 Good afternoon. I'm Bruce Luckham from the National Security College here at the ANU. I'm fortunate enough today to be talking to Dr. Amy Sebrite, who's a senior advisor and director in the Southeast Asia program from CSIS in Washington, DC. And she's an expert on East Asian security. Good afternoon Amy. If I could start off with an obvious question, regional reactions to President Trump. I know that under ex-president Obama, the US put a lot of effort in developing relations with Southeast and Northeast Asia, although there was still a little bit of a worry about the sustainability of that US commitment. How do you think the the rise and the presidency of Donald Trump is playing into those regional dynamics? Yeah, I think there is some anxiety. As you mentioned, there was already anxiety in the Obama administration about our staying power, our commitment. And you know I think a couple of things have caused some regional anxiety about a Trump administration. One is what he said in the campaign about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, and then of course on day one he withdrew the United States from the TPP. So I think that sends a very worrisome strategic signal to the region about US commitment towards economic leadership in the region and more broadly strategic leadership and engagement with the region. On the other hand, you know President Trump has signaled that he wants to build a larger military and in some of his comments related to China, the South China Sea, it sounds like he does want to have a focus on regional stability in this region. So I think a lot of dynamics will have to play out before countries in the region really know how he's going to deal with close alliances in the region and emerging partnerships. But another thing that's caused I think a little bit of concern is that the region has not yet heard from President Trump anything about Southeast Asia or ASEAN or very much about India and some of those other regional issues or frameworks that are not just our key allies in Northeast Asia and the issue with China. So I think there's going to be a lot of interest over the next several weeks once his administration gets filled out to hear what the leadership of his administration have to say about regional dynamics. Okay, can I pick up you mentioned TPP, one of the things I think it's fair to say about the pivot regionally it was seen as quite military centric and the TPP this is leaving aside private sector activity but it's sort of a more government to government level. The TPP was seen as I guess the centerpiece of US economic engagement in the region. How do you think that has gone down in Asia leaving aside the direct economic impacts but the symbolism of his first day in office he sort of puts an arrow through it? I think it's devastating, it's devastating to US credibility in the region. I mean after all the United States led the negotiations on TPP for five years and TPP partners put a lot of things on the table including things that were very difficult for them in terms of their domestic political situation for the TPP and then now with this new president we're turning our backs on this agreement and really on our TPP partners and beyond that a lot of countries in the region had really pinned their hopes on TPP even those that were not current signatories. So countries like well economies like Taiwan and South Korea and Indonesia and the Philippines I mean all of these countries had really hoped to join the TPP in the next stage and saw that as really pivotal to their economic future and they want to see a region that's led by the United States and kind of a high high level of rules and standards. So I think it's in a really terrible message and I think it has done real strategic damage to our position in Asia. On the other hand you know I still think there's a very strong logic behind TPP in terms of the economic benefits to the American people and American companies and the strategic benefits so you know we're so I hope that at some point in this administration they will find a way to come back to TPP and fix whatever they're unhappy with but but put it back on the table. How much has the failure to get the TPP through given sort of a free run to China in the sense that they're obviously very aggressive bilaterally but also multilaterally through one belt one road our set regional comprehensive economic partnership they're sort of instrumental in pushing that. You could argue that by the U.S. sort of at least temporarily sort of pulling back economically from from the region in a government sense it's sort of given the Chinese a bit of a free pass really. Yeah I mean I think that's right I think in this kind of strategic vacuum now on economic leadership China is certainly going to step in and fill that void so in that sense it really has created tremendous strategic space for China in terms of leading discussions on the regional comprehensive economic partnership or RCEP and some of the other economic initiatives the one belt one road and other things. You know at the same time I don't think it's a zero sum game so you know even if we had had TPP enacted we could very well have seen RCEP come into play and they're just very different agreements with you know to some degree different memberships and they will accomplish different things so it's again it's not a zero sum game we can have RCEP. The bigger problem in my eyes is that we don't have a TPP so at a time when countries are going to be looking to integrate around standards that are going to be put forth by RCEP and other trade arrangements the United States is left out of that and it's not going to be the high standards that would really benefit not only American companies and American workers but the region as a whole in my view because the region as a whole will do much better if they integrate in terms of you know more open economies and high standards that will really continue to attract investment and efficient and high productivity in the years to come. Can I ask you to gaze into a crystal ball in the sense that with the current uncertainties there are various paths options the countries particularly smaller ones in Southeast Asia could could follow they could try and get ASEAN a bit more proactive they could try and form alliances or alliances are on word but but move closer to some of the larger partners or they could fall more into China's ambit as arguably the Philippines has or they could do nothing and just sit and wait and see it and see what happens over the next two months how do you think or is it possible to discern a sort of regional reaction or like a regional reaction or is it too soon no I do think it's too soon to tell I think we'll have to wait and see how the Trump administration and their Asia their approach to Asia how that plays out and how it's received I mean certainly withdrawing from TPP does not help but we still have the United States still has very strong security partnerships with many allies and and partners in the region it's United States is still to a large degree the security partner of choice for many of these countries and we've seen tremendous remarkable progress in our security relationships with countries like India and Vietnam in recent years for example and and continued progress on stronger partnerships like we have with Singapore and allies like Japan and Australia and others so but you know countries in this region small southeast Asian countries have long calculated how to balance their very strong economic relationship with China and their very strong security partnership with the United States and others in the region and that calculation is is always prone to shifts when there are domestic political transitions so new people come in to power as we saw president to territory in the Philippines and they come in with a different view or a different approach or they want to try something different and so I it's natural to see that sort of ebb and flow of countries moving closer to the China orbit and you know maybe moving back closer to the United States or working having more of a focus on their ASEAN partnerships and really trying to build up strength and resilience in ASEAN and then kind of giving up for a while thinking that that's too difficult and moving back towards more of a focus on their larger partners so I think those dynamics are pretty natural and normal and they'll continue but but I think it's incumbent on the Trump administration to show up in the region you know come to Southeast Asia president Trump needs to go to the APEC summit in Vietnam and the East Asia summit in the Philippines and engage with Southeast Asian partners and general Mattis now secretary of defense and the secretary of state when if Rex Tillerson is confirmed they need to come out to the region and show that they remain a hundred percent committed to building up those kind of partnerships and that really I think will go a long way towards you know keeping us engaged you know keeping a kind of a really productive relationship with the United States in many of these countries. Just one final question before you I'll let you go back to the conference. If you had to give advice to our policymakers over here given the particular uncertainties in Southeast Asia what would it be in terms of how we can sort of perhaps even fill some of the vacuum the US leaves in the short term? Well even you know putting the president Trump the Trump administration aside I think that the the fact that Australia has such strong partnerships with so many countries in the region in Southeast Asia for example it's always helpful to have those partnerships continue to build and strengthen so a good example of that is the Philippines you know President Duterte has really signaled he's wanted to sort of move away a little bit from the United States and the security alliance that we have with the Philippines so it's an excellent time for Australia which may be the closest country after the United States in terms of a security partnership to step in and do as much as possible in terms of building partner capacity engaging with the Philippine armed forces and some joint exercises and training since you know Australia is the only other country outside the United States that has a a reciprocal agreement or an agreement for visiting forces and doing those kinds of things I think is tremendously helpful and valuable and then you know if President Duterte and President Trump rebuild a relationship and he invites the United States back in to the same level of security cooperation we have before that's terrific but you know having Australia there is only you know it's it's it's just a multiplier effect so I think the more that Australia can do with key partners including Japan the kind of strategic partnership that you're building with Japan is it sends a very strong signal to the region and in the long run will have a very powerful effect and then of course all of us are building closer ties with India and so I think all of that you know the more that Australia can do with or without the United States under the Trump administration but the more that Australia can do to build partnerships in the region the better for all of us