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Transcript E&OE
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Good morning, everyone. Great to see you all here on the first morning of the ASEAN Australia Special Summit in Melbourne. My name is Professor Nicholas Farrelly. I'm from the University of Tasmania. I'm also a board member of the Australia ASEAN Council and it's my great pleasure to be joined this morning by my co-authors of a new report, Comprehensive Strategic Partners, ASEAN and Australia: After The First 50 Years. And I think as some of you know, this report was launched by our Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tim Watts, at the University of Melbourne and Asialink on Friday. And it's great to have my co-authors, Sharon Seah, Lina Alexandra and Kimly Ngoun here.
For this morning's discussion, what we're planning to do is to provide a bit of an introduction to the report and some of what we assess are the key issues in Australia-ASEAN relations coming into this year's special summit. And then we'll open this up for conversation and questions. It's great to see some old journalist friends from around the region here this morning. Thanks very much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this special summit. And on that note, I'd like to give my co-authors a chance to say a bit about what they've taken away from their experience of producing this report, and I'll start with you, Sharon. So you've obviously spent a great deal of your career in Singapore focused on ASEAN issues. When you look to Australia and the role that Australia has played over its 50 years of dialogue partnership with AESAN, what for you are the big takeaways?
Sharon Seah
Thanks, Nicholas. It's great to be here with everyone and good morning to everyone listening in. I think through this project I've learned quite a few things. The first is that you know, I think Australia has really built up a set of very strong bilateral relationships across the region and that's set it up for success to cooperate with ASEAN as a regional organisation. And one of the things is that ASEAN views Australia is a good friend, but sometimes we do take Australia for. Because you're always there, you're in the region. The proximity is great for us and through the last 50 years, I think ASEAN has been credited with keeping the peace in the region. I think that that much is true, but with keeping the peace, it's not done alone. It's done with Australia. And we've seen through this project that Australia has been involved in, for instance, the Cambodian peace process, involved in Timor Leste. These are useful precedents that Australia can take, and going into the next 50 years, I think this is what we will be looking to Australia to do because there are two key issues in ASEAN that requires more efforts and more investments into peace and stability. The first one is Myanmar, which of course, as you know, has been an issue that's on ASEAN’s plate for the last three years, and the second one is strengthening Timor Leste as a new member.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Great. Thanks very much, Sharon and no doubt we'll come back to some of those big issues later in the conversation. Lena, from your perspective based in in Jakarta, how are ASEAN-Australia and Indonesia-Australia ties looking right now?
Lina Alexandra
Well, thank you, Nicholas. I think I agree with what Sharon already mentioned that often you know the relations between us and Australia has been taken for granted. And Indonesia in particular is probably the closest neighbour to Australia, and we have experienced a lot of misunderstandings throughout history. But I think under the current situation in Australia, I think there's a lot of much more positive ambience, in terms of the relations and a lot of refocusing on South East Asia, which is what the region really needs. And for me, I think it takes two to tango, and Australia to a large extent has proven itself to be the most trustable, loyal, reliable partner for ASEAN. We can see it from especially in Indonesia in terms of development aid and other strategic support and assistance, especially in counterterrorism effort, which has been very much appreciated by the stakeholders in Indonesia and we certainly hope that this particular collaboration partnership will continue to sail. Thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Yeah. Thanks very much, Lina. And finally, then to Dr. Kimly Ngoun and I might note for everybody's benefit here this morning that all three of my South East Asian co-authors for this report have postgraduate degrees from Australian universities. Sharon studied at the University of Melbourne, Lina at the University of Queensland and Kimley has his PhD from the Australian National University. Going, I think, to one of the really important components. of the long-term relationship between ASEAN and Australia: thinking ahead Kimley, what aspects of the relationship do you find most exciting and promising for the future?
Kimly Ngoun
Thank you, Professor Nicholas Farrelly and thank you to all of you who participate in this important event. Before I answer your question, I just would like to say a few things about the Cambodia-Australia relation, especially from the perspective of people-to-people relations. From my own perspective, and I can say on behalf of young Cambodians, we really thank Australia for the active and continuous support of Cambodia - from early in the peace process Australia has been very supportive. After Cambodian peace, Australia continued to provide support with human resource development, with infrastructure development, with many programmes in eradicating poverty. And we really benefited a lot from the generosity of the Australian people and the Australian government. I myself, without the scholarship from the Australian government, I would not have had the opportunity to come to study in Australia because the fee is so expensive. So coming from a poor background like my family, it was not possible. I'm really grateful to the generosity of the Australian Government and the Australian people that gave me the opportunity, and also the opportunity to other young Cambodians.
So far there are close to 2000 Cambodians who have studied in Australia on Australian government scholarship and there are many more who study on support from their family. So talking about people-to-people relations, it’s a very good relation. Cambodian people generally view Australia in a very positive light. Because Australia, as I mentioned earlier, Australia has been very supportive in the peace process early on until now and the relationship will continue to grow further into the future and to answer his question, I see the hope in the relationship between people to people.
There's a large number of Cambodians who study in Australia and they return to Cambodia. They work in the civil society, private sector, public sector and many of them are successful in their career and they help promote Australia to their children and their relatives, inspiring them to come and study in Australia too, and at the same at the same time they are also a large community of Cambodians diaspora living in Australia. Here alone in Melbourne there are around 20,000 and in the whole of Australia there are more than 66,000. They live in Australia, they have Australian citizenship and they also promote good relations between Australia and Cambodia. So I can see there's a lot of opportunities for us to further consolidate our relationship. Through this wide brand community of Cambodian diaspora and Australian Alumni Association in Cambodia, we can further promote trade business economic linkages between Australia and Cambodia and Australia and ASEAN. Thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Great. Thanks. Thanks very much, Kimly, and I think worth highlighting that, as noted in our report, there are now over 1,000,000 Australians with South East Asian family background. This is one of the I think really powerful, important and valuable developments over the last 50 years and it's something that goes to the core of the types of linkages that Kimly, Lina, Land Sharon have brought through their own educational experience here in Australia. There's a lot we can say about our report and there are, as you'll note, eight key recommendations that we're making. I'd love, though, to open up for any questions that there might be from the media here in the summit venue this morning, if anybody would like to offer us a contribution from the floor.
Reporter #1
So I just want to ask in general for I guess, Australia-AEAN ties, you know, of course there's criticism that, you know, they're saying Australia is doing this too late and does how does ASEAN view Australia in in this whole scheme? The main question would be, is Australia coming a bit too late to the game to really affirm ties? And I know its long standing, but the perception is that maybe it's only recently that Australia has decided to quicken its pace in this area.
Sharon Seah
Actually, I don't think Australia has been late. Actually, we had a special summit in 2018 and that was really the start of Australia thinking forward and thinking ahead to try to bring about closer relations with AEAN and since then we have annualised the summits at the leaders level and that provides just wonderful opportunity for all the 10 leaders and Australia's leaders to come together to talk about, you know, a very inclusive agenda of not just development but of economics, trade, political security, cooperation. And all the issues that you've seen happening in the world since 2018, starting with the US-China Trade War, and then from then there was the Myanmar crisis, Russia, Ukraine, and I'm sure in this this two days of meetings that they will also be discussing issues including, Israel-Hamas, the upcoming US elections and what that would mean, the kind of political leadership changes that's happening in the region and what that would mean for AEAN-Australia relations. So I think you might not see it a lot happening right at the front, but I think at the back end there's a lot happening actually between all the 10 countries and with Australia.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Thanks, Sharon. A quick take from you, Linda.
Lina Alexandra
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. If I may add a little bit also, I also agree with my colleague Sharon here that no, it's not too late definitely. But I think it is very timely in the sense that since 2021 that Australian-ASEAN has enhanced its relation to become a comprehensive-strategic partnership and I think the theme of this year, the agenda is really to push toward the other side of the equation because the focus of the partnership before has been on more on the strategic political security issues and now it has been complemented by focusing on more on the economic side as well.
And I think I think this is certainly very timely and also I'm saying this is also very timely is because I think the relations between Australia and ASEAN is certainly indicating on how the so-called, great powers partnership is coming. And this is something that is very important to mitigate the great powers, tensions itself. You know, if there's a resilient and strong partnership between regional organisation like AEAN and the so called “middle power” countries. Like Australia, this is something that can actually help to shape the way great powers are having you know their managing their relations with each other. So I think this is certainly something that is not, you know, too late. This is very, very timely. Thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Great. Thanks, Lina. Next question please.
Reporter #2
I have question for Kimly - as Australia as a middle power and for your admiration of Australian law in the Cambodian peace process. From your view how has Australia acted to facilitate a role in Myanmar's peace process?
Kimly Ngoun
Thank you so much for your question. From a Cambodian perspective, we really want to work with Australia and our AEAN member country to help restore peace in Myanmar because I think no country in Southeast Asia can truly understand the war and devastation and suffering that the Myanmar people right now are experiencing. I think no country in Southeast Asia can understand such pain and suffering and devastation as Cambodian people because we've been through more than 20 years of war and conflict, so and now we enjoy peace. So we really understand the stark contrast between peace and war. That's why from early on, when there was a coup in Myanmar, the Cambodian Government and Cambodian people tried to contribute to the peace process in Myanmar.
Although we are a small state, but we try to be as helpful as possible. The former Cambodian Prime Minister visited Myanmar in January 2022 and then followed up by other visits by the former Deputy Prime Minister Prak Sokhonn, the former foreign minister. And although it did not lead to much progress, but we need to understand we need to be practical, there are conflicts and war you cannot solve in one single day. It needs times and patience and dialogue and trust building and this can take years. But we need to make sure that we continue to provide support and encouragement and create space for conflicting parties in Myanmar to build trust and to talk to each other. Because if they talk to each other, they can build peace just like Cambodia. When the conflicting parties talk to each other, then a few years later they could find a way to build peace. But of course our international friends are playing a really important role in providing encouragement and creating space for them to providing a facilitation and creating space for them to talk to each other. Thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Thanks, Kimly, next question please.
Reporter #3
So in one of your recommendations, you mentioned strengthening Timor Leste as a future member of ASEAN. I would be interested in getting your perspectives on how you think Timor Leste’s admission to ASEAN would change the dynamics of the block. How would it impact it and what we could expect to see?
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Sharon, please.
Sharon Seah
You always throw me the tough questions, Nick. Timor Leste has now been in principle admitted, and has been attending as an observer, and I think some of the views that they hold about democracy is very interesting. It's interesting for the grouping because you know it's been more than willing to speak up. For the Myanmar people, I think that's very evident. And with Timor Leste coming in, I think some of those dynamics might change and some of the reticence towards, you know, taking a more proactive role in Myanmar might change as well if Timor Leste continues to speak up. And it holds a very good track record in democracy and so on. It really balances out the rest of ASEAN that may not hold as much of a premium on freedom of expression and democracy and human rights. Would you like to add on to that?
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Sharon. Just as a few further comments. Clearly for Australia, the future membership of Timor Leste in ASEAN is a further key chapter in the relationship between Australia and the Timorese and indeed between Australia and the other members of ASEAN. You all appreciate the challenges of Tim Leste’s independence and the role that Australia played and so think the anticipation is that while it's going to require many years of effort and investment, this is going to be really important for ASEAN’s future, drawing in an 11th member and in doing so, also building up its capabilities to support the development interests of the Timorese people. While we're here talking today about our report, Comprehensive Strategic Partners, it’s also worth noting that Sharon and her team in Singapore have recently published some really valuable work on the future of Timor Leste as an ASEAN member. Next question please.
Reporter #4
Thank you. Just to follow up on the question on Timor Leste, I'm Timorese and happen to live in Australia. I understand the strength to help the Timorese to become a member of ASEAN. There are three political pillars in ASEAN as an economic, political security and social culture. Which of the three that you think needs more strength in this case? Thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Yeah. Great. Thanks very much. We'll go quickly to Sharon and then I think, Lina, we might get your thoughts on this question too. Thank you.
Sharon Seah
In the study that my team and I did, we looked through all of the thousands of hundreds of agreements that ASEAN has under the three pillars, and it's very clear that for Timor Leste to benefit the most out of its relationship with ASEAN would be to focus on the economic pillar. There are more than 300 agreements there that Timor Leste would have to rectify or sign on to and we've picked out a couple of the key ones that would really benefit Timor Leste. And to do that you also have to enhance your internal domestic capacity to abide by or carry out the obligations in many of these economic agreements, and I think that's something that you know, you perhaps really focus more of those energies on. Political security there's much fewer agreements and a lot of it probably doesn't require much internal change. And on the social cultural aspects also, there are different agreements, but we didn't really focus on that because I think you can already fulfil many of those.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Thanks, Sharon. Lina?
Lina Alexandra
Thank you. So, to add to what Sharon mentioned, I agree because she has done her research and I believe that's the very useful and valid research to do so definitely on economic. But I think the problem is I think the challenge really. At every front, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the Great Powers rivalry is at the front door. So I think the other ASEAN Member States will certainly help need to help Timor Leste to catch up with all the pillars that ASEAN has now, but certainly, if you try to sequence it, certainly the economic probably is the first to catch up. But at the same time, I think in terms of the achievement of the ASEAN political security, I think this is something that Timor Leste will need to do as well. And Sharon I think, mentioned about the democracy - I think this is something that needs to be strengthened as well in the region and Timor Leste has already had the modalities about that. But the assistance the collaboration with other ASEAN Member states certainly need needs to be needs to be there. Thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Great. Thank you, Lena. So we might have time for two more quick questions if that's OK. Thank you.
Reporter #5
Hi I'm working from CNA - one question on Myanmar. Can I ask the panellists how do you think both sides can work more closely together to help resolve the crisis? Because on the one hand ASEAN has to take the lead but Australia's actions are far more stark. For example it downgraded diplomatic ties with Myanmar it says it wants to openly work with the NUG and it is also slapped targeted sanctions and these actions are very different from ASEAN’s direction. Do you think Australia's position on Myanmar would affect the way ASEAN handles the crisis? And do you think Asian can tap on Australia's position to do more for Myanmar? Thank you.
Sharon Seah
I think that in foreign policy you have to understand that sometimes actions can be contradictory and sometimes your foreign policy is used to speak to your domestic audience. So I think there's an expectation from the Australian people that that Australia would take, you know, clearer actions, to articulate its position. But with ASEAN, I think that's where Australia will move in step with ASEAN and the kind of durable peace that we're looking for in Myanmar doesn't start in a day, and doesn't end in a day. Rome doesn't get built in that that way. And that's where I think Asians looking to partners like Australia and you know, like Kimly mentioned to create that safe space, and to begin like my colleague always says, talking about the talks. I think that's very important. And right now with the situation in Myanmar being very polarised, it's getting more and more challenging and I think this is where Australia can bring some of its experiences in the Cambodian peace process to begin to initiate some of those talks with different parties, both inside Myanmar as well as outside of Myanmar because we have to recognise that every entity and every stakeholder in this is important and needs to have their voices heard.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Quick thoughts, Lina.
Lina Alexandra
Yeah. I think in my view, the dialogue partners must keep the pressure. You know, because ASEAN does what it has to do, but the dialogue partners are required to do what they have to do according to what their domestic public will ask the government to do. So, I think the pressure as you said, the policies that have been taken up by the Australian Government needs to be there. Certainly to put pressure on the junta because they have been the propagator of all these sufferings and the destruction that the country has experienced. So that's on one hand. But secondly as we kind of already anticipate this is going to be a long battle. So definitely the support from the dialogue partners because ASEAN is trying still to push for the humanitarian effort, the political dialogue and so forth. The assistance, the help from the dialogue partners with resources, this is something that is really, really needed. So that's a long term continuous support to us and is something that we would like to see further and but for myself, the point is that ASEAN must lead the way and as Sharon already mentioned, ASEAN as the regional organisation has to be at the forefront to deal with this and the pathway has to be very clear, otherwise the dialogue partners are having difficulty on where to follow, where ASEAN is heading to, because I think in their position it is very clear they want ASEAN to lead the way. Thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Thanks, Lina. I think do we have time for one more question from the back of the room. Thank you.
Reporter #6
Thank you. I'm a journalist from Cambodia. I have a question for Kimly. Doctor Kimly, what opportunities and challenges do you foresee for Cambodia in enhancing bilateral relation between ASEAN and Australia, particularly in context of Economic Cooperation and regional security dynamics? Thank you.
Kimly Ngoun
Thank you so much for the question. So on Economic Cooperation. According to the statistic, in 2023 Cambodia and Australia's trade volume is more than $500 million. Although this figure is relatively small compared to Australian, trade with Cambodia's neighbours, but they is room for growth in the future and the Cambodian Prime Minister's new Prime Minister he's really promoting economic diplomacy. And yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an event and listen to his speech, he said, one of his main purposes here in Australia is to promote trade and business relations between Australia and Cambodia and he want to see more Australian goods exported to Cambodia and more Cambodian goods exported to Australia and of course we will see further growth. There are opportunities for investment in digital technology, in green energy, in cyber cooperation. So investment in future technology that Cambodia needs and Australia has the experience and expertise that Australia can share and we all can benefit and prosper together. And on the political security cooperation, Cambodia is supportive of ASEAN in the Pacific outlook. And both could work together on the Indo Pacific outlook through ASEAN mechanism. Yeah, thank you.
Professor Nicholas Farrelly
Great. Thanks. Thanks very much everybody. And again, we really appreciate your your interest here in the ASEAN Special Summit and particularly the questions that you've had for us this morning. We hope that you enjoy our report, COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGIC PARTNERS: ASEAN and Australia after the first 50 years. It's been a great ASEAN-Australia co-production an opportunity for all of us to work together on themes important for the futures of the region and for our respective countries. We really do appreciate all of your interest this morning. And we wish you well for a very successful special summit. Thanks, everybody and thanks, Sharon, Lena and Kimley for all your efforts.