headlines have all been about submarines. The first actual submarines won't arrive unless we borrow some or have some based here until 2040, but there's also talk about more US military being based or in Australia and about missiles, missile technology transfer and the like. I wonder if those issues are more proximate and more important than submarines in the short term and might have a bigger impact? Well, yeah, I think it will have a bigger impact because it's going to be more immediate. As you said, I think it takes at least a decade or so if you're going to build these submarines yourself before they are actually floating around or anywhere. But I think it's all in the same ballpark. I think we should not lose sight of what is driving this. I think much of it is Chinese domestic politics, the need to justify a certain approach domestically, validate a certain approach domestically by showing it externally. Now that it's done, it's not going to be easy to be reversed. I think soon it's right, sooner or later, soon it's right that this idea of hiding your capabilities, hiding your life is a tactic to an end. Mr. Teng Xiaoping no less than any other China leader wants to see China reclaim its place in the world. But as we had talked about America in Afghanistan and this written decision, how you do it is very important too. Both the Afghanistan decision and the AUKUS decision are I think correct decisions, but the manner in which they were carried out could have been much better. Similarly, I think nobody would deny that China's rise and its reclamation of its place in the region of the world is going to be a fact, whether anybody likes it or not. But how you carry it out is important. So I don't think, these are all details to me. How many troops are going to be stationed in northern Australia? Are you going to put missiles? What kind of missiles? These are technical operational details of a certain trajectory, a certain framework that has already been set and set rather quickly and it was not inevitable, by the way. It's not inevitable. Soon dated it from 2008, I would say maybe a bit later, but that's another detail, right? Maybe 2010. But since then a certain trajectory has been set and it's driven by two factors. China is one factor, but the other factor, don't forget, is a more transactional America. In this sense, Mr. Biden may be more polite than Mr. Trump, but I don't think his fundamental attitudes are any different. As I have told some of my former colleagues in the ASEAN countries, you want to be consulted, but you're not going to be consulted because of your good looks and natural charm. You're going to be consulted to see what you are prepared to do with the US. That is the purpose of consultation. It's not just you're such a charming person, people love your company and they will come into your meetings and talk to you for the sake of talking to you. I think we should not forget that. Jung, let me ask the same question of you. At the start, you said, for example, China can afford to study this agreement a little first because nothing changes overnight, but if it does also involve the transfer of other military technologies, if they start talking about missiles based in Australia, missile technology, cyber technologies, will China respond much more quickly? Submarines are way off in the never-never. Yeah, I think the question is what those responses will look like and whether they will be limited to military domain and to the security domain because I have seen plenty of analysis in the Chinese narrative that in terms of bilateral, economic and trade relations, China hasn't really done the critical damage that it could inflict on Australia. So I think moving forward as a part of the Chinese reaction to this Australia strategic move, I think there are plenty of voices in China calling for a harsher trade and economic policy towards Australia. So that's one aspect of the Chinese reaction that has already been discussed. And the other one is what people, I mean, strategic thinkers are all thinking about, which is the regional arms race, that if Australia is boosting, is a cyber security capability and boosting its missile capability, and even if this nuclear power to submarine would not be delivered in the immediate future, but inevitably Australia's security capability will be enhanced as a result of this trilateral security cooperation pact, then China inevitably will have to enhance its own military development in order to match what Australia has achieved. Because Australia might see, well, from the US, UK and Australia's perspective, China is a single target. But if you are sitting in Beijing, you are looking at multiple countries trying to build up their security forces, and China will have to respond to all of them simultaneously. So that's a real danger, I think, for China in terms of the regional arms race. It's not China versus another country. It's China versus probably the rest of the region. It's a real danger here. That's certainly the case. That brings me to another question from Mark Arons, which I'll direct to you, Nadesh, on this regional arms race. Japan or South Korea, could they now decide to pursue a nuclear submarine program? And of course, they may be able to do it by themselves. Well, that's what we're discussing about earlier, the possibility of opening that Pandora box and that other countries in the region are going to push for something that they've been more or less been coveting for quite a while. But for a set of reasons didn't really, couldn't, wouldn't do it. So hard to say. This is certainly something that both countries have thought about for quite some time. Yes, Billahari, it's very interesting if you look, for example, at the debate in Germany amongst the candidates to succeed Angela Merkel, there's very little foreign policy discussion. If you look at the race for the new head of the LDP to succeed Mr. Suga, there's been a lot of very public discussion about China, Taiwan, you know, very security focused. I mean, Japan has been evolving for some time. Do you see any major changes perhaps triggered by this agreement in Japan? I think, as I mentioned before, it's triggered approximately by North Korea and secondly by China's modernization of nuclear forces to improve its second strike capability, especially his SLBMs. And that has for some years now triggered quiet debates in Japan about what should be the response. But you know, I think, all of you know, I think that the US-Japan nuclear cooperation agreement is unique in that since 1988, it has allowed for automatic authorization for Japan to reprocess American supplied nuclear material. And it's unique in that sense. And that is, and there's only, well, there are several reasons, but you know, if you need to, if you have any ambitions of becoming a nuclear weapon state, the most difficult thing is to get the fissionable material. I don't think that's an obstacle for Japan. They've got quite a lot of plutonium stashed away. They always talk about it being stashed away in France and UK, but they forget to mention or say very quietly, that quite a lot of it is stashed away in Japan too. So I think they can be if they want. And a few years ago, 2016, I believe, there was an open public debate in the South Korean National Assembly about, among other things, whether South Korea should acquire a domestic nuclear weapon capability. As I said, these thoughts that arise are inherent in the logic of the situation. That is why these things arose in Europe maybe 70 years or so ago, and they are now coming to the fore in our own region. I don't think you can stop this, except if there is a fundamental change in the strategic environment, which I don't see. Question from Michael Wellman. It says, what effect might this pact have on the probability of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? Now, I'm not suggesting, by the way, we're looking at that in the short term, and I doubt this pact one way or another has any immediate effect on that issue. But Yun, give us your view on where Chinese thinking is at at the moment on Taiwan, because it's a question that we're asked all the time, because people seem to think China's about to invade, quote unquote. But of course, the regaining Taiwan or gaining Taiwan is absolutely baked into the cake in Chinese domestic politics. Where is Beijing at the moment on the Taiwan issue? Sure, Rita, that's a great question. So is this going to have an impact over China's policy, or China's posture towards Taiwan? Actually, interestingly, in the Chinese policy community, there is this voice saying that, well, since Australia's nuclear power submarine will be delivered somewhere down the future, then between now and that future is a strategic window of opportunities that China should seize, that China should capture Taiwan before these submarines are delivered. I don't think this is a mainstream view, but I would like to point out that this view certainly exists. If we look at China's official statement about Taiwan and China's unification policy, currently peaceful unification is still advocated as the official policy. So China does not give up to use our force, but it doesn't mean they prefer to use our force at this current stage. The thing for the Chinese, the question always lies in, towards the extent that US will intervene, US and its allies are going to intervene in Taiwan contingency. And as a result of that intervention, is China still going to prevail? I think there's no clear answer on that question. The Chinese would like to believe that because of the geographical advantage that China enjoys, that Taiwan Strait is only that close to mainland China, China is going to prevail in Taiwan contingency regardless. But I don't think that answer is so certain coming out of the PLA strategic assessment, because it eventually depends on how much resources US is willing to allocate and how much mobilization US is willing to conduct and how many allies will be siding with the United States in that contingency. Just think about a naval blockade imposed on China through the South China Sea or in the Indian Ocean. There are consequences that will be severe even for China. Thank you, Nadesh. Now, this is a rather backward-looking question, but it's in a lot of the press coverage in the last week. It's from Patrick Fair. Would the French have sold Australia nuclear-powered subs? Would they have been willing to share that capability? People are saying, well, why didn't we simply have a bidding contract for nuclear-powered subs? The French could have bid for that. What's your response to that? I think I won't betray anything if I say that during the negotiations, I think at some points the French party has realized that this might be a possibility for the Australian party. They talked about it and said, do you want to change the contract and have something nuclear instead of conventional? The response from Australia wasn't really clear, apparently. This is also why this has come with such a huge surprise for the French, because Australia didn't seem to envisage this because of domestic politics. I'm not going to tell you, Richard, the difficulties inside of Australia with the anti-nuclear lobby. It really came as a surprise. I don't think that the French government would have immediately said no. I think it would have taken some time to ponder a little bit further, especially with the implications for nonproliferation in particular, but it was never on the table. Okay, thanks. This is the final question to Billahari on my Excel spreadsheet. The name has been cut off, I'm afraid. They don't print out very well, but I think there's been a general view on Australia that we've been very active diplomacy with Quad countries, with the UK, with the US, with the Pacific countries, but light on, relatively speaking, with Southeast Asia, which is a real gap for us or somewhere we've lagged on. Do you agree with that? And what advice would you give the Australian government? So all I don't agree. I don't agree. The two most important partners, apart from China and US of ASEAN, have always been Australia and Japan. What Australia does in Southeast Asia doesn't grab the headlines, but you have been doing it and doing it consistently for a very long time and it's very welcome. So I don't agree with the statement in the first place. Okay. Well, on that negative, positive note, we'll conclude this cast. Thank you very much, three of you. Nadej Rolon, Billahari, Kasakan and Yunsun. Really great to have you on. Thanks to Josh Gooding and Andrea Pollard at Lowy for helping pull this together on short notice. Thank you very much.