The ASEAN Wonk Podcast

Our guest today is Datuk Siobhan Das, who is the CEO of the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM Malaysia) based in Malaysia. We’ll start our conversation talking through some recent developments, including the wider implications of the new U.S.-Malaysia agreement on reciprocal trade and the Malaysia ASEAN chairmanship. Stay tuned as we go through a number of other forthcoming developments, including geoeconomic challenges posed by US-China competition and prospects for Southeast Asia’s economic story.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!NEW TRUMP DEALS IN PERSPECTIVEASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast Siobhan, and let’s start with the elephant in the room which is the US-Malaysia trade deal. We’ve heard pockets of domestic criticism on sovereignty and so on. My understanding talking to officials is that they went into this with eyes wide open, and they had to weigh these considerations against the fact that this was a U.S. administration that was taking a pretty tough line on these issues. There was also a preference for Malaysia being a first mover relatively speaking, leveraging the ASEAN Summit and the fact that President Trump was going to be in Malaysia. And also getting past this notion that Malaysia was being left behind in some of the big strategic decisions in US policy and being a trusted partner in some of these key sectors. I’m interested to hear your thoughts. And also, more broadly, what does this mean for companies? There’s a lot of talk about challenges, but what does it mean in terms of the opportunities for companies that are looking at this U.S.-Malaysia relationship more broadly?Datuk Siobhan Das: Thank you very much for having me on and for asking AMCHAM to come and talk on this, Prashanth. Great to see you again as well. You know, this is a really interesting time, and you’re right on all the things that you said there. It was a very interesting negotiation. It’s not your typical FTA. It came to being because of the tariffs that the Trump administration was putting on across the globe. It’s not just Malaysia. It’s right across the globe, and everybody is impacted. And I think everybody was trying to figure out what is it that we needed to do to be able to still engage with the United States. The United States is the world’s largest consumer market. It is one of the trading partners for a number of different countries and an important trading partner.And Malaysia is no different. Significant trading partner for Malaysia. I think it’s the number two trading partner, and the US is the number one investor in Malaysia. So this was a critical agreement to be able to come to. And there’s a lot of US businesses that have landed in Malaysia over the last fifty years. We represent a host of those, and we’ve seen that grow over the last fifty years. A very significant number of them are in the semiconductor field. So it was very important for Malaysia to understand what that market was to its economy. And I think you’re absolutely right. I think Malaysia did take a very pragmatic and very practical look at what they needed to do to maintain that market. This is not to the exclusion of any other market, but it’s with the significance that the American market has to its actual driver of its own economy. it had to really think about it and say: okay – what is it that we need to do to preserve the drivers of our economy? The goals that we’ve already set through in the NIMP – the New Industrial Master Plan – and how do we achieve those goals? If we don’t make this deal, you know, how does that set back our own growth? How does it set back what we want to achieve as a country in terms of moving up the value chain, in terms of quality jobs for our people? So I think the country needed to look at how does this agreement shape what our future is.“If we don’t make this deal, you know, how does that set back our own growth? How does it set back what we want to achieve as a country in terms of moving up the value chain, in terms of quality jobs for our people? So I think the country needed to look at how does this agreement shape what our future is.”But, again, this is not to the exclusion of any other country, because I think Malaysia rightfully so has to diversify its markets. It’s matured enough over the years to be a leader and an innovative leader in the region, and it is going out slowly into different markets. And I think that’s great to see, and we’re all excited that a lot of the investments that are coming into Malaysia are actually using Malaysia as a base to leapfrog or enter different markets that Malaysia provides. I think Malaysia has nine FTAs, and that provides a very attractive base for a lot of U.S. companies to come to Malaysia. So I think the opportunity to get this right was really powering behind what the negotiators were looking for to try and find a deal that could balance what they need to move forward with. So I think the approach by MITI (Ministry of Investment and Trade) was correct to look at that balance.NEW UPGRADE AND INTRAREGIONAL COMPETITION IN SOUTHEAST ASIAASEAN Wonk: One of the other aspects that I think was a little missed amid the focus on the trade aspect was the fact that we also technically had an elevation of the US Malaysia relationship to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership. That’s the first upgrade that we’ve seen for a Southeast Asian country under the second Trump administration. Skeptics thought the relationship was not doing well in terms of the optics particularly if you look at the start of the Gaza war. So the fact that Malaysia has been able to get to an upgrade is a bit of a missed point. I think you’ve talked about this publicly that the intraregional competition in Southeast Asia for investments has actually been increasing over the past few years, and for Malaysia to get on the map and stay on the map in terms of the United States and the investment landscape, it also needs to do a bit more. Do you think that this upgrade also does help Malaysia position itself a little bit more on the map?Datuk Siobhan Das: I think there’s a lot that’s happened in the last few months that has raised Malaysia’s profile. I think also there’s been a lot of understatement about the role that Malaysia has played. I think we just haven’t given it the recognition that it actually exists. I think this is where the strength is. There is a there there: I think that the both sides were at pains to really understand what was valuable in the relationship. And I think when they actually studied what was there, they came to the conclusion that, yes, there’s still work to be done, but, fundamentally, there is a level of trust and compliance that can be worked on and upgraded. And I think that’s where the relationship is pointing towards. Malaysia has the potential and is already a trusted partner. It’s got the rules and regulations and it has proven ability to play to global rules, to play to the needs of a monitored environment. It has all the foundations there, and it’s playing within those rules.So I think it’s really establishing the trust and we’re making it more visible that there is that relationship. Whether it is – and this is not an area that we get into – but the security relationship between the US Malaysia is quite strong, but the commercial relationship and the strength of that commercial relationship with the commercial law that’s in place, the strength of the IP laws. Yes. Like I said, I’m not going to say that it’s perfect, but there’s work to be done. We can improve the transparency. We can improve our traceability. And I think that’s what the relationships and the acts and agreements that have come to place will support. And I think that’s what people are excited about in the sense that: okay, we have now clarity. Businesses now know, okay: we’re at nineteen percent on certain things, but they’re in various sectors that are important to the relationship. Those sectors have been given a different level of tariffs that can keep it competitive for U.S. business. Because a lot of that Malaysian business that does go back to the United States is important to the U.S. value chain. A lot of the businesses that are based here also supply the rest of the world. So, you know, that one is less of a concern. But nonetheless, once you’re complying to the United States’ needs, you’re going to be compliant to a lot of the international standards as well.But this is nothing new. Malaysia’s already been doing this. It’s already compliant. It’s already shown its ability to be in that global value chain. And it’s not been looked at and regarded as an emerging market or a third world market. The US businesses that are here use and look at operations that are based here as first world. And once they’re qualified, once a Malaysian organization or a company is qualified to work with a US company, you’re qualified globally. So this is the strength of what Malaysian companies can actually do. And I think this

Our guest today is Dr. Vannarith Chheang, who is speaking in his personal capacity and has a variety of affiliations, including as chairman of the advisory council for Cambodia’s National Assembly and Angkor Social Innovation Park. He has nearly two decades of experience serving in various roles including as a consultant for the Asian Development Bank and the UN. We’ll start our conversation talking through contemporary developments, including scam centers and the Thailand-Cambodia border war. Stay tuned as we talk through a range of other subjects, including ASEAN; Cambodia’s strategies as a small state amid U.S.-China competition; and what to expect in foreign policy into 2026.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page. Get full access to ASEAN Wonk at www.aseanwonk.com/subscribe

Our guest today is Brigadier General David Stilwell, who served as assistant secretary of state for the bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs under the first Trump administration after a series of other roles as well, including as defense attaché to China and as part of the US Air Force where he started his career back in 1980. We'll start our conversation talking through a number of contemporary developments, including the Trump administration's approach to Southeast Asia and country perspectives on not being forced to choose between China and the United States. Be sure to stay tuned as we go through a range of other subjects, including the future trajectory of US China relations and Washington's approach to flashpoints such as Taiwan and the South China Sea.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!TRUMP II VS TRUMP I POLICY CONTEXTSASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast, General Stilwell. I wanted to start, given your experience serving in the first Trump administration, with where you see continuities and changes in Trump I vs. Trump II. Talking to policymakers in the region, there's a sense that in the second Trump administration we're seeing the obvious headline makers like the hardening of tariff policy, some continuity on issues like scam centers, for example, and there's also a category of maybe a little bit too early to say definitively on where we're heading on issues like China policy as we build up to leader-to-leader interactions there. You travel extensively in the region and we've actually been in a few engagements as well over the past year in Southeast Asia. What's your sense of how things are looking on the Asia policy front in Washington, as well as the regional perceptions and responses to that?General Stilwell: Well, thanks for having me here. And, hopefully, my perspective adds to the conversation and doesn't detract too much. But the focus has been on great powers, big economies like China, and then from there, Northeast Asia, primarily Japan. We can talk about that later, the over under on that. So Southeast Asia, in general, I think has gotten a pretty good treatment on this. The agreement with Vietnam came across fairly quietly without a lot of drama, which says there's interest in shifting markets and development and production centers away from one main aggressive and adversarial center and shifting it to countries that have lower labor costs and have many other advantages that that the PRC has since lost. So I can't speak to all, but I do know that I was fairly happy with how the agreement with Vietnam came out, and we're going to focus primarily on economic sense.Unlike Trump I, where the action areas were the Defense Department and the State Department, it really seems like there's been a shift away from that more toward Commerce, Treasury and USTR. No criticism there. If you're looking at national debt now at $37.5 trillion dollars, you’ve got to do something to get that under control. And if you do that by pumping up the economy, moving industry back to the US, all the things that we're hearing about, that's a reasonable approach. I would just say it can't come at the cost of those other traditional security centers like Defense and State.“Unlike Trump I, where the action areas were the Defense Department and the State Department, it really seems like there's been a shift away from that more toward Commerce, Treasury and USTR.”PLURALISM AND COMPETITION IN US SOUTHEAST ASIA POLICYASEAN Wonk: The other aspect I wanted to zoom in a bit on is what we've been hearing since actually a few years ago publicly from Southeast Asian officials about not being forced to choose between the United States and China. My own sense has long been that this is more about the choices that these countries actually make for themselves and how they make them, rather than anything that's imposed by Washington or other countries. And sometimes, as we both know, choices are being made more for shorter-term regime interests, which are not necessarily the same as longer term national interests. You’ve spent a lot of time thinking through the issue of choices. I recall when you were Assistant Secretary, you tried to emphasize the fact that under the first Trump administration, just because there was a greater focus on sovereignty didn't mean that there wasn't room for pluralism and notions of multipolarity.At the same time, you fast forward a few years to the present, you know, just a few weeks ago we saw China with its Shanghai Cooperation Organization summitry in Tianjin promote more aggressively its own notion of what a world order should look like, and the Global Governance Initiative was rolled out. How much room do you think there is for this kind of pluralism and coexistence of worldviews as these views are competing increasingly between the United States and China and other capitals are adjusting their own approaches to this as well?General Stilwell: I actually I love the idea of pluralism. We took some heat over that presentation at Brookings when we gave it in 2019. The mighty David Feith wrote that speech. He wrote it at the last minute because he just had this change of heart. And the folks at Brookings were surprised that we went down that path, but think about it. That was my experience everywhere I went is people were very happy when American diplomats did not show up with a non-pluralistic agenda saying, my way or the highway, you're going to do human rights, you're going to do all these things that we demand of you.I grew up as a fighter pilot, and we're a fairly direct bunch. We don't use a lot of diplomatic language. And one of the first things you learn is you've got two ears and one mouth, and you should use them in those proportions. Well, I suggest our diplomats consider that because I oftentimes would follow one of my colleagues into a capital, and they had just gotten wire brushed and the finger wagged in their face about doing things that were culturally the norm for them. So, one, we have to stop preaching at folks. We need to listen to what they have to say. If we want to guide them; if we want to see change in how things are going, if there's human rights practice, we gently guide them into that without trying to force them. And so it starts off with diplomacy. And we should be teaching these things as we raise our diplomats. On that point, though, the Chinese version of this stuff is unipolar. It's unilateral. It's my way or the highway. You will do these things. And then they go after these countries at the SCO summit. I mean, it's rogue’s gallery. It's countries that really have no accountability with their own populations.And my first experience with this was at that Shangri-La Dialogue in 2014. I went with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Marty Dempsey, and Chuck Hagel, a Republican congressman who the Obama administration brought in as secretary of defense. What a great choice. The Japanese made a very strong press for watching out what the PRC is doing with debt traps and all that stuff. It was the first time that there was actually a really strong contentious back and forth between the PRC and, in this case, the US. All the others were hanging back behind the US going: okay, you guys take this one, but we don't want to get splashed. Don't make us choose between the two of you. That's why this headline really got my attention: we want a strong economic relationship with the PRC, but we want the US to provide our security. Now think about the math on that. When you're doing trade – economic interactions and those things – it should be a win-win. Everybody's condition increases. Security is not that way. Security is a bill. It's costly. We're going to spend $850 billion this year on the Defense Department, and that's not even enough. So I've been wrestling with that since 2014. I hadn't come up with a good four syllable response to “don't make us choose.” A very good friend and a former colleague and a former boss came back with “Lee Kuan Yew chose.” I like that one, but maybe a little more something a little less.“I hadn't come up with a good four syllable response to “don't make us choose.” A very good friend and a former colleague and a former boss came back with “Lee Kuan Yew chose.” I like that one, but maybe a little more something a little less.”Look at Pakistan. Pakistan went all in with the PRC with this China Pakistan Economic Corridor, and now they're regretting it. And they want to get out of this bad deal. Well, if I was in charge, I would say, I'm not going to make you choose. You decide which way you want to go, but it's a one-way door. Because if you're going to trade on American interests and American taxpayer dollars and use that to sweeten the deal with the PRC, well, don't come running back to us when that deal goes south as the China Pakistan Economic Corridor is. And the last thing on that, we want to talk about finance, it's obscene that Islamabad has gotten so badly in debt. Provides them no

Our guest today is Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram, who previously served as a former ASEAN deputy secretary general and has over thirty years of experience working across regional issues. We will start talking about ASEAN's newly-released vision out to 2045 and evolving initiatives out to the next round of regional summitry later this year. Be sure to tune in as we go through a range of other subjects, including geopolitical flashpoint management in Southeast Asia as well as geoeconomic priorities amid developments like tariff wars, BRICS enlargement and ASEAN-GCC-China summitry.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!INSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE ON NEW ASEAN VISION 2045ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast Nathan, and I wanted to start, if we could, on ASEAN's new vision 2045, which was publicly released in late May alongside events tied to the summit. As you well know, this is something that's been in the works for a few years already even though it's just been publicly released. As somebody who has been working with ASEAN from the inside, including as deputy secretary general, you've seen the trajectory of this organization up to date. How would you grade or assess this new Vision 2045 that was released within ASEAN's broader trajectory?Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Thank you, Prashanth, for the invitation to this podcast. I'm pleased to talk about something that's very close to me, ASEAN. The ASEAN Vision 2045, I would say, is an ambitious plan for twenty years, but it's backed by structure. I was involved in drafting the first ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint. We have put in a lot of things there, but we realized that ASEAN will need time to actually implement. So this time, they are really looking at it in a more in-depth perspective in terms of looking at the vision plus the structures needed. In fact, for the economic community itself, they have five-year plans, strategic plans. They've come out with strategic plans for all the communities under this Vision 2045. So the political security community, economic community, social cultural community, and the master plan on the connectivity aspect of it. So we look at the AEC and connectivity strategic plan as they call it now. They don't call it a blueprint strategic plan anymore. They are five years. The others are ten years.So each of the plans have a number of goals and measures. I counted around total all the four strategic plans will have about five hundred measures or so. So it's quite a detailed plan. The thing is if you look at an ASEAN plan itself, what is important to realize is that sometimes it's aspirational. Sometimes it's very broad. But I think what it needs is the depth. So even if you look at the various plans, right, the 2025 plan, the secretary general actually mentioned that the political security blueprint has now achieved 99.6 percent, economic blueprint around 97 percent, and then the sociocultural about 99 percent, and the master plan on ASEAN connectivity 83.9 percent. These figures look very good actually. But if you really look at it, I would say, yes, they may have implemented it from the broad sense of all the measures. But when you really go into the depth of it, that is where the problem is. Because if you don't really tackle the depth, then you will not see much change. So I think that's where the crux of the matter is when you look at the blueprints.“The thing is if you look at an ASEAN plan itself, what is important to realize is that sometimes it's aspirational. Sometimes it's very broad. But I think what it needs is the depth.”Now let me just give you some examples. For example, ASEAN has done very well on the tariff side, reducing tariffs. So, 99 percent of all tariffs are now down. But if you look at the non-tariff barriers, it continues to be a challenge, I mean, especially, say, in the agricultural sector, there are still high tariffs. Now on the political side, the crisis response to Myanmar or the Rohingya crisis was slow and constrained by consensus. And then the human rights declaration remains nonbinding, and there is, I would say, lack of effective enforcement mechanisms. So if you really look at the 2045 plan, it’s very good, but the weakness will be in the enforcement and timely action. So this is an area that I hope ASEAN will look at when they develop the structure to implement this twenty years plan.EVOLVING APPROACH TO REGIONAL STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESSASEAN Wonk: Right. This is the first ASEAN twenty-year vision – the previous vision was ten years. But as you said, they have these strategic plans on different timelines, so they can be updated from time to time. How does this relate to the fast-changing world that we are facing in right now? It does seem like there's an attempt to balance responsiveness with the broader vision so that ASEAN is able to stay on track for the long term. What are your thoughts on this given that this is something that ASEAN has been grappling with since the time you were there?Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Yeah. So we had previously what we called Vision 2020, if you recall. So that was also a very long vision. And then in between, we had the AEC blueprint and the various blueprints and so on. So I remember my time, the blueprint was seven years implementation, 2009 to 2015. And then we had a ten-year plan. Now we have a twenty-year plan. One, it shows that ASEAN will need more time actually to implement. Actually, if you really want to implement it in-depth, I think it will take time. So it's good that on the economic community as well as the connectivity aspects, they have a shorter term five-year plan because things are changing so fast, and there's so much economic uncertainty. So having these five-year plans, strategic plans, I think the economic one is going to be 2026 to 2030 or so. So that's going to be very important, actually. So every five years, they relook at what's happening because I think ASEAN cannot work in isolation by itself. It has to really look at what's going on out there. So I think that's important to have that kind of short plan, and then they make adjustments.So under the new 2045 plan, they have these implementation mechanisms like the annual progress reports, the midterm review in 2030, and the final assessment in 2045. Then they will create some dashboard, and I think external evaluation teams will look at it and track and verify it. So I think they're putting in those mechanisms so they can track the progress.ADJUSTING TO GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL CONTESTATIONASEAN Wonk: I agree with the point you made earlier about ASEAN needing to adjust to a fast-changing world, and Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim mentioned at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that the region has to hold its own ground amid a series of challenges including tariff wars and U.S.-China competition via what he called active non-alignment. He has referenced some of the measures being taken, including the first-ever ASEAN-China-GCC summit and a new ASEAN geoeconomics task force. What is your sense of how Southeast Asia and ASEAN are holding the ground in this changing world?Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Yeah. I think ASEAN will be facing a lot of challenges. As you know, ASEAN centrality is going to be still very important for all of us. So I think ASEAN will have to adopt a strategy where it's working with the world in a sense.Like the U.S. tariffs. ASEAN as a whole has decided not to retaliate but to cooperate and work with the US. So I think that’s a good strategy in the sense that we want to see how we can further progress in terms of the tariff negotiation. So each country will do its part. The aim is to work out an amicable solution bilaterally with each of the ASEAN countries and the US. At the same time, I think this is an opportunity for ASEAN to really look internally. So, one of the things that is going to be very important is this upgrade of the ASEAN trade in goods agreement, ATIGA. ASEAN has learned from the COVID pandemic situation that intra-ASEAN trade is so important. So during the COVID pandemic, the intra-ASEAN trade was a buffer. So I think they recognize this.“Like the US tariffs…I think this is an opportunity for ASEAN to really look internally…”So ASEAN is now concluding the protocol, expected to conclude, I think, by end of the next summit possibly early 2026. The focus is going to be on tariff simplification, non-tariff barrier reduction, rules of origin, streamlining, and so on. So I think that's going to be important. That will enhance intra-ASEAN trade, which is still hovering around, say, 22 to 25 percent. It's not growing. So one of the reasons it’s not growing is because of non-tariff barriers, then the streamlining of the custom procedures and so on. So I think that will be very important, the ATIGA upgrade.Then I think you're also aware about the Digital Economic Framework Agreement (DEFA) that ASEAN is looking at. From what I understand, the final negotiations are underway. This is going to be a very importa

Our guest today is Dr. Ely Ratner who served as assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs under the Biden administration. We will start our conversation talking through contemporary developments in U.S. security relationships in the Indo-Pacific. Be sure to stay tuned as we go through a range of other subjects, including the the new administration’s coming U.S. defense strategy, datapoints to watch in 2026, Taiwan and the South China Sea.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!GRADING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S EARLY INDO-PACIFIC DEFENSE APPROACHASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the podcast, Ely, and I wanted to start with your take on where U.S. defense policy is under the second Trump administration. We just saw Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth out at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. And to be fair, if you look more at what he did rather than what he said, you could make the case for a lot of continuity with the building out of the security latticework that we saw under the Biden administration. But as one Southeast Asian official said to me, the key challenge seems to be to what extent is this new administration going to be able to build out the so-called lattice work even as it does seem like – from some of the headlines and some of the experiences of some of the countries in the region – the aperture of U.S. engagement seems to be narrowing or changing when it comes to other non-defense aspects of U.S. policy, whether it's through tariffs or U.S. assistance and focus and so on and so forth. So as a practitioner yourself and somebody who has thought about U.S. defense policy both in and out of government for a long time, how would you go about grading the new administration's approach with respect to defense policy in the Indo-Pacific?Dr. Ely Ratner: Well, Prashanth, thanks for the opportunity to be here. It's great to talk with you today. I think your prompt laid down a number of the issues in early assessment, which is in terms of activities, in terms of messaging, I think we have seen a decent degree of continuity. Secretary Hegseth’s first trip out to the region to the Philippines and then Japan, both in terms of the types of deliverables that were announced as well as the messaging around U.S. commitment to the region, U.S. commitment to allies and partners that did represent a good amount of continuity.Where we have seen some particularities related to the Trump administration, we have seen a much stronger push toward allies and partners to spend more on defense and to do more and contribute more. I think some of that had started under the Biden administration. And frankly, I think up to a point, that's actually quite a good direction to take our alliances and partnerships. So that has been much more forward as a central priority. And then, yes, of course, as you mentioned, the changing nature of U.S. foreign assistance in the region as well as the economics on tariffs have created, I think, political headwinds, diplomatic headwinds. And the question is to what degree are those going to interfere with the ability – both the political space and the ability – of countries in the region to continue forward on deepening defense and security partnerships.So I think we are at a little bit of a inflection point here where – yes, you are seeing continuity; you're seeing good messaging – we also haven't necessarily seen the full fruition or development of a clear regional strategy from the new administration. There's a national defense strategy, which by all reporting is underway and may be released as early as the end of the summer, and that'll give a good indication on the defense front where the administration wants to head. And that appears to be quite focused on the on the China challenge, also focused on the U.S. homeland, and that has a certain degree of implications for how the administration approaches the region, how the administration approaches allies and partners from a defense perspective. But, obviously, as you said, it's a broader aperture of economic and diplomatic initiatives as well that affects all of that. So I think mostly continuity so far with some potential disjunctures based on some of the external factors.“There's a national defense strategy, which by all reporting is underway and may be released as early as the end of the summer, and that'll give a good indication on the defense front where the administration wants to head.”EVOLUTION OF LATTICEWORK AND REGIONAL SECURITY PARTNERSHIPSASEAN Wonk: Right. I wanted to ask a broader question about the security latticework or network of US alliances and partnerships. Because as you're aware, this is something that's been in process really since the end of the Cold War – this idea of transitioning from wheels to webs; hub and spokes to more networked forms of alliances and partnerships. I'm wondering for Southeast Asia where you see U.S. engagement having proceeded there? Because I do sense that even though there's a lot of focus in the headlines around the Philippines, for example, there was an effort by the Biden administration to really broaden out how to think about defense – not just integrated deterrence, but also looking at opportunities like East Timor for example, and Indonesia with Super Garuda exercises. Where do you see key partnerships and direction of travel regarding Southeast Asia’s place within the broader U.S. Indo-Pacific defense architecture in the past ten, fifteen years?Dr. Ely Ratner: Yeah. It's a great question. Look, maybe I'll answer it in a couple different ways. I mean, in the first sense, I think what you're describing of an aspiration to try to mature the regional architecture beyond just the hub and spoke model or beyond just a set of U.S. bilateral alliances has been around as long as you and I have been in the business. You can go back ten, fifteen years, and there are think tanks writing about the Asia power web or this networking. But up until pretty recently, I think it had been mostly fits and starts and aspiration, maybe dialogue at best. I think what we saw during the Biden administration was a real transition from the latticework or the networking being theory or at best dialogue to moving toward no kidding activities that can have a real impact on operational cooperation, and, at the higher end, combat credible deterrence. So we saw that with AUKUS, obviously; in the “Squad” arrangement with the Philippines, Australia, and Japan; and the US, Japan, South Korea arrangement; to a degree, the Indo-Pacific Quad with India; and continued U.S. engagement with ASEAN, including plans for another U.S.-ASEAN exercise upcoming in the coming years.You know, sometimes as new opportunities and institutions emerge, particularly in Southeast Asia, there is concern that it is crowding out attention toward ASEAN or somehow diminishing how we think about ASEAN centrality as the role of ASEAN as sort of the lone convener of the region together. I guess I understand those concerns, but we all consider these – both in the way we spoke about them, but in practice – as complementary and overlapping. That the idea was not that one institution would move in and push aside all the others, but that the combination of them – different partners addressing sort of fit for purpose, different issues – that that was the right way to think about the overall regional architecture, and I continue to believe that.I have written a piece in Foreign Affairs arguing that when it comes to combat credible deterrence, it will be important to move beyond just some of the ad hoc arrangements into a more formal collective defense arrangement, starting with the United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines. That's really of the belief that, look, the latticework as it currently exists serves a lot of important functions. I think it strengthens the region. It's a good thing. It's the right thing to be doing. But in terms of real military cooperation – we can talk about sort of how it affects economics and diplomacy and foreign assistance and other issues – but when it comes to no kidding, militaries operating together in a way that strengthens deterrence, the ad hoc and informal nature of a number of these latticework institutions leaves them maybe where the whole isn't really more than the sum of the parts when it comes to command and control and exercises and operations and planning. And that you do need a more formal mechanism to get to a future where the power of the alliances together is really leveraging all of the capabilities.Because as much as we are working together in these different constellations and we can work together to do exercises and it sends an important signal regionally about the degree to which we're cooperating and we're aligned, it's not always trending toward, again, no kidding ability to operate during crises and contingencies. So I think a part of the latticework needs to formalize. That doesn't mean the rest of it doesn't matter or the rest of it should

Our guest today is Andrew Goledzinowski who previously served as a senior career Australian diplomat with several posts within Southeast Asia, including as ambassador to Vietnam, high commissioner to Malaysia, as well as the first assistant secretary at the Southeast Asia Regional Division.We will start our conversation talking about recent developments in Australia's ties with Southeast Asia. Be sure to tune in as we go through a range of other subjects, including the shifting geoeconomic landscape in the region and Australia's strategy on Southeast Asia as well as the Indo- Pacific and where that might be headed.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!GRADING AUSTRALIA SOUTHEAST ASIA ENGAGEMENT TODAYSo welcome to the podcast Ambassador and let’s get started. We've seen Australia record some notable wins in its engagement with Southeast Asia. There was a second special summit held last year, upgrades with countries including Vietnam, which you were involved in as well. At the same time, of course, just like with any other country, there are no doubt some limitations as well and challenges within Australia's wider approach. For example, on economic ties, there was a government commissioned report on investment in Southeast Asia that noted that Southeast Asia is just over three percent of Australia's investment stocks abroad, and there needs to be a lot more work to be done in that domain. I guess we can start with how you assess or grade Australia's Southeast Asia strategy? And you can use any sort of scale you want, whether it's a letter grade or a scale of one to ten.Ambassador Andrew Goledzinowski: Gosh, that's a good question, Prashanth. I haven't been asked that one before. Well, look, from my point of view, our relations with Southeast Asia are as good as they ever have been. So from that point of view, I guess the relative trajectory and performance is very good. And you would have to say that the student is improving. But in absolute terms, it's not good enough, to be honest. I think I would give Australia a solid B. And the reason is that it's increasingly obvious that our future lies in the region, and our engagement has been successful but insufficient, I would say. And there are a lot of datapoints that suggest this.I mean, politically, we're doing very well. You referenced the second special summit. And, you know, the fact that we can convene these, that the leaders come, that they all recognize that Australia is an important player in the region, is valuable, is worth engaging. Those are all positives. And I would say the sort of the less tangible atmospherics – the vibe, if you like – is also very good. The relationship is respectful. There are no major irritants, and all that is positive.But as I say, it's not really enough. You referenced the fact that three percent of our overseas investments are in Southeast Asia. That is a damning data point, I think. For a country that is as open as Australia is, we're a trading nation. We rely very much on open communication and commerce. We have been sort of skipping over Southeast Asia for far too long. And there are some good reasons for that. Our institutions that invest are generally the big ones. It's our pension funds, which are ginormous: they have something like four trillion dollars in assets under management. Our big publicly-listed companies – the big four banks, for example –and the others, they tend to be very conservative investors. They prefer to invest in Australia or in North America, and they are not looking for big returns. They would prefer to be safe rather than get rich fast. And that holds us back a little bit. Because in Southeast Asia, you have to be prepared to take a little bit of risk. And most importantly, you have to be prepared to get involved. You know, we tend to sort of do things from over here and then eventually make an investment decision and then move over into Southeast Asia in a cautious way. But as I sometimes say, investing in Southeast Asia is a bit like crossing the road in Hanoi. And if you've been to Hanoi, you know that you can't plan it from the curb. You have to step out into the traffic and have confidence that you will navigate your way across. And invariably, you do. But it does require that first step, and we in Australia tend to be just a little bit chary of that.“[A]s I sometimes say, investing in Southeast Asia is a bit like crossing the road in Hanoi. And if you've been to Hanoi, you know that you can't plan it from the curb. You have to step out into the traffic and have confidence that you will navigate your way across. And invariably, you do. But it does require that first step…”DIRECTION OF TRAVEL IN BILATERAL AND SECTORAL ENGAGEMENTASEAN Wonk: Right. That's a great analogy on the sort of leap of faith amidst the motorcycles in Hanoi. You mentioned this notion of the vibe or the atmospherics or the narrative, which I actually think is a really important point. And for Australia, there have been a whole host of announcements in the past couple of years – a new green and digital shipping corridor with Singapore, work that was done with Vietnam to upgrade the relationship, and you just saw the Australian prime minister in Indonesia just after being elected in his first foreign trip talk about some of the economic opportunities with the Prabowo government. Given your perspective of having served in several of these different countries and also looking at the region regionally, what would you say about some of the notable movements on direction of travel, whether it's with respect to countries or sectors for Australia strategy in Southeast Asia?Ambassador Andrew Goledzinowski: Well, I would say government is leading the way. You've referenced some of the initiatives. You've referenced that the prime minister himself has chosen to focus on Southeast Asia. The thing is, you know, it can't just be the government. We need the business sector. We need civil society. We need universities and others to also engage. And I think that's going to happen. It's beginning to happen. Of course, it's been happening for many years at one level. But as I said, I think it's inadequate given our geographic circumstances and the historical times we live in. Inevitably, we need to focus more on Southeast Asia.Now we've been a bit distracted with the Pacific for good reasons. The Pacific is our backyard. It's the region where we feel that we can make the biggest impact. And the sort of strategic competition that has been developing in that part of the world has engaged us very strongly. So a lot of political capital, a lot of resources, money, but also people. The number of people that DFAT now has in our office of the Pacific compared to when I was working in the Pacific is quite extraordinary. And that comes at an expense, right? Because it's almost a zero-sum game. The more effort and attention you pay to one region, the less you have for the rest. I think that'll rebalance over time. And I've always believed that our fundamental strategic interests as well as our economic interests do lie in Southeast Asia.And so the direction of travel, as you put it, I'm starting to see some small, not shifts, but accelerations. So in the university sector, a number of universities are now talking about either establishing or reviving or refreshing their Southeast Asian think tanks – the centers that they have focusing on Southeast Asia. I'm beginning to see more interest from the superannuation community. When I was in Vietnam just middle of last year, we hosted a big delegation of superannuation players who also went to Indonesia and elsewhere. It was kind of a very preliminary testing of the waters because their mandates are very restrictive. And Vietnam isn't yet even considered an emerging economy in terms of its ratings as an investment destination. But they're starting to show interest, and I think that will continue to accelerate.The other way also is positive. Southeast Asia kind of knows us better than we know them, and partly because we have a huge alumni community there. I mean, Malaysia, we were just talking about, it's somewhere north of four hundred thousand people have studied in Australia or studied at Australian universities in Malaysia. That creates an enormous body of goodwill and interest in Australia. You know, I'm hoping that our more restrictive student policies now in Australia don't impinge negatively on that because it's that kind of people-to-people knowledge, confidence, and familiarity which then does enable other things like investment to happen.VALUE PROPOSITION AND STRATEGIC NARRATIVEASEAN Wonk: You talked there about a very important component, which is the multistakeholder and multidimensional nature of Australia's engagement. And I think we've seen that even in some of the special summit engagements: Australia clearly messaging this about being not just about things like maritime security, for example, which are really important, but also students

Our guest today is Dr. Denis Hew, who spent over a decade as the director of the research arm of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and also spent time before that in several other key economic institutions including the Asian Development Bank (ADB). We will start a conversation talking about the state of the regional economic architecture. Be sure to tune in to the full episode where we go through a range of other subjects, including Indo-Pacific geoeconomics, growth trajectories and what the regional, minilateral and multilateral landscape will look like into 2026.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!REGIONAL GEOECONOMIC ARCHITECTUREASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast, Denis, and let's get started. I wanted to kick off with where we are in terms of the regional economic architecture. This is an architecture which, as you know having been in several of these leading institutions, went through a series of waves. In the nineties, for example, we had APEC come to the fore and there was some excitement about institutional innovation. If we skip over a few decades to the present, there's a lot more conversation about minilaterals, sectoral deals and smaller groupings. But at the same time, we still have ASEAN coming up with digital initiatives that are regionwide. That's a multilateral institution. In APEC, there are still efforts to try to revive notions like the Free Trade Agreement of the Asia-Pacific. How do you assess the role of regional economic multilateralism within this geoeconomic environment we’re in? Is there perhaps a little bit too much doom on the multilateral economic architecture than is warranted?Dr. Denis Hew: Well, thanks for having me. I'm a pessimist at heart, but I think I can maybe share a little bit of optimism about the economic and trade architecture. As you mentioned, in the last couple of decades, in Southeast Asia and East Asia, we've seen closer economic and trade integration among these regions. And much of that has also been driven by the the establishment of global supply chains, particularly in manufacturing, electronics, semiconductors. And, of course, within ASEAN, it's been forging closer economic integration. It's got this big project, the ASEAN Economic Community (ASEAN), which was established more than twenty years ago, and they're moving forward towards their next milestone post-2025.But we know the world's changed quite a bit, partly because of rising U.S.-China tensions, and we're beginning to see that kind of fragmentation in the global economy. There's also a lot of disappointment at the multilateral trading system at the World Trade Organization. There haven’t been many key major deliverables. The dispute settlement mechanism is still pretty stuck and not resolved. And a lot of the economic trade agreements have been protracted in trying to reach any conclusions.“[W]e're beginning to see that kind of fragmentation in the global economy.”So in terms of the trend as you're moving forward, you see, as you mentioned, bilaterals and economic kinds of minilaterals. A good example is DEPA, the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA). So you've got a couple of like-minded countries which want to move forward. If they are stuck at WTO with a quest for an e-commerce agreement, and we want to move forward in terms of the digital economy, digital trade, one of the ways is to come together and try to form a partnership agreement among themselves.The other big trend, of course, is that we're we're seeing a proliferation of free trade agreements, both bilateral as well as regional. And, of course, within this region, the big ones are RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), which includes ASEAN and its and its five major trading partners, including China. And, of course, beyond in the Asia Pacific region, you've got the CPTPP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). I believe it was a bit of a mouthful, but it's a reincarnation of TPP as we know, and that excludes the US, but includes some of the big and middle-sized economies. I guess the biggest challenge that we're facing here in terms of the economic architecture, particularly from the ASEAN perspective, is that ASEAN has always been known as for its strategic neutrality. It doesn't want to choose a side between US and China. We know that the US has a long presence in terms of foreign investments and technology transfers in this region. But we know that if you look at the supply chains that have been established, increasingly we see that a lot of those supply chains are linked to China. So, essentially, ASEAN member countries don't want to choose a side. What they want to do is do business with both countries. And that's one of the biggest challenges that they face right now.“NEXT-GENERATION” GEOECONOMIC ISSUESASEAN Wonk: I'm glad you mentioned DEPA and some of these other sectoral, minilateral agreements because it does seem like these agreements are proliferating. You're you're seeing some in the digital space; you're seeing some on the green economy, for example. So that's a very interesting trend. One of the interesting conversations we're seeing as well is how we think about updating some of these existing agreements. So within APEC for example, they've characterized this as next-generation trade and investment issues. Things like sustainability and inclusivity. They were always there, but perhaps twenty or thirty years ago, they were not as much front and center. APEC released a report in the middle of last year, and they essentially mentioned that while there are a whole host of these next-generation issues, there hasn't really been an endorsement around areas of focus. There are still differences in views in areas like state owned enterprises, for example. How do you think about the areas that may gain traction within this basket of next generation issues?Dr. Denis Hew: Yeah. Within APEC and also ASEAN, they've been talking about a lot of these next-generation trade and investment issues. We talk about sustainability, impact of trade from climate change and also digital trade. One of the biggest problems in APEC is that decision-making is based on consensus and because of the geopolitics of tensions between the US and China, we can't get a lot of things done. Because if you put on the table a major project looking at, say, the green economy, for example, for different reasons — nothing to do with the project itself — it could just be blocked. So over the last couple of years, we're not seeing a lot of traction in terms of building capacity and working together. And that's one of the biggest challenges. Some of the big topics that they've talked a lot about in terms of next-generation is, of course, sustainability. Increasingly, also the concerns of rising income inequality. And, in the past, we had big meetings being canceled because of demonstrations because of inequality and there's been an increased focus looking at the formulation of much more inclusive policies — social inclusion, financial inclusion, economic inclusion. So a lot of these things are being discussed.But the biggest challenge, of course, is how do you get that implemented? And within APEC, you've got twenty one members. So getting a consensus of getting things done has become a lot harder. That's one of the reasons why you're seeing the rise of many of these minilaterals and sector-specific partnership agreements. They’re taking them out because they're stuck at WTO. They could be stuck in APEC or even ASEAN. A couple of economies coming together and moving forward, whether it's in terms of trade liberalization or opening up your markets to get things moving. And I don't see that trend subsiding anytime soon, and that's one of the biggest concerns. It's a concern partly because I'm a big supporter of the multilateral trading system. So the problem with a breakdown with the WTO is that the less developed countries will be the biggest losers because it's harder for them to do a future agreement with another country. We hope that a multilateral trading system can continue to work and that we might hopefully see some deliverables at the WTO this year.MINILATERAL-MULTILATERAL LINKAGESASEAN Wonk: One of the things I mentioned earlier was this notion of the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP), where you'd see these trade agreements eventually coming together. As we think smaller with these minilateral groupings and sectoral areas, what does the grand vision actually look like? Maybe there is one; maybe not. But how do we think about the connection between these sectoral and minilateral agreements and what the broader regional vision is for everyone that's trying to work towards some of these goals?Dr. Denis Hew: Well when it comes to minilaterals, a lot of them are WTO consistent. So the idea — or, I mean, grand plan, if you want to call it that — is that they can get an agreement done, say, in digita

Our guest today is Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun, who served as the CEO of the Mekong River Commission Secretariat from 2022 to 2024 after a decade of working in the organization that is central to the subregional architecture around one of the world’s longest and largest rivers confronting a series of major geopolitical, geoeconomic and security risks. Prior to that, he held several roles, including working at the United Nations Secretariat in New York and as an advisor at the Permanent Mission of Laos to the United Nations. We'll start our conversation assessing the current state of the Mekong River and architecture. Make sure you tune into the full episode as we dive into key topics, including the impact of intensifying geopolitical competition and major power dynamics.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!RISK ASSESSMENT CHECKASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the podcast Anoulak. And I wanted to get started with our conversation here talking about the river that gets a lot of attention today relative to perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, but arguably still not enough given the challenges that we're seeing. It's one of the world's longest and largest rivers running through mainland Southeast Asia. I was, in fact, just by the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's greatest freshwater lake in Cambodia during my trip a few weeks back. The risks from hydropower and climate change and the like have been well-documented. As a practitioner in the space, you've looked at these issues for a long time. How would you grade the state of the Mekong River today? And you can use kind of any metric you'd like, whether it's a scale of one to ten or a sort of letter grade.Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun: Well, first of all, thank you very much, Prashanth, for having me and this opportunity to talk to your audience about the Mekong and broader issues in the region. Well, like you said, the Mekong River, it's classified as one of the great rivers, along with the Amazon, the Nile, Mississippi, etcetera. So it is the largest, longest in Southeast Asia. It actually has the most fisheries in the world, even more than the Amazon. It’s the second most biodiverse only after the Amazon. I think top ten – it depends on how you count – in terms of basin size, flows, etcetera. Seventy million people, so sizable population. Six important countries, one superpower who is also upstream, and two regional important countries Vietnam and Thailand. And then you have Laos in the middle and Cambodia in the south, and a bit of Myanmar sort of on the side.The Mekong Basin has caught attention in the water space, a lot in the environmental space, and sometimes in the geopolitical space, because of the fact that it is situated in mainland Southeast Asia, which is a geopolitical hotspot. But also because of its status as one of the great rivers of the world. It is very important for the economies of the basin countries. You know that Vietnam and Thailand are the two rice baskets of the world, so most of the rice come from the Mekong, and the delta of Vietnam is very important for the Vietnamese economy. It's also important for tourism. I think thirty percent of mainland Southeast Asia tourism comes from the Mekong, and it is increasingly important for energy. Laos has this ambition increasingly of being the battery of Asia – of Southeast Asia, maybe not Asia, it's too big. And Mekong energy – not just hydropower, but increasingly solar wind – are contributing to this. So it's very important for the economies of the region. And it's important for livelihoods, important for culture, history as well as for the people’s ties to the river.But it's undergoing fundamental changes. Let me talk about the fiscal changes first. We used to have a more or less natural regime. In the wet season, you have very large flows. During the dry season, you have a very low flows, and people are used to that. But now because of, like you mentioned earlier, the building of dams – especially storage dams in China and in Laos – this has changed, and it has brought challenges as well as opportunities. Challenges, for example, during the wet season when you needed the water to flood some forest or wetlands, now you have a bit less. And in cases of drought, especially during the wet season, the storage by dams can also add or exacerbate drought. But there are some opportunities. Because during the dry season, you have a very low flow. But because dams release water during the dry season to generate electricity, then you can have possibly more water. That's good for irrigation. That's good for navigation, and that's sometimes good for drought relief during the dry season. So there are some challenges and some possible benefits.But geopolitically is also challenging. Because it's an international river – six countries, different sizes, different stages of development. You have Thailand and Vietnam who developed parts of their base in a bit earlier, and now you have China developed in the 1990s, and now Laos and Cambodia are developing. So when you have national plans, whether they are dam projects or water irrigation projects or big canal projects, you tend to run into each other. And throughout the past decade or so, you have this contestation in the Mekong about a certain dam raising tensions with neighbors, and the possibility to have spillover effects into broader contestations and conflicts. It has not happened. I think part of the reason is we have a good institutional framework in the basin, one of which is the Mekong River Commission that I can talk a lot about, but also associated institutions. ASEAN, other Mekong frameworks, the relations between the countries, etcetera.“And throughout the past decade or so, you have this contestation in the Mekong about a certain dam raising tensions with neighbors, and the possibility to have spillover effects into broader contestations and conflicts.”GRADING REGIONAL ARCHITECTUREASEAN Wonk: You mentioned there a couple of points that I want to touch on. One is the Mekong River Commission itself and the MRC, which you helped lead. You really had a bird's eye view about how the organization works. It's an organization that, not unlike other subregional organizations, often comes under a lot of criticism for some of its limitations. It only has four of the countries as full members, and the other two are partner countries. There are some inherent limitations there. But like any regional, subregional or global organization, it is only as powerful as its members allow it to be as an intergovernmental grouping. And so, it's also a question of where the responsibility lies in terms of where the organization is headed. In your assessment, how do you see the Mekong River Commission faring – both its successes and then also its limitations – having seen its evolution throughout the years?Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun: Yeah. The Mekong River Commission was given a mandate in 1995 that is actually a broad mandate. It's to coordinate and promote the sustainable development of water and related resources of the Mekong Basin. So it's quite a broad mandate. It was not given a regulatory mandate like, say, some other river organizations in Europe or the European Commission. But it's given this mandate to be the coordinator, the promoter of good development. And it does that simply because the countries want to develop. The countries want to develop still, because we don't have a fully developed river yet. And it has four members. There's a whole history about why China is not a member, which I may not be able to talk about much, but it has four members – Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand. And, in my assessment – unbiased – it has functioned to the best that it could be. So let's delve into the two key roles. One is to be some sort of water diplomacy platform of the basin. It's the only treaty-based organization in the Mekong. And second is to provide services to the country, such as river monitoring, studies, flood forecasting etcetera.But let's delve into the water diplomacy angle. You know, as I mentioned in the beginning, we have had contestations over projects of the countries. For example, in 2010, Laos submitted to build the first mainstream then on the lower part of the Mekong – China has already built several in the upper part. Now that created a lot of tensions, including between Laos and Vietnam, who are usually friends on all sorts of things. But because for Vietnam, the delta is very important for the economy, for the people – twenty million people, right – you have to raise concerns, and you have to be fearful of that. And the countries could not agree on what to do. But at that time, with private investment ready, mostly from Thailand, Laos was determined to go ahead. And Laos being landlocked, this was one of the key resources to get the economy going and the country was determined to push ahead. But the Mekong River Commission came in, and, you know, we tried to manage this situation. There are some folks that said, okay, we have

Our guest today is Ambassador Pou Sothirak, who previously served in the Cambodian government since 1993 in various positions, including as Ambassador to Japan and Secretary of State at the Foreign Ministry. We'll start our conversation talking about Cambodia's current foreign policy trajectory and neighborhood ties in mainland Southeast Asia and the Mekong subregion. Make sure you tune into the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including Cambodia's relations with major powers and where the country and the region is headed geoeconomically and geopolitically.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!GRADING CAMBODIA FOREIGN POLICYASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Ambassador. Thank you for joining us, and let's get started. It's been around a year and a half since Hun Manat took over as Cambodia's prime minister in August 2023. We've seen some very interesting foreign policy developments beyond some of the developments that have made the headlines, such as Cambodia's withdrawal from the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle area. We've also seen some stepped-up cooperation with Japan on the security side. Cambodia was selected as the host of the Francophonie summit in 2026. Some high-level defense interactions as well with the U.S. As someone who's been a longtime practitioner, how do you assess how the government is doing with respect to foreign policy? And you can either go with a letter grade or some other metric, but more importantly. And more generally, what are the successes in your view and also what are the challenges that we're seeing for Cambodia?Ambassador Pou Sothirak: First of all, thank you very much, Dr. Prashanth, for having me in your program. I'd like to congratulate you at the outset for being a window of knowledge for a wide range of issues that concern Southeast Asia, as your platform has been very popular here, and I'm a keen observer. Actually, I read quite a bit and learn a lot from you. So thank you for your questions.With regard to the success and the challenges with the new government, I would like to say that Prime Minister Hun Manet and his young team are, to me, the next generation of leadership for Cambodia. They are very well educated. Many of them— in fact, more than 90%— have a higher degree from abroad, including the prime minister himself, who holds a PhD. They are very energetic. They come with fully charged batteries, if you may.I think one of the things that stand out as far as success stories are concerned is that since taking office, it has been 18 months now. I observe that his priority is to reengage Cambodia with the world, particularly those countries that Cambodia classifies as important. So within the 18 months in office, he initially very quickly 18 state visits to meet with different heads of state or government. These included trips to Indonesia, China, UN General Assembly, France, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Japan, Switzerland, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Laos, Thailand again, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore. With special attention, he visited China officially three times, the most, and twice to Indonesia. This highlights his preoccupation with re-engaging Cambodian foreign policy at the global level and also at the regional level.“I observe that his priority is to reengage Cambodia with the world, particularly those countries that Cambodia classifies as important.“Another success story, to me, is more of the pledges that he made. But as I mentioned to you, he represents a relatively new young generation with a lot of energy and vitality. However, it is too short to really give a scorecard on a scale of anything. But I think you need to include some of Cambodia’s achievements under him as his leadership continues. For example, Cambodia's pledge to global issues like climate change. Cambodia pledged to become carbon neutral by 2025. We want to transition to clean energy, including green energy—not necessarily just hydropower. There’s still a lot of debate here, particularly related to the Mekong. Digital transformation, I think, is also high up on his agenda. He wants to fast-track Cambodia toward that end as well.On regional issues, I think under his leadership, he wants to make sure that Cambodia continues to viably contribute to ASEAN efforts and speed up regional integration. More specifically, operationalizing the Five-Point Consensus in relation to Myanmar. I can talk more about this if you wish. He also wants Cambodia to be a member of ASEAN whereby it can effectively manage the ASEAN way and ASEAN centrality amid this flux, particularly in big power competitions, to maintain the relevance of ASEAN and all ASEAN frameworks, including EAS, ADMM+, the ARF, APT, and more. I think issues related to the Mekong are also part of his agenda.But again, like I said, this is a big task. Eighteen months is a short time to fully evaluate how much he has achieved. I think we need to give him a bit more time, so to speak. Now, scaling down to domestic issues, I think some of the challenges remain. So the pledge can also be a challenge, in my view. Domestic challenges include maintaining peace and stability, particularly political stability in Cambodia. Cambodia has a long history of having a loyal opposition. You know the term loyal opposition, that you're loyal to your country? We have some difficulty in there. So it becomes more of a challenge between personal and individual interests. I don't have to name names—you know what I mean.That’s why I said Cambodia still considers peace, stability, and economic growth as its main challenges. And economic growth, needless to say, has been affected by the post-COVID-19 recovery. The post-COVID-19 rebound is not happening in the way Cambodia would like it to be.As you may know, pre-COVID, we were experiencing double-digit growth—10, 11 percent. But now, in the past year, the World Bank rated Cambodia at 5.6%, I believe, or 5.8% growth. These are issues. Additionally, Cambodia has pledged to become a middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050. He is full of aspirations, and I sincerely not only wish him well, but if I can do anything in any way possible, I would support him strongly. I like to see young generations take leadership in Cambodia, which is a new country emerging and trying to do its best to be a responsible member of the international community, particularly maintaining ASEAN’s relevance.Maybe this is too weak of an assessment. If you want to have a follow-up, I can add some spice if you wish.DIVERSIFICATION RHETORIC AND REALITYASEAN Wonk: That's a terrific overview about a very sort of long series of opportunities, but then also, as you say, some challenges as well in this very contested landscape. A lot of these challenges are also shared challenges. I wanted to follow up a little bit on something you said earlier in your comments. If I were to summarize the conversation about how Cambodia is talked about in a lot of the commentary over the past year and a half in a single word, it is this question as to the extent to which Cambodia is diversifying relationships relative to the opposing view, which is that Cambodia has become overly reliant or seemed to be overly dependent on China. That's a very short-term view of what's been happening over the past few years. But you've served in government in various capacities since basically Cambodia was transitioning away from the United Nations presence in Cambodia in the post-Cold War period, which we talked about briefly before we came on here. So you have this longer-term view of Cambodia's foreign policy. To the extent to which Cambodia's foreign relationships are diversifying or not, how much of this is continuity versus how much of this is change in your view?Ambassador Pou Sothirak: Yeah, very good questions. You know, in Cambodian foreign policy statements, we aspire to be a friend to everyone, whoever wants to be friends in a state-to-state relationship. The question about the perceptions that Cambodia overly looks to kind of align itself more closely to China, as opposed to, as I mentioned to you, Prime Minister Hun Manet, a young generation leader who wants to posture his image as a friend to the world: in such a short time, I think it is astonishing to see he focuses very much on projecting himself in a regional and global arena. With regard to Cambodia, when we want to diversify foreign policy, not to put all the eggs in one basket.The question you asked is very pertinent in my view, but you have to understand also, you know, there's a saying that it takes two to tango. Cambodia wants to, or it seems like Cambodia always goes to China for whatever reason. But it's because China also wants to come to Cambodia and offer something. So, you know, people, when you debate about this, say: “why you said you want to be friends with everyone, but you always, you know, a lot of Chinese in Cambodia?” Not so much so nowadays. But previously, it's the questio

Our guest today is Minister Han-koo Yeo, who was South Korea’s trade minister and a key advisor to former president Moon Jae-in who launched Seoul’s New Southern Policy towards Southeast Asia. He served for nearly three decades in public service. He was involved in talks over regional economic agreements including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. We start our conversation talking about the growing intersection between national security and geoeconomics in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Tune in to the full episode as we go through subjects including China Plus One strategies, the future of the CPTPP and RCEP agreements, geoeconomic minilaterals, middle power diplomacy and the evolving agenda in institutions like APEC.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!REGIONAL MODELS IN RIGHTSIZING SECURITIZATION: BEYOND THE SMALL YARD AND HIGH FENCEASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the podcast Minister and let's get started. I wanted to kick off with where we are on a big picture question, which is the fact that national security is infringing more and more on traditional economic conversations. The most vivid encapsulation of this is the past U.S. administration's notion of a “small yard high fence.” That, for me, has always raised a more interesting question that applies to Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific: how are other regional states thinking about their own yards and fences, and where do we draw the lines? It's easier when you're talking about things like artificial intelligence or shipbuilding to say there are national security implications. But when you're talking about banning electric vehicles and other issues, it becomes a bit more complicated. Some people say it goes too far, other people say these are effectively computers on wheels. What is your sense of useful models about how we right size this balance between national security and geoeconomics? What are some examples of where we might have more of a connection and some areas where perhaps we need a little bit more of a separation, relatively speaking?Minister Han-koo Yeo: First of all, thanks for having me. It's really great to join your excellent program. I think that question is a really timely and important one. I think one of the new trends we are witnessing in this global economy is securitization of these economic issues. Previously, economy was economy, security was security. But because of the changing nature of these foundational technologies of digital, AI, et cetera, and then this geopolitical tension and rivalry between US and China, we are seeing more and more these security issues are being interconnected or intertwined with these economic issues. As you mentioned, this “small yard, high fence,” I mean, that is in principle what the previous Biden administration was trying to achieve. But, actually, more and more in reality, we are seeing a kind of big yard, higher fence. I think it is important to strike a right balance between these economic issues and security issues. Because right now in this era of geopolitical tensions, there is legitimate concern about the security issues because of all these digital AI technologies that have national security implications. But you don't want to overdo or overshoot to the extent that you isolate your industry from competition. And then basically this competitiveness is eroded. So I think one of the interesting comparisons is the US as well as EU approach. For example, a few months ago, the Department of Commerce in the United States tried to ban software as well as hardware related to electric vehicles from China. On the other hand, the European Union, they actually welcomed this foreign direct investment from China into European soil in electric vehicles. But then they have these privacy or digital cyber security-related regulations in play. So if we think about these two different models, I think the US model may make you feel more comfortable in the short term protecting national security and private privacy. But the fact is that on competitiveness of these EVs and the battery technology, China is number one, you know? They are surpassing many of other countries. And if you just isolate yourself from this competition with Chinese EV makers, then I think, five years later, ten years later, you run the risk of really falling behind in terms of this competitiveness. So what is the right balance between these legitimate security concerns and keeping this competitive edge by opening up? So I think we should be careful not to take this all or nothing approach. I think there's a fine line between these contrasting policy goals.SOUTHEAST ASIA’S ELECTRIC VEHICLES LANDSCAPE AND CHINA’S ROLEASEAN Wonk: I do want to hone in a little bit more on the EV example that you mentioned because I know you've been to China and studied the electric vehicle ecosystem closely. This is something which in Southeast Asia, as you know, Chinese EVs are accounting for the dominant share – some people say nearly a bit over seventy percent of sales from the previous year. But at the same time, if you look closely at the regional data, the EV share of overall car sales in Southeast Asia is still quite small, relatively speaking, and that has been dominated mostly by Japan historically. And so, we arrive at an issue in some of these regions like Southeast Asia which is seeing a range of approaches on how to approach EVs. You talked about the US approach, the EU approach. I think if you talk to policymakers in countries in the region, they might say the market is still developing: we don’t want to necessarily take any sudden moves. But looking at historical examples, how do you think we should think about how to manage this ecosystem? Because clearly, China has made inroads here. And it's now pushing a lot of these sales through Chinese companies in other regions of the world. Some countries welcome that. Other countries, as you've seen with VinFast in Vietnam, there are some local players there as well. Some other countries like Thailand are welcoming it but then also introducing some ways of managing it. So what are your suggestions about what the balance is in that approach on how we manage this China EV story? Because it is a pretty big story in the region.Minister Han-koo Yeo: That's a very important and difficult question. Let me first share my experience of having visited one of the EV factories in China for Xiaomi. I think it was actually really mind-blowing. Because when I visited there, it was like an Amazon kind of warehouse, highly automatized: it looks like the automation rate is over ninety percent. And more striking is that they pulled it off in three years. I mean, they started this in early 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then they began to turn out this fancy-looking EV in I think April 2024. I think that is only possible in China because through three or four decades of this rapid industrialization, China was really able to develop a full-scale supply chain. For example, in EVs, starting from critical mineral batteries and then all these digital software or hardware components. So I think it is really unbelievable how much China achieved in such a short period of time.So with that, does it offer challenges or opportunities to Southeast Asia? I think both. First, I think opportunities. All these developing countries want to enjoy the benefit of this energy transition and electric vehicles with much cheaper price and higher quality. And I think China is providing this public good to the Global South. But also, we learned the lesson that in this industrial era, you don't want to have overreliance on one player. We realize that overdependence on one country could cause big supply chain shocks or disruptions. Also some of these Southeast Asian countries, they have a national ambition to develop some sort of a local industrial base, whether it's a finished EV vehicle or just some parts of this supply chain. So you also want to strike a balance between importing cheap, high-quality EVs from China or any other countries, but also maintaining some of your industrial base.So I think that's actually where the role of the government comes in. I think one of the new trends in this global economy is industrial policy, right? And many people tend to see industrial policy as equaling big checks or big financial subsidies. But I think there are many other components, which require less financial resources but smart policies. For example, worker training and then linking the universities, the industrial R&D and so on. So I think there are many ways in which governments in Southeast Asian countries can actually deploy some of these smart policies to really maximize the benefits coming from these new industrial policies and the energy transition.“[M]any people tend to see industrial policy as equaling big checks or big financial subsidies. But I think there are many other components, which require less financial re

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Ambassador Vicky Bowman, who has over three decades of experience in international relations and business, including serving as Britain's former ambassador to Myanmar. We'll start our conversation talking about sanctions and Myanmar’s current foreign and economic links including within ASEAN. Make sure you tune into the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects including major power involvement in Myanmar and the future geoeconomic and geopolitical landscape in the country.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!RIGHTSIZING THE ROLE OF SANCTIONS IN POLICYASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Vicky. Thank you for joining us and let's get started. One of the periodic focus areas or topics in the headlines on Myanmar is the use of sanctions. We saw the US add the telecommunications firm Mytel to its sanctions list, which is part of an ongoing process of so-called targeted sanctions that have touched on various areas including finance and aviation fuel. The use of sanctions has been billed as a tool in the wider toolkit for some governments. And there's long been a debate in terms of academic and policy circles on how smart or targeted you can make sanctions, in terms of making sure that you're punishing the regime for actions it's not taking, but also ensuring that you're insulating the rest of the population from some of the impacts that are actually happening. As somebody who has been observing and helping shape policy in Myanmar for decades, how do you assess the current state of how Western countries, including the UK, the US, are calibrating their approach to sanctions relative to other levers that you can use in policy to address the ongoing situation in Myanmar in terms of its politics and its economic development?Ambassador Vicky Bowman: Thank you, Prashanth. Thank you for inviting me on ASEAN Wonk. It's a delight to be here. What you have just said really takes me back to when I was ambassador, which was between 2000 and 2006, because a number of the more senior Asian diplomats were always inviting us around for what were rather tedious diplomatic dinner parties where they would put me on the spot and say: Vicky, why does the West do sanctions? And at sometimes, I even used to arrange for friends to call me so I could leave home – leave the dinner party – because of an urgent call because it got rather boring. To be honest, I see sanctions as a little bit of a sideshow for the West's efforts. Important, definitely headline-grabbing. To some extent, they have some impact. In a way, their deterrent impact, I think, is perhaps more important from the perspective of the private sector.I note that at least certain Myanmar businesses who were on sanctions lists previously are very keen to effectively behave in order to avoid that in the future. But I don't see them as being the thing which is going to lead to change in Myanmar. And what we're really seeing at the moment is a sort of gradual ticking off of various military-linked companies, one that you mentioned, Mytel, being a joint venture with the Vietnamese telecoms company in which the Myanmar side has a significant shareholding by one of the military-owned companies. So when I saw that coming on, I was quite surprised they weren't already on the list. But I think what's more important to remember rather than focusing on this differentiator between Asian governments and Western governments being sanctions, it's actually the effort of the West on humanitarian assistance which is most important. And I think this is often forgotten.“I think what's more important to remember rather than focusing on this differentiator between Asian governments and Western governments being sanctions, it's actually the effort of the West on humanitarian assistance which is most important. And I think this is often forgotten.”And I was just digging out some figures on this. So the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs assessment of what's needed and I think what's needed and could be delivered if the money was there is currently only just over a third funded. So of that funding, that third, $409 million last year, a third of that came from the US government. And then beyond that, you had 13 percent coming from Australia. You had 9 percent European Commission, 7 percent Japan, 5 percent each Sweden and UK. At the bottom, you've got ASEAN with $760,000, which is really, you know, a very significant differential. And I think sometimes it's important for Asian countries, rather than criticizing the West on sanctions, to understand how much contribution is coming in and humanitarian. And then for us all to be somewhat concerned that with the recent U.S. election and sort of reviews to USAID, what is that going to mean in the future? [Note: Ambassador Vicky Bowman wanted us to note in the transcript that this discussion of assistance volume is occurring amid uncertainty in the United States in a new administration over what Washington’s future role will be both in general and with respect to Myanmar more specifically].Even I hadn't been aware of quite how significant the US was in this area. But if I look at all the other donors as well, all of them are facing budget constraints. All of them are facing other priorities. You know, Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan should be much higher up people's lists. So I fear that those numbers are going to go down. And the victims of that change are going to be people, particularly in rural areas. And that somewhat is the reason why the work I've been doing and continue to do, although on a much sort of less full-time basis now, is all around trying to keep the formal economy going and maintaining jobs. Because if you lose that, then how are people going to eat? And we see them obviously leaving the country to the extent they can. But jobs in the country are often funding three or four people in a family. We see that even in really poorly paid jobs in the government sector. So it's really important to keep those in.And what I'm pleased to see is that compared to those debates we were having 20 years ago, there are certainly very few governments – no governments, really – but also very few Myanmar stakeholders who are arguing for everyone to leave. It's very much a minority position. But there are a few who seem to think of a sort of scorched earth [scenario] for the economy – I mean, one of them the other day said we need to completely reset the Myanmar economy. Well, for me, resetting it means just basically leaving a blank slate where there will only be organized crime left there. And we're already seeing too much of that: the organized crime, the scam centers, the drugs. So trying to help companies to stay there and continue to function and to function responsibly, I think, is still a really important priority for the West as well as for ASEAN: in some cases, more for the West than for ASEAN.STANDARDS CALIBRATION IN GEOECONOMICSASEAN Wonk: So Vicky, just to build on the point that you were mentioning earlier on sanctions being a sideshow relative to some of the huge humanitarian needs that are required in the country. How do we balance the considerations with respect to making sure that the trajectory of the country is diversified – so not focused on a more isolated landscape with respect to China, Russia – and making sure that the regime actually has the sort of the incentives to make sure that it's leaning in the right direction? Because what we're seeing now is a trajectory where there are some businesses that are in the country but some of them – including major businesses – have actually left the country. And there is this dynamic, which is not unique to Myanmar, where obviously businesses are going to follow profit – there's business considerations that are there – but there are also really geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations, which is the more businesses leave, Western businesses in particular, for all of their flaws and issues, they tend to help lift the overall standards in the in the country relative to, say, businesses from China and Russia. So them leaving the country actually creates this broader issue or challenge where the overall standards in the country might actually be depressed relative to where we are now. So as somebody who has seen this country Myanmar through various cycles – not just the recent cycle of the post-coup landscape – how do we think about this question of how do we balance those considerations?Ambassador Vicky Bowman: Well I think that certainly Western governments are very conscious of it, and they're conscious of it for exactly the reasons you say. If you leave a vacuum, generally, the quality of what goes on there in terms of rule of law, of good governance will slip, environmental sustainability, and so on. And that that will be bad not just for today, but for any future economic transition. I mean, if we ever get to the point where we have a democratically elected government, the

INTRODUCTION[Note to the ASEAN Wonk Community: The ASEAN Wonk Team conducted an exclusive interview on February 11 with the president of The Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam previewing its hosting of the upcoming ASEAN Future Forum scheduled for February 25-26. We are running this as a special episode of our ASEAN Wonk Podcast. The wide-ranging discussion covers minilaterals in the shifting regional institutional landscape; middle power diplomacy; Vietnam’s foreign policy prospects in a “new era” as it prepares for its next party congress in 2026; and much more].Our guest today is Dr. Nguyen Hung Son, who is the acting president of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and served over two decades in Vietnam's foreign ministry in various roles, including at the ASEAN department. We start the conversation talking about Vietnam’s current foreign policy posture and previewing its upcoming hosting of the ASEAN Future Forum later this month, a new forum within the regional landscape. Make sure you tune into the full episode as we go through other subjects, including the regional tech race, middle power diplomacy, minilateralism and where Vietnam’s bamboo diplomacy is headed with its upcoming party congress in 2026.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!VIETNAM FOREIGN POLICY EVOLUTION AND THE ROLE OF MULTILATERALISM AND ASEANASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast Hung Son and let's get started. I'm wondering if you could help contextualize Vietnam’s ties with ASEAN within its wider foreign policy approach, which is centered around various components including multidirectionality. Vietnam joining ASEAN in 1995 was arguably one of the major post-Cold War shifts in the region, given some of the regional tensions that existed previously. We're now at 30 years since Vietnam joined ASEAN, and Vietnam has made several contributions along the way. You've worked as a diplomat in various roles, including on ASEAN affairs. How have you seen Vietnam's perceptions of ASEAN evolve over time during this period within its foreign policy?Dr. Nguyen Hung Son: Well, first of all, thank you for including me in this very interesting podcast. Well, it's a very good question. We’re marking the thirtieth anniversary of Vietnam entering into ASEAN and becoming a formal ASEAN member. And I would say that becoming an ASEAN member is one of the most successful Vietnam's foreign policies. Why so? Because right after the Cold War, we were a member of the Eastern Bloc, the Soviet Bloc members, and we were more confrontational to ASEAN. But after the Cold War ended, we sought to become a member of ASEAN, and that has opened up the new whole world for Vietnam. And that was the beginning of Vietnam entering into regional integration, international integration, and that was the foundation of the success that we've enjoyed over the past nearly four decades. So arguably, ASEAN membership provided us a lot. And ASEAN today is one of the most important pillars of Vietnam foreign policy. And Vietnam is seeking to or is trying to become an even more active member of the regional and international community. And ASEAN is absolutely indispensable for that journey of Vietnam, in its international integration.So that's the importance of ASEAN to Vietnam. And as a diplomat, I started out as an expert in the ASEAN department of the ministry. I observed that journey, and I've seen how more active Vietnam has become in ASEAN business within the region. And today, we have this ASEAN Future Forum, which is a Vietnam's initiative, which represents the contribution that Vietnam is trying to make to ASEAN at a very critical juncture of the organization development. So that's the context of the ASEAN Future Forum that we are going to have in two weeks' time.BAMBOO DIPLOMACY IN VIETNAM’S FOREIGN POLICY APPROACHASEAN Wonk: And can I ask you: one of the labels that we've heard about on Vietnam's foreign policy approach in recent years has been this idea of “bamboo diplomacy” right? Bending, not breaking. The idea of principles symbolized by a sturdy trunk and firm roots, but also flexible adjustments in terms of the branches. How does ASEAN fit in within that perspective of bamboo diplomacy? Because obviously, it's a very stormy geopolitical environment for Vietnam to navigate.Dr. Nguyen Hung Son: Okay. That's another very good question. Bamboo diplomacy, it's a great metaphor that depicts Vietnam's foreign policy qualities. And one of those qualities is to stick together with allies and friends in order to be strong, in order to be resilient.“Bamboo diplomacy, it's a great metaphor that depicts Vietnam's foreign policy qualities. And one of those qualities is to stick together with allies and friends in order to be strong, in order to be resilient.”And that's precisely what ASEAN is for Vietnam. It provides the solidarity. It provides the added strength that a country alone would not have. And that's critically important at this time, as you said, a very stormy weather, where more countries are pushed and pulled by the forces of great power competition. You need friends. You need allies. And ASEAN is Vietnam’s home. ASEAN is Vietnam ally in order to stay strong in such a geopolitical weather that Vietnam is experiencing. So if you want to use the metaphor of the bamboo, then the bamboo banded together through ASEAN is what Vietnam is looking for.SOUTHEAST ASIA’S INSTITUTIONAL LANDSCAPE AND THE ASEAN FUTURE FORUM IN PERSPECTIVEASEAN Wonk: Great. I wanted to transition to talk about the ASEAN Future Forum. And the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, which you're the acting president of, is very well known for convening a lot of these dialogues. I had the benefit of participating in one of those dialogues in September last year. The ASEAN Future Forum, as you mentioned earlier, is quite a significant development. A lot of the dialogues regionally in Southeast Asia tend to be concentrated primarily in maritime Southeast Asia. So if you look at the broader Indo-Pacific or global interactions like the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, or if you look at the Asia-Pacific Roundtable in Malaysia, this is really a big initiative by Vietnam that helps also distribute the sort of convening role more within Southeast Asia as well. So it's quite a significant development.Alongside that, we have seen Vietnam also take other convening initiatives. We saw the defense exhibition that just occurred in Vietnam a few months ago. Vietnam has worked with the World Economic Forum on a number of events prior to this. Can you help us conceptualize what was the origin process of the ASEAN Future Forum and how it was socialized and came to be? Because these are not very easy undertakings for any country. And you having been part of this initiative at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, with Vietnam and the government, how do you see that process of the origin and the socialization?Dr. Nguyen Hung Son: Well yes. You're right. There are a lot of activities within ASEAN already. ASEAN is known to be an organization with a lot of meetings, and many of the initiatives are taken by the so-called maritime ASEAN members. We have the Shangri-La Dialogue. We have the Asia-Pacific Roundtable by Malaysia and so on. And so we thought, well, many people thought that adding more meetings into the ASEAN business is very tough.But nevertheless, Vietnam thought that, well, no matter how many or how much discussion there are on ASEAN, it’s not enough. Especially at this critical juncture, you need more talk, and talk is what is lacking in the international community at the moment. People needed to have more talks. And especially in this region, we needed more strategic talks. We needed to think out of the box. We needed to be more innovative, be more creative, to look back, reflect on ASEAN, and see squarely what challenges ASEAN faces and to provide out of the box solutions or recommendations to the organizations. Hence, we proposed the idea of a Track 1.5 dialogue that is dedicated to ASEAN. That is what is lacking in this region. We have several similar Track 1.5 undertakings – the Shangri-La Dialogue, the Asia-Pacific Roundtable, the defense dialogue by Indonesia, the Jeju Forum, and so on. But none of them is dedicated to ASEAN and its relationship with its partners. So we decided to fill the gap by proposing the idea, and, fortunately, in its first and second iteration, which we are holding this year, we've received some good feedback. We've received some support in the region. It's too early to say if this initiative is going to be long-lived, but I believe that there is a gap there that we are trying to fill, and we are doing a good service to ASEAN and to the region by providing this. And so that's the origin of it.ASEAN Wonk: Great. And I’m wondering if you could say a little bit about that process that you mentioned. Obviously with any initiative within ASEAN, you do need to get support of other countries as well. Vietnam hosted the first iteration of the ASEAN Future Fo

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Fidelis Magalhaes, who is a former minister of the presidency of the Council of Ministers in East Timor, and he has nearly two decades of policy and government experience. We start our conversation talking about the country's pursuit of full ASEAN membership and its development trajectory. Make sure you tune into the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including major power involvement and future geopolitical and geoeconomic prospects.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!FULL ASEAN MEMBERSHIP PURSUITASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast Fidelis: thank you for joining us and let's get started. I wanted to talk more specifically about Timor as a country because as we were talking just before we came on live, it is a country that often doesn't get the attention that it deserves within Southeast Asia. I did want to start with Timor's pursuit of full ASEAN membership. It is the country that is in Southeast Asia but remains out of ASEAN in terms of full ASEAN membership as of now. But that's changing with ASEAN already agreeing to Timor joining the institution as a full member. That's still in a process of being underway. I recall President Jose Ramos-Horta once referring to ASEAN as being more difficult to get into than heaven. But that being said, Timor has undergone a lot of steps that are necessary for full ASEAN membership and this is a very complex process. The steps are not just taken by Dili itself, but also other ASEAN countries in terms of areas like diplomatic infrastructure – those aspects are still being worked out and progressing. There are a lot of headlines periodically that focus on ASEAN membership about it as an institution, but you as a former policymaker have a sense of the significance of what this means for actual policy and for Timor's foreign policy and geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape. Could you help explain the policy significance of Timor's admission to ASEAN and why does it matter from a historical and contemporary perspective?Minister Fidelis Magalhaes: Well, thank you very much, Prashanth, for the opportunity. So let's start with ASEAN membership, or at least with the most recent development. I think, as you rightly pointed out, President Ramos-Horta once said that it was more difficult to get into heaven rather than joining ASEAN. I think at this stage, the signals that we've been receiving from Malaysia, who is now the chair, and from other members, we have been receiving quite a significant and more promising signal. So in a sense, I think the expectation is already Timor-Leste is somehow around the corner from heaven, but maybe not entirely inside. So the expectation or the signals that we've been receiving here from Timor-Leste, or at least the sense, is that maybe still this year Timor could join. And at least from the policymakers or from present government's viewpoints or statements is that it is realistic to expect Timor-Leste becoming a full member or acquiring full membership. But again, there are still things to be done policy-wise and streamlining policies to adapt to the ASEAN standards. So it all remains to be seen. But I think from Dili's viewpoint, I think there is a new sense of optimism.REGIONAL CONNECTIVITYASEAN Wonk: Great thanks for that. You mentioned Malaysia and its ASEAN chairmanship. Given the twin pillars are inclusivity and sustainability, Timor’s inclusion would presumably be part of that story and would make sense from a narrative perspective as well. I’m wondering if you could say a little bit as well about something we were talking about offline earlier. Often there’s a bit of misunderstanding or lack of understanding about some of the very basic mechanisms within Timor and how it operates. It is a country that on most indices is among the most – and sometimes the most – democratic country in Southeast Asia. But I know President Ramos-Horta and other officials have said, in spite of the fact that Timor registers quite well on these metrics, they also hope that Timor can improve on the economic metrics as well, because it remains one of the lesser developed countries in Asia, and also one of the lesser connected countries within Southeast Asia. For people who have gone to Timor, they recognize there's only a few places that you can get flights actually registered, and hopefully this changes over time. Can you provide us with a sense of that regional connectivity? Because for the country, there’s links to Indonesia and relationships with countries that are important and evolving such as with Singapore, for example. How do you assess not just the issue of ASEAN membership, but connectivity of Timor as a member of the Southeast Asian neighborhood and community?Minister Fidelis Magalhaes: Well, let's start with going back in time slightly. So I think the FRETILIN leadership [initially the resistance fighting for Timor’s independence] believed it was important for Timor-Leste to be a member of ASEAN for political reasons. And this continues to be – at least I think – imprinted in political discourses within Timor-Leste. And the thinking remains the same: that it is imperative for Timor-Leste to be a member of ASEAN in order to ensure our long-term security and also in order to gain voice internationally. Because as you know, globally, it is the practice these days for countries to be members of their own immediate neighborhood alliances or groupings. Well, Timor-Leste and probably one or two other countries in the world I think have not done so. So it is, for our viewpoint, it is almost incomplete for ASEAN to exclude Timor-Leste. It is so natural for Timor-Leste to be part of ASEAN. Culturally, economically, Timor-Leste is part of Southeast Asia and ASEAN. It is embedded. It is a natural member of Southeast Asia. And maritime Southeast Asia is obviously quite incomplete without having Timor-Leste as a member.Now, we understand that there are disagreements. There are concerns. And this is not only something which I think concerns observers or members of ASEAN. Even the Timorese, we are normally very harsh in terms of assessing our own advances or our own progress. We believe that sociopolitically, we have made a lot of advancements, we've achieved quite a lot. But in order for these sociopolitical achievements to be sustainable, you'll need to combine it with socioeconomic or economic development. Now, whereas we are advancing quite fast sociopolitically or institutionally or in terms of state-building, economically we are lagging behind. So for us it is also a matter of state survival or the continuity of the Timorese state or a nationhood as a social political experiment of building a democratic society or a sustainable society.We really have to, we do not have time to waste. We need to actually push our economic development or we really need to move ahead with economic development. So the hope therefore is that by joining ASEAN we'll be able to adapt our institutions and our regulations with that of ASEAN and that would probably make Timor-Leste conducive for intra-regional trading. That would make Timor-Leste be more adaptable to requirements from ASEAN and also from WTO and more universal or global trading regimes. So that's, I think, the expectation.Now, what does it mean in practical terms? In practical terms, I think there is a lot of legal reforms that need to be undertaken. There are a lot of institutional reforms that are needed because, as you know, our institutions, despite the progress, their progress so far is normally based on an economy that is based heavily on petroleum, but also it is an inheritance to some degree of a rather centralized UN mechanism. So you actually need to modernize this and you'd have to make sure that it is adaptable to the demands of a more embedded regional economic architecture. So we believe that ASEAN as the future economic powerhouse would be beneficial to Timor-Leste. So us joining ASEAN would in a way allow us or enable us to have a greater, larger market. As you know, being a small country, we do not have the privilege of having an economy of scale. For our own development, we really have to be embedded or be part of a regional economic framework.But for that, you really need a lot of work. We also have to work with the mindset of the people. So people have to understand the tradeoffs; people have to understand the challenges that may come with the opportunities. So economically speaking, what it really means and the way in which the economy has been set up…you would have to realize that when you are actually exposed or be a player in a larger regional system where there is a demand for fair treatment for all players, then it probably may introduce some hiccups, some changes that may not be well-received at least in the first few years of us becoming a member. So this is I think the work you’d need to do. So probably learning from Singapore – from PM Lee Kuan Yew – where you have a key choi

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Bilahari Kausikan, who served as a Singapore diplomat for over three decades, including as permanent secretary of the foreign ministry, permanent Representative to the United Nations and ambassador to Russia. We start our conversation talking about how Southeast Asian countries are positioning themselves in the current global order. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a number of other subjects, including contingencies related to Taiwan, flashpoint management, and Southeast Asia stakes going forward.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE SHIFTING GLOBAL ORDERASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast Bilahari. Thank you for joining us, and let's get started. Southeast Asia, as you've written, is no stranger to major power competition. There are various ways to characterize US-China competition today and the state of the global order. If you look at the Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index, it's very clear the United States and China are in kind of in a league of their own, but then you have a range of other powers as well that sit below that, which is a very complex sort of regional landscape. You've suggested that the order you see is kind of a version of dynamic multipolarity – there are different versions of that and what that means. But the key is that it's very different from some of the other analogies that have been advanced, including notions of a new Cold War, which was quite different historically, and also not very cold in Southeast Asia in terms of some of the conflicts that occurred there. What is your sense of the global order today moving forward? And what are Southeast Asia's stakes within it?Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan: Yeah. Let me make one general point first about global order in general. I think it is a fundamental mistake to think about global order as necessarily reflecting our consensus. If you look throughout history, whatever order we had was defined by contest and efforts to create parameters for those contests so they were minimally dangerous, shall we say. Right? And that was certainly the case for the forty odd years of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. I think you know my views on this. I think that to call the US-China competition a new cold war is really intellectually sloppy and lazy. Because there are superficial similarities, of course, but they are superficial. It's fundamentally different.The Cold War, the US-Soviet Union Cold War, was one between two systems. It was an existential struggle to see which was the better way of organizing modern industrial society. I think that that debate has been settled. Right? And you're not going to revive it by trying to impose this rather artificial framework of democracy versus authoritarianism on US-China relations. Yeah. China is authoritarian, but it's authoritarian in its own way. There are many variants of authoritarianism. Just as there are many variants – in fact more variants – of democracy, right? So I think the US-China competition is a competition not between two systems, but within a single global system. They are both vital parts of this system. I don't think they can bifurcate into two separate systems.There will be partial bifurcation. It's already happening. And neither the US nor China is particularly comfortable with their interdependency because it exposes their vulnerabilities. They're both trying to mitigate it. And you know how they're trying to do it. US is trying to be less reliant on China and its supply chains, and China is trying to be more self-reliant in certain technologies. And I think both are going to fail, or at least they're not going to succeed to the extent they hope. Right?“There will be partial bifurcation. It's already happening.”But I think this is good news for Southeast Asia because competition between systems is binary. Your choice is a or b. And that was much of the case during the Cold War, which as you have pointed out, was really hot in Southeast Asia. So even those of us that pretended to be non-aligned, we knew where our bread was buttered. Competition within the system as it exists between the US and China today is not binary, it's complex. And in complexity, there is at least in principle more opportunity to exercise agency. And, you know, Southeast Asia, as you pointed out, has lived in the midst of major power competition for centuries. And it's nothing new. This is just the latest iteration of what is probably a natural phenomenon for a region that is a strategic crossroads between two major oceans and therefore trade routes, energy routes, supply routes, and so on.In complexity, there is opportunity to exercise agency. And that's in principle, what all Southeast Asian countries, with one or two exceptions, try to do. Now I don't say we always do it very well. And there have been some disastrous mistakes in recent Southeast Asian history, particularly in the sixties and seventies. But I think we can cope pretty well as long as we each maintain a very clear idea of our national interest and look out for and maintain the agility. The agility to either seize opportunities to advance our national interest or get out of harm's way in good time. And I think by and large, most Southeast Asian countries with a couple of exceptions are doing that with various degrees of success, but generally, successfully.INTRAREGIONAL BALANCE OF POWERASEAN Wonk: Right. And that's an important characterization that you made there in terms of there being opportunities and agency for Southeast Asian states, but a lot of it depends on how these countries actually exercise that. And a lot of that depends on individual governments, leaderships and regimes. I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about the intra-regional balance of power within Southeast Asia, which you, as a practitioner, also experienced. And sometimes I think this is a little bit taken for granted for those who don't know the region well. So if you look at aggregate indicators, there are always these characterizations like Southeast Asia is the fifth largest economy now collectively; it’s going to be the fourth largest economy – depending on which estimate you look at – by 2040 for example. But I'm also interested in your thoughts about the intra-regional balance of power. Since the end of the Cold War, we've seen really the, for lack of a better term, the two sub-regional giants, right – a democratized Indonesia in maritime Southeast Asia, and then Vietnam in mainland Southeast Asia –get a lot of attention in terms of some of its growth rates relative to where it was in the sort of pre-Cold War sort of days, for example. But there are obviously long standing intra-regional tensions as well, and dynamics that periodically pop up. And you do have other powers as well in those regions like Malaysia, Thailand, so on and so forth. So if you're a policymaker or an expert who's looking at the region sort of from the outside in or trying to understand what the region looks like, how would you characterize the intra-regional balance of power going forward, even as Southeast Asia's sort of collective importance continues to rise in the coming decades?Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan: Alright. I think that's a very important point you have raised. When outside observers – whether in the United States or China or Japan or Europe – look at Southeast Asia, they look at ASEAN, first of all, because it is the regional organization. But they don't quite understand that the fundamental and enduring purpose of ASEAN is to manage relations between its members.Management of external relations has always been primarily a national responsibility. And ASEAN is a secondary factor. Sometimes a bit more important, sometimes less important. This is one of those times where it's less important, but it is always a secondary factor. The primary purpose of ASEAN is to manage this intra-regional balance, the intra-regional tensions, some of which have very long historical roots, and some of them start from very primordial things like race, language, religion, and therefore, they are never going to go away.And I think from that point of view, ASEAN has been terribly successful. You just think about the state of Southeast Asia. I'll just use Singapore as an example. We had independence thrust upon us in 1965. Now what was the state of Southeast Asia in 1965. Think about it. First of all, the cold war was hot, very hot on mainland Southeast Asia. Secondly, Singapore had just been asked to leave Malaysia and the relationship was fraught with racial tension. Indonesia was still fighting an undeclared war against Malaysia and when we were separated from Malaysia, Singapore as well. And there was a very active claim over a very large chunk of Malaysia by Philippines to Sabah. And there were irredentist pressures on the fringes of Malaysia and Thailand, West Malaysia and Thailand, and on the fringes of the eastern parts of I

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Professor Dindo Manhit, who has been founder and managing director of the Stratbase Group in the Philippines since 2004 and previously held various roles across government, academia, and civil society across several decades. We start our conversation talking about the current state of Philippine politics and several geoeconomic and geopolitical developments in 2025 ahead of upcoming midterm elections in the country. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including future scenarios to watch on the South China Sea, as well as geoeconomic sectors such as critical minerals and semiconductors.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!ASSESSING THE MARCOS ADMINISTRATION’S FOREIGN AND ECONOMIC POLICY APPROACHASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Dindo, thank you for joining us. Let's get started with our conversation. And while there's understandably a lot of focus on the Philippines with respect to 2025, I wanted to start first by getting your views on how we might evaluate the status of the Marcos administration thus far in its single six-year term in office. So there have been some successes, including building a more global alignment network in spite of tensions with China and the South China Sea. There have also been some challenges as well. And some of the polls, including ones Stratbase has commissioned, have shown issues such as on inflation and cost of living, not unlike some of the other countries in Southeast Asia. As someone who's been helping shape policy in the Philippines for decades, how would you grade the Marcos administration's foreign and economic policy approach thus far? And you can use a scale of one to ten or alphabet letters and so on and so forth. How do we go about thinking about this question about how to grade the Marcos administration?Professor Dindo Manhit: I think Dr. Prashanth, when you look at the Marcos administration, two and a half years into office, we have seen them really consolidate support in the broader population, broader sectors of Philippine society. Of course, what remains challenging is really the reality of economics. Basic economics in the Philippines is really the high cost of living. And of course, with it comes challenges in terms of securing livelihood, better incomes. So the challenge of unemployment and underemployment. And it adds to the poverty of people. But beyond that, you see our own government – and this is unique, I have not seen this really – the broad support for the alliance or partnership or the engagement that the Marcos administration has really brought two years and a half into office. And hopefully, this kind of engagement goes beyond security or traditional national security engagement, but it creates opportunities for investment that can help really in terms of economic security of the Philippines.Because at the end of the day, we are an economy that continues to grow because of our young population. Consumption continues to expand and this is driven by strong remittances from overseas Filipino workers around the world. Also, strong growth in what we call the service sector. But what we are lacking is more investment in the manufacturing sector. We are not looking for big manufacturing, but if we can be part of the so-called supply chain, bigger part of the supply chain, especially as we see the globalization of the world economy. You know, when we hear from future cabinet appointments of President Trump, they speak of friendshoring. I hope they realize that in ASEAN, we are the real friend. We share like-minded values. So when we see investments going to Vietnam and other countries, we tend to ask ourselves: are we simply important because of strategic location? But maybe strategic location translates into economic opportunities for a broader growth trajectory, which is investment-led, which is job-generating, which allows our people to get better livelihood, to improve their lot, and consume more. So it becomes a cycle for that kind of challenge. But I think we are on the right track.“[T]hey speak of friendshoring. I hope they realize that in ASEAN, we are the real friend.”There is a lot of political noise. The international community has heard of that. But I consider it political noise because for me, I consider the Dutertes – based on my own data, the family of the former president – as a spent force in the Philippines. This is a story of how in politics, no matter how you keep things from happening or coming out, the institutions tend to work for good governance and these are basically audit reports that they cannot answer to. So they're deflecting it as if these are all politically motivated. Maybe the politics is there as it was. But all this data and reports are really traditional institutional ways in the in the Philippine society to make government officials accountable for their actions. So this noise is a deflection on the positive direction the country is moving towards to, especially as we engage other countries, as we become more open to private sector investors in the Philippines.PHILIPPINES GEOECONOMIC TRAJECTORY: RHETORIC VS. REALITYASEAN Wonk: Right. So, Dindo, I wanted to ask: you kind of referenced it there already, which is that the Philippine economy is gaining attention as kind of a big geoeconomic story, I would say, within Southeast Asia under the Marcos administration. And this is beyond the sort of geopolitical focus on the South China Sea. I mean, I was looking through the latest Asian Development Bank outlook that just came out for 2025. And the Philippines, again, is the second fastest-growing economy in Southeast Asia after Vietnam at a projected rate of 6.2 percent. And the Marcos administration has noted that, if this continues, the Philippines is on track to essentially become a trillion-dollar economy by the early 2030s. Under Marcos Senior – under Ferdinand Marcos – the question was can the Philippines shed its reputation as sort of the sick man of Asia at that time. But under Marcos Jr., do you sense that the country is on a pathway to becoming really a key regional geoeconomic player in its own right? Because these are some really fascinating numbers. But as you know, we’ve been through many cycles of kind of hope and optimism about the Philippines. I'm interested in your views as to how sustainable do you think this trajectory is that the Philippines is on.Professor Dindo Manhit: When you look at these numbers, Prashanth, something to think about also. I would say that in spite of government, we are hitting those numbers. So imagine we are on that pathway a decade and a half ago under the Aquino administration. We had some challenges during the Duterte administration. Of course, the COVID, the last three years of COVID 2020 to 2022 really became challenging for the Philippines. But what remained strong was because of our population that remains our key strength and a very young population that consumes, at a median age of 25, imagine if we build beyond the service sector, then we can sustain it further. The data that you quoted earlier is actually coming from a Standard and Poor's projection that by 2033, we'll be among the top twenty biggest economies in the world. We're number thirty-three now. The problem in the Philippines is we don't like to talk about these things because we don't even read those reports. We tend to talk about how we have failed, how Vietnam is up there.But we're up there. Our economy is still bigger than Vietnam. And we can find ways also to build on our strength, which is our service sector, build more on the manufacturing side. As I said earlier, light manufacturing, industrial manufacturing. A little growth there can sustain it further. Because I came across a study, and I was invited to the briefing by HSBC, the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation, talking about how we will be the top 15 by the latter part of the 2040s if we follow this trajectory without, again, even interventions from government. That means without what I was talking about investment net growth. So the pathway is good. And I think our economy is resilient enough that government changes, but our economic policy doesn't change.And we saw that with Duterte. We got frustrated with him in terms of position, in terms of West Philippine Sea issues, in terms of democratic challenges during his time. But the economic team that he brought together was able to maintain a trajectory moving forward. Maybe we could have grown more if it was not Duterte. But with Marcos, that's why also Marcos gets this chance of really growing forward because he learned from the missteps of the Duterte administration and became, you'd say – more coming from a family that is known for its dictatorship – an investor friendly, private sector friendly administration. And with that also, side by side with this engagement at the security front. So that makes our economy stronger and repositions

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Ambassador Scot Marciel. He spent over three decades working in the US government, including as US ambassador to Indonesia, Myanmar and ASEAN.We start our conversation talking about the current state of U.S-Southeast Asia relations. Make sure you watch, listen or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including datapoints to watch in 2025 and the U.S. approach to evolving flashpoints such as South China Sea and Myanmar.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!GRADING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S SOUTHEAST ASIA APPROACHASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Scot, thank you for joining us. And we can get started with our conversation. There's obviously a lot of focus on what an incoming Trump administration would mean for Southeast Asia. But I wanted to start first by asking your views about how the Biden administration actually has performed during its term in office. There have been some clear wins, including upgrades with Indonesia and Vietnam, the upgrade and the relationship with ASEAN, as well as the minilaterals cultivated with the Philippines. But there have also been some challenges on the trade front with Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), and some issues in terms of the balancing between ideals and interests and sensitivities in Southeast Asian countries. As somebody who's been a practitioner for over three decades, looking at these actual relationships, how would you go about grading the Biden administration's record on Southeast Asia? And you can use whatever scale you want, whether it's one to ten or alphabet letters and and so on and so forth.Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. I think overall, I would give the Biden administration pretty good marks. You know, on a scale of one to ten with ten being ideal, probably somewhere in the seven range. Positives are some of which you already mentioned: upgrading relations, some of the formal double upgrade with Vietnam, even though as a diplomat, you know, we used to make put a lot of effort into those things: they're more symbolic than real — or they can be more symbolic than real — but I think there's some real substance behind some of them. Certainly, the one with with Vietnam, and I hope the one with Indonesia. So those have been positive. There was more consistent high level engagement under the Biden administration than there was with the previous administration.On the negative side, trade, the lack of trade initiatives — which is a bigger problem than a Biden administration problem — but the US political unwillingness or inability to engage in trying to negotiate new trade agreements is a real setback or or at least a real negative, I would say an ongoing negative. And also, I think President Biden's failure to show up at the last two summits. You know, people sort of say, well, these summits, they're just talk shops. But but to me, in my experience, showing up at those levels is really important to Southeast Asians, Southeast Asian leaders and governments because they use it a little bit to gauge the level of US commitment. So if you miss one at every ten years, it's not that big a deal. But if they see patterns of more engagement or less engagement, it causes them to either increase or reduce their confidence in the US as a long term partner. So I'd take off some points on that front. Overall, pretty good.DEFINING THE SOUTHEAST ASIA STAKES FOR THE INCOMING TRUMP ADMINISTRATIONASEAN Wonk: Right. And to your point, some of these issues are unique to the Biden administration; others are more systemic problems with US policy. And I think on trade, as you said, these are issues that that have to do with domestic pressures on whatever administration is going to come to office as well. I wanted to also talk a little bit about the stakes for the incoming administration. I think if you look back to the first Trump administration, there were some issues and challenges on Southeast Asia, but I think one thing that the administration did do was some clarity on China policy. And I think some countries in Southeast Asia looked at that favorably, others looked at it with a little bit more suspicion. But there was this dynamic of US China competition that we did get a lot more clarity on in the Trump administration relative to, say, the second term of the Obama administration.But I think at the same time, even though it's just been four years, there have been quite a number of things that have changed in terms of the US position, the dynamics in Southeast Asia and just global dynamics in general. You can look at what happened in Ukraine, you can look at the crisis in Myanmar. But also, other notions about post-pandemic growth and sectors like artificial intelligence and supply chains — a lot of these things are pretty new relative to where the first Trump administration was. Most of the leaders in Southeast Asia are actually new even though it’s been just a few years. And actually, it's a really interesting dynamic on US China competition. US economic performance in the past couple of years has actually been quite good and China's economic performance has actually slowed down relatively speaking. You've advised US officials at the highest level of government about the stakes for the United States in Southeast Asia. I'm wondering, in terms of the incoming Trump administration — with the caveat that we still don't know who the cabinet level officials are are going to be and what the the makeup is going to be — what's your topline about the US stakes in Southeast Asia now relative to four years ago when the Trump administration left office? Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. It's a great question. I'd say, first of all, the economic importance of Southeast Asia has become even greater, and continues to be greater. And particularly when you look at supply chains, which was a focus of the Trump administration and of the Biden administration, and I expect will be a focus of the new Trump administration even if it's overall not enthusiastic about trade per se. So I think there are some real opportunities there. You look at, for example, President Biden's visit to Hanoi talking about supporting Vietnam's effort to become a key cog in the semiconductor supply chain. Obviously, critical minerals in places like Indonesia and Philippines, etc. So there are some some real opportunities there, and the region's important. I mean, overall, as you know, ASEAN collectively I think, is the fourth or fifth largest US trading partner these days, and I think four of the ten ASEAN members are in the top twenty too. So economically, it's really important. Politically, it's important just because it's such a dynamic and diverse region. If things go badly, it's gonna be a problem for the region and the US and vice versa.And then there's vis-a-vis China. And this is one of the the most challenging things for US policy makers. You know, people say — I say — we should engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits. And I think that's really true because for the reasons I just mentioned and others, even if China didn't exist, Southeast Asia would be a really important partner. But even in the context of looking at US-China competition, I think there's a little bit of an a a false dichotomy offered sometimes between, well, engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits or through the prism of China. And I think the reality is that you can engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits while still having China very much in your mind. So when the president or the secretary of state sits down with a counterpart from Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, wherever it may be. Ideally, they're talking about the bilateral relationship, shared interest, trade investment, health cooperation, security cooperation. They both probably have China in the back of their minds. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.But where I think the US goes wrong is it tends sometimes to assume that the countries of Southeast Asia see China the same way we do, which they don't necessarily. And also assumes that the first thing to do when you start off a meeting is talk about how problematic China is, which generally doesn't go over very well. So I think that requires some nuance: to be thinking of Southeast Asia partly in the context of US-China relations, not wholly, but to make not make the discussions all about China. And that's a level of nuance that, frankly, I think is gonna be a question mark for the incoming Trump administration and will depend to a certain extent on both who's appointed, but also who has the lead. You get, you know, somebody like a Secretary of State Rubio — I don't know him personally — but at least has some background in foreign relations and foreign policy as opposed to someone who may be less experienced and may have a harder time finding that kind of nuance.MINILATERALS, ASEAN ENGAGEMENT AND BILATERAL PATHWAYSASEAN Wonk: Yeah. I think that's an important point that you make about the bal

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Dato Dr. Ilango Karuppannan, who has over thirty years of experience as a distinguished Malaysian diplomat, with posts that included a high commissioner in Singapore, acting ambassador in the United States, as well as ambassador in Lebanon, where Malaysia still maintains a role in the UN peacekeeping force amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.We start our conversation talking about the role of Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in positioning the country geopolitically and geoeconomically amid US-China competition and the Gaza war. Make sure you watch, listen, and read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including Malaysia's approach to flashpoints like the South China Sea and its coming agenda for the ASEAN chairmanship in 2025.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!ASSESSING MALAYSIA’S FOREIGN POLICY IN REGIONAL AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVEASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Ilango. Thank you for joining us, and let's get started with our conversation. I think a lot of ink has been spilled on Anwar's rhetoric and Malaysia's recent foreign policy moves, its rhetoric on the Israel-Gaza war and its interest in the BRICS. We were talking a little bit about this right before recording. Much of this is not really new, and it's a product of strands in Malaysian foreign policy. We saw coexistence, for example, during Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s time between Malaysia's non-aligned rhetoric and relations with the United States in some areas like security moving under the radar as well. So I guess the more interesting question to my mind is beyond Malaysia doing X or doing Y to benefit Power A or Power B, two years into Anwar's term, how do we really assess the Anwar government's ability to secure Malaysia's own interests in a more competitive and contested world? So we can go with individual metrics like how many trips has Anwar taken, which is quite a few. He's been very active after Malaysia's recent revolving door of prime ministers. We can look at foreign investment: there have been a number of tech investments that have been quite notable. But if we could just zoom out a little bit from these individual metrics and just ask the question, how would you assess Anwar's foreign policy so far? And if you could use a scale of one to ten or a letter grade as somebody who's been involved in Malaysia's diplomacy for decades and seen this firsthand, how do we go about assessing Anwar's performance on Malaysia's foreign policy?Dr. Ilango Karuppannan: Thank you Prashanth for that question. Well, you're right. I've been a diplomat for over thirty-three years, and I'm also currently teaching a master's course at University of Malaya. So I think I shall use the grading system that they use at university to grade Dato Seri Anwar's performance. Well, in the University of Malaya they use seven out of ten or seventy percent as a passing mark for masters. So I will have to start by giving Dato Seri Anwar a passing mark, a seven out of ten. But seven out of ten is nothing to be really jumping about because you just basically cross the bar. You don't have to repeat the course. Now let me tell you why I think he deserves a seven upon ten. First, I think the effort. I think he's putting quite a bit of effort. Malaysia's foreign policy, I mean, has been there's been a display of active diplomacy under his premiership. You must also know that Dato Seri Anwar is actually now the longest serving prime minister in the last six years or so. It's very strange to hear that, but he is actually the longest serving prime minister. And therefore, that has given him the chance to be a bit more active on the foreign policies. I mean, we have seen Anwar actively engaging by visiting practically all the ASEAN countries. That's a good thing. He has visited China a few times. He has been active on the Middle East issue. He has spoken about some of the Global South issues as well. So I think on the part of active diplomacy he deserves quite good marks. So that's one.“So I will have to start by giving Dato Seri Anwar a passing mark, a seven out of ten. But seven out of ten is nothing to be really jumping about because you just basically cross the bar. You don't have to repeat the course.”Number two, I think there is a certain problem because it seems to be a little bit unbalanced, all these efforts that he's put in so far. There seems to be, of course, a lot more emphasis on China, which, of course, we can understand it because China is a very close neighbor, huge trading partner and so on and so forth. Plus it's easier to travel to China than to travel to America, for example. You know, there's a lot more ground to cover, a lot more issues, a lot more preparation. So he's not been to the United States except for the UNGA session. So I think that's a little bit unbalanced on that part. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on the Muslim world so that also adds to that notion that there is a bit of imbalance here. Thirdly, I think as far as strategic gains are concerned, one would be hard pressed to find whether there has been significant strategic gains. For example, we are still not out of the woods insofar as China is concerned. I mean, with all the effort that has been put with China, one would have expected a bit more smooth sailing with China, but, unfortunately, we are still not there. You know, the Chinese side still goes on to the same position. You are aware that they have issued protest notes against Petronas' explanation for gas and oil over the South China Sea issue and so on and so forth. So there is an impression that there is not so much strategic gains that we would have expected. So on these three grounds, I think I would give him a pass mark, a seven out of ten, Prashanth.MALAYSIA AND REGIONAL STAKES IN INTENSIFYING MAJOR POWER COMPETITIONASEAN Wonk: Great. Thanks. A lot there that you mentioned, and I like how you distinguish between the fact that there's a lot of activity – and Prime Minister Anwar deserves some credit for that – and the big issue, as you pointed out, which is the extent to which this is producing strategic benefits for Malaysia and to what extent this is producing those benefits across the various relationships that Malaysia has. And that's, China, the United States, but also, as you mentioned, the Global South, the developing world, and a lot of these major strands in Malaysian foreign policy that's very complex. I guess one more specific aspect of that is what you've mentioned already, which is this environment of US-China competition. I think part of it is US-China competition being much more intensified, but frankly, it's also a much more complex and fractured global order. So we're talking about more protectionist sentiment, a lot more pressure on multilateral organizations, including ASEAN and the United Nations. In this competitive environment, there's sometimes a tendency to try to place Southeast Asian countries on, you know, if there's a US China spectrum, where do you fall? Do you fall on this side or that side? I'm less interested in that and more interested actually in a conversation about how Malaysia is navigating this environment relative to its other Southeast Asian neighbors. And you kind of hinted at this earlier.So for example, when we're thinking about the relationship with the United States, both Indonesia and Vietnam have been able to get upgrades with the United States and engage with a mix of diverse partners on ecosystems on emerging technologies. Malaysia has been able to get some of those technology related investments, uh, from companies, including US companies. But the high-level engagement with the United States, partly because of the Gaza issue, hasn't been in place. Right? So some might say, in terms of strategic positioning, Malaysia is losing out. Others have said, frankly, who cares? So as long as Malaysia is getting in some of these tech investments, and Malaysia can kind of reposition itself after U.S. elections in any case. But I guess the big question for me in all of this is, Malaysia's own strategic value. And you pointed to this earlier, which is if you're a naval planner, it's hard to miss that Malaysia is not strategically positioned next to the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. If you are a strategist sitting in Beijing, you would see Malaysia as being a vital part of your strategy in Southeast Asia because maritime Southeast Asia is not very hospitable historically towards China. So if China were to be able to get a toehold in Malaysia in maritime Southeast Asia, that would affect general strategic planning in the competitive landscape. And the other aspect that you would look for is what you talked about with Malaysia's engagements with China. If you're planning any kind of infrastructure or connectivity with railroads, Malaysia is a place where you get connectivity from Thailand and Malaysia, which connects mainland Southeast Asia

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Moe Thuzar, who spent a decade at the ASEAN Secretariat and previously was a diplomat as well. Now, she serves as coordinator of the Myanmar Studies Program and senior fellow at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, which is one of Southeast Asia's leading think tanks, and she previously helped head up the ASEAN studies program there as well.We will start our conversation talking about the ongoing civil war in Myanmar in the context of wider regional and global dynamics. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including the stakes for major powers, future scenarios for Myanmar and how the country is likely to factor into the ASEAN agenda in 2025.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!PUTTING GLOBAL AND REGIONAL STAKES IN PERSPECTIVEASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Moe. Thank you for joining us. Moe Thuzar: Thank you for having me, Prashanth. ASEAN Wonk: We continue to see a pretty tragic situation play out in Myanmar amid the ongoing civil war. And just so that we're not being euphemistic or very general about what's happening, just for the benefit of listeners, watchers, and readers. The UN estimates from just a few weeks ago show over 5,300 civilians killed, more than 3.3 million displaced since the military seized power on February 1st, 2021. Coupled with the casualties after Typhoon Yagi as well, the economy has contracted by about a fifth. Since the coup, according to the World Bank, about a third of the country is in poverty. The junta is estimated to control around just about a half of the country. And there's also been worries about growing apathy on the situation in Myanmar. One of the reasons why we wanted to have you on the podcast, Moe, is that ISEAS has been one of the few institutions who has actually done measurement around this and how this factors into other regional issues in Southeast Asia. The ISEAS State of Southeast Asia survey showed, for example, this year that the Myanmar crisis was ranked below the top five in terms of issues in Southeast Asia and, obviously, you know, lots of issues there, Israel-Hamas war, South China Sea, global scam operations, and and so on and so forth.But I'm wondering if you could just help us set the stage about how Myanmar factors into this very diversified regional landscape in Southeast Asia. What are your thoughts about as someone who watches the Myanmar situation on its own terms, but also someone who's watched the regional context as well. How do we think about Myanmar's place within the regional context in Southeast Asia and also the global context that we have there? How would you assess that? Moe Thuzar: Right. Thank you, Prashanth. That's a very broad range of questions and issues to address when we think about the ongoing, very tragic situation in Myanmar. Maybe we could start first by just getting to look at that overall situation of what is happening in Myanmar or what's going on in the context of the civil war that you just mentioned. As an aspiring historian, I think it would be remiss of me to not point out here that Burma in the past, Myanmar today, has never really been free from a civil war type of situation. There's a decades-long type of conflict that's been going on in the past, mostly in the periphery areas of the country where, you know, different ethnic armed organizations have for their various objectives been pushing back or resisting the Myanmar military. And so this type of, I guess, civil war armed conflict in the periphery areas situation started almost almost simultaneously or within the first year or so of Burma gaining independence in 1948. So I think we also need to look at that when we, you know, refer to the ongoing civil war or the current civil war.But what we've seen since the coup by the Myanmar military on the 1st of February 2021, of course, is a more nationwide situation across the country, not just in the periphery areas. And actually, I think for the first time in the country's history, also really spreading into what have been formally viewed as the heartland areas, areas in the center of the country where traditionally they've been kind of recruitment grounds for the Myanmar military. So it's really become this kind of nationwide situation. And the broad objective that people are coalescing around is to reject the military's dominant role in politics and, of course, try to call for a more federal system of democracy. So in that state, how do we then assess the overall situation, particularly in these past couple of years where I think the conflict in Myanmar has of course been in the news, I think in the regional news more than, say, globally, although it does pop up time and again. And you mentioned situating Myanmar in the global context. Of course, globally, we have what's going on in the Middle East, what's been going on in Ukraine since 2022. And I think all of these also affect how people here in this region view the situation in Myanmar, where I think most of us know about Myanmar as having been under a military regime of some sort. And even with the brief decade of opening and the efforts to transition to democracy from 2011 right up to the coup in 2021, of course, I think now Myanmar being under a military regime again, the frame of reference always tends to be: “oh, that's the situation.” And, of course, that's the frame of lens that most of us see it.“[I] think it would be remiss of me to not point out here that Burma in the past, Myanmar today, has never really been free from a civil war type of situation.”But for those of us who are trying to follow the situation, monitor developments that have been happening, there's this term that has now entered the lexicon of any conflict discussions about Myanmar, and it's called Operation 1027. Now that's a kind of a military offensive that was launched by ethnic armed organizations in Myanmar's northern Shan state. That's in the northern part of the country in areas that are close to Myanmar's border with China. And it had progressed quite rapidly, taking several strategic outposts and recently even an important regional command. So because of that, Operation 1027 has shifted, I think, the conflict dynamics and seized imaginations on the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. And the forces spearheading this offensive have also been brought more into focus. As I mentioned, these are ethnic armed organizations that have formed alliances of their own. They have operated mostly in the northern part of the country, but one of the members of that alliance also is the Arakan Army, which is the ethnic armed organization that emerged rather recently in Myanmar's conflict civil war history. It emerged in 2009, and it's in the western part of Myanmar in Rakhine State, where it has also been pushing back rather successfully against the Myanmar military, more so in recent months. And, of course, there's the consideration of resistance groups, including what are called PDFs, People's Defense Forces. Some of them come under the broad framework of the parallel National Unity Government that formed after the coup with elected lawmakers from the 2020 elections.Why Operation 1027 has seemed rather consequential in conflict discussions about Myanmar is because there are several realities that we now see in Myanmar. Firstly, the Myanmar military is losing more administrative control in several areas, including towns and regional commands. And, of course, this has both strategic and psychological impacts. And, we also need to look at then the situation of people in these towns and areas over which the ethnic armed organizations — the different forces — the areas that they have taken control over. And that requires also consideration of the administrative services delivery. Or in the case of important trade routes, mind you, these are locations that are along the border trade route between Myanmar and China. So if we look at that in that context, there's also that connectivity consideration. Then not least, of course, the locations in which Operation 1027 and its aftermath have unfolded inevitably raised questions about the implications from Myanmar's bilateral relations and neighbors' concerns. And so I think it's in that kind of a context. So if we look at the receding administrative control of the State Administration Council military regime in Myanmar currently, the losses of strategic regional commands and border posts, trading points. We also see, of course, the increasing assertion of administrative and other services in the areas from which the military regime's control has receded, but there are different administrators in different areas.So, for example, in Rakhine state, it could be the Arakan army. In the Sagaing region, more in the central part of the country, it might be the NUG, the National Unity Government, and its coalition or allied partners. In the southeast, it might be different ethnic armed organizations

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Captain Sarabjeet Parmar, who retired last June from the Indian Navy after nearly four decades of service dating back to 1987. He has written and spoken widely on a range of topics including maritime security and doctrine in the Indo-Pacific region. He currently has various affiliations including as distinguished fellow at the United Service Institution of India as well as the Council for Strategic and Defense Research. We will start our conversation by talking about how to think about India's role in Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific given its status as the world's most populous country and one of the centers of Indo-Pacific thinking on geopolitics and geoeconomics. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects including US-China competition and various other issues including the South China Sea, Myanmar and much, much more.To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!INDIA’S STRATEGIC STAKES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA IN INDO-PACIFIC PERSPECTIVEASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast, Sarabjeet, and let's start, if we can, on India's defense ties with Southeast Asia. We last saw each other at an Indo-Pacific conference in Indonesia early this year, and there have been a number of defense-related touch-points at play amid leader exchanges, including the deployment of Brahmos to the Philippines and the finalization of the defense credit line when the Vietnamese prime minister visited India. As a practitioner and as someone who has worn the uniform, I'm wondering how do you see these various developments on the defense side? Because you've had an opportunity to see this in a multi-decade period, and we also have a number of developments that keep popping up in the news, including Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim who was in India. And in terms of how to characterize this or quantify it, it would also be interesting to get your sense of whatever characterization you would like to place on it, whether it's a letter grade or between a a scale of one to ten. What score would you give New Delhi with respect to India’s Act East Policy in Southeast Asia, given the fact that this is entering into its tenth year, and we're seeing so many of these developments happening?Captain Sarabjeet Parmar: Morning, Prashanth. It's great to connect online, and thank you so much for this opportunity to come onboard your platform. And that's a volley of questions. So let's start from the top then. Alright? So let's go back to around the Look East policy time of around early 1990s. And that's the time when India was coming out of sort of being accepted by the global community. You know, the Cold war was behind us. We were looking for new relations, which have now fructified into very strong strategic partnerships, especially with the US. And we were more aware that we need to engage various countries at various levels to come of our own and to be recognized as a maritime nation as well as a growing regional power. And also, at that point in time, the Asia-Pacific part. Indo-Pacific was not on the horizon at that point in time. And so the journey started off. And so we've come a long way since then. We have engaged ASEAN nations bilaterally. There are a number of exercise we do. I'll give you certain examples as we go by. And then we've engaged ASEAN navies as an entity on its own in the last exercise we did with the ASEAN maritime forces. And plus when you look at the relationships that have grown and you mentioned a few, so let me take on a few right now. Vietnam, for example. You know, there were a lot of commonalities between the defense equipment Vietnam had and India had because the source was the same coming from USSR and then, of course, Russia. And we have engaged Vietnam, and we even had a mobile training team positioned in Vietnam for training of crew and technical people on the Kamov aircraft, which is a common defense equipment. Then there were talks on submarines. We both had the SSKs of Russian origin, and therefore, there was sort of talk. I don't know if it rectified at that point in time. And last year, we gave a corvette to the Vietnamese navy. We've also had Vietnamese officers coming for training to India. I've been a directing staff at our Wellington staff college, so we have offices from forty nations who come. Some nations send three officers, some send one depending upon the understanding, But the presence is there. And then, of course, with Vietnam, we do also go sometime back into the past where there has been support between Vietnam and India. And then, of course, we had certain differences in between. But as I said, after the Cold War, a lot of that ice has been broken. And today, when we look at the $300 million credit line which you mentioned, it opens up an avenue for not only more interaction between the armed forces, but also, we export opportunities for Indian defense industry, which is coming of age. And if you read the latest statistics, I mean, we have developed twenty three hundred percent from a certain baseline. “And today, when we look at the $300 million credit line which you mentioned, it opens up an avenue for not only more interaction between the armed forces, but also, we export opportunities for Indian defense industry, which is coming of age.”Over time, that baseline will change and the percentages change. But it's an indication from where we have come. And fifty percent of our defense exports go to the US, which is a little surprising for many people. But we are looking at exporting defense equipment to other nations. And I think the advantage India has, and that goes especially for a lot of nations whose defense budgets are not that high, is that they do not require too much of high-tech technology. What they need is something for boosting their capacities and capabilities. And more importantly on the capability part is to maintain and sustain that equipment. And therefore, India provides that sort of equipment at not very expensive rates, but something that suits the requirement. It's something that we have understood and developed on our own coming through what the prime minister says on Atmanirbhar. And so therefore, Southeast Asia provides an excellent market for India's exports. And if you look at the figures that come from SIPRI, you know, Southeast Asia is perhaps one of the areas or part of the Indo-Pacific that imports a lot of defense equipment from outside. So that's an opportunity there. And therefore, that's one example with Vietnam. But let me give you an example of Philippines here. So now our relationship with Philippines on defense and security was perhaps not that higher magnitude as it was with other Southeast Asian or Indo-Pacific nations, but over time it has developed. And personally, I always felt that, you know, whenever we sail through the South China Sea, Philippines was sort of a void, which has changed. And that I think is a great news on that part. And, of course, I'd like to come to the sale of Brahmos missiles to the Philippines. And, of course – a little word on India's stance in South China Sea –  over time, India's remarks on South China Sea and the security situation have been somewhat guarded, and there's a reason for it. When you look at the statements deposited at the time of ratification of UNCLOS, there is alignment in India's and China's approach to certain aspects. One is innocent passage in territorial seas, on military activities in the EEZ. So India's approach has been very cautious. But last year, for the first time, we made a mention that, yes, the judgment of the arbitration between Philippines and China must be respected. So that's the first time that we sort of have taken a different view and made very clear what we are looking at that because that looks at stability. It does not necessarily encompass the alignment of the views as I've just mentioned. It it requires a modicum of enhancing stability, ensuring security and preserving peace. There's three pillars of India's approach to maritime security. It's been laid out in the Indian maritime security strategy document of 2015. I was fortunate to be a part of the team that revised it. So I do know the contents in detail. So I think the sale of defense equipment to Southeast Asia is in a way not complicating the situation there, but enhancing the capacity and capabilities of those nations and increasing the deterrent value of their hard power, which I think they do need to project. And just to give you an example, the three batteries of Brahmos missiles, which India exported or sold to the Philippines a couple of months back, they reached the Philippines. And I think the earlier this year it happened. And you can imagine those Brahmos missiles, given their speed and their range, actually provide a sort of a security blanket or a cover to a lot of the disputed islands that fall within the range of the Philippines. And given the nature of relations between China

INTRODUCTIONOur guest today is Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh, who has been one of Vietnam's leading diplomats, with key posts including deputy minister in the foreign ministry, ambassador to the United States, as well as several other roles, including with Vietnam's relations with ASEAN and Asia more generally. We will start our conversation today talking about Vietnam's recent hosting of the leaders of China, Russia, and the United States in a very active geopolitical year. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we talk about a range of other subjects, including geoeconomic currents in key sectors like semiconductors, as well as the geopolitics of the South China Sea and the Mekong subregion. To receive full ASEAN Wonk posts and support our work, consider a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year through the button below. For more on pricing for institutions, groups and discounted categories, visit this page.Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!VIETNAM’S NEW FOREIGN POLICY PARTNERSHIP UPGRADES IN PERSPECTIVEASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Ambassador Vinh. Thank you so much for joining us, and let's get into our conversation.Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: Thank you Prashanth.ASEAN Wonk: We were just speaking a little bit earlier about this very active time in Vietnam's geopolitical picture, some of which I've had a chance to witness firsthand during my visits to Hanoi earlier this year as well as last year. And Vietnam is pretty interesting because it is the only country within the last year to have hosted leaders from the United States, China and Russia. And there have also been several upgrades in partnerships, including with Australia, with Japan, and with France very recently. That may not be surprising for those who know how active Vietnam is diplomatically. But it doesn't mean this doesn't deserve credit and attention because it's not very easy to do in terms of hosting these countries and upgrading these partnerships, as you well know, given the atmosphere of US China tensions, the Russia Ukraine war, and so on.I know from our previous conversations, you've mentioned that you acknowledge this progress, but you also are continually looking for how these upgrades and these relationships actually evolve in terms of actual progress. Lots of developments, including the US elections and Vietnam's own upcoming Party Congress in 2026. So as a diplomat yourself, who has been involved very extensively in Vietnam's relationships, how do you think about the balance between acknowledging these inroads as well as how to sustain the momentum in Vietnam's relationships with these countries?Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: Actually, generally, we can say that diplomatic relations with the countries in the world and in the region will be very much important to Vietnam. The two key points that we have now in our country is peace and development. There are two keys. So trying to have this region as a region of peace and growth will be very much important to Vietnam. Vietnam's economy depends also on the supply chains and the the trade arrangements with other countries in the region and in the in the world, especially the three very important centers of trade and economic development in the world: Asia, Europe, and North America.So, generally speaking, Vietnam wants to deepen relationship with key partners. And our priorities for diplomatic relations among the countries in the world will continue to be those of neighboring and regional countries and the major countries, including the US, China, Japan, the European Union, and other countries. So the momentum that has been created so far, especially in recent years, has created an environment conducive for our efforts of pushing further our economic development towards the goals that we have set for 2030 and 2045. That is to bring our living standards to a higher level and also our economy to a better quality. So this is very much an ultimate goal of us years before and in the very much near future.“Vietnam's economy depends also on the supply chains…especially the three very important centers of trade and economic development in the world: Asia, Europe, and North America.”ASEAN Wonk: Great. Thanks a lot, Ambassador Vinh. That's very important context that you mentioned because even as we talk about these big geopolitical relationships with the United States, China, Russia, and so on and so forth, with all of the countries in Southeast Asia, as you know, the imperative of economic growth and providing for citizens and the people of these countries is extremely important in terms of a priority. I wanted to follow up on that notion that you mentioned. So within Southeast Asia, Vietnam is actually quite an interesting case because Vietnam has a hierarchy of diplomatic partnerships. So the highest level being the comprehensive strategic partnership, as you know, where the United States has entered, but also other countries, Japan, for example, within the last year or so. With all of these diplomatic upgrades and relationships, how would you encourage us to think about the significance of these partnerships? Because other countries in Southeast Asia are doing these as well. Often, there are a lot of questions that I get — sometimes even when we cover these on ASEAN Wonk — saying, I mean, how important are all of these? How significant are each of them? And how should we understand them in terms of the substance versus the symbolism?Ambassador Pham Quang Vinh: Let me talk a little bit about the foreign policies of Vietnam. A consistency in our foreign policy is that we want to be friends with all countries. Number two is that we have priorities for regional and major power countries. And these will be very much important for Vietnam in terms of peace, security, economic development, and including also our role in the world. If we can have good relations with these key partners, that will be very much important for Vietnam, for its own economy, for its own security, and for its engagement with the region and the world. So, let's see. While we broaden our relationship with all countries of the world, we are having a focus on these key partners. Now, in our system, it has been developing over the years that we have the highest level is comprehensive strategic partnership, and we have a strategic partnership and then comprehensive partnership. Now today, we have more than thirty countries belonging to the highest levels that comprise of comprehensive and strategic level. But the highest level in this category is comprehensive strategic level, and we have eight partners, as you just mentioned, from China to the US to Japan to Australia to India to Russia to South Korea as well. And very recently, we have France.And this is very much not only a politically symbolic issue. Certainly, symbolic importance continues to be crucial, because that signifies Vietnam accords great importance to relationship with these partners. But more important than that is the substance. For example, these key partners are playing a very important role in economic development of Vietnam. For example, we have two way trade with China, for example, over $200 billion. And we have the US, number two in our economic relations and about $123 billion two way trade. And the US continues to be the biggest export market for Vietnam, which is worth of more than $100 billion. But at the same time, we see these key partners, these major powers and key partners are very much crucial to cooperation and peace in our region Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific. So bilateral relations will continue to be important, but we consider them very much important in the region, especially in the context of relations with ASEAN and contributing to peace and stability and development in this region as well.Relations with, for example, China, are not only trade, but we have a lot of other activities including investment, including also possibility of infrastructure projects in our country as well. And for the US, one key issue that has just been adopted last year when we have upgraded our relationship to comprehensive strategic level is about technologies and innovation, including the semiconductor sector, for example. This is very much new to our relationship with other countries. So the US is now the first to work with us in this in terms of some sensitive matters. And second, we are very much fond of energy transformation and also green transition. So these partners, including European partners, Japan, US, or China, will be in cooperation with us in these all areas. So I think bilaterally and regionally and multilaterally, these key partners at the highest level, they are very much important not only to the growth of Vietnam, but also to peace and development in the region as well.“This is very much new to our relationship with other countries. So the US is now the first to work with us in this in terms of some sensitive matters.”VIETNAM’S ENGAGEMENT WITH MINILATERAL INSTITUTIONS AND NEW REGIONAL DIPLOMATIC INITIATIVESASEAN Wonk: Great. Thanks, Ambassador Vinh. And you mentioned there, as you talked about the bilateral relationships, putting things in regional perspective and