 South-East Asia's secrets. That's on a matter of Korea, isn't it? Marco Mangostov joins us from Luang Prabang in Laos, which is right along the Mekong. It translates from Laos to English as Big Buddha, Luang Prabang. Yeah. You're always there. Every time I see you leaving Hilo, you're often to Southeast Asia. What are you there for? Well, I'm there because it's here, and because there's more to learn here. And I taught, of course, on the politics of mainland Southeast Asia at University of California, Santa Cruz, last quarter. And I thought, well, I still have more to learn. I'd like to be a better instructor. And also personally, Jay, I find the more time I spend here, and this is my fourth time in Laos, third time in Luang Prabang, and I just find the more time I spend, the more my roots get a bit deeper in terms of understanding the people, the culture, the history, the politics, their concerns, and my understanding broadens and deepens. And amongst the mainland Southeast Asian countries, because I don't know, I haven't been to Indonesia, Malaysia, I've been to Singapore, I've been to the Philippines or Brunei. But a mainland Southeast Asia, Laos is definitely my favorite. I find the energy and the vibe here to be the most agreeable to me at this point in my life. So just like you, I want to continue to understand and want to continue to learn for my own personal reasons. And also, so that hopefully not if when I teach my course again on Southeast Asia politics, I'll have a greater depth and breadth to do so. But what's your approach on learning? I mean, I suppose like so many of those American travel shows, you have a secret sauce in terms of your style, your approach to people, your way of engaging them, spending time with them, learning from them. What's your secret sauce on that? That's a great question, Jay. Great question. So what comes to mind is this. There's a ride sharing service here in Laos called Loka, L-O-C-A, Loka is similar to Uber or Lyft. So you just go to the Google PlayStation or Play Store, you go to Apple, and you download the Loka app. So I did that. And yesterday, I traveled from the capital of Yintian back to Luang Prabang on the super fast, ultra modern Chinese fast train with a cost of six billion with the V six billion dollars that they finished December of last year. So I sat in my hotel there in Yintian and the hotel wanted to charge me a big box to take me to the train station. It was about a half hour outside of town because it was kind of in the boonies there in Yintian. And I thought, well, I can be better than that. So I hiled a Loka taxi and the dude was there. They're typically young men. They're driving, you know, toyotas or small economy vehicles. And they're doing just like Uber drivers do all over the place. You know, they're making some bucks or making this cake some, some kid, why I wish a kid was the currency. So the guy pulls up and I say he's in his mid twenties and speaks passable English. So we had a half hour together. And I just peppered in with a whole bunch of questions, how long you've been doing this? Why are you doing it? And then once you get people talking, as you know, because you make a, you know, as part of your vocation there, it's get people talking. Once you get people talking and they feel that you're generally interested in what they have to say, that kind of can open the floodgates often. So I had this marvelous political conversation with this fellow, you know, young Laotian who had spent some time outside of Laom studying IT in China. His dream is to come to Western Europe and work in IT, maybe even Switzerland. And he didn't say come to the US then, did he? No, he didn't because the United States is more of a stretch, I think, for a lot of people, whereas maybe Europe is a bit, plus he had a good friend of his who ended up immigrating to Holland to the Netherlands. So that kind of set the example for him. So, you know, and it's this dynamic where somebody divulges something and then you see, well, how far can I go in posing questions? And, you know, this is a dominant monopolistic Communist Party country here, one of five in the world, including China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and the Democratic, the DPRK Democratic People's Republic of Korea. So, you know, people have to be careful what they say here. But I, you know, I finally asked the questions you're pulling up the station. I said, you know, you're a young man. And what's your take on in your lifetime? Will there be a pluralistic competition for power here? In other words, more than just the Communist Party, because this is when you've got a Communist Party, this monopoly control, there are no other choices, right? And he said, yes, I do, I do. I think over time that there will be more choices here. So, you know, long-winded answer to your question. I just, I love to talk to people. I love to pose questions to people. I reached out to one of the political econ officers that our American Embassy in Vietnam had a marvelous guy. We spoke for about an hour and a half at a cafe in Vietnam Friday of last week. You know, and this is, you know, the Foreign Service's finest, because, you know, it's not easy to get in the Foreign Service. There's a whole bunch of vetting and a whole bunch of evals that have to be done. So, I always take advantage when I can to meet up with people at our embassy. And I learned so very much. And so, whether it's a business owner, whether it's the person behind the desk at the hotel, whether it's the person driving the local cab, I just take an opportunity to kind of drill down a little bit. And sometimes they're more forthcoming or less forthcoming, but I always, always, always learn. And it just enriches my understanding of the people, the place, the culture, and so forth. It's a challenge, isn't it? You know, you can't go beyond a certain line, not only, you know, with the driver you talked about, but, you know, also with the American diplomatic floor, you can't go beyond a certain line. They're not going to talk to you about some things. And so, you have to connect the dots, don't you? I mean, I suppose that's true anywhere and everywhere you go, but especially when you're traveling, like you travel, you know, you sort of gain a little information here, little information there, start putting it together, and then you get on ThinkTech, and we can examine that. So what did you learn about the place? I mean, I totally appreciate the fact that you're always learning. This is great, this is my model also, I try so hard, but we just keep going and learning more. But sure, you know, out there, and you have a fair background in that area, and you're learning on the basis of, you know, a fair expertise already. So querying, you know, what's going on over there? How do you feel it's doing? How do you feel, you know, the politics, the social structure, the economics, how does it feel? Oh, that's such a juicy question, Jay, and I could do a seminar on it, so let me encapsulate it as best I can. So a little bit of background. Laos is the smallest of the mainland, Southeast Asian countries. It is completely landlocked. It is a country of about a million people. To the north is the People's Republic of China, which is 1.4 billion people. To their east is Vietnam, which is going on 100 million people. To their west along border, they share with Thailand, that is somewhere over 75 million people. So Laos, by comparison, is tiny. It doesn't have the type of access to the open ocean as China does, as Vietnam does, as Thailand does, and they have to find their way, obviously, of being scrunched by giants. That's essentially their challenge. So they have become, from what I can tell, pretty good at hedging. They're good hedgers. The Vietnamese are also extremely good hedgers. The Thais are very good hedgers. Cambodia is so unwrapped in the family dynasty of one who has been there for decades and decades and kind of the emperor there for all purposes. So Laos is particularly challenged by being scrunched by giants. And what they have done is not clearly the Chinese are dominant for a whole bunch of reasons. And who else would have pointed up $6 billion for a high-speed train from their northern frontier town of Bo Tan all the way down to Vien Tien, which the Chinese hope will lead to the Thais going high-speed rail all the way from the south of Bangkok, which is the Gulf of Thailand, all the way from the Gulf of Bangkok through Bangkok up to northern Thailand across the Mekong and then connecting with the train in Vien Tien. They very much want that. Now, whether the Thais are ever going to do that, you know, they're a bigger player than Laos. And if they see it in their benefit, they will. But there's not an internal champion as of late, as I can tell in Thailand who's willing to go in that direction anytime in the near future, although they talk about it. So Laos has become, I think, very good at not manipulating, but taking advantage of being a small player in a neighborhood that has many, many much larger players and people who've been in other countries can be bullies. And they leverage their position with the U.S., with the Europeans, and with other countries. And interestingly, because I read the Laos press every single day, the coverage regarding the United States is by and large quite positive, is quite positive, which is really striking because on some level, because of course, what I call the gift that keeps on giving, and this is, of course, putting it in a weird spin. But I mean, Laos was bombed more per capita than any other country in the face of the earth throughout history with the U.S. bombing from 1964 to 1973. And people continue to die each and every year from the UXO, whether it's children playing with so-called bombies, which are little antipersonnel bombs, the size of an orange, or whether it's a farmer in his or her field tapping at the ground and hitting a mine. Is Agent Orange there? No, there wasn't. As far as I know, there wasn't a whole lot of chemical defoliants here in Vietnam. I mean, excuse me, Laos. It was just bombing, bombing, bombing, bombing, bombing. So fortunately, and the United States to its credit continues to spend millions of dollars a year to help the Laosian government de-mine and deal with the UXOs. So I guess kind of in summary, Jay, the government in Vietnam has been very good at being able to accept proffered aid and assistance and grants from the Japanese, from the Koreans, from the Swiss, from other Europeans, from the EU, and from the Americans. So in a sense that helps them to offset the overwhelming presence of China and as well a strong presence of Vietnam. So who am I to judge, but I'll judge nonetheless. They seem to be doing a pretty reasonable job of accepting assistance and not kissing any particular party off because the money keeps on flowing and they're very, very keen on continuing their development path and just kind of as a sidebar note. When I was here in the early 2020, right before COVID, one dollar got you about 9,000, 9,000 kip. Okay, right now the exchange rate is one dollar will get you about 17,000 kip. So the currency is devalued tremendously and that has put a terrible, terrible squeeze in the Laos economy because they need hard currency to buy fertilizer, they need hard courtesy to buy petroleum products and 40% of the country is still involved in farming. Now you don't see that in the glitzy mulls of VN10. You don't see that walking in the pristine peninsula like in the Mekong here in the Lankabong, but there are still a large large portion of Laos and people who are really, really struggling because things have become so expensive and tourism is only now starting to kind of pick back up if they reopened earlier this year based on COVID clobbering them. So you suggested earlier that the government was stable and I take from that that the government doesn't get in the way of the development of the country and further that there is public safety. All that true? Public safety I would say, you know, comparatively speaking, you know, compared to the United States, yes it's safe. As far as the government, I mean, and I'm not going too far past the line here because it's discovered in the Laos press as well, there is a significant corruption problem here and I'm being understated when I say that. For example, if you take a van or Tukduk outside of downtown VN10 and you go to a place called Budapark, which I've actually been to, it's kind of cool, it's right by the, it's on the Mekong and across the Mekong you can see Rhode Island. So you cruise along the Mekong there in your van going to Budapark and you see on the riverside of the road, you see these palatial and I mean palatial mansions, huge, monstrous estates that are along the Mekong there and I was asking my driver yesterday as we were going to the station of VN10, I said, you know those mansions I see along going to Budapark and he started to chuckle because I think he knew what the question was going to be. He said, who lives in those mansions? And he just kind of shook his head and he said, dark money, dark money. Really interesting. Oh wow. And you see Ferraris, you'll see, you know, a $300,000 red spank in new Ferrari in the streets of VN10. I can tell you there's nowhere close to VN10 to wind out a Ferrari but you have these gaudy statuses of richness, of riches where that, you know, the cost of a Ferrari is more than a village will make an entire year. So there is a disparity between a very small number of haves and a whole lot of have-nots and even the loud government and the party are aware of the corruption and they make some efforts to do it. But you know, that is one of my biggest beefs, Jay, regarding one-party monopolistic control in any society, and it just so happens, you know, that I'm in a one rule here that's ruled by Dominic Congress Party, is that there is a lack of accountability. There's not a judiciary that's independent that can check. There's not a competing power that's independent that can check. So that is one of my biggest beefs against, you know, one-party rule anywhere. And it's certainly the case here. Let me shift now, Marco. I'd like to go up closer to the 50,000-foot level and ask you about how things are doing vis-à-vis interaction with the world. I know it's not the same as looking at how India, for example, interacts or Africa or Europe, of course. But I wonder, you know, for example, how have they been affected by COVID? How are they being affected right now when I'm by COVID? That's my first question. What is happening in terms of public health? On terms of public health, well, what comes to mind immediately is that there's only a small minority of people who are wearing masks. I found that to be, well, public's places certainly, people are very, very, very largely maskless, even in the train yesterday and on the station to be in Chen, people were maskless. So there seems to be, I'd say the overall vibe that COVID is in the rearview mirror. That said, as I walk around downtown Luang Prabang, compared to when I was here early 2020, more storefronts are closed, there are more for sale signs. I speak to business people wherever I go. I've gotten to know the manager of my favorite cafe here is called Zurich Bakery and cafes. It's actually a Thai outfit. So the manager there is talking. He's Thai, but he's the manager there, Zurich Cafe here in Luang Prabang. So I make it a point, businessman to businessman, how are things going? What's it been like for you? What's the revenue? I ended up asking too many nosy questions about what percentage are you down. But they're really quite forthcoming as far as it's still a struggle. And so tourism has yet to come back anywhere close to full strength. And it's still tough. And I haven't gone to the other side of the river yet, which I've done before. So there is a ferry which spends all day, all day, all day, going back and forth across the river here in Luang Prabang. And I did it when I was here last. You can go by foot, you can go by bicycle, you can take your scooter, you can take your car. And I plan to do it in the days to come. And it's truly kind of another worldly experience because on the other side of the river is more the real Laos in this area, which is very rural. Luang Prabang is the UNESCO city. It is very well kept up where the tourists go. It's very, very impressive. But you just go across the river and that is truly a great contrast. So how are the people doing that they're still struggling? And there is a substantial concern that it's going to be a long slog back for many people in Laos. So COVID is still, you're not reading, I'm not reading about people hospitalized or by case counts going up, but it is slow and it's going to be a long recovery. Now that said, you know, one of the big wildcards here is one of the Chinese going to open up their borders for more widespread travel because this train line starts in the southern city of Kunming and Yunnan province. And there will not if but when there will be many, many Chinese who will be traveling from southern China and into Laos, into Luang Prabang. And that's going to have effects on the economy, on the culture, on the vibe of the place that there will be substantial. Let's talk about the Chinese. You mentioned about the high speed train and all that and the six billion dollars. Wouldn't it be nice if Hawaii had that kind of money and that kind of train? I probably didn't take all that long to build the train, but that's not our show today. So the question is, is this part of the one Belt One Road initiative? Is this maybe a debt trap between China and Laos? Yes, to your first question, definitely part of one Belt One Road debt trap, desperately loaded because the Chinese will swear up and down that no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that. But I mean truth be told, according to the World Bank analysts and according to other what I'll call recently objective analysts, the debt ratio compared to income and GDP of Laos is amongst the highest in the world. I don't know if you've been reading over the months which have been happening in Sri Lanka. I mean, that has been an example of what I'll call pretty much a failed state. And they went in deep with the Chinese regarding a port there. So the Laos China Railway LCR is called is 70% owned by the Chinese, 30% owned by Laos. So I'm not privy to the balance sheets or the spreadsheets as far as how they're going to make up on their investment. But I mean, $6 billion is a lot of money. And there is, like I said, a lot of concern on the part of many economists that Laos and the precarious position given the small size of its economy, and given the billions involved in terms of the debt, it has to serve us. But the Chinese have made very, very clear, and I take them with their word for this when they say it, they're not going to let Laos slip into some type of critical state when it comes to debt that would not serve their interests. No, there's all kinds of gradient between the two extremes. I mean, you can take over and you can not take over, you can let them coast on the loan. Or you can renegotiate the loan, change the terms, maybe change the duration of it. So I don't have an idea about what China has in mind here. I don't know if China has an idea about what China has in mind. But it seems to me that as we go forward on Belt Road, Belt Road, there's always the possibility of a debt trap, and debt traps come in many flavors and many gradations. So it would seem to me just like other countries in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka especially, Laos is exposed to the possibility. You said their economy is not doing that well, but they may not be able to get the cash together to pay whatever the freight is on that loan. Well, they're definitely in a more precarious position than their neighbors simply because of their size, as I mentioned, and because they have less means. The Vietnamese see Laos also very important to their national interests. They share a very, very long border with Laos. Their two communist parties are very buddy-buddy. So the Chinese are, excuse me, the Vietnamese are doing their best to make sure that their brothers and sisters in the N10 understand how important they are to Hanoi. And it's not to the interest of Hanoi to allow Laos to spend too far into the Chinese orbit. So there's a very interesting dynamic between the three parties, and interesting. Again, they're all run by a monopolistic communist party. My take on Laos is that they seem to know what they're doing, corruption aside, which should not be minimized. And they know how to work with suitors, whether it's the Thais, the Vietnamese, the Europeans, the Japanese, the Koreans, and the Americans. They seem to be pretty good at playing the game of not so much putting their hand out, but thankfully receiving what is being provided by other much larger powers. And, you know, just as a little sidebar note, Barack Obama was here in 2016, his last full year in office, of course. And he took a stroll along the one for Banglung and Mekong. And there is their number of coconut, cold coconut stands, and smoothie stands along the Mekong. And he stopped at one, of course, surrounded by a security detail. And he took a coconut, you know, that was pristine, right? It wasn't going to be poising, because no one knew he was going to stop and get a coconut. So they take a coconut out of a greatly cooler. They slice off the top and they put a straw. And so this particular coconut stand, of course, the owner was very pleased and took a number of photos of showing Barack Obama with his coconut, you know, sipping coconut water. So it's just interesting that, you know, Obama in the last year of his office, he chose to focus on or reiterate the American interest in staying active and engaged in the region. And I can't, I can't say enough about how important that is. And when I spoke to my friend, my new friend at the embassy and the intent, said, you know, what's most important out here in the city of the U.S. has to continue to show up. We have to continue to show up. And we did over the past month or so, we had President Biden, who was at the ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We had Biden, who was in the G20 in Bali in Indonesia. Also, after he went to Phnom Penh, we had Vice President Kamala Harris, who was at the APEC, Asian Pacific Economic Community, who in Bangkok. So, I mean, this is really, really, really important because, I mean, doesn't take somebody with a PhD in political science to observe that during the Trump years, you know, with this America first business, you know, many of our relationships with key allies kind of took a big hit. So regardless of who succeeds, Joe Biden, you know, it's so important, in my opinion, that the U.S. continue to continue to continue to be a very visible presence here. And it is a very, vitally strategic region, not just Nile and Southeast Asia, but the ocean-based Southeast Asian states of ASEAN. So, you know, and there's nobody, you know, I don't want to sound too much like a headstrong American, but there's nobody else that can offset the Chinese the way the Americans can in the region. So it's absolutely critical, in my opinion, that we stay very active, very engaged here, and not just parachute people in, but that because, you know, I don't want to generalize too much, but Asians are very big on face. They know full well the rank of the people who the host country or the other country send over. So it's a big deal when a President or Vice President comes. Well, good. We're finally realizing the pivot. You know, it was in suspense during the Trump years, or worse, and now we're getting back to it. I agree totally. It's very important. And you never know. You never know where it pops up. You know, for example, I think our diplomatic relations with India could have been better. And if they had been better, India wouldn't be fighting with Russia now because of the oil. And that goes for every country in, you know, in the region. We want to be friendly with them. We want to be somebody reliable, right, on into the future. And you mentioned earlier that, you know, they like Americans, but where is their loyalty truly fit? Because they have to be nimble. They have to be able to, you know, change their relationships as necessary to protect themselves, to, you know, get the best deal to save themselves. And the question is, you know, how, what kind of view of America do they have? What kind of view of Russia do they have? I mean, China's right there at the border. Gotta be careful. And right now China is in a bit of a turmoil. I'm not sure how that affects everything. But I would say that all of those countries have got to be clever. India has been clever. And that's a good example of the necessity, the need for cleverness. And so where does the law fit? Where are the other countries in Southeast Asia fit? How do they see the US over the long term? How do they see Russia, China, India? How do they, how do they, what's their true loyalty? Jay, I could, I could give an lecture on each country's trilateral or multilateral diplomacy. So to try to encapsulate the whole region, you know, as an academic in a few minutes, that's, that's too much of a challenge for me. But I'm just gonna maybe use Vietnam as an example. They made very clear, and it's very explicit that they're not, they're not going to pursue alliances with anyone that would possibly alienate some other country. So they essentially, they want to be friends with all and allied with nobody. So I think they in particular have played a very, very good and strategic game to cultivating relations. I mean, they can't get away from the fact that they share a border with, with the People's Republic of China. And they can't get away from the history that so much of Vietnam for so long was dominated by, by the Chinese to the north. They can't get there. They're acutely aware of that. So they don't want to have a shooting where it's happened in 79. So, and the relations between the Chinese and the Vietnamese economically is huge. But at the same time, they realize, well, we're close to China, many more ways than one, but we have to be very careful. So they are very strategic in maintaining relations with the Americans and with Moscow. So two other major players. So I think they've, they've done a pretty darn good job. And I think, you know, my take is that especially the relationship between Hanoi and Washington will continue to be of great, great importance to the Vietnamese, not least of which because we can offset, like no one else can, Chinese projection of power in the South China to see what the Vietnamese call the East Sea. So I think kind of in summary form, each country is able to leverage the assets it has to, to try to maintain good relations with other foreign powers and not, not become too, too dominated by any one particular, despite the fact that let's say in Laos and Cambodia, especially the Chinese presence is so strong in terms of investment money in terms of just the Chinese presence in general. So I think they're all good hedgers. They're out, they all have their own intrinsic challenges based on their geography, based on the politics. But I think overall, they're all fairly good hedgers. You know, if you look at the old Hong Kong, look at Singapore, and to a large extent China itself, you saw that their young people, their students were traveling around the world and educating themselves. Sometimes they'd stay at their student destinations. And but many times they'd come back and there was an exchange, call it an educational business exchange going on. And that was good for everybody. And, you know, some countries in Southeast Asia, I'm sure have more of it. Some have less of it. But it interacts with my question, which I always ask you and anyone who is in Southeast Asia, what is the future leadership for the entire region? I mean, they would be so much stronger as Latin America would be if they could get together and not be distracted with small issues and talk like a continent, you know, same thing with Africa. And I'm hoping in our lifetimes or maybe soon thereafter that we see this happen. But every time I ask anybody about Southeast Asia, it's never going to happen, never, never, never. But, you know, there's a linkage between that possibility and this educational exchange I'm talking about. And I wonder if you see, you meet people who have been involved in that exchange, who've gone to Europe or the US or really anywhere to, you know, do outreach and to learn about business and global affairs and then come back to Laos or any other place in South in Southeast Asia and say, look, I can show you a few things. I can show you how to deal with the Chinese. I can show you how to do high finance. I can show you how to make a better country. And furthermore, I can show you about diplomacy with other countries in the region because ultimately I want to be a leader and, you know, to emerge as a national leadership in the area. Do you see any of that? That's a great point. I haven't taken much of a dive into that, honestly, Jay. At the same time, I see it as enormously important and unfortunately there's a segment of the American population in Washington that sees spending money to bring young people from overseas into the US for education as being some type of foreign aid. And we need to keep the money at home type of attitude. And I find that to be very, very short-sighted and very lamentable. And again, I haven't looked at the data or the numbers as far as what the US, the idea has been spending or what the United States government is spending in general. But I mean, if I were king or at least the prince in this regard, you know, I would dramatically increase the amount of US dollars to many countries in the world, especially strategic countries in the world like Southeast Asia to encourage young, Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodians, people from Myanmar, Thais to come to the US to study because that is an incredibly important investment on so many levels. And my impression is that that has taken a hit over the past years is because as the United States has become at least a large segment of the United States, substantial segments become more insular. And more kind of xenophobic. So I see that as incredibly important. I mean, to go back to kind of part of your question. Now, there is this thing called ASEAN, which is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, right? It's made up of 10 countries, five here in the mainland. And then you have Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Brunei. And they get together regularly. And, you know, there's a lot of weakness in ASEAN in terms of being a proactive body. It is limited in terms of its power. And it's being really, it's really being tested now, because one of its members, Myanmar, is, you know, the government, the military there, of course, over through Aung San Suu Kyi February of last year. So there's an act of war going on in an ASEAN state. And, you know, I read this stuff really regularly. And even ASEAN is getting rather peeved with Myanmar. And typically, you know, it's just bad form to get peeved with an ASEAN member and call out an ASEAN member. Now, in terms of sending a peacekeeping force or trying to do a more muscled approach to making peace there, that is not, that is not ASEAN. But right now, ASEAN is as good as it gets in terms of a multilateral, multination forum and organization. Now, is that going to morph at some point to a European Union? I mean, well, I look at the EU these days, you know, that the Brits pulled out and it's fractured more now than it has been for a long, long time. So, you know, the move towards supra, SUPRA, supra nationality seems to be kind of on the wane these days. And I don't see ASEAN going in that direction any time soon because there seems to be, you know, that the trend is in the opposite direction in terms of greater fragmentation. But I mean, ASEAN is as good as it gets right now. And it's better than nothing because what was the Churchill said that Jha Jha is better than war war. So, I don't know, I'm just kind of rambling here. Well, you know, talk about trends, you know, we're all following the trends around the country to autocracy and away from democracy and representative government. And it seems to be inexorable. I mean, we're going to have a good day and a bad day, a good news day, a bad news day. But at the end of the week to year, I think the trend is visible. And it's sort of autocracy, it's called strong man leadership. And it's away from democracy, sad to say, not only in the U.S., although it is happening in the U.S., but other places. What's the trend in Southeast Asia? What's the trend in law? We have, you know, representative government. Do we have what we can call democracy? Do we have civil liberties and Bill of Rights? What do we have? Well, kind of one by one, I mean, let's look at Vietnam, Vietnam monopolistic communist party. From my take is that the screws are being tightened in some degrees in Vietnam in terms of internet control. I mean, you know, just kind of a sidebar note. So there is an excellent source of information about Asia called the Diplomat. The Diplomat is thediplomat.com. And it's a pay for service. I pay 60 bucks a year. And it's a great, great source of information for across Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, all across Asia. And I was in Hanoi a couple of weeks ago, and I was at that website. And I wanted to, I clicked on an analytical piece on Vietnam and China. Guess what happened? It wouldn't load up. I thought, oh, that's strange. So I went back to the previous page, the homepage of the diplomat. Oh, it's fine. I went back to the piece on China and Vietnam. I wouldn't load up. And I thought, oh, well, I happened to travel with a VPN, virtual private network. So I thought, well, I'm going to do a little experiment. So I switched to my VPN, and it loaded up. And then I went to the piece on Vietnam and China. Guess what? It opened up. No problem. So that gave me a personal, firsthand experience of censorship in Vietnam. So I see the overall trend in Vietnam is either static or some decline in terms of greater freedom. I mean, as far as I can tell, there's no internet censorship. I've never come across a page that has been blocked. So that's to their credit. Thailand, no censorship. But, you know, they've been controlled by a military political, what it is, the general turn Prime Minister, who's now been in power for eight years and who apparently plans to run for reelection next year. So, you know, Thailand has this dance that they do between quasi democracy and coup after coup after coup after coup. There have been gosh, dozens of coups in the past 32 years since the constitutional or since the actual monarchy was abolished in 1932. So, you know, what's the prospects from true democracy in Thailand? I'd say quite minimal because the military is so strong. You have the monarchy and you have the business class. Cambodia has been ruled by a fiefdom of Hoon Sen since the 1980s. And his, what does he call it? It's the PP party. It's the People's Progress Party. I may be missing out on the acronym, but I mean, for all intents and purposes, there is no political competition in Cambodia. It's Hoon Sen, Hoon Sen, Hoon Sen, Hoon Sen, and his family. The guy's been in power for 30 years and he's grooming his son Hoon Manette to take over for him at some point. And Hoon Manette interestingly is a graduate from the U.S. Army Academy at West Point to go figure. And then where else do we have Myanmar as a mess? You know, people are dying trying to fight a dictatorial, brutal government. So, the prospects for democracy in Myanmar doesn't look promising. Am I leaving anybody out? So, I mean, the prospects for democracy here in the region are not good. And Laos finally, you know, despite the optimism of my local driver yesterday, I think it's unlikely that any time in the near future, there's going to be a real political competition here in Laos. So, you know, this is going to be what it's going to be and each country will develop the best of its ability in regard. I mean, this is real politic, you know, to the end's degree. The United States has to, of course, take into account that much of the world is non-democratic. A growing part of the world is non-democratic. And we have real and tangible security interests, national security interests, national interests that we're large here that we have to continue to cultivate and protect in a very challenging environment where there are some major players here that we've just assumed we get in all our boats and our airplanes and we go back across the Pacific and we allow other powers here to become even more dominant than they already are. I have one last point I'd like to discuss with you. We only were over. We only have a minute to discuss it. And it's this. A few days ago, we had a show with a linguistics professor from Summonaut as it were. Very interesting guy. And he speaks a number of languages and why? Why? What is it about the language that interests you so much? Is it that you like the standard of the language? Do you like looking at the culture of the place through the language or with the language? And what we concluded in this discussion back and forth was that all of that, yes, of course, but learning another language and learning another culture helps you understand yourself because you have the sounding board. It's a cultural sounding board. And I suggest that although you are an academic and you are always engaged in learning and you learn so much, but there you are in law and it's more than that. You have a sounding board. You go to these places all over Southeast Asia and you're learning as much about yourself as you are about them. Am I right? Oh, absolutely. Jay, I think you put it beautifully. Just beautifully that it's yes, it's an incredibly powerful and it's an understanding powerful interactive experience and you just can't beat. You can't be being on the ground and talking, walking and talking and breathing and watching people when I was at this mall in the Enchants just a couple of days ago. I thought this could be a mall in Bangkok. It could be a mall in Hilo and Honolulu in New York. And it seems to almost be that it's a mark of modernity that's a developing country to kind of say, hey, we've made it. We've made it. One of those marks of modernity is to have a modern multi-level shopping mall. And I'm not into shopping all that much, but I'm into people watching. So I went to this. It's called the Parkson Mall, P-A-R-K-S-O-N. And I think it's the most modern mall probably in all of Laos. And I went there twice, not because I needed to go shopping twice, but just because it's a fascinating place to watch people. And then I'll just kind of leave you with this. One of the things that struck me as I thought about it is there weren't many older people. And I consider myself an older person. There weren't that many older people walking about. I'm talking about people in their 60s, 70s and 80s. This was predominantly teenagers and people their 20s, 30s and 40s. And I thought, why is that? Why is that? We're at the older people. Do they not have the desire to go to the mall? Do they not have the money to go to the mall? I don't know. But I just was kind of struck by the mall seems to be a phenomenon and a magnet for younger people. Whereas the older folks, I don't know why. I just thought of that in the past day or so. So I don't have any answer for it. So this is kind of a puzzler for me. Well, it's as much a statement about the future as it is about the present. Well, thank you, Marco. Marco Mangelsdorf for joining us on LAO. We really appreciate your getting on with us and appreciate all your lessons. Thanks so much. I look forward to talking with you again. Well, it's been a pleasure to reconnect with you, my friend Jay. So let's I'm going to be allowed for another month or so. So I hope we can connect again and continue the conversation. So mahalo nui. Okay. So and say goodbye in the local language, would you? Oh, goodness. I think instead I'll just say krup chai lalai, which is thank you very much. I knew you'd say that. Thank you, Marco. Aloha. Also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at think.kawaii.com. Mahalo.