 Welcome back everybody for this last session for today. The session's title is building regional collaboration in addressing transnational maritime security issues in the Indo-Pacific. And our esteemed panel who I'll introduce shortly have been asked to look at the questions of what lessons can be learned from collaborative maritime security efforts in the Indo-Pacific, such as anti-piracy efforts in the Western Indian Ocean, and the search for MH370. What transnational security challenges offer the best prospects for collaborative maritime security, including people and drugs smuggling, illegal fishing, search and rescue, counter-piracy, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and so on. And what are the prospects for new partnerships in addressing transnational security issues and the potential roles for Australia, Indonesia, Japan, China, India and other countries? Our first speaker, or perhaps our last speaker, Scott. Our first speaker is Mr. Scott, dear First Assistant Secretary International Policy Division Department of Defence. Scott is responsible for managing Australia's international defence relationships. The international policy division provides high level policy advice to government on matters of international concern and manages the defence attache network around the globe. Scott has also been our Consul General in Hawaii and has served as a diplomat during his 20 years at DFAT where he and I were colleagues in the Republic of Korea and China and has worked for a gruelling two and a half years in a former Prime Minister's office as an advisor on international defence and national security issues in the Prime Minister's office. Thank you, Scott. Good afternoon, everyone. My name's Scott Dewar and I'm from the Department of Defence. And good afternoon to our colleagues on the panel as well. I want to make some comments about the theme of collaboration in addressing transnational maritime security issues from the point of view of the Department of Defence. So to do that, of course, I want to frame it in the biggest statement of policy that's come out recently and that's the white paper. I'm assuming many of you will have been familiar with the white paper and may even have seen it, had a chance to look through it. But I just want to run over a couple of key points out of it that I think are really important in the context of today's discussion. First of all is, I think it's important to note that the white paper points out that we're well positioned to derive benefit from the developments in the Indo-Pacific region, okay? So there's a lot of opportunity out there, but for that opportunity, for us to realise that opportunity, of course, we need security and stability so we can derive the prosperity that we need. And we need to be able to deal with the challenges that we face. The white paper identified six key drivers for our strategic environment going forward, US-China relations, of course, challenges to the stability of the rules-based order, terrorism, particularly coming from ungoverned spaces, state fragility as another one, the pace of military modernisation in our region, and finally the emergence of new complex non-geographic threats such as in the cyber domain. So in order to deal with this complex strategic environment, we boil this down to three key strategic defence interests that shape our thinking, that shape our force design and shape our policy structures. And these are, I think, worth repeating because they tie directly back to the theme for today's discussion. The first strategic defence interest for us is a secure, resilient Australia with secure northern approaches and proximate sea lines of communication. Number one. Number two, a secure, nearer region encompassing maritime Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. And third, a stable Indo-Pacific region and a rules-based global order. I think you can argue that sitting through all three of those strategic defence interests, there's a strong maritime element that ties us back to today's theme. Those strategic defence interests guide the development of the force structure, but they also set the framework for our overall defence policy. Going forward. And there's a couple of issues I just want to touch on that are directly relevant to that. First of all, the white paper and I'm from the International Policy Division. I'm responsible for international engagement, so I accept I am biased here, but the defence white paper's emphasis on the importance of international engagement is a really important change from previous white papers, I would argue. It talks about international engagement being core business, being a core function of the Australian Defence Organization. It's not something you do that's left over when you've got time, it's something that is at the core of what you do. The key to us doing this, of course, is it's got to be, we've got to increase our bilateral, our regional and our multilateral engagement. As part of that, increased international engagement, not the entirety of it, but as part of it, we'll be looking at increasing our maritime engagement. And there's a few way we do that, and that's what I want to basically step through, step through with you now, that I think answer the questions that Marina's posed. First of all, our Defence Cooperation Program, which is our bilateral security assistance program, is going to be expanded. And one of the key parts of that program is the Pacific Maritime Security Program. Now, people will be familiar with Pacific patrol boats, so we started to roll out in the 1980s. The Pacific Maritime Security Program is the follow-on from that. So we'll be gifting boats to recipient countries again. Once again, we'll have a package of assistance that goes along with those boats so they can be used, used effectively and efficiently maintained. We'll be having our maritime security and our technical advisors based in the Pacific to help recipient countries use those boats effectively. But another part to the puzzle we're adding this time is a broader package of regional support, which includes two main things. One, aerial surveillance, and two, strengthening of regional institutions. The argument here being that the Pacific patrol boats are a fantastic asset for countries and help them protect their EEZs and particularly their economic livelihood through dealing with issues like illegal fishing. But if you can use those assets more effectively through better queuing through aerial surveillance and you can do greater coordination across the region through for fisheries agency and other like bodies, you're gonna increase the effectiveness of the asset you're using. So that's the package we're talking about there. Overall, this package is gonna be about $2 billion worth, including the boats and the surveillance going forward. And I think that's a sign of two things. One, our commitment to the Pacific Island countries. And secondly, to the whole concept of maritime security and not in a narrow sense, but in a very broad sense. A lot of the countries that get the Pacific patrol boats don't have militaries, you know, they're not a number of countries in the Pacific Island countries have police forces or other bodies that are going to use these boats. It's a defense program on our side, comes under our defense cooperation program, but our partner institutions will often be police forces or so on. But I think that's completely, we're completely comfortable with that because it's this broader concept of maritime security. Of course, we have this key interest in addressing maritime security in the South Pacific, but if you go back to our strategic defense interests, it's not just about the South Pacific for us. It's about the broader Indo-Pacific region. And of course, you know, absolutely key to maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region is the role of the United States. And that's not going to change and will continue to develop our alliance with the United States. You know, the levels of security and stability that we seek in the Indo-Pacific wouldn't be achievable without the United States, with whom we've shared the interest in their rules-based global order. But at the same time, we also think that the regional architecture, the regional security architecture has to be developed to deal with the range of challenges that we're going to face. So this is one of the key areas of convergence, I think with many of the partners that were listed once again in the questions, like how do we work closely with Japan, with Indonesia, with other key partners in the region? And one answer to that is through our shared interest in developing the regional security architecture. First and foremost among them from a defence point of view is the ASEAN Defence Minister's Meeting Plus. It's only met a few times now, but it's actually, I would argue, been able to do a lot in developing practical defence cooperation in a very short period of time compared to the norm of other regional bodies in this part of the world. It's got a whole bunch of different working groups, but one of the keys of relevance today is it's Maritime Security Working Group. The member countries take turns co-chairing these bodies and ASEAN and a non-ASEAN chair. We did the Maritime Security Working Group first off, hosted a big exercise of Jarvis Bay in the Eastern Australia exercise area. 13 members of the ADMM Plus sent military elements to participate in a maritime exercise. I haven't gone back and done the research, and I stand to be corrected, but I think that's pretty much unprecedented in terms of a maritime exercise in Southeast Asia, run by a regional body. I mean, RIMPAC might get lots and lots of participants, but something run by a regional organisation. I think that's a pretty phenomenal achievement. This year as well, there's going to be another major exercise. It's going to combine two of the working groups this year. So CT, Counterterrorism Working Group, that we're chairing with Singapore, and the Maritime Security Working Group. So we're going to bring those two together and run another exercise in May of this year. So I think it's important to note that the development of regional organisations like the ADMM Plus provides a vehicle through which we can build practical cooperation. So that it provides that scope to do things that we might otherwise find difficult to do. Under the auspices of the EAS, we had the Australian Civ Military Centre last year run a workshop for us on lessons learned out of the MH370 disaster. And that was another example, I think, of where we could all come together under a regional organisation, in this case, the EAS, but actually build our collaboration through this lessons learned exercise. Conscious of time, I'll finish up with just mentioning one last thing, and that's beyond the regional. So I've spoken about us in the Pacific with the Pacific Maritime Security Project. The ADMM Plus is really the centrepiece of practical maritime cooperation for the region. But we're also making a contribution to the broader global rules-based order through efforts to tackle, for example, piracy off the coast of Africa. I'm talking here about the combined maritime force. We've got HMAS Darwin there at the moment. I think this is our 62nd rotation. If Pete Lee was here, he could correct me. 62nd rotation of a Royal Australian Navy vessel since the 1990s. We periodically command one of the task forces under that. And the key role there is what we're doing is interdicting the flow of whether it's weapons or drugs or whatever it might be that support terrorism, particularly in Somalia is the focus of a lot of the work, but it stops that flow of goods, material, and ultimately finance to terrorist organisations. So I think it's another important example of where cooperating with a really broad range of partners and not necessarily all traditional partners for Australia, but in that combined maritime force to work on a shared our security goal. I think that brings us back to where I started, which is we are well-placed to actually benefit from the growing trade. As we have over the last 40 years, I would argue that the rules-based global order has been fantastic for Australia and us contributing to maintaining that's an important part going forward for us to be able to benefit from the opportunity. But to do that, we're gonna need to collaborate with our partners. And that's both bilaterally and in our near region, regionally as well, out to the Indo-Pacific region, but also on the global front. So I'll leave it there until we get to the questions, but thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you, Scott, for that fantastic presentation, very rich as well with information. Our next speaker is Dr. Rifki Muna, who is from the Centre for Political Studies at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta. He specialises in foreign and security policy. He's also recently been a national security fellow here at the National Security College. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to start by thanking NSC and also Professor Rory Metcalf and the team to bring me here. It is great honour for me to take part in this conference. Well, I would like to start by seeing that first within the framework of regional mechanism, the regional initiative for architectures of cooperation and dialogue in the region, it is very useful, but on the other side, we need also to strengthen the bilateral relations. So within the framework of bilateral relations, I would like to talk mostly on the Australia-Indonesia relations or co-operations of maritime between the two nations. Well, relations between Indonesia and Australia has been basically very deep. It is interdependence. It is there is a lot of commonalities, despite there is also some difficulties that occur from certain time to another time. But I always the true believers that the two countries is actually having potentiality to work together closer because if there is such thing happen, it will also quickly to recover and back to normal. So that's also show the endurance. Other things that I would like to mention here is the importance of CBM in which also in the past session already mentioned, the confidence building measures or within the framework of dialogues in this region also being set as trust building. So while several component of course, the first is the transparency measures, the declaratory, the communications as well as the verification measure. But my I take one sections of this component of CBM, which is the declaratory measures so that I would like to go to the Australia's Defence White Paper that just released recently. We just also listened the presentations on the Australia's Defence Policy, especially from the Defence White Paper. I would like also to take some important aspect from the Defence White Paper, which is basically from my understanding, this Defence White Paper in relations to Indonesia is very much advanced, comparing to another seventh Defence White Paper previously. Well, the statement is very much strong, especially because when saying that the growing of military capabilities in Indonesia will offer Australia, and of course as well as Indonesia, opportunities to more effective cooperation to respond the regional challenges, number one. And number two, it is also saying that Australia welcome Indonesia's increase of the focus on the maritime affairs and also Australia will seek greater cooperation on maritime security activities that contribute to a stable prosperous region. Interestingly, that this statement is also beyond, as far as I understood, beyond the Indonesia's expectations. And I would like to say that there is lot of opportunity basically for the two countries to work on the area of maritime security, especially because, not because Indonesia and Australia is very proximate neighbor, but the fact that we are already within the web of dialogue, the web of architectures of corporations of security dialogue in the region, and also the growing, I'm saying growing because seems that in the last few years, the IORA, the Indian Ocean Rim Association is also become more and more attention-less, especially the joint declarations on a Perth before the handover from Australia to Indonesia's chairmanship. It is also clearly stated that maritime security and maritime safety is also one of the priority within the IORA. And Indonesia is currently chair of the IORA. And within the Indonesia chairmanship, learning from the experience in Southeast Asia and also in the Asia Pacific, the term is still being used, it's not yet totally changed, become Indo-Pacific. The Indonesia also tried to push the, of course with other member countries to develop more well-ruled cooperation in IORA, which is, IORA is very much very loose. By the mid of this month, there will be also ad hoc meeting in Bali of the senior official to design what are the so-called IORA concord to bring the cooperation into more solid move to the future. And in addition, there is also initiative or which is Indonesia proposed to bring IORA into more summit level, even though it is not every two years, one and half process of summit of the Indian Ocean, which is hoping that the cooperation could be elevated into more, well more solid cooperation Indian Ocean, even though we realize the complexities and also the variety of nations in the Indian Ocean. In addition, I would also try to value the existing, or what I mentioned before with the regional architectures, which is generally, it's also being discussed before, slightly, which is generally ASEAN-led initiative, or something that basically it is something like ASEAN centrality of Maratha, of security architectures in the region, which is of course, there are a lot of questions whether ASEAN centrality is really centralizing or ASEAN is also currently facing of difficulties with regard to how to really keep the centrality of ASEAN initiative within the macro frameworks of dialogues and different kind of initiative for cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. From ASEAN itself, well, if you're looking at the back to the history, ASEAN originally also start from five-minded state and that extended into the whole of Southeast Asia to include also Vietnam-Cambodia laws. So this has also become 10 members. And also another initiative of ASEAN, ASEAN-plus, ASEAN-plus-plus, the ADMM, the ADMM-plus, and I would like also to value that ADMM as well as ADMM-plus is actually one of the, and relatively advanced by looking at the realities of security situations and cooperation in Southeast Asia. Well, in other side, the things that I would like to mention is the, I have mentioned on the Australia defense white paper, but also I need also to mention on the Indonesia side, well, a current Indonesia's government by stracings on the maritime fulcrum, some saying that it is maritime axis, but I personally prefer to use Indonesia or global. The term is Poros Maritim Dunia. Poros Maritim Dunia is global maritime fulcrum, but global is too big of course, but the term is becoming a seat very suitable within the framework of Indo-Pacific because for years and years and years, Indonesia already saying that we are located geostrategically between Indian Ocean and also within a Pacific Ocean. And of course, our attention to the Indian Ocean in the last until recently from Indonesia's point of view has been very much neglected because of problem of assets and problem of capability, especially if we have to go to have more activities in term of naval activities in Indian Ocean. But of course, the issues of security in Indian Ocean, there are two aspect. First, I would like to say the first one is the strategic issues, which I don't want to talk more about this. Strategic issues mean very much to how the military or traditional security issues in Indian Ocean. And the second one, what I call it a substrategic issues or non-traditional security issues. And on the issues of non-traditional, of course, it's opened up more cooperation. My argument is that cooperating in the substrategic or in a non-traditional security issues will help. In building better and deeper cooperation in the aspect of the strategic aspect or the military aspect. Well, there's been a lot of records in the past of cooperation between Indonesia and Australia from the formal military side, especially from the Navy side, whether it is Navy to Navy talk, senior official interactions, exercises, well, of course, different kinds of skills, trainings, and also multilateral fora in which Australia and Indonesia jointly are involved in the process, whether it is Western Pacific Naval Symposium or with the IONs, Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, which is the two countries also involved for joining. And the next month, there will be also exercise Commodoo. It will be held in certain side of the Australia, sorry, of Sumatra, which is in the Indian Ocean, taking the time of the IOD, the Indian Ocean Dialogue. So there will be Indian Ocean Dialogue and in the side, there will be Commodoo exercise and the participant of IOD as far as I understood will also be exposed to some meeting with those involved in the process of exercise. My final point I would like to mention is that, well, first, regional approach is always important, but bilateral mechanism is also very significant. It is not the choice. It's like when we are talking about America or China in the East Asia, America and China is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of realities in which we have to feel on. The other issues I would like to say is the need to building a block or web of cooperation. The first is the track one is, of course, track one and half as well as the second track and the third track and other initiative. Communications among leaders is important. I would like to say that developing kind of hotline in different kind of level is also important and help in reducing the potential of a surprise. People to people is always very important. Epistemic communities that are currently existing initiative for dialogue between Indonesia and Australia started for many, many years. There was also a currently existing channel for dialogue between the Indonesia's academia and also expert with Australia. In the past, we have YASFOR between Defense Academy here and also my center in Jakarta. And there is also AILA or Australia Indonesia Young Leaders. There is also some other proposal for dialogue of the potential leaders in the region as well as some kind of other proposal that is becoming larger. Like there is term initiative that being proposed called MANIS, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore. So there are at least there are many, many issues. I would like to say that final issues that would like to mention is cooperation in the maritime domain, especially maritime domain awareness. I would like to strengthen that cooperation between Australia Indonesia and neighboring countries on maritime domain awareness is so important because it will have then spillover into other area. Finally, I always personally felt you that this kind of cooperation could start from dialogue and dialogue that has been proliferating has been very much useful in different levels from the top level as well as to the lower to the people level. Thank you very much, yeah. Thank you very much Rufi for that presentation on a broad range of issues and in particular Indonesian leadership on Iraq. Our next speaker is Dr. Tang Jiangchun who is from the Centre of Arms Control at the China Institute of International Studies. Tang has served as a colonel in the Chinese People's Liberation Army in the Navy and in the Academy of Military Sciences and I'll invite him now to the podium. Good afternoon everyone. It's really a great pleasure to be here. Actually, this is my first time to this beautiful Kenchi even I know in charge of the American Studies and also the Shanique Studies in the Institute. According to the assignment given by Rory, I'd like to touch upon the China's maritime policy especially as a specific case study on the maritime Silk Road initiative by the Chinese leaders. First I should say the maritime policy of China has witnessed a big change in recent years especially in the year of 2012. I think that year was a milestone for China's maritime policy evolution. There are several big events happening in that year. The first is the standout between China and the Philippines over the Huangyan Island or Scarborough Reef in April that year. And the second is the standout between China and Japan over Diao Island in September that year. And also in November that year the 18th CPC National Congress also adopted a strategy so-called a strong maritime power strategy. So I think the year of 2012 is a very important year for us to understand China's maritime policy today. If we look back at the evolution of China's foreign policy since its funding, I just to give a brief introduction on the evolution. I divided into the evolution into three stages. The first is the ideology-oriented period of time during cold war time, China only made friends by ideology. We participate in the socialist bloc. And then since the open up reform, I think in late 1970s, China adopted trade-oriented foreign policy. And I'm sure almost every country in the world today is the good partner of trade. For example, the total amount of trade last year between China and the United States reached $588 billion years. And also the total amount of trade between China and the Asian countries reached $500 billion years last year. So we can not only address the challenges and the new phase of China, we should also address the contribution of China, Eurice and TES, especially in its role played to maintain the peace and stability and also to the trade development in this region. So I think the year of 2012 is very important for us to understand the maritime policy of China. Why? I just copied the paragraph in that report. I adopted it in November that year. According to the report of the CPC National Congress, China should enhance its capability for exploiting maritime resources, develop the maritime economy, protect the maritime economy environment, safeguard China's maritime rights and interests, and to build China into maritime power. Three parts I'd like to mention here. The first is the exploration of the sea. The second is the protection of the environment. And the third is the safeguard of China's maritime rights and interests. And the target is to build China into maritime powers after the year of 2012. We can find some changes of our policy toward the maritime dispute in Eastern China Sea and also in the South China Sea. So this is actually the policy change of China. Gave such a new momentum for the policies in dealing with the challenges in China. Some troubled seas. So I think the big change for China's foreign policy in recent years, especially when President Xi Jinping came into power in 2012, there is a fundamental change in that China's foreign policy is preferring to shape the environment surrounding the mainland of China from the responding China used to do in at least more than several decades. I mean, this is actually a fundamental change for China's foreign policy from responding to shaping its policies toward the neighboring countries, toward the dispute, very close to China. So the shift from responding to shaping is not only to shape some initiative but also to shape some mechanism. I think this is a good condition for the domestic development of China. China has put a lot of effort in six parties talks in dealing with DPRK nuclear issue and also China has tried its best in dealing with the standoff between Japan and China over the island and also now the South China Sea. So the maritime Silk Road actually is one part of our so-called road and belt initiative proposed by our President Xi Jinping. So I'd like to address five points. The first, what is a maritime Silk Road initiative, new initiative actually is old story with new significance. Silk Road was a trade road that connected the east and west and such a road went to both through the Eurasia continental area and also across the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. So this is actually old story for at least 2000 years there but it has new significance. The road also enhanced the exchanges of many groups, people to people and cultural exchanges. It has been an ancient road of peace, a development exchanges and cooperation. So the Silk Road was not intentionally built up. It's not a martial plan to give support or gave assistance for the sake of China's own interests. It's a natural development of our social productivity, something like a free market in our community because the citizens prefer to have such a free market to exchange their products and goods. The second point I'd like to mention here is a physical road with the spiritual vision. The MSR carrying trade and the businesses were people to people exchanges, sea and ocean have become more important in effort to have much better connectivity. This is actually a way for us to exchanges not only the goods but also the region, the thinking. Especially we have already entered a new era of our social life, the multi-polarization of international politics, the globalization of international economy and also the informationization of our social life. For example, in China, we chat actually social media completely destroy the traditional social life, even destroy the relations between husband and wife. The wife used to, when returns to, after work, the wife always used their WeChat, not only directed to direct face-to-face talk with husband, they used WeChat to exchange ideas and leave message for the family planning or something like that. So this is a new way of connectivity, not only for the products but also for the region, for the thought, for thinking of our social life, modern social life. So the Silk Road spirit, peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual linear and mutual benefit has been passed on from generation to generation, promoted the progress of human civilization and contributed greatly to the prosperity and development of the countries along the Silk Road. So the third point I'd like to address here is actually the MSR is a platform with great openness as a mission just now. The Road and Belt Initiative actually is not a mature plan to assist any country to give money to some country for the sake of the Chinese interest. It's open, it's inclusive to any country if you're willing to participate in such an initiative on the mechanism of construction. The Belt and Road Initiative was proposed and conducted with the principle of joint consultation or joint development and joint benefits. All countries along the Silk Road are welcome to plan, development and benefit together from the initiative. So the initiative aims to inject a strong impact in enhancing political mutual trust depending economic cooperation and promoting culture exchanges along, among relevant countries. This is the purpose. The fourth point I'd like to mention here is actually a new effort for cooperation. As I mentioned now, we are entered a completely new era for social life of our international relations. So MSR has no limitation on any specific country. Any country interested is welcome to join with more support from other countries and wider coverage across the region. It has become an initiative not for one country but also for other countries involved who are jointly advocates, builders and beneficiaries of the initiative. It's open to all the countries concerned. And the initiative is also a systematic project which should be jointly built through consultation to meet the interests of all. Of course, it's not easy. Different countries have different interests for insecurity in economy and also in international politics. And effort should be made to integrate the development strategies of the countries along the Belt and the Road. So to achieve the above goals, the Asian infrastructure investment bank, AIB, actually was already established in 2015 with the membership of more than 50 countries. This is actually not only an initiative. It's a mechanism. It's a complementary arrangement for the current money system in this region and in the world. So the fourth point I'd like to mention here in the road with Asian countries, for example. Actually, the MSR was proposed during a meeting visit of our president to Asian countries in October 2013. It's actually a very important part of our trade and political relations in this region, Asian countries. So the relationship between China and Asian nations witnessed a fundamental change in 1997. During that year, the Asian countries suffered a lot for the financial crisis. And China's active currency policy contributed greatly to the recovery of the financial crisis in this region. And from 2003, the relationship between China and the Asian nations also have witnessed a so-called golden period of development in politics, economy, and security. I think there is a fundamental change for the Chinese policy toward Asian nations is the enhancement of security cooperation. China used to be very cautious in dealing with the security issues in every area of the world, especially in Asian nations. But in recent years, we have witnessed the enhancement of security cooperation. For example, we carried out joint military drills with Malaysia last year just in the eastern part of Malacca Strait. So this is actually a new effort for the Chinese government to enhance its security cooperation, not only trade cooperation with Asian countries. So we talked a lot about the dispute or the standoff in the South China Sea. From 2012, in my opinion, I think the situation in the South China Sea has been in a stable condition, especially between China and the climates. For example, the Vietnamese government gave a very positive attitude toward China's South China Sea policy. And even the Filipinos, I think they stopped the, how can I say, the clash with our fishing boats. They used to take our fishing boat back to the Philippines and for money and for punishment and even for the Filipino military killed our fishermen in Huangyan Island somewhere. But since 2012, there has been no such a clash between China and the so-called climates in the South China Sea. But there is new change, new phenomenon there. This is a direct standoff between China and the United States. And the US sent its bombers, sent its fighting vessels very close to the reefs, to the island, under the control of Chinese military or civilians. I think there are at least four gaps between China and the United States in understanding the situation in the South China Sea. The first is history and reality. China, yeah, just two minutes. China always insist on the historic arrangement, especially after World War II. China recovered all the reefs and islands in the South China Sea back to the Chinese government from the Japanese occupation. This is actually arrangement by World War II. And we still have a, but the United States only talk about the current situation, the so-called militarization, the construction of civilian or military facilities there. So this is a big gap. How can we meet the gap? And the second is new law and the old ones. Actually, I think the international community today always talk about the union clause. It's only one international law. We still have another international agreement or documents, for example, the carol decoration, the post-term proclamation, and the surrounding documents signed by the Japanese government. This is a legal chain to give the sovereignty of these islands to Chinese government. No mention about that. So we should have a good understanding on the international laws, not only the union clause. And the gap three is the sovereignty and the freedom of navigation. We talk a lot, I just mentioned, and no further explanation. And the fourth gap is the militarization and self-defense. So I think the situation in the South China Sea, in my opinion, has been in a stable condition in recent years, especially from 2012. But the standoff between China and the United States has become real and direct. So this is actually a very tough job for the two countries, I mean, for China and the United States to sit down, to talk about the way out of the dilemma. Last year, I mean last September, during the state visit of our president to Washington, DC, both sides agreed to have a constructive approach to talk about the South China Sea dispute. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Tang, for that important and very rich presentation. I'm sure people want to explore further in question time. Our final speaker is Dr. Chris Rahman, who is the Principal Research Fellow from the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Willingong. He's an academic strategist with research focus on, amongst other things, maritime strategy and strategic theory, and he's going to speak to us now. Thank you. Thank you, Marina, and thanks to everyone for still being here this late in the day. I thought I would take a slightly different approach, and that's a slightly negative approach to the idea of cooperation and collaboration. I think we need to recognise that there are limitations to cooperation. Now, I'm not suggesting that cooperation, maritime security, doesn't occur. It hasn't, that it hasn't increased and deepened, thickened over the years, and that it can't improve further. In fact, I've been engaged for many years through ANCORs, through the DCP, under the International Policy Division of Defence, and with other Australian government agencies to actually deliver some of that cooperation and capacity building around the region. So I'm well aware that it occurs, but there are some limitations that we need to understand. And I'm going to look at this in two basic ways. The first is that there are inherent structural problems that limit the types and the depth of cooperation that can occur. One of the problems is that we're simply the inheritors of a very difficult, complex geography, particularly in East Asia, with all those outlying islands and archipelagos, semi-enclosed seas. Once you put a political and a legal overlay upon that geography, you have some inherent problems that are really difficult to overcome. The territorial disputes that we hear so much about also, I think, need to be viewed as intractable problems. It's not that states shouldn't try and work around those problems and talk. You know, if your church was definitely right, you know, Georgia was better than World War, but sometimes talking doesn't necessarily get you anywhere. And I think it's important in terms of practical cooperation that can occur to bite off small chunks that are doable. And related to that geography and those territorial disputes is the problem of jurisdiction, whether it's disputed or simply underlimited. And so there are many areas of maritime jurisdiction that remain unclear. And so if jurisdiction is unclear, then enforcement against criminal activity, for example, becomes extremely difficult and controversial. So it's bad news if you're a fish because there's no way to potentially protect those fish stocks in these areas. The second structural factor are a bunch of strategic factors. Some of those are related to the disputes, but I think the underlying strategic factors are not necessarily driven by those disputes. And there are many areas of geopolitical competition or often binary sets of dispute or historical mistrust that occur, often between some of the smaller states in the broader Indo-Pacific region. Just look at, for example, Ponga and VG. Extremely difficult to overcome a lot of those things. And the third part of that structural equation relates to this idea of this international rules-based order that we've discussed quite a bit today. And I take Marina's point earlier on that international law does evolve. But aspects of international law are set. It's very difficult to change certain things. And a particular convention that's central to our discussions is the Law of the Sea Convention. You cannot cherry-pick parts of the Law of the Sea Convention. It's a totality. It took literally decades to negotiate. It was a compromise. No one got everything they wanted. Coastal states got the regime of the EEZ. Maritime power has accepted the idea of the archipelagic state. It was pushed by Indonesia. The regimes of navigation, however, it was very clear during the third conference on the Law of the Sea that these issues were, for warships in particular, were controversial. But the actual convention that was agreed was quite clear. This idea about different interpretations or ambiguity, I simply do not accept. Some states willfully misinterpret those provisions in the Law of the Sea, and I think it's very important for us all to stand up for those provisions. The second point about the Law of the Sea is that it doesn't apply in the South China Sea or East China Sea. It's universal. It applies to that 70-plus percent of the Earth's surface that's covered by season oceans. So you can't have a different rule for one part of the world to the other parts of the world. And I do challenge one of the comments made earlier today that China is the sole primary threat to that international rules-based order. I mean, Russia signed a treaty that recognised the territorial integrity of the Ukraine, for God's sake, but if you look more broadly, there's an area of the world that we used to call the Third World. There's a lot of distrust. There's a lot of belief and inequity that these things, their time is coming and they need to have a place in the sun, if you like, both economically and politically. And I don't think that we've recognised sufficiently the potential fragility of this international system. And in fact, we in the West, we're at the political run, the cultural West, have probably added to the problem by overreaching, by expecting too much of international law and requiring international law, perhaps, too deeply. And so some of the crises of political legitimacy and many of our democracies around the world at the moment, sort of like a midlife crisis, I think can be linked to this loss of legitimacy related to the diminution of state sovereignty. I think it's a very dangerous course we're on. Second, and very quickly, I've got a couple of the issues that are listed here. And just to note a couple that are extremely difficult and tendentious to deal with in terms of cooperation. One is hydrography. Now, it's true that, for example, we provide hydrographic support to some of the states in the South Pacific, those who are willing to take the support, and that's fine. The cooperative mechanism for the Malacca and Singapore Straits includes some support for hydrographic surveys to map wrecks and things. But it can be very controversial. And so hydrography can be a pretty difficult area for collaboration. Another is IUU fishing. For those of you not familiar, IUU, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. It's incredibly complex. Under international law and coastal states are very constrained about what they can do to actually manage and stop, prevent this problem from occurring. One of the problems that we have in this broader region is that many of the perpetrators of IUU fishing are other parts, other states in our region, some of the neighbouring states. And one of the Maritime Security Corporation activities that we deliver for the Australian government, the Maritime Security Desktop Exercise, which is held in Indonesia, and will be there again next week, hosted by Bacamla. Last year, the representative of the Indonesian Minister for Marine Affairs and Fisheries got up and gave a speech on behalf of the Minister. And it's one of the most pointed things I've ever heard in Indonesian, say, to that type of international audience. 20 countries were represented there. And he said about Indonesia's current counter-IUU policy, where they're destroying the alleged IUU boats. He said, as a result of this policy, I believe some of our neighbours are having problems with their fish supply. And that coming from, in that environment, is a very, very pointed thing to say. And we know that the Thais and the Vietnamese and the Chinese and perhaps the Taiwanese and Filipinos are sort of ways you see quite problematic. So those issues are extremely difficult. The third extremely difficult issue, and I know piracy is mentioned there, but within Southeast Asia in particular, most piratical incidents occur within territorial waters. That is, waters under the sovereignty of the coastal state, whether that be internal waters, territorial sea, or archipelagic waters. Those waters are waters in which the international law and piracy does not apply. And so it's up to the coastal state to actually protect shipping and police their own waters. And ports, as often the case may be. So given the political sensitivities in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, over sovereignty issues, that means that unless they ask for outside support, it's simply a waste of time offering it. We can build capacity. We can educate in terms of the types of things they need to do, such as basic criminalising the offence. But there are severe limitations. Which kind of leads to the opposite issue, is that that's why counter piracy of Somalia or the search for MH370 has actually been very easy. Not necessarily operationally easy, but politically easy. There are easy things to do. I want to finish by suggesting that one of the areas and prospects for further cooperation lies within the area of information sharing. And this is something that has been talked about and indeed done over a number of years in different fora. But I think a couple of points need to be made. One is we shouldn't be talking about maritime domain awareness information. MDA is a bit of an overused term, but this is the maritime domain awareness refers to the integrated views, national product that often has a lot of very sensitive or classified information sources that are fed into it. What can be shared is not that MDA picture, but that the uncontroversial vessel track information that's already been done through a lot of many fora, but I think we need to find ways to integrate a lot of this information sharing, particularly of ships automatic identification systems. I'll finish there, thank you. Thanks very much. That will give us an opportunity to have, I think, some questions, 20, 25 minutes worth of questions on four very rich, insightful and important presentations. So can I please just invite questions from the floor? David Brewster, National Security College. We heard some very helpful comments on defense, Australian defense diplomacy and certainly the Pacific Petroleum Program or the Pacific Maritime Security Program now is really a shining example of success in that area. I was wondering what opportunities are available to extend that program geographically, not just deepening it to other areas, perhaps to our north or west, to other partner countries that may be requiring similar capabilities. Scott, did you want to talk? Well, thank you very much for the question. The patrol boat program and the PMSP, the follow-on program, because they have been successful, often invite this question. There is a real challenge of resources, quite frankly, and if we were to extend the geographic scope of the program and try and have what we have is it's one class of boat that goes to all of the countries and it's a relatively robust design, is what we're the current one and that's what we're talking about for the follow-on. If you try and then give that boat to different environments and different needs, it may or may not be successful is one thing. Secondly, I guess it's not the only, from an Australian point of view, it's not the only thing we can do to build maritime security more widely. So it's a great program. I think it works particularly well the Pacific Island countries. We're not considering expanding it geographically beyond the current scope. What we do is I guess we look at other things we can do in the maritime space, whether that's training and whether it's courses that Chris might be delivering on behalf of Defence or whether it's other training courses that we've delivered. That's more where we take our other maritime cooperation that we're not considering at this stage. Thank you. Chris Roberts from UNSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy. Thank you for a very interesting set of presentations. I guess my comment and then question is to Dr Tang. Just with regard, you raised some interesting points and I'd love to hear more at some point about the various legal documents that you commented on with the US vis-a-vis Japan, etc. But you raised an interesting comment with regard to the sort of competition or contests between China and the US since 2012, as that being the fundamental issue here. I'm not sure if we were to ask any colleagues from Vietnam or the Philippines whether they would agree. Given Scarborough Shoal incident, the Deep Sea Oil Reak 981, 2013, the island construction in areas that, to varying degrees, are claimed by other ASEAN claimants. So I'm just wondering how that statement could be justified from two other claimant states. I've heard in Beijing, when I've travelled up there, the idea that somehow the United States has been sort of manipulating the Philippines or Vietnam. But if we look at the history of Vietnam, Vietnam has a very independent foreign policy. And the Vietnam, I think, from their perspective, feels that its own sovereignty is being encroached. So perhaps you could just qualify those comments vis-a-vis the claimant states. Thank you. We might just take a second question too and perhaps invite the panelists to answer at the same time. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Kaneda from the director of the Okazaki Institute of Japan. I have two short questions to Dr. Tan Jian-kun. The first question is, when Mr. Obama visited Alaska State, Alaska State last year, so your Chinese surface squadron made, I would say, navigating through the U.S. island territory, along with the Aleutian island lines. What's the real purpose to do so? And I think, I'm not sure, but anyway, after this attempt, the U.S. made the first freedom of navigation operation around the South China Sea. I don't know why, but please, if you have some, please tell me. And the second thing is a maritime circle concept of China. Okay. We have many, many had a chance to show in the Chinese concept of maritime circle. And maybe the destination in the western side would be, for instance, Rotterdam of the Netherlands and so on. But what is the eastern end? I mean, starting point from China, maybe Shanghai or the other area. But anyway, those might be included, the East China Sea, or even the ELC, East China Sea, South China Sea. And you had many, many dispute of the territory issue with the South Korea, Japan, and South China Sea around some Asian countries. So how should you make a cooperation with those countries? Thank you. Three questions. First is about the response from the claimants of the South China Sea, the gentleman asked me. I think that, and also the relations between China and the United States in that area. First, I should say the competition between China and the United States in economy, in security, has been intensified in recent years. And China prefers to shape a good environment for its domestic development. I think the most important job even today for the Chinese government is to have a strong momentum of the domestic development. After nearly 40 years reform and open up, we are facing a lot of problems. For example, economic development, pollution, and political reform, for example, the anti-corruption. That's really a serious challenge for the government, for the current government, even for the Communist Party. So I think domestic challenge has been the most important serious challenge for the Chinese government. In order to have a good momentum of our development at home, China would like to shape a stable, peaceful environment surrounding China, that country. But we are facing new challenge from the United States, especially after the pivot first, and now the rebounding strategy by the U.S. Obama's administration from 2009. Actually, the situation in the South China Sea used to be very stable, very calm before 2009, and then suddenly become a flashing point. And I can tell a story. During the Spring Festival this year, when I returned to my hometown, my father's colleagues at the age of more than 80s asked me a very interesting question. China and the United States are going to wage a war in the South China Sea. I asked, where did you get such information? The media. So today's the situation in the South China Sea actually is not only a standoff between the two navies. It's a game played by the media. It's a game played by the politicians. It's a game by the third parties in the world. Everybody wants to manipulate the contradictions between China and the ASEAN nations, especially the Clemens, for their own sake. For example, the militarization. Actually, I don't think China militarized the South China Sea. The construction, I can give you some evidence. For example, thanks to the UNESCO, there was a resolution in early 1987. According to UNESCO, a resolution adopted in Paris in that year, the Chinese government should construct the number 74 observation station. According to that resolution, there should be 300 observation stations all over the world. And 74 voted by all the participants more than 80 countries attended the conference, including the United States, including the Philippines, including the Vietnamese delegation. No country, even in 1987, no country said, this cannot be given to the Chinese government, which means the sovereignty over these islands and territory should belong to China at that time. Then suddenly, you know, the South China Sea has become a fresh point. And the public, even at the age of more than 80s, asked me a question, are China and the United States going to wage war in the South China Sea? So my assessment about the situation in the South China Sea is quite opposite. The situation there has been stable, has been in a very controllable condition, but the most challenging thing is the, you know, deep involvement of the United States and the standoff between China and the United States. This morning, I asked Admiral Swift a question about the response from the Chinese PR Navy. Is the response professional? He answered, yeah, that's positive. Why? Because numerous, you know, fighting vessels, you know, surrounding the aircraft carrier battle group, but the channel, the common channel, used by the two navies, used, you know, frequently talking about everything, you know, according to the MOU. So I think this is actually a very tricky situation in the South China Sea. And the Chinese PR Navy will participate at the RIMPAC this year. On the other side, you know, this is a good cooperation, you know. So in terms of the patrolling, you know, vessels in, very close to Alaska, I think this is, that was actually a routine training, not a response to the, you know, the staying of President Obama in Alaska. So I think, I think it was just an increase in time. Thank you very much. Is that it? Yes? Another question, I'm sorry. About MSR, I'm sure, it's a flag. It's not physical in a way only, just a Western world or East world. According to our initiative, actually, we established, I think this is a very hot topic, a hot project in China. A lot of institutes established centers and some academies and just studying the road and belt initiative because this is a proposal from our boss, from our big boss, from our president. Everyone wants to participate in the study and in the project. So in my opinion, it's a long way to go. It's a flag, it's a vision, it's a dream. You cannot say Japan cannot be included. It's inclusive to every country as mentioned just now in my presentation. Everyone, you know, it's a free market. Every citizen, if you're going to, you know, have some products, you can, you know, put your product on the street and for exchanges of the products. This is my understanding, not only, you know, include the western part of the world or not the eastern part of the world. And actually, we have some discussions with our counterpart from OK. They were interested in the participation of the AIB and also the road and belt initiative. Thank you very much. I might just bring it back to Maritime Security just in the interest of time. We'll take two questions, one from the middle and one from Rory here. Perhaps invite the panel to respond. Thanks. Bob Lowry, I'm a visitor at the University of New South Wales at ADVENT. If we could take up Dr Tang's assertion that the basic problem in the South China Sea is the American presence, I'd like to ask Dr Rivki Muna to give his opinion on whether it would be a good idea to force the U.S. back to Guam and Hawaii and get them out of the region. Would it simplify the problem in terms of ASEAN, ASEAN resolving the problem with China? Look, that's a very... I'll just add Rory Metcalf, Head of National Security, I'll just add what I'll do very brief questions, if I may, to that, I think, very interesting, intriguing question from my colleague Bob. I wanted to ask one question to Dr Tang Junshun and also one question to Rivki Muna. If other panellists want to add to the answers to those, please do, but I know time's short. On the Maritime Silk Road, your presentation was very focused on the economic dimensions of that initiative. It is a geo-economic initiative, as I would understand it. But of course, in addition, China's role over the wider region, including the Indian Ocean region, will have a security dimension. And we're seeing that and we're seeing other countries respond to that. So these are a bit anxious about what that means. So I wonder if you, in a moment, could explain what you think is the security dimension of the Maritime Silk Road. And to Dr Rivki Muna, in your view about the relationships Indonesia needs to build to really contribute as much as it can to regional maritime security, I'd be interested in any further thoughts you have on whether India features in those relationships. Thank you. Thank you. Dr Muna, I think the first question was directed to you. If you want to go first. Well, I'll start from these questions. Of course, India is always in the equation that to address security in the region, well, it is not about the sub-China sea, but my presentation mostly looking at the eastern Indian Ocean and Indonesia-Australia relation to address maritime security in the region. Of course, India will be there and India must be a part of the process. And that's the significance. Especially from Indonesia's point of view, we have direct boundaries with India and nearby the Andaman-Nikoba, which is also on many aspects. India will be consulted and there has been increasing levels of cooperation and also military, interaction between Indonesia and India. Another issues regarding the ASEAN and Indonesia's view from Bob, Indonesia's view on ASEAN and Indonesia's view on the sub-China sea, the view is very much clear, actually, because ASEAN has been advocating for quite some time to propose this Code of Conduct, which is to take some time and Indonesia also proposed the zero draft from Minister Martina Talagawa. Basically, let everyone stop the existing activities and make the sub-China sea into the sea of common, and let's work together to bring peace in the region and, of course, pushing the Code of Conduct will become so important. At this point of view, there has been 20 times initiative to bring conflicting parties from the early of the 1990s to sit together discussing on the managing potential conflict and the sub-China sea from the non-sensitive aspect. So actually Indonesia is pushing for the memory countries to work more on different kinds of issues, whether it is maritime pollution, also on aspect that related to navigation and so on, which is possibly to cooperate and to work rather than on the high politics, because we do believe that if we're looking at from the contestations of sovereignty, there will be no solution. So everybody, our members of who are involved in the conflict should also restrain. So I heard that ASEAN is also working on some little of progress on this new Code of Conduct, but we never know what will actually happen with that. Thank you. I think the road about the initiative, of course, is of security implication to the outside world. And we repeated an ask by Russian counterpart and by Indian counterpart in recent years, what does it mean to have road and belt construction? For example, in Central Asia, that used to be the backyard of the former Soviet Union. If China is going to construct an economic belt just across the Central Asia, what does it mean to the security of Russia? And this is really a tough question to give a very positive answer. And from the Indian side, I think last week we met a delegation from New Delhi. They also asked such a question according to the roadmap. At least the belt, the road, just surrounding the dead country, what is the security implication to India? I think at this moment, to my knowledge, I think the Chinese government, especially President Xi, just only to address the economic cooperation and the connectivity, because China is willing to share achievements in its reform and open up. It's not a propaganda. I'm not a spokesman for the government. I think this is actually really a good idea to have more stable neighboring countries, as I mentioned. It's a condition for our domestic development. For example, if there is a disaster or war clash in DPRK, I'm sure China would suspend all military reform and other reform now is under its way. It's a very crucial moment for the Chinese reform. If any war or clash just in our neighboring countries, China will completely change its policy, domestic policy and foreign policy. That's why China has put much effort in maintaining the stable condition in Korean Peninsula. So I think in terms of security cooperation, as I mentioned in my presentation, actually the Chinese government has attached great importance to the security cooperation with our neighboring countries. We carried out maritime jails with Malaysia last year. We also carried out Air Force Jail with Thailand last year. We sent at least 30 task forces to Aiding Bay to fight against the piracy there. Of course, it's an assignment from the United Nations. And according to the newly adopted counterterrorism law, I think adopted last year by the People's Congress, the Central Military Commission has the right to send PRA abroad. That means China will use force, of course, at the commission from the Central Military Commission to protect the regional interests and China's interests. Actually, China's PR Navy did quite well in recent years. For example, the evacuation of our overseas Chinese from Yemen. We used our task force in Aiding Bay to evacuate the overseas Chinese. So I think this is a new assignment for the PR military to have more secure cooperation with our neighboring countries. Thank you. John McFarlane from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. And this is for Scott Dewar. Scott, I found your presentation very interesting, particularly that aspect relating to the Pacific Maritime Security Program and its expansion into areas that go beyond the Pacific Patrol Boat Program. You mentioned that part of the task would be strengthening regional institutions. I wonder if you could explain exactly what sort of institutions you have in mind and what expertise would the Defence Force have to assist in enhancing the capabilities of such institutions. Sure. Thanks very much for the question. Specifically, we're talking about the Foreign Fisheries Agency as the main one. And I guess what Defence can bring to that is operational expertise in terms of if we're going to have aerial surveillance and queuing of boats and coordination of assets across areas, that's something that I think Defence can bring. But that's not the only part of the whole change. Someone was speaking before about building legal capacity. I think it might have been you, Chris, mentioned in terms of how you enforce, for example, fisheries rights to deal with IUU. Defence won't be taking on that role, but it's more that operational side, I guess, is what we're talking about. So if you've got basically what we're going to end up with, and hopefully is a more capable boat than we've had longer range and so on, we combine that with aerial surveillance. We can queue the assets more effectively, but to tie that all together, you're going to need operational coordination and that's the sort of expertise that we can bring. We're also hoping there that it won't just be Australian Defence in that. We'd be looking to regional militaries and also where it's not militaries, but fisheries agencies and others perhaps coming on board. And also, you know, if other key partners in the region like the French, of course, or the Americans and the Kiwis want to play a role in that as well, in that coordination role, that would be very welcome. Thank you very much. I think you're a bunch of mutually supporting regional institutions, not just the FFA, but the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, the Nui Treaty and all the arrangements that go around that in terms of cooperation to enforce EEZs that don't hold any high seas. I agree. Just an additional related to questions on India. Actually, in the last few years, there has been very much higher interactions and also a process taking the advantage of IR, the Indian Ocean Dream Associations, Indonesia, India and Australia and the Eastern Indian Ocean play very much role in that. There is also another initiative like TDIO, the Trilateral Dialogue on Indian Ocean, which is India, Australia and Indonesia. And there is also ongoing next month on Indian Ocean Dialogue. So there will be a lot of expos between Indonesia, Australia and India within the dynamics of the Indian Ocean cooperation. There will be many dimensions with that. Thank you. Thanks very much and please all join hands together again to thank our forest team speakers who will get a big pitch now.