 Hello and welcome to the launch of the 2023 Lowy Institute Asia Power Index. I'm Michael Fooley Love, the Executive Director of the Institute. Let me begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which the Institute stands, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. Since we began publishing the Asia Power Index in 2018, it's become one of the Institute's crown jewels, along with the Lowy Institute poll and our aid maps. It's the most credible resource for measuring national power in our region. In fact, there's nothing quite like the Asia Power Index anywhere in the world. The index is of its time. A quarter of a century ago, the idea that we would need to measure power might have seemed like a vestige of a past period. But today, as Washington and Beijing jostle for global leadership, as tanks once again roll through Europe, as the use of nuclear weapons unfortunately seems a greater possibility than in recent times, the post-Cole War holiday is well and truly over. Power matters. And so we must understand power. The Asia Power Index ranks 26 countries and territories on their resources and what they do with their resources. It reaches west to Pakistan, north to Russia, south to New Zealand and east to the United States. The 2023 edition of the index, which covers five years of data, is the most comprehensive assessment of the changing distribution of power in Asia assembled to date. I want to acknowledge all the work that my Lowy Institute colleagues have put into this year's API. Susanna Patton, Jack Sartor, Hervé Lemma here, Claire Caldwell, Shane McLeod, Ian Bruce, and many others who supported this project all deserve enormous praise for what they've achieved. And with me today to discuss the 2023 edition of the index, we have Susanna Patton, our program director for Southeast Asia and also the lead author of the 2023 index. Welcome, Susanna. And an old friend and Institute store what, Hervé Lemma here, the research director of the Institute and the researcher who first devised the index methodology back for the first edition of the index. Welcome, Hervé. Thanks, Michael. All right, what I'm going to do today is ask Hervé and Susanna about this year's index. We will put up on the screen some graphs and some statistics that show how the power balance has changed in the last five years. Susanna, let me kick off with you. First of all, congratulations on your first index. What are the big takeaways from this year's findings? Thanks, Michael. Well, I think the big takeaways are the fact that China really struggled during the COVID pandemic to maintain its power and influence with other countries in Asia. So we saw that in terms of China's connectivity, thinking about its connections between people, between businesses, even the flow of capital into and out of China all slowed down remarkably during the pandemic period. And so what that meant is that the United States was really able to retain the top position that it's had in the power index over the last five years. And in fact, this year, the United States actually leads China on six out of eight of the measures of power that we use in the Asia power index. Okay, so US is number one. China has suffered a little bit because of COVID-zero and other factors. What are the other big conclusions? So one of the other big findings is that the region's middle powers are doing less well than many people might hope or expect. So working with countries like India and Japan is a key element of US Indo-Pacific strategy. But what the Asia power index shows is that both of those countries face major challenges in terms of their power in Asia. So in India's case, it's about its influence being quite limited in South Asia and India having relatively weak economic engagement with the rest of Asia. And in Japan's case, it's about long-term structural decline, meaning that it's becoming a relatively less economic partner for many countries in Asia. So in terms of trade and investment. And then at the same time, of course Japan is trying to establish itself as a more prominent regional security actor, but that's not happening fast enough to compensate for that loss of economic influence. So from the perspective of Australia and the United States, that should be a kind of concerning message because we need to be asking ourselves what role India and Japan are going to be playing in the Indo-Pacific. Let me ask you about other rankings. I mean, in general, the rankings in the index are pretty consistent from year to year. Why is that? And is there anything you've noticed this year? Is there anything interesting on rankings? So I think the rankings, of course, reflect countries' resources as well as their influence. And that tends to be fairly stable over time. Although, of course, there have been some changes like last year, Indonesia entering the top 10, for example. One thing that I think many people will be interested in is why Russia ranks as highly as it does. So Russia is ranked as the fifth most powerful country in Asia. And what that really reflects is Russia's military strengths and also a legacy of defence relationships with countries in Asia. But of course, we know that in the wake of Russia's disastrous invasion of Ukraine, it's going to really struggle to rebuild its military capability and also maintain some of those defence relationships. So I think that's something that we could see change in future years. What about perceptions of Russian weakness arising from the poor performance of the Russian military in Ukraine? I mean, that may not reflect in this year's index, but over time, would that plus the distraction factor, the fact that it's an existential conflict for Russia, will that make it harder to focus on the Indo-Pacific? For sure. And I think one of the things we can already say from this edition of the Asia Power Index is that Russia's diplomatic influence took a big hit. And what that reflects is the perception that Russia is not really going to be as engaged as perhaps it once might have been in Asia. So that's something we can already see. Hervé, let me bring you in. You've been involved in the index now for more than five years. What are your sort of long-term observations over those five years? What have been the big shifts, the big surprises for you over the last half decade? Yeah, well, the great privilege of no longer being in the trenches, as sort of speak, after five years and seeing the index take a life of its own in the capable hands of Susanna and Jack is that you can now stand back a little bit, appreciate the bigger view, the longer-term trends. And there are a number of surprises. Even the fact that the rankings don't change as often as we expected they would is a surprise. The fact is that power is, it's like tectonic plates that are slowly shifting and it doesn't shift as quickly as some in the media might portray. That in itself is already noteworthy. When we launched the API in 2018, what made it so interesting and alarming to those in Washington who we briefed at the time, Michael, was that we had basically proven that China had breached US primacy, that the balloon of US primacy had popped. And in the academic literature, any emerging power that basically breaches a threshold of 80% of the established power's overall standing triggers a power transition. So that was what we were witnessing in 2018. Since then, I think the biggest surprise has been of China's halting progress in becoming America's true equal. So it's a near peer competitor. It's not a complete peer competitor. And in fact, China has many weaknesses as does the United States. Both seem rather hobbled and locked into this unequal struggle between superpowers with no decisive winner. And this may well be the reality we have to deal with in not only coming years, but perhaps decades. We're not seeing either party likely to be able to break free of the other. So Bipolarity is the name of the game. It's not particularly stable. Neither of these countries appear content with the existence of the other for the moment. And whether that results in outright conflict or some form of settling point down the road is the big concern of the day. But in the meantime, the rest of us have to get on with our own strategy and geopolitics in the region. And despite what Susana says, it's absolutely true to say we have not seen evidence of a more multipolar distribution in Asia. That's the second biggest surprise, if I can put it that way. There's a lot of talk about a concert of powers about a region dominated by not just the US and China, but at least three or more major powers. And the fact that the gulf between China and the next most important players has only widened in those five years suggests to me that that's not the case. It's not happening. But there is a form of asymmetric advantage that third players still wield in a situation where neither the US nor China can really claim undisputed primacy. And that is to say that we're enormously important to both Beijing and Washington's calculations. And in so far as we can exploit that, and many countries do in different ways, we still have a role to play within the overall bounce of power. And not only that, but within the overall character of the regional order, if I can put it that way. So the fact is Southeast Asia is still remarkably diplomatically dynamic, as is Indonesia, despite the fact that these are countries which are non-aligned between US and China, or perhaps because of that fact. Australia also an incredibly networked power with a seat at the table with India, Japan, and the United States in terms of the Quad. The major democracies fringing the Indo-Pacific, but we're also plugged into Southeast Asia. And of course we're resident power in the South Pacific. So that means that we've got our tentacles in many of these smaller coalitions that are forming. It's not a grand concert of powers. It's a much messier reality. But network power is absolutely influential in how the overall picture is shaping up. I wanna come back to the rest of the region, but let me focus, let me stay on the United States and China just for a bit. Because as you say, one of the big insights out of five years of the index findings is that there is still blue water between the United States and China and the rest of us. Susanna, on the United States, talk to it, tell us a little bit more about its performance over the past year. I was a bit surprised because I've been impressed by Biden's foreign policy, by the adroit way that they've managed the war in Ukraine, by their alliance management in our part of the world. I thought that they might have had a more positive result than they have, whereas the way you've phrased their performance is more that the Chinese have allowed the United States to remain at the top rather than the United States has had a great year. Is that a fair assessment of your take? I think so. I mean, I think the US and China each have one overwhelming advantage in Asia. For the US, it's the defense and security ties, and for China, it's the economic relationships. Where the contest is potentially more interesting is in terms of diplomatic influence. And there China narrowly overtook the US to take the top spot for that measure in this year's power index. Why I think that is is because China's approach to the region tends to be focused on a very broad outreach with a very wide group of countries. So even just thinking about the travel that we saw last year from China's foreign minister Wang Yi, he visited many, many countries in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Whereas by contrast, the US Secretary of State is focused on deep alliances and partnerships with fewer partners. So the US has made great progress with Japan, with Australia, with the Philippines. But if you were to make a judgment about their relationship with other countries in the region, the picture is often a bit less compelling. So I think it's that difference in strategy, which is why China took out that top spot for diplomatic influence. Yeah, and just to add two things to what Susanna's saying. I mean, the first is it's remarkable that China was able to do that, to basically retake the number one spot for diplomatic influence at a time when it was under COVID-zero lockdown from the rest of the world. So that implies that China is still very competitive, does place huge emphasis on a high level diplomatic engagement. So it may not be the people-to-people ties that we are tracking in terms of economic influence, but it's certainly in cultural influence, but it's certainly the high elite level of diplomacy that China still prevails. And that's in contrast with the Biden's, the Biden administration's own track record in Asia. It's not just that they are focusing on deeper, narrower alliance relationships, but it is the fact that globally the US was ranked as being the most effective player diplomatically, but regionally it languishes in ninth place. So there is a disjuncture between the US's global image and profile, particularly in light of the successes it has had in terms of supporting Ukraine against Russia and its record here in Asia over the last 12 months. Hervé, one of the signs of the prestige the index has acquired over the last five years is the attentiveness to it that we see from index countries. So diplomats from index countries are always asking Susanna and me and others in the lead-up how their country is likely to do. They're very alert to the results when they come out. They skype about positive results. They grumble about negative results. You've mentioned China. What has been the response from China since the index was released earlier this week? Well, the broader response has been that we've always found that they've been very curious about our assessment and eager to compare notes with their own assessments of comprehensive national power. So in the pre-pandemic days before the deterioration in bilateral ties with Australia, I mean, we would travel to China and we would find that officials and analysts would pour over our index in minute detail. They would ask really targeted questions. They were always a bit mercurial about the findings. I remember in the pre-Wolf Warrior days, they thought we were exaggerating China's power as a way of making a point about its regional ambitions. But of course, in the 2023 index, now that their power has taken a bit of a dip as a result of the secondary consequences of its handling of COVID, we've seen some reports in the global times or one report really with some grumbles around the veracity of our data. Now, the point about our data is that it's basically the same metrics year in, year out applied consistently to all countries since 2018. And that is the best defense because in 2020, the Chinese state-owned media was lining up for interviews about how well China had done relative to how poorly the US was doing with its handling of the pandemic. So you do have to sort of take these things in your stride. And as you say, it is at least at a very minimum an indicator of the fact that we are closely read not only in Beijing, but I think in DC also and in many capitals in between. Let me stay with you Hervé for a minute and ask you about demography. How big a force is demography in determining the national power of countries and what kind of impact is it having in countries like China and Japan? Look, I mean, the familiar refrain is that demography is destiny. And in fact, much of Asia's economic transformation and success over the last 20 years owes to the fact that there's been an enormous demographic dividend in this region, a dividend that is now starting to dry up a little bit. Certainly a lot of East Asia, but even parts of Southeast Asia are starting to age and their workforces are beginning to decline and in some places that's been ongoing for a while like Japan and in others, we've just reached that cusp. So in China, for example, that will really accelerate between now and 2050. I think they're going to lose something like 200 million people from their workforce. The working age population will decline by around a fifth between 2020 and 2050, which is absolutely drastic and is bound to have an impact. By contrast, I think there are countries like Australia, I mean really only one or two countries in the world that are both rich and growing their working age population. Normally you're rich and you are aging. For China, it's the worst of both worlds. It's that you are still not yet rich and aging, growing old before you become rich. And in other cases, like in Indonesia and in India, these countries can expect if they use their working age populations productively to reap the benefits from that. But there is a delay on a growth in the population by itself is not going to ensure that you're going to be doing better on the international stage. A lot of developing countries, for example, might be growing, but they still have a very low per capita GDP. Their priorities are overwhelmingly domestic and to do with the development of their economy and the welfare of their societies and eliminating poverty. That distracts in some ways or detracts from the bandwidth that they can really dedicate to foreign policy and strategy. And in India's case as well, it's not a given that a youth bulge will result in a demographic dividend. That really requires that your economy continues to grow and that it's capable of absorbing the youth in productive ways rather than in terms of chronic unemployment, which in other parts of the world, like the Middle East, we saw the Arab Spring largely fermented by chronically underemployed youth. And so there is a political risk there. If you don't manage a growth in your population, well, it can actually be a source of political instability and detracts from your power. Susanna, let me draw you out further on Japan and India. Those are countries that Washington and Canberra and other Western capitals are hoping will become more powerful, will help to fill the space, complicate the region, make it harder for it to be dominated by one big state in the form of China. But as you mentioned earlier, the index sounds a bit of a note of caution here. So tell us a bit more about India and Japan. And perhaps you can tell us, what would India and Japan, what should they be doing differently in order to maximize their power? Well, they're both very different, of course, as you know. So I'll talk about them separately. I think India, first of all, of course, we have to acknowledge it's just its size, its weight, its population, as Hervé has alluded to, means that it will be a really important force in the Indo-Pacific. And it is a key part of US strategy. Australia as well has been developing its ties with India a lot in recent years. But India performs pretty well in terms of diplomatic influence. But in other areas, it's relatively weak. So especially in terms of economic relationships, it's not well integrated with the rest of Asia. It's not part of big trade agreements like the CPTPP. And its foreign ministry also, in terms of diplomatic capacity, is also still not rated as one of the top foreign ministries in our region. So that does hold India back. And interestingly, what we've also seen in this edition of the Power Index is evidence that India is actually losing influence in its own neighborhood. So we've seen that reflected prominently in the case of Sri Lanka, where China has become a more important economic partner, but it's also true in some other countries in South Asia as well. In the case of Japan, of course, it's talking about different factors. Japan faces long-term structural economic slowdown which means that relatively speaking, it's a less important source of foreign investment and trade for countries in Asia. And that was really highlighted last year when we saw Japan lose its spot that it's had since the mid-90s as the top foreign investor in Thailand, which is a really symbolically important shift. And China, of course, accounts for most of that change. This year in the Power Index, Japan's military capability, I think for the first time, did increase slightly. So that shows that this efforts to implement the policies of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is bearing fruit, but it's very, very slow and it's not fast enough to compensate for those declining economic relativities. What about Southeast Asia, which is your area of specialty where you served as an Australian diplomat? What are the most interesting findings this year for Southeast Asia? So Southeast Asia performs really well in the Power Index overall, given the size of the countries that we're talking about. And Indonesia in particular has improved its ranking in the Power Index over recent years, especially in terms of diplomatic influence. And what that shows is that contrary to the complaint that we sometimes hear in Australia and other countries that Indonesia isn't diplomatically active enough, actually Indonesia is one of the most diplomatically sought after countries in our region. We have new data in this year's Power Index that measures the number of foreign leader or foreign minister visits that are hosted by each country and Indonesia actually scored the second highest for that because it really is a country that everyone wants to visit. So that's quite important. The smaller Southeast Asian countries are a bit more of a mixed bag. Of course, we have a deep and protracted crisis in Myanmar. We have an economic crisis in Laos, but Cambodia and Brunei, the two recent chairs of ASEAN, have exceeded expectations and increased their power in the Asia Power Index. All right, one more question for you, Susanna. Let me ask you about Australia, seeing as we're sitting in Australia. Tell us about Australia's diplomatic influence. Obviously, we have a new government that's put a particular focus on Southeast Asia. We also have seen ministers and a prime minister who's very involved in personal diplomacy. We remember Mr. Albanese on the plane to Tokyo for the Quad meeting within minutes, apparently, of being sworn in. And of course, the foreign minister has visited many Pacific Island countries and Southeast Asian countries. How has that been reflected in the index this year? And what kind of performance has Australia had in 2023? So it's definitely true to say that the Albanese government's approach to Asia has resulted in Australia's diplomatic influence increasing in the Asia Power Index as compared to the last edition, which was, of course, measuring the performance of the Morrison government. So the experts that we surveyed for the Asia Power Index saw the Albanese government as having a better approach to prosecuting Australia's interests in Asia. Australia also has kind of long-term advantages in terms of its power in Asia. That's because of many of the factors that Herve talked about, the fact that we're a wealthy country, but also with a favorable demographic outlook. And that means that Australia is actually the only middle power to come out of the three pandemic years with a power score that is close to what it had going into the pandemic. All of the region's other major countries really suffered big setbacks. And Australia was the exception then. Herve, one of the big changes since we last put the index out has been the thawing in relations between Beijing and Canberra with both sides taking tentative steps towards resuming dialogue and, of course, meetings at different levels, including at the leader's level. What does that tell us about how power is changing in Asia? Well, I think it tells us that China is recalibrating. And that's a bigger picture than just Australia. I think it realized somehow, somewhere within Beijing, they must have done a similar assessment to our own and realized that the combination of self-imposed isolation as a result of COVID, as well as the Wolf Warrior diplomacy was creating some very negative secondary consequences on China's image. And of course, so that's the big picture. And then, of course, the change of government in Australia with a slightly more nuanced rhetoric, more disciplined, I'd say, more professional, created an opportunity. And so Australia sees that opportunity, of course, we should have. And I think there are dividends for both sides in having a more professional, less fraught, less fraught, more normal day-to-day relationship. There may be limitations in terms of how far that goes. But there are also secondary dividends for Australia in terms of what it does, in terms of normalizing our image. We're no longer seen as quite the same outlier we were a year ago. It's less easy for China to typecast Australia as an anti-China crusader. And that has an impact in terms of how we're perceived abroad, not just in Beijing, but actually among non-aligned third countries in, for example, Southeast Asia or even the Pacific. So you do have to think about the peripheral vision here. It's not just about the tunnel vision fixation on China. And it has resulted in Australia's diplomatic influence trending up as a result of what's happened in the last few months. Now, in terms of the broader picture, I think a lot of Australians will be surprised that we do as well as we do. I mean, there is a sort of persistent and as an immigrant to Australia, now a naturalized Australian citizen. I've always been surprised by this strain of self-doubt in the Australian strategic community. In terms of our own capacities, this sort of belief that we're a shrinking middle power, that we will soon be a minnow in Asia surrounded by these huge emerging giants. And that hasn't quite happened at all. In fact, we're very durable, quite competitive. We have a lot of advantages and cards to play, but we do need to have a finer appraisal, not only of our own power and the versatility of our influence, but also of what's happening in the region more widely. Ultimately, the value of the index is not just to illustrate how US China competition is playing out, but to showcase the importance of the broader context in which that takes place. The ecosystem matters and we need to have a much better peripheral vision of the role's interests, actions, choices of every other country. Asia's long tail of middle powers in order to be able to maximize our position. Let me push you a bit more on Australia though. Both of you have spoken about Australia's structural advantages and the fact that Australia is actually closing on Russia in terms of its comprehensive power in Asia, even though Russia is a security council member, a former superpower and nuclear weapons power and so on. You've talked about seeing through the sort of strain of self doubt and you've also spoken about some diplomatic successes in the last year. What does the index reveal about the weaknesses of Australia in terms of its power? And let me put the same question that I put to you earlier about Japan and India. Apart from having a finer appreciation for diplomacy and foreign policy in Asia, what should Australia be looking at to try to lock in its structural advantages and further maximize its national power? Yeah, we can't be too complacent. We are the lucky country and one of the reasons why we've emerged from the pandemic unscathed is also simply the fact that we have this incredible resource wealth, the commodity led exports have powered us through this downturn in the global economy. But also is the fact that we remain very engaged within the rules-based trading system. The fact is we were able to find alternative markets. Trade diversion was our salvation, our economic resilience in light of those economic sanctions or restrictions rather from China. And yet if the rules-based trading system or in fact anything about that system more broadly the rules-based order starts to falter. Well, Australia and every middle power will suffer as a result and disproportionately because we're not as large as say Indonesia or India or the United States or China. We can't just rely on a domestic consumption to power ourselves through. We need to continue to engage with the world. And so, yes, we have to think about how we can contribute to stabilizing in some sense the regional order, the multinational system. That's not really necessarily been something we thought we were capable of. We've been a net beneficiary. The question is and the challenge now is simply where can Australia play that role and in which theaters? And partly it's to do with shoring our proposition in Southeast Asia. ASEAN for all its flaws still provides a bulwark against great power competition, Chinese domination, much more so than if it didn't exist. So we have to engage ASEAN even though we have very different views geopolitically often when it comes to our alignment with the United States or with China. In the Pacific, it's the opposite problem. In Southeast Asia, we have to work with and through equals. In the Pacific, we can come across as overly burdensome because we are too large and are seen often in the critique of by the Pacific of Australia as imposing our own concerns on the region in terms of geopolitics. That's really about then being able to read the interest, the room a bit better in terms of addressing their own existential concerns of climate change. So, Susanna, Hervé's been big-upping Australia. We've got to see beyond the persistent strain of self-doubt. We've got obviously a lot of structural advantages. But where are our weaknesses? What is the homework you would assign to Canberra if Australia wants to continue to maximise its national power? I think there are two areas where clearly Australia needs to up its game. The first is in the area of military capability. So, Australia does have a relative advantage but much less than thinking about some of the other things that we're good at, like in terms of our diplomatic influence or our defence networks. So, Australia is now making investments that will make our defence force more lethal, more able to hold assets at risk from a longer distance. Those things are going to be very important to maintaining that technological edge that our defence leaders say we've actually lost over recent years. So, that's one area. And I think the other one is technology. One of the big lessons of Japan's relative economic decline that we track in the power index is that it's led from a loss of technological advantage. So, that's an area where Australia clearly needs to improve its performance. It's focus on research and development, on productivity, innovation. These are the kind of areas that will underpin Australia's future economic capability. There's also always been a bit of an asymmetry, hasn't there, between Australia's performance in terms of its defence networks and defence diplomacy and its broader diplomacy. And I wonder whether that's not an indication as well of the fact that sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. That's a joining up defence diplomacy with whatever our objectives are in terms of our regional diplomacy. That is something that we often hear not so much in the index. It doesn't really come through in the data so much. But from the region, the fact is it's almost as if Australia has two images and it's hard to reconcile those images. Where you might start to reconcile that image is in terms of AUKUS, not only important for technology. But AUKUS should be seen as more than just a quid pro quo for keeping America in the game, but also as an opportunity to influence what kind of role America plays in this region. So sometimes we undervalue our relative clouds in places like DC and then fail to join the dots in terms of what that could do, in terms of bolstering our position and the relative stability of the regional order in Asia. So joining up the dots between the different components of Australia's power I think would also be an area where we could improve. All right, last couple of questions. Herve, you've been on the index journey for a number of years now. What are the really memorable moments you've briefed, I know, to the intelligence community in Washington to all sorts of countries around the region? What are the moments that stick in your head? Yeah, well, there have been a number of fairly surreal moments. I'd say in my career, the first experience of briefing the White House was with the Trump administration in 2018 and we were sort of descending with rather bad news for them. And I remember the shock on at least some people's faces when they realized that there would be no easy return to U.S. primacy. I mean, that was quite an interesting moment. I'm not sure how much they internalized some of the other messages we were giving them. Other things on their mind. That's right. But of course, there's any engagement with the sort of Five Eyes intelligence community always very interesting. We can't really talk about that in too much detail but suffice to say, they've also been following our work and it's always good to compare some notes at least. Then there's a certain sort of indignation that you get from those that aren't included in the index, right? So as angry as some countries might be when they've got a bad performance, I think worse than that is just not being included. And I remember a particularly strange moment in probably the situation furthest removed from Asia that I can think of. This was in Davos. This was minus 15 degrees Celsius in the Swiss Alps. And there was a European defense minister from one of the larger countries who came up to me and sort of very politely but firmly suggested that Europe ought to be in the Asia power index. And I think my polite reply was to say, look, methodologically very challenging to add a super national entity into the index. But my sort of tongue-in-cheek reply was that it would undermine my Belgian neutrality as the arbiter of the index. Now, this happened to be a German and I think that a German knew not to escalate the matter once I invoked Belgian neutrality. But there were other moments. I mean, Narendra Modi, his office rather, the Prime Minister of India, retweeting India's fourth place ranking. So there are fun moments when you launch an index. At the same time, it's always a certain, I always treat it with a certain degree of ambivalence, don't we? The media gives it its own spin. You sometimes don't have all the control over how they manage the nuance. And so then, yeah, nerves are always running high and then you try to reclaim the narrative a few days later by writing more. But we're definitely speaking to different audiences and it's just been a fun experience to see how this thing has taken a life of its own. Well, Susanna, you're at the beginning of your journey with the Asia power index. You've come through, you've got over the first hurdle. When you look ahead at what sort of findings the index might be producing in five years, would you like to chance your arm at how things might have changed? You've said earlier that, of course, it's quite a stable index overall and you don't get massive swings in power because we're measuring structural factors that don't change overnight. But if you were to look ahead and make some predictions, how do you think the index might look in five years' time? Well, one thing I already mentioned is that I think Russia will be performing worse than it is now. I think a second thing is that we'll have to include Timor-Leste in the index in future with the prospect of that country joining ASEAN, which I think will be a great thing because it will also help us better understand Indonesia's engagement with Timor-Leste and Indonesia is the driving force behind the possibility of accession this year or in the future. And I guess a final more speculative prediction would be that I think China over time will be able to close some of the gap that it has with the United States. It hasn't really done so over the past five years, but my sense is that the pandemic restrictions were something that was holding China back. And if China's able to recalibrate, reflecting on some of what Hervé said about its decision to pull back from very confrontational relations with Australia, if China's able to recalibrate and really combine some of its strengths in Asia in terms of proximity and connectivity, then I think it's going to be a formidable competitor to the United States. All right, so Susanna is finishing on a big prediction on China. We'll come back in five years and hold your feet to the fire and see how that turns out. Thank you, Susanna, for joining me today. Congratulations on your first index. Thank you, Hervé, for joining me and congratulations for your work on the index over the last five years. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you've enjoyed this discussion. Of course, the Asia Power Index is not just about the rankings. There's also a brilliant report attached to it that goes into a lot of these questions in detail. You can look them up both at power.loweyinstitute.org. So look it up, dive in, and please enjoy the 2023 Lowey Institute Asia Power Index. Thank you.