 Think Tech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome to the Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is Mr. Sean King, Senior Vice President of Parks Strategies. He's joining us from New York City where it's 11 o'clock at night and we really appreciate him going back to his office and joining us for this interview. Our show, what is Indo-Pacific Strategy? What is the U.S.'s strategy in Asia these days? And that's a great place to start and it leads me into my first question just very naturally and I'll put it to Sean. Sean, what is the U.S. policy in Asia today? I don't think we really have one right now. I think under Trump we have a number of individual strategies, first different countries and different issues, but I don't think we have any holistic Asia strategy. Trump views everything as a transaction where he can get leverage on people. It doesn't look at things in the big picture. Not to say that everything was great under Obama, but Secretary Clinton came in with certainly clear view of what she thought about mainland China and her assistant secretary for East Asia, Kirk Campbell, definitely had back from his days at the Pentagon under Bill Clinton, had a view of what Asia was and what it could be with U.S. leadership. So unlike the Obama years, we look at each country and each issue one by one, but don't have an overriding strategy. That is really the heart of the Trump approach to international trade relations and strategic relations. He doesn't like anything that's multi-layered at all. It's all bilateral, bilateral, bilateral. And I think that's what you're saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's a great point. Well, look, okay, now the administration has come up with a strategy called the Quad, okay? And you know, I'm not sure if this constitutes U.S. policy in Asia. Well, supposedly it does. But just how deep the roots of it go, I don't know. What is it? What is the Quad? How would you define the Quad? Well, this is the second iteration of the Quad. The Quad came up the first time after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, where the democracies of the region wanted to be able to confront natural disasters. And Japan, India, the U.S. and Australia then took it on for more geostrategic terms. But when Kevin Rudd, who was very Beijing-friendly, became Australian Prime Minister, he kind of dropped off and it lost its momentum. Now it's been brought back as part of America's Indo-Pacific strategy, sort of looking for a vehicle into what, to put Pompeo's belated Indo-Pacific strategy. But India's definitely kind of the weak link among the Quad, and we can get into that later. But I thought we already had an Indo-Pacific strategy, which would have been the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which we sadly took ourselves out of. So I see this as too little, too late, and focused only on naval power, only four countries, and some of them with different competing agendas. You know, that's really interesting because as soon as Trump got into office, he pulled the rug out from underneath TPP. He didn't waste any time on that at all. And I thought that was pretty much a tragedy. But okay, now the Quad, okay, as it exists, and as you mentioned, India is perhaps of late shown some second thoughts about it, but as you say, we can get into that later. What about the pivot, the so-called rebalance? Is that still there in your view, or is that not? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, I remember flying back to Japan two days after Trump's election and the Wall Street Journal opinion editorial said that the pivot was one of the things Obama did well. Now it was Trump's chance to double down on it and really make it count. But I feel in certain individual areas he's leaned in more, certainly on Korea, depending however you see it, and certainly on Taiwan, Trump's been good, sort of since June 2017. But again, there's no overriding strategy, and I can't overstate the self-inflicted wound it was to leave TPP, because mainland China are the main part of the region. That's it. We threw the ball, we threw a pass to China on that. Right. Yeah, we sort of opened the door for Beijing to move in and take advantage of our absence, because mainland China is not going anywhere, they're there, and by us leaving TPP after we got so many of our friends and allies to join us, most notably Japan, it shows we're kind of thick, we'll come and go, and then we can't be counted on. So if we're asking the Philippines or Vietnam, and even though Philippines wasn't in TPP, they certainly see how we interact with the region, but I'm especially thinking of someone like Vietnam. You know, we asked them to hold the line in the South China Sea, but we couldn't even stay in a trade agreement that we wanted them to join. So it kind of makes our commitment not really stand up. That's an interesting comment. Now you said something just an minute ago, I kind of want to pick up on, you said we leaned in on Korea. What do you mean by that? Well, I think it's Trump has, in terms of putting his focus and time and energy, it's not that he's ignored Asia. In fact, he spent a lot of more time in Asia than I ever thought he would. And with so little to show on denuclearization, I'm not surprised he doesn't want to go to the ASEAN Summit in Singapore in November. I mean, ASEAN's kind of a waste of time anyway, as we've seen the bad position they've taken on Burma over the years, both with the Penta and power and now with Aung San Suu Kyi looking the other way with the ASEAN or APEC? I'm talking ASEAN. I'm happy. I'm totally fine with him not going to ASEAN. It's a waste of time. He probably doesn't want to go back to the scene of the crime, as it were, where he gave the story to Kim Jong-un on military exercises, but not getting anything on denuclearization. But I think it's really a mistake not to go to APEC and Papa New Guinea because there is a battle for influence going on in the West Pacific. And we look at mainland China moving into the Pacific, especially with a lot of these compacts coming due in places like Chuuk. I think for us not to go to Papa New Guinea at this time, it really sends a bad signal to the region. Let me listen to Trump in here and just clarify for our audience something. Trump is not going to the ASEAN conference and he's not going to APEC. He's not going to both. Right. And maybe it's better he sent Pence because he's less likely to annoy people or say things that'll make people upset. But all they'll know is these people know they've been downgraded as a not a priority for the president. And if you want to skip ASEAN, that's fine. But I think APEC, given the location, even though the organization is even more useless than ASEAN, I think it's a mistake not to go. I don't like where the president's going on Korea because I think he's buying into this denuclearization scam from North Korea and also by withdraw, cancelling our military exercises and calling them provocative. It's done into service to the U.S.-South Korean alliance. But at least he spent a lot of time on it. He's put a lot of personal investment in it. And he's certainly been shoring up Taiwan. That's the one exception to this. But what I'm saying is he's looking at each situation in each country individually as opposed to putting it to some kind of holistic strategy. And that's what the real difference is versus the Obama years. That's an interesting comment. And I think that very much reflects his background as a big-time Manhattan developer, building by building, building by building. And it also is how he approaches a lot of domestic policy, too. Interesting. OK. Well, on Korea now, Matt has said that very recently that, hey, guess what, we're going to, we're going back to those joint military exercises, but I think it's not starting until next year. What I think he said was, and I'm reading Woodward's book, so I got to be careful whenever I'm quoting Matt. But what I think he says was there are no plans for further exercise suspensions, which you can take as the exercise is going ahead. But as we learned in the Singapore summit, whatever the professionals think, that doesn't mean what Trump's going to decide, because apparently he called an audible on those exercises and just decided on the fly, not consulting Matt, it's not consulting Shinzo Abe, and just spontaneously announced at that press conference in Singapore that we were canceling the exercise. And I think this is probably something that came up in this private meeting with Kim Jong-un before the two delegations arrived at the Capella Hotel in Singapore. And this is the problem when he has these private meetings. Nobody else knows what was said or what was given away, sort of like with Putin and Helsinki. Right. That's a good point. That's a really good point. Well, let me ask you this. Do Asian countries still want US protection and still want access to the US market? Is that kind of a model that's been going on for quite a while? Well, even our rivals, like mainland China, want access to the US market. That's obvious. I mean, that's a big cry. But certainly, I think they want US protection. Now, South Korea is a little different because it's sort of a Civil War situation with the North. And you don't have a nationalist-left government in Mojain. And a lot of his base resents anything foreign, including US troops. So that's a little different. But if you look at Taiwan, you look at Southeast Asia, certainly Vietnam, Singapore, even Malaysia to a degree, they definitely want the US around. And they want US strong. Duterte doesn't. But that's another peculiar case because he's had it out for America since he was a kid. You know, my take on the Philippines is Duterte doesn't necessarily like the US. But the Filipino defense establishment does. And it likes America a lot. And the Filipino population does. So Duterte won't be here forever. So I think long term, we'll find out, it's moments like this, how long have you realized how durable the bonds between countries are when they have unusual leaders? But I think long term US and Philippines will be just fine. I think that's a good point. You made a couple of really good points there. So we have a quad where, and this picking up on a couple of things we mentioned about India before, where India seems to be giving a little bit, some having some second thoughts about just how. But we forget, you know, India, when I was a kid during the Cold War, I was always told India voted against us at the UN by 80% of the time. And their entire Air Force was made up of Soviet兵s. And then Pakistan was our friend until we suspended the F-16 cells to them under the Press Law Amendment. But since 2005, and then with the Mumbai attacks in 2008, India's really moved closer to the US. And obviously Modi and Trump are kinda two similar characters, and they get along very well. But India, at the end of the day, is still very much a proud, independent, non-aligned nation. And they don't like being sucked into alliances either way. And they've always been leaders of the non-aligned movement. And with Malaysia, I see sort of the same thing with Mahathir. He is certainly moving to cut off Malaysia's dependence and embrace of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative projects. I don't think it's out of any love for America, though, because after living two years in Singapore, watching Malaysia politics up close, because there are no, you know, not as exciting politics in Singapore, you could say. He's just a prickly sort who doesn't like anybody. And I think this is more of a domestic issue with him to get to the bottom of what happened with 1MDB against Najib. I don't think this is any great love of America that he's rejecting Beijing. I think this is really the 1MDB politics of it all. And Malaysia's still a proud, non-aligned, independent nation. And I think India's the same way. Although their rivalry with Pakistan, who's close to China, brings them closer to us, but they're not ready to jump on board as if they're an alliance partner. Well, you might also throw Indonesia into that group, because Indonesia has this proud history of being a staunch member of the non-aligned movement. And the US always wants to get close to Indonesia, but Indonesia seems to reciprocate and kind of box off, yeah. Right. And another thing on India, if I could say, this is where Trump's economics also kind of do us a strategic disservice, because with Trump cracking down on it, making it difficult to get the extensions on H-1B visas for a lot of Indian professionals coming into the US, I know that's annoyed Modi and annoyed the Indian business community. Now, Modi's not gonna cut off his nose despite his face on security, just to get back at us over visas. But it's just another one of these unnecessary annoyances that we throw at our friends. One of Trump's problems is, is he doesn't save his animus for when it counts. And he seems to go after Justin Trudeau and Theresa May as much as he goes after Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping. It doesn't differentiate. He treats our friends and enemies the same. In fact, personally speaking, it seems like he treats our enemies better than our friends. I think that's true. When he messes with Angela Merkel, I think that that's definitely going the wrong way because she is, she might not be as popular as she was. And her image might not be as good as it was, but it's still very, very high. She's elected by her own people. Right. Okay, well, we're just about, we're approaching the break here. We have one minute here. Let's just quickly talk about the new Australian Prime Minister. What's your take on him? Have you had a chance to check into him at all? I don't want to invest too much time in him because I don't know how long he's going to be around. Okay. And I don't, and what did catch my eye though is that last week Beijing blocked the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website and media going in and out of mainland China. So I don't know what the Aussies have done to upset China more than usual, but maybe they don't like it very much. Well, Australia is undergoing a huge rethink on its relationship with China, and that's a substance of a show we didn't know of itself. You know, I think we'll just go to break right now. This seemed to be a pretty convenient time to do it. You're watching Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. My guest today is Mr. Sean King, a frequent visitor here with us on Asian Review. He's joining us from New York City where it's 11 o'clock at night and we really appreciate him staying up late and going back to his office. And we'll be right back in one minute, so don't go away. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, host on Think Tech Hawaii of Pacific Partnerships in Education. Every other Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m., I hope you'll join us as we explore the value, the accomplishments, and the challenges of education here in the Pacific Islands. I'm Jay Fidel of Think Tech. Come around every Tuesday at 2 p.m. with John, David, Ann, and me. We're talking about history, history lens. Right, John? Exactly, seeing current events through the lens of the past. Absolutely, see you next time. Okay, Jay, thanks. Aloha, I wanna invite all of you to talk story with John Wahee every other Monday here at Think Tech Hawaii. And we have special guests like Professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii who joins us from time to time to talk about the political happenings in this state. Please join us every other Monday. Aloha. Welcome back to Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp, our show today. What is the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy? It's really, it's a very challenging question to deal with. There are several aspects to it. And I've invited Sean King, who is Senior Vice President of Park Strategies based in New York City, to help us unravel the mysteries of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. So we're talking about some of the players in the countries involved in the Quad. And we're talking about Australia. We talked about the new Australian Prime Minister, but there's another Australian Prime Minister. We should say this the word or two about. And that's former Australian Prime Minister, former Australian Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, now based in New York City, working with, I believe, the Asia Society. What's your take on Prime Minister Rudd? Well, I mean, I've seen him host a number of events here at Asia Society, and he's very well-spoken and obviously knows the region, and speaks Chinese as he never misses a chance to remind his audience. But if you're just looking at terms of the Quad and the positioning in Asia at the time, he probably took us back in terms of, a few steps back in terms of countering mainland Chinese expansion and influence in the region. Now, this was before Obama came in maybe we weren't ready to really embrace the hard-line Australian government, but well, actually Obama wasn't for part of his term because Julia Gillard came in in 2010. But yeah, I thought it was a step back in sort of opening a door for mainland China and to the region. I interesting, you know, I've had the sense that he was very Chinese friendly in the past, but he's moved away from that a bit. What's your take? Well, you would have to be because, you know, now he's an Asian society, he's in New York, he's probably hearing some of the hard-line US rhetoric, and the Australian population has really moved away from China a lot of ways. As a former reader of The Economist, I don't really read it anymore because it seems to be the same stories every week, although once in a while I want to pick one up in a hotel or an airport lounge, I enjoy it, like in Chicago here last week. But I remember in the early 90s, Australia was having this soul-searching whether or not China's gonna be their main ally, or not ally, but friend or market or partner going forward. But I think with the Rio Tinto employees who were detained in Australia, the Chinese diplomats in Australia interfering with the movie festivals with the Uyghurs and different things, I think a lot of the Australian population has been turned off by Beijing sharp elbows, and any evolution in that direction by Kevin Rudd is reflected by the populace in general. That's a very interesting point, and I might add too, as China pushes its way into the South Pacific, an area which Australia has exercised a lot of influence, it's not going down well in Canberra. Not going down well at all. No, no, and New Zealand too, and they're very important. The Cook Islands, which are affiliated with New Zealand, when Secretary Clinton went there as Secretary of State, I thought that was a really important signal to the region, which again brings me back to how sad I am that Trump's not going to pop into Guinea. Just one thing on the quad, we talked about how the current troubles in the US Philippines relationship will show us what the real relationship is between our countries going forward, and I think we'll be okay. I think our abandoning Asians certain ways by pulling out a TPP and whatnot has really been a healthy growing experience for Japan, and Abe sort of keeping our seat warm in Asia until we figure out what we're going to do. The way he is resurrected and saved TPP without America, he's really taken the leadership of pre-Asia against Beijing. I think that's a very good point. I think that is a good point. And Abe does have leadership qualities, although this might be other things that people say about him. Yeah, we saw the Japanese submarine in the South China Sea yesterday, and I think this has really forced Japan to find itself and grow into a leadership position in Asia. So once things get back to normal, whenever that will be, I think we'll find Japan a much more equal and stronger partner, and I think maybe the long-term alliance will be better for it. You know, it's also interesting that you mentioned the Japanese submarine in the South China Sea. Also, Japan has two, what do they call those? Aircraft carrying heavy destroyers or something like that. These are really helicopter aircraft carriers, right? But with some minor modifications, they could be made to carry and to launch F-35s, you know, the F-35 vertical takeoff. And I understand the Kaga, one of the two helicopter aircraft carriers that Japan has is being modified right now. So watch out, keep your eyes on Japan. And of course, Japan has a very strong naval tradition as well. Well, look, freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea, do they achieve anything or is this, you know, for show? I mean, it's better than doing nothing. It's a good signal that we're still there and that we uphold international law and we don't recognize Beijing's nine-dash line or Taipei's 11-dash line for that point on which the nine-dash line is based. But really the key was the Hague ruling against Beijing and Taipei in 2016, that not only Beijing and Taipei ignored, but unfortunately now Manila ignores the Dijitarte. And we paid lip service and support to the ruling. And funny enough, those lawyer who represented the Philippines was an American lawyer in D.C. who also represented Nicaragua against us for mining Nicaraguan harbors in the early 1980s, which was brought under the same treaty, Unclust, the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. And while we signed it, we never ratified it. So it was kind of hard for us and a little bit rich for us to preach that this thing had to be upheld when we didn't even ratify the treaty under which it was brought. And then to make matters worse, the winner, the Philippines suddenly lost interest in it when Dijitarte came to power. So that was, I think, the last great gas to effect change in the South China Sea. But now I think it's a fate of complete because none of these countries coordinate with each other. Vietnam's the only one that has it back together, but they're not a U.S. treaty ally and not a democracy. And the Philippines really left them high and dry by taking a dive on their own victory. Well, that's a good point. I don't know, in an issue like this, I'm not sure if it's really necessary for a country to be a democracy or not. I mean, if you support the foreign policy of the U.S., I think that's good enough. True, but they're not a treaty ally, so we don't necessarily have to claim ourselves. That's true. But really, we need the Philippines because there are sort of seat at the table where the Philippines plus one at the South China Sea dinner party. So without a treaty ally in there, I mean, we're really just another country. Good to see the UK in there last week, though. That was nice. Yeah, and I hear the French have either launched a freedom of navigation patrol or are about to. I think they have already, actually. Well, okay. Okay, strategy. Is China out-strategizing the U.S.? And here I'm thinking of one belt, one road, yeah. Right, I mean, China doesn't have to worry about elections. It's there. It's not going anywhere. It's in the neighborhood. They know what they want and they're on a long term. I was gonna say long March, but that might not be the best term. Well, it's true, though. It's true, yeah. I mean, their goal is to, China does not have colonial aspirations. I mean, I don't see China. I mean, there are parts of their near abroad that they screw around with, obviously, Taiwan and other in South China Sea, but I don't see China as having global domination other than the desire just to get resources where they want them, find markets where they want them, and also to neutralize countries. We see this in Africa, so that they don't touch any of China's third rails like Taiwan, Tibet, or any other issue. Well, that's a good point. They're trying to have a colonial ambition, but it's clear that they want the US out of Asia. And that's why they gotta be happy with how these Korean negotiations are going when Trump is voluntarily giving up US military exercises in South Korea. I mean, they've wanted that for generations, and after one 20 minute meeting with Kim Jong-un, Trump agrees to it, because then it would make it without those, if we eventually get US troops out of South Korea, which is where this thing might go if it keeps going toward a peace declaration that a peace treaty and whatever else, then that's 28,500 fewer troops China has to worry about if they ever want to move on to Japan's and Kakao Islands or Taiwan. I know, I know, I exactly agree with you. And I think that's China and South Korea and Russia are all on the same page on this. All on the same page of this. And Trump does not appreciate this. He does not understand it at all. And Little Rocket Man played Trump and played him really well. But hey, you could say that Kim Jong-un and Trump want the same thing. They both want out of South Korea. I mean, every time I hear Trump talking, he's complaining about how much money we spend in South Korea. You know, despite the fact that it's a great market for US companies and it's helped prevent a major war and been a bedrock of democracy and all this and that, he doesn't seem to care. He just focuses on the $3.5 billion we spend there, even though from some estimates, I hear South Korea picks up 80% of the tax. But yeah, Russia's really important. You know, Russia created North Korea. Russia was almost as upset as China was over the dad deployment a few years ago. You know, now they're helping North Korea violate the sanctions. They're screwing around a bit in the South China Sea too, although they do have a longstanding arms relationship with Vietnam. So they're not necessarily buddy buddy with China the way some people think. But yeah, I think he's missing the big picture here as he does these one by one bilateral transactions. Right, right. And it seems to me there's limitations to Russia's power, although I thought in the past in talking to Chinese scholars that this was, this relationship was as they say in Chinese, in other words, superficial. But I think it's taken a turn and it's become deeper. But Sean, we're out of time again. So thank you very much for joining us. But I think we had a great discussion and I'm sure our listeners will appreciate being able to hear your views and we'll be in touch. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. And thank you in our audience for watching us today. Join us next week when my guest will be Mr. Ian Easton, a Project 2049. He's recently written a very interesting book called The Chinese Invasion of Threat. He's also been a co-editor of another publication which deals with the upgrading the Taiwan Reserve System. We'll see you then.