Hello and welcome to my career in data, a podcast where we discuss with industry leaders and experts how they have built their careers. I'm your host Shannon Kemp, and today we're talking to Danette McGilvray from Granite Falls Consulting. Visit dataversity.net and expand your knowledge with thousands of articles and blogs written by industry experts plus free live and on-demand webinars covering the complete data management spectrum. While you're there, subscribe to the weekly newsletter so you'll never miss a beat. Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp, and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at DataVersity and this is my career in data. A DataVersity Talks podcast dedicated to learning from those who have careers in data management to understand how they got there and to be talking with people who help make those careers a little bit easier. To keep up to date in the latest in data management education, go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe. Today we are joined by Danette McGilvray, the President and Principal Consultant at Granite Falls Consulting. And normally this is where a podcast host would read a short bio of a guest. But in this podcast, your bio is what we're here to talk about. Danette, hello and welcome. Hi, Shannon. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. I'm so grateful that you said yes to doing this. I've known you for a while and as an expert in data governance and data quality. And especially so thank you for being here. Yeah, I always like working with DataVersity. It's great. Thank you. So tell me, so you're the President and Principal Consultant at Granite Falls Consulting. So tell me about Granite Falls Consulting. OK, so just a quick thing for people to think about. Think of it this way. What products and services does your organization provide? Who are your customers?  Every decision you make, every report, every operational process, every screen that comes up. So if you are concerned or have had problems, experienced problems with the quality of that data, can you trust it? Are your processes working the way that they need to? Are your reports matching? Are your customers having complaints about their invoices? For instance, if you're having any of those kinds of problems, I'm your gal. I would be the one to call because my specialization, as you mentioned, really is on data quality and governance, which goes hand in hand with the quality. So what Granite Falls does is looks at whatever your organization is. It all applies. I don't care if your government, education, health care, for profit in any kind of vertical. We all care about data. And so if you have those concerns, what I'm going to do is look at what you need to accomplish. What is your business strategy? And I am that bridge between strategy and actually being able to do implementation and practical steps for taking care of the data quality and governance problems you have. And such a hot topic right now, right? With all the cool tools that are coming out of AI and machine learning and everything else, quality is at the core of all that, right? It is a core of that. And yet some people still don't recognize that. And I think some people don't recognize that just because you have a tool, you have a machine, oh, I'm doing AI, oh, well, it must be right. That's not the case. And it really is important. And it is growing in importance. And more people do understand that, I think, because of things like the AI and machine learning. But there's still a lot to do. Oh, gosh, so much to do. But we'll come back to that, though, tonight. So tell me, what is your typical work week look like? What are you doing with your customer sudden? So a typical work week. Every week is a little bit different. But I'll talk to you about just some of the things that might show up in a week or many of these show up in one week. So, yeah, definitely working with clients and working with people. Very often people say they recognize that they have these problems with data quality and they say, we need some kind of formalized initiative to be able to address these problems. We need to increase the literacy. That's a that's a big phrase that people are using now. We need to increase the knowledge and experience internally so I can work with people to put those into place. Working with clients remotely very often and now that things are opening up, getting back on site. So it's both ways, both virtual and in-person. Very often people have specific kind of projects. Oh, we've got this data lake. We know it's turned into a data swamp and we need to take care of it. So maybe there is just a particular area that they need to focus on. I can help them with that, too. So I also spend time because I am a consultant. I also spend time writing articles, developing workshops. I am heavily involved with a group called Data Leaders, where we developed a one page pager called the Leaders Data Manifesto, anything that any leader should know about data the very basics. And I've helped oversee that being translated into 21 languages so far. So I really have a passion for data being it's a global issue. And it does not matter your country, your culture, your language, the type of organization you work for. All of this is really important to your success. Well, congratulations on that distribution. That's amazing. Yeah, thank you. Well, so to net tell me, was this the dream, though? And when, say, you were six years old, was this the dream that I'm going to grow up and be president of a data consulting company? Well, of course, the short answer is no, because I had no idea that there was a career like this. I mean, I it's kind of laughable to think about how little I knew about what careers were open to me. So I graduated from the university with a bachelor's degree in business information systems and a minor in business administration. At that time, I was thinking, I thought the only thing I could do is to be a programmer or at the time it was like programmer analyst. OK, and so my first career job was actually being a programmer analyst. And I found out really quickly that what I I could do the job, I was good at that. But what I really was good at and what I really liked was able was that late liaison role between the business and between the clients. And I mean, external clients, so internal business, external clients. So being that liaison between them and the technology folks. And that that was just a niche that I fell into and I loved it. And then I moved into another job and that niche worked perfectly because it was all about data. And I didn't even know that there, you know, you could be in business information systems, but I didn't really understand all the opportunities and all the needs there were around data and how people in data need to be able to be that liaison and be able to speak both business and speak technology and be a bridge. So so I fell into that. Yeah, so so that's interesting, though, that that you kind of chose a degree that you thought you had to have. And then but found a passion within that. So so so what was that first job then out of college? So so. I ended up getting recruited out to a high tech company in California. So I moved to California. I was one of these people that at the time they called a re-entry student. I'd gone to the university right after high school, but I only went a year. I got married. I had two kids eventually got divorced and said, you know, I've got a family to take care of. I need to finish my degree. So I worked full time and was a single mom and got my degree eventually. It's the hard way. I don't recommend doing it that way. But but but it would do it. Yeah. Yeah. So just a few months before I graduated our college of business at the university, they had they sponsored a technology conference. So I took time off from work and I attended the conference. As part of the conference, one of this I met one of the speakers who was a vice president at one of the high tech companies in Silicon Valley. So in California. And so I met him and he said, oh, have you ever thought about coming to California to work? And I had not. That wasn't even a part of my thought process. But the idea really intrigued me. So I gave him my resume. They flew me out a couple of weeks later, offered me a job. And so it really changed everything about what was happening in my life. So I investigated, made sure that it was going to be a good move for my kids, too. Couldn't be just a good move for me. And we moved out to California. So it was at that company that I had that job as a pro like as a program or analyst, and I was also doing some training. Well, I was only at that company for like nine months and they got bought out by another high tech company. You know, it's a pretty scary proposition. I hadn't gone through this before. I didn't know that that kind of thing happened.  Now what am I going to do? And I ended up getting a job at a different, larger, well known high tech company. And they had put and I'm dating myself a little bit. But at the time, the big hot technology was EDI or electronic data interchange. So they had really built out all the technology in the program and such that needed to be part of that. But none of their programmers wanted to talk to the clients to do the implementation. So they were looking to hire someone who would come in to help do the implementations with their top 10 resellers. And that was the job that I got. And that was really where I fell into what I had mentioned earlier. I was really good at the in between. And it was really perfect for me that in between with with the technology in the business and then I moved from there after a few years into another area in that company. And it was really strictly more of a data management job. But I had already been doing it, but I had not put the words data or data management to it. Yeah, as it as it goes for most of us, right? Like, you know, right. Right. I mean, it's not the typical kind of job. Right.  So from there, eventually the company. Well, OK, a little bit of background. So the job that I had moved into, it was all about managing customer data that supported the sales and marketing functioning functions of this global high tech organization. And all of them, my manager was in charge of a council that was made up of all of the managers of customer data across the company. And they all were having problems with the quality of their customer data. So they decided to put their heads together, do something with it. And then so they brought in a consultant that consultant was Larry English. So anybody who's in data quality should know about Larry. He's often called the father of information quality. So they asked me to work with him and they said, we just want to keep the knowledge in the company. So when he leaves, you know, all the knowledge doesn't go. Yeah. And so that was how it started. And and from that moment that I started working with Larry, I was told that I would only be working with him for a week full time. And all of this other work would taper off after that. Well, I have never stopped working in data quality. And that was, you know, like close to 30 years ago now. So so yeah, so I worked with him. I learned his methodology. I started running projects. I took his ideas and I created I created some of my own innovations. That company then broke into two different companies. I had opportunities on both sides, but eventually took my program. So I was enterprise customer data program manager. Data quality program manager at that company. I took mine over to to the part of the company that moved off. And then I became the enterprise for not just for customer data. I was the enterprise data quality program manager, like for all data across the company. And so then I could really continue to work my innovations and work with other people and and share it and such. And so then from there, I'm trying to fast forward through this. But you can see, you know, it's good. It's different. Yeah. Different different roles within and or with when big both big global organizations. Yeah. And new opportunities. And I was always, you know, really keeping interested and and being able to do the new things, which was which was always really fun. And then I had a family tragedy. My son was killed in a motorcycle accident. And then I kept working for a year and it was tough to do that. And so I finally decided I just needed to do what I call grief. Take care of my grief in a constructive way. So I quit. And so my my dear husband was very good and supportive of that. And so I completely stepped away from everything. I did not read email for six months.  I felt like I needed to take care of there. And then it was time to go back. That wasn't a retirement program. I mean, I still needed to go back to work. But the good news was I could smile again. I could set goals again. I could have energy again. So I myself permission and I said, what do I want to do? I didn't and I just gave myself permission to take some more months to decide what I wanted to do. When would I ever have the opportunity that I only had an obligation to me and my husband at the time? My other had to the house. My daughter was out of the house. And so what do I really want to do? Do I want to go back in this corporate setting, which I've absolutely loved and been challenged by all of these years? But I decided I was going to try and go and be a consultant and build my own brand and build my own company. And I even looked at and explored different different business opportunities that had absolutely nothing to do with data, high tech, anything that I was doing. I just really explored a lot of things. But I came back to the data and the reason I came back to the data is I realized how important it was. There still was not enough people talking about it, doing the things that they need to do about it. And it's really, really, really important. And so I came back to that. So I decided to try to go out on my own. And one big thing that helped me do that is that. Whereas before people had said, hey, why don't you be a consultant? I actually didn't want to. I mean, like I said, I was being challenged. I was happy. I was doing good things within within these companies. But now I was ready for a new challenge. And here's the important thing. I wasn't afraid to fail before I would have been afraid to fail. But this time it was I need something different. I'm up for the challenge. And I wasn't scared of failing because I figured I had just gone through the worst thing in my life that I could imagine that I would go through. So if I start this company, if I don't like it or if I don't do well at it, then I can go back and I can go find something else to do. But I wouldn't consider it a failure. I would just consider it that I had learned something about myself. I tried something great. Let's let's move ahead. That was that was a big differentiator for me to be able to to do what I did. And so in April of this year, that was 18 years ago. Oh, my God, Grant Grant at Falls. So, wow, you know, I'm still here and and I love it. And I love what I do and I love the people I work with and the people that I can help. Yeah. And so so there you go. The journey up from there to here. And that, oh, my gosh, I, you know, I don't know that I knew that. And I am so sorry for your loss. And and but what an amazing story to turn tragedy and and a look. So well, I keep saying a I mean everything. So how many points am I going to make that are at the end of the first point? I have that that you that you. And I'm so impressed that you listen to what you need in.  You know, it's so healthy what you did. And I commend you for that. And then and then try and then starting a whole new business, a whole new career. That is amazing. That is amazing. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And it was a whole career. However, it was continuing on my knowledge. So I I I had done a lot of work for many years within data, within data quality. I mean, I mentioned I worked with Larry English. I had the opportunity to learn from Tom Redman, you know, and he continues to be a friend and close colleague. And I continue to learn from him, Rich Wang out of MIT. So I mean, I really got to learn from those people. And I had started speaking at conferences while I was still working in those companies. So I had a network of people that I knew. Not just within the company, but externally, which was which was really helpful. And so I felt very confident about my subject matter expertise. Like, yes, I can go help people do this data stuff that I do. Yeah. And I'd started doing data governance before anybody called it data governance. You know, it was it was just part of what we needed to do to have high quality data. So now we have a word for the governance side of things. So I was pretty confident in that. The part I wasn't sure about was the business of being in business. Like, how do you build a business? How do you start a business? What is your legal entity? You know, it's all of that business of being in business, which was the new part for me. How did you learn? Pardon? Yeah, how did you learn? Yeah, I get a lot of people calling me who are thinking of maybe going out into consulting, going on their own. And I will say in the U.S. the very best use of taxpayer money that I've ever seen is a small business administration. So at the time I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, they had offices in San Francisco, in Oakland and in San Jose. So I visited each one of them. They all had different sets of workshops and courses that you could take. I signed up for a lot of different ones. They were low cost or no cost. So that, I mean, I really, without going into more detail, so many steps of that business of being in business, I learned from that. Up in San Francisco, they had a small business development center. I got introduced to another group called SCORE, which is a group of retired executives who, if you have a specific need. So, for example, when I wanted to talk to somebody about marketing or talk to someone about building a business plan, then I could sign up and have somebody help mentor me and answer questions and such. So really huge, huge, huge help. I would pick up books, say I'm going to go talk to an attorney about a legal entity. I take a workshop on it and I picked up a book that was all about creating a California corporation. And so I'd read enough to be knowledgeable. What's the vocabulary, be able to ask good questions? Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, it was a lot of learning. That way, you know, to help me out. I was talking directly with other people who were consultants, you know, who helped me out and gave me advice. So, so I mean, I had a lot of people who helped me along the way. So I try to do that for other people who are thinking of it, too. With a robust catalog of courses offered on demand and industry leading live online sessions throughout the year, the Dataversity Training Center is your launchpad for career success. Browse the complete catalog at training.dataversity.net and use code DVTOX for 20 percent off your purchase. Oh, I love that so much. I actually subscribed to the local Small Business Association chapter. Just to see what's going on and it helps me. We're a fairly small business and, you know, it helps a lot. Yeah, yeah, just to see how people are innovating and what's going on locally, you know. So yeah, it's a great resource. It can be everything. It can be something as mundane as accounting and finding a bookkeeper to innovative ideas and what are new technology to help small businesses, you know, that type of thing. So yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah. So then, you know, what has been your biggest lesson so far in your career that you kind of take with you and and and maybe, you know, pass on to mentees? Yeah, so it is hard to narrow that down to one thing. But I am going to start with show up. And by that, I mean go to a conference, get on LinkedIn, participate in a group.  So join a professional association. Show up, whether it's in person or whether it's virtual show up because I could tell you every step along the way in my career from when I first said that I went to that conference. Remember, I said I took time off of work, you know, unpaid time off of work, which was really tight for me to do that, to go to that conference because I showed up and I talked to people when I'm there. Yeah, I met that vice president. I had him say, have you ever thought about going to California? Right. It was showing up. I can give you examples for every single step. So like when my company that I had come to California and they got bought out. Yeah. When I first moved to California, I said, I'm going to look around, see what kind of professional associations are out there, start attending some chapter meetings because I was still early in that career after getting my degree and it could go different directions. And so I joined a couple of different associations and attended some chapter meetings because I'm exploring and learning what opportunities are out there. It was at one of those that I met someone who said, oh, I really wish we had a job opening for you. We don't have any. So when I found out my company was being bought out by another company, he was the first person that I called and he ended up hiring me in. So I could I have a story like that for every major step in my career from way back then to 30 years later. So show up, you know, sometimes people say, well, it's not who you know, but what, you know, it's not what you know, but who you know and might grumble about it. It's it's both. Right. But if people don't know you, if people haven't met you, if people don't know you are out there, how can you have an opportunity? Now, once you have that opportunity, you have to show that you know your stuff. You know, it's really important that you know what you're doing, but show up and and if I only get to tell you one, that's the one. There's others, but that's really, really important. And it is really important. Yeah. And and I love that that lesson and how you keep applying it. So, gosh, you know, you got into data. You've been in data for quite a bit. You stumbled into it pretty early in your career. Yes. You know, so what is your definition of data? My my definition of data. OK, so sometimes I throw data and information around, you know, as synonyms. I just think of data as as items of interest, facts or items of interest and information are those facts or items of interest in context. And I keep it like really simple that way because, I mean, data can be high tech, which is what we usually think about. We've got databases, data stores, you know, data lakes, you know, we've got that those facts or items of interest in there. But data and information can also be low tech. Data can be information that somebody has written on a piece of paper. That's low tech, but we still have to be able to manage that. We still have to be able to find that. We still have to be able to use that. We still have to make make sure that it is of the quality that we need.  I love that. I love to sing dancers on that. That's really great. So is it OK if I go back and just give you a couple of those other lessons because I gave you the show up, but I'm just going to give you a couple of other ones. And I think I've already illustrated it that have a plan. Yeah. But be open to new opportunities. Yeah. So sometimes you have this plan of where your career is going to go or where you think it's going to go. And I'm big on planning and working it and going towards something. But sometimes these unexpected opportunities come up. So keep your mind open to the fact that something new may come along that you don't even know exists out there. So I think that's one. I think the other one is like be a lifetime learner. So, for example, I started going to conferences from biodiversity like years ago when I was an employee, you know, in a company. Yeah, because I was really learning a lot of things there. I met a lot of people that way, but you really need to be a lifetime learner. Yeah, I so agree with that. Yeah, continue to to do that. I was so naive when I was really young. You know, I thought you get to play where you just know everything. I was so stuck on perfection and like, like, when am I going to be perfect? Like, oh, yeah, never. But I think, yeah, but that's really important to learn, isn't it? Right. Yeah. And it's and my variation on what you have just said, you know, I'm just trying to be perfect is being able to say, I don't know. Because when I first got hired, you know, I'm thinking, you know, I knew they had very high expectations of me because of what they had done and how they helped me get there. And, you know, all of these things and I was afraid of letting them down. So if I thought, if I didn't know the answer to every question that they would immediately say, oh, my gosh, we hired the wrong person. Right. Yeah. And it takes a certain level of self-confidence and maturity to be able to say, oh, I don't know the answer to that question or I'll get back with you. I will check into it and not be fearful of that not being perfect. Right. Not be fearful of the not knowing. Yeah. And once you once you can embrace that and you say, oh, that's the way of life. Yeah, we can't know everything. And and if somebody is expecting me to know everything, it means they're really uninformed and I'm not going to let their opinion, you know, stop me. Nice. I love that. Yeah, it's so true. Right. Oh, such great advice to that. So tell me, though. So do you see having that work with so many companies and being a consultant, you know, do you see the importance of data management and the number of jobs working with data increasing or decreasing over the next 10 years and why? Well, I really think that the jobs are going to increase. I think they might look a little different, you know, I'm going to just talk out loud a little bit with you about that. Yeah, please. So, yes, I definitely see that there are more jobs, data specific jobs, which I think is very important, and I think those will continue. Given the nature of what data is, as we've already said, it's in between business, in between technology. You need to have good communication skills. So to to be good in data, you need to have some good communication.  So building those kinds of skills. But then you see things like we've got data science. And and and so I think data and a career in data is a very interesting intersection of what we've already said of the technology, the business, actually knowing there are there is data expertise that is about data itself. But that that whole communication and where is AI going? Yeah, knowing even knowing things like statistics and being able to do a valid sample and making sure you don't have bias in your day. I mean, there are just so many aspects that come together in data that we that I probably wouldn't even have been thinking of it quite that way 30 years ago. So I think data is interesting. There's so much opportunity, so many different directions. I mean, data intersects with technology and intersects with processes. It intersects with organizational. You know, how do we set up an organization? What are our roles and responsibilities? You know, it intersects with that. It intersects with finance. How do we show that working with data is even worthwhile? It intersects with risk management, you know? So it might be that some of the things that we've traditionally called data. It is still there. But we continue to move data into many other kinds of professions. And and in fact, I think we need to. So if you if you think about this, because I've been saying this for a while. Yeah, one of the root causes of our problems from a data industry is we don't have enough degrees at a higher education level. And we don't have enough classes. We don't have enough degrees in this. So I think every every MBA program in the world needs to make sure they have something really solid about data. Sometimes. Their data is go take a programming class. OK, that's not a bad thing to do, but we need the data expertise. People come out with an MBA. They know something about finance. They know accounting. They know organizational development, et cetera, et cetera. What do they know about data? Well, if the only thing they took was a programming class, they don't know what they need to know about data. These are our leaders of tomorrow. They are making decisions. So we as consultants, as people like you, as people inside companies have to continue to educate their leadership. Where we're in this cycle, I would like to see that broken and have more at the higher education level. And that's where it's going to start going out.  But as a forest ranger, are there things I need to know about data? Absolutely. We make decisions about how we manage wildlife or what we do with our lands and it depends on data. So even if I'm going to be a forest ranger, there is something, some nuggets of some things that I need to know so I can be smart about the data that I use that supports my profession. And we can apply that against any profession. So as we get that out, we will make more of an impact. But the data jobs will still stay. But I'm hoping those data pieces are going to show up everywhere else too. Yes, indeed. And that's the best part about data, right? And the career in data management is it touches every industry, you know, every business, you know, there's there's nothing you can't do and nowhere you can't go in that. Yeah, absolutely. And I highly encourage people to look at data as a profession. It is fun. It is exciting. It has kept me going for 30 years. And can you tell I'm still enthusiastic about it? I mean, I have not lost any of my energy around this. And it, in fact, at one of the data versatility conferences, I did a keynote called Data Quality Can Save the World. And it first started out being a little bit facetious. And but the more I worked on the keynote and now the more since then, I absolutely believe it. You know, data, the right data, the right quality data, honestly can save the world because we depend so much on it. And people, you know, people can see that, people can see that today. So I really, really encourage people to to look at data as a really good, solid, fulfilling, exciting career. That's great advice, Danette. And you've literally written like you mentioned, you know, how many books now? Well, most people know me for my 10 steps methodology, 10 steps to quality data and trusted information. So the first edition came out in 2008. A year later, it was translated into Chinese. And I was told that it was the very first book, complete book, not just an article, complete book on the subject of data quality ever available in Chinese. Wow. And so in 2021, I finally came out with the second edition of that book, which includes many more examples, different organizations, different places around the world, how this has helped them and how they've been able to apply that. And so in between those two and writing the second edition is like writing the second book, even though the 10 steps held the test of time, you know, all the additional experience that is included in that. So in between that, there's lots of workshops and articles and and and things that I've done. Yeah, that's amazing. So and I would be remiss if I didn't ask Danette, you know, if somebody wanted to solicit your services, how do they find you? Yes, go out to gfalls.com. My company is Granite Falls Consulting or Danette at gfalls.com. Danette McGillery, you can Google me. You'll be able to find me. You can find me on LinkedIn. Nice. Nice. And we'll get all those links added. You can find me. Thank you. And where is your book available? OK, my book is available anywhere books are sold. Obviously, Amazon is one of the big ones. You can go out to Elsevier.com. That is the publisher. If you use the discount code COMP30, C-O-M-P-3-0, you can get a 30 percent discount off just off my book. Yes. In addition, off any of their data books that are part of their science and technology line. Nice. It's very nice. Oh, yeah, go get that. You go use that. Take advantage of that. Who doesn't want to save money? Right. Right. And keep the learning going. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Dana, this has been so great. I'm so excited to have talked with you today. Thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah. Thank you, Shannon. It's it's really fun to take a moment and kind of reflect back on what got me here. So I've enjoyed that.  Thank you so much. And I will see you not only in the enterprise data world, but DGIQ data governance and information quality conference in December or December. December. Yeah. Yeah. In D.C. I had to think about that for a moment. Very exciting. Well, Danette, again, thank you so much. And to all of our listeners out there, if you want to keep up to date in the latest podcasts and in the latest in data management education, go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe until next time. Thank you for listening to DataVersity Talks, a podcast brought to you by DataVersity. Subscribe to our newsletter for podcast updates and information about our free educational webinars at dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.


Hello everyone, my name is Richard Mord and I'm the Director of the 2020 A&U Crawford Leadership Forum and it's my great pleasure to introduce this webcast. This is the third in a series of public discussions by the Australian National University on some of the biggest global questions raised by the pandemic. Through this series of events, we're seeking to sketch the contours of a change in world but ask what the pandemic might mean for Australia and our place in the world. Today our focus is on Asia. Before going any further though, I wanted to acknowledge that today I'm joining you from Canberra on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Nambri people and our Australian audience join us from many different parts of the country. So today we acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands each of us meet. I pay my respects to Elders past and present and I extend those respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be watching today. Asia's rise in recent decades has changed the world and shifted relative economic, geopolitical and even cultural power towards this fast-changing region. Now Asian governments and societies are grappling with the immense change and damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. So how will Asia recover? Can we still talk about the possibilities of an Asian century? How will the pandemic affect the geopolitical competition for power and influence that's been rising in Asia? And has Asian regionalism played any significant role in coordinating responses to the pandemic? I'm really delighted that we have today four foreign policy specialists from Asia to discuss these questions. And I'm equally delighted that the university's own Evelyn Goh, Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies, is able to chair our discussion. Evelyn specializes in East Asian strategy and security. As today's discussion has been broadcast live, I encourage you to submit questions to our panel throughout the discussion using the Q&A function in your toolbar. Now one last word before I hand over to Evelyn to introduce our speakers. I just wanted to say that I'm really delighted that we've got four foreign policy specialists from Asia joining us today. I'm equally delighted that the university's own Evelyn Goh, Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies, is able to chair our discussion. And Evelyn specializes in East Asian strategy and security. So now I'm going to hand over to Evelyn to introduce our speakers and get us underway. Evelyn, over to you. Thank you very much, Richard. And welcome everybody to the latest in this big picture series on Asia and COVID-19. Asia, of course, is a huge and diverse region. And the challenges, responses and impacts of the pandemic vary greatly across this region. COVID-19 has spurred intense debate and further complicated politics within and between countries in this region. To help us to understand some key trends and to analyze the region's prospects and possibilities, we have four eminent experts from Asia today. Let me introduce them to you briefly in turn. First up, we have Professor Dewi Fortuna Anwar, who is research professor at the Center for Political Studies of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and vice chairman of the Habibi Center. Ibu Dewi has also served in government in 2010 to 2015. She was deputy secretary for political affairs to vice president Bodiono under President Yudhiono. And in 2015 to 2017, she was deputy secretary for government policy support to vice president and use of color under President Jokowi. Welcome, Dewi. Next up, we have Professor Suk Jong Lee from the Graduate School of Governance at Songkyeong Kwan University in South Korea. Professor Lee is former president of the East Asia Institute and has directed the Asian Democracy Research Network since 2015. It's good to have you with us, Suk Jong. Next up, we have Professor Huang Renwei, who is the executive director, executive director general of the Institute for Belt and Road and Global Governance at Fudan University in Shanghai, as well as an academic committee member of the Center for International Strategy and Security at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Thank you for joining us, Renwei. Finally, last but not least, we have Dr. Dhruva Jaishanka, who is joining us from Washington, D.C. He is director of the U.S. Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and a non-resident fellow with the Lowy Institute. Dr. Jaishanka was previously a fellow with Brookings, India, the German Marshall Fund and the Rajaratnam School in Singapore. Welcome, Dhruva. Now, let's get started on what is a rather full agenda. We'd like to divide this initial discussion with the panelists into two segments. In part one, we'd like to address some big picture questions for the region as a whole first. So I'd like to begin with two or three general questions, which I'll invite the panelists to weigh in on as they see fit. First up, then, in your view, what are the top two impacts that you see COVID-19 as having had on the Asian landscape as a whole? Would you like to start us off on this, please? Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for bringing me to this discussion through webinar. As you know, prior to the pandemic crisis, we are talking very much about regional integration. The focus was very much on intensifying regional cooperation in all pillars, political security, economics, social, cultural. Within ASEAN, we are well in the progress of developing an ASEAN community. And within the wider region, connectivity is very much the vast word. And that also focuses on people-to-people, the focus on trade exchanges, tourism, people exchanges, and so on. And this pandemic clearly has hit at the nerve center of all that interaction, because we have total disruptions of trade, tourism, people-to-people exchanges, and so on. Now, the two top impacts, there are so many impacts, the two top impacts is that we are forced to carry out physical distancing. We have closed our borders, so there's a real hardening of the borders. People coming from other countries, for tourists and for meetings, you know, are no longer allowed to come. So we have returned to this very hard border situation. And each country has had to draw very much on their own national resources to both to contain the pandemics and also to deal with the social economic impacts. So then we have seen, you know, the very harsh economic fallout of this. Economic growth in some countries have gone to minus, and there are large numbers of people who are going into poverty. So each country will have to grapple with the social economic impact at the same time, you know, when instead of going full force at integration, regional integration, you know, we are being, again, you know, we have people are very worried now, you know, how much complex interdependence can be saved in the long term. Because when you have a pandemic like this, you have to be able to deal with your own health crisis on your own, provide your PPE, provide your medical supplies, and then also make sure that your people are fed, you know, you have sufficient food supplies internally. So there'll be questions later on, you know, to what extent we need to develop national capacity and not rely too much on international trade. So this is going to have an impact. But at the same time, while we have disruptions on this physical connectivity, we have this acceleration of the digital economy and, you know, this webinar and so on. So the process of doing business in Asia will probably be different. We need to refocus later on, you know, in prioritizing in areas which could enhance integration, which could ensure, you know, the ordinary lives that we can live as normally as possible by using technology and, you know, and dealing with this crisis. So in the long term impacts, I think, you know, how to deploy new technologies to mitigate the negative impacts of this crisis will be the top priorities. And I would argue that global health issues, pandemic issues, will become a much higher priority for all of us, including in Asia. Thank you. Thanks, Dewi. Could I invite any other of the panelists to weigh in as you? Well, I think we have to think about the global impact of COVID-19. And there has been a kind of backlash to globalizations before the arrival of this pandemic. I think the pandemic has speeded up. This is not totally universal, but the weakening globalizations in trade and investment ties and so forth. I guess many industries and economy sector are trying to adjust the global supply chain. In the past, the global supply chain was based on the economic logic of saving the money. So, you know, looking for cheap labor costs and that kind of things. But now many countries are trying to diversify all this global network in order to make sure the supply chain will be very secure. And they have the concern about also public safety issues when they are engaging economy activities. So, therefore, I think the pandemic is pushing for kind of ensuring or ensuring. So, we see, you know, whether it can help the regionalization of Asian countries. Because in Asia, we are pretty much, you know, dependent on the western market as well. So, we see whether this alignment, the alignment of a productive and investment mechanism actually facilitating the deepening regionalization that are the very important issues. And Asia in particular will be influenced by the US-China competition. And here, already the competition of this G2 has been great before the arrival of this pandemic. We remember all last year and until the beginning of this year, the keen competition spreading from trade and then technology like AI technology competition and so forth. And this pandemic seems like the speed up, the strategic competition between two countries who knows the direction because we didn't know, you know, what kind of who's gonna lose, who's gonna win in this strategic competition. And pandemic has accelerated, but we don't know, you know, who will lead in this competition. And I think this competition is very important in the future of Asia because if we look back at the post war, economic prosperity and peace in Asia-Pacific region, we based on the US-led hub and spoke alliance system, you know, helping the national security of many countries in the region. And then, since the 1990s with the rise of China, our economies in the region are very much aligned and tied up to China. So therefore, if Asia century continues to the future, we still need the strong Chinese economy that will benefit the other countries in the region. And at the same time, we need a continuous US presence in the region. That's very important. And if these two conditions are not met properly, will be in difficult times. And I think it's very important for Asian countries to provide and to strengthen the multilateral many economic institutions and security institutions as a hedge. Both David and Sook Jong have already set the scene with, you know, a quick sketch of some of the key problems and opportunities as well that the region faces. The two sides of the short term connectivity cuts that we face as a result of COVID, the longer term potential backlash and harm to the kind of globalization based economic models that those of us in Asia have not just grown dependent upon but have grown rich on and developed on the basis of. But David has also emphasized the opportunities that come with new tools and opportunities of the digital age that we have. And of course, the thorny problem of great power competition in the region and uncertainty which has been there already prior to the onset of this pandemic, which is being exacerbated by it. This leads me to the following question, the second large big picture question of, you know, will these impacts really cause Asia to become fundamentally different, right? Then what we were seeing prior to the onset of the pandemic. Sook Jong mentioned the Asian century, for example, can we still think of an Asian century given the scale and depth of these challenges? Perhaps I could invite the other two panelists to share some thoughts on this question. No, I would agree with the previous two speakers, you know, in terms of framing what the challenge is, but you know, we are living in a period of great uncertainty right now and trying to make sense of that uncertainty is sort of what we're all tasked with doing. Obviously, you know, I think the first layer of analysis, the first way of thinking about this is the public health dimensions of it. And different countries are obviously dealing with different ways and are suffering to different degrees from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. You have countries that have recovered quite quickly, you know, Vietnam, Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong have done quite well amongst other South Korea, of course, but others where India, where I'm from, where it seems to be peaking now, and then we have about 12,000 new cases every day being reported. So I think, you know, that's the first sort of level of analysis. The second, of course, is the economic impact, not just of the coronavirus pandemic itself, but also the countermeasures the various governments are taking to address it. And I think, you know, we can break this down to a number of ways. One is the globalization itself that is trade, travel, foreign direct investment and how that has been frozen. Second is consumption patterns and how that has changed. The third is investment and how that's, you know, particularly at this time, where we will have some investors who are taking advantage of this situation, it'll also lead to a lot of risk averseness. A fourth factor I think is manufacturing, which will, as a result of a constrained investment of dropping consumption and of disruption to globalization, manufacturing in certain sectors will suffer. And finally, I think energy factors, and particularly energy and resources, something of particular importance to Australia, we'll see now some very, some changing patterns of energy consumption as well. Now, what does this mean geopolitically? You know, in some ways this all spells a great intensification of competition and not just at the national level or between states, but also within states where it's finding as well. So states and municipal governments are now competing with each other for scarce resources in a way that wasn't, we thought we were over a little while ago. And so what does this mean for the Asian century? I mean, obviously there will be some countries that will be worse affected, some will be better, some will recover more quickly. We saw with the 2008 financial crisis how many Asian economies, in fact, rebounded much better than a lot of European economies. And so, you know, I think each major economy, if you look at its profile, will have certain vulnerabilities. China will be particularly susceptible to drops in investment and exports, whereas other countries will, you know, energy exporters will be disrupted in different ways. So, you know, I think while it's too early to say this will have an impact for the region as a whole, there will be immense variation in terms of how coronavirus affects different countries in the region. May I say something? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's my honor to participate in this conversation and the dialogue. And the question is how Asia's future will be. I'm more optimistic seeing based on the reasons below. Firstly, Asia up till now is the best region controlled the pandemic situation. This is the region firstly outbreak the pandemic. But in only two months, we control the situation. And now Asia, mostly East Asia, is the least cases of this pandemic and the least number of deaths. And you European more than four million cases are close to more than three million cases. And the US more than two million cases. And in Asia, I think about East Asia, about 100,000 cases. And the many Asian countries, the death number is only lower than 100. Some Asian countries, even they have only zero, like Mongolia, Cambodia, Vietnam. So this is almost marvelous, comparing with other regions in the world. So we can see the culture, the institution, the governance, you see during this crisis of pandemic Asia is the best. And the second, our economy is recovering from the recession. I think now we can see US and the European, Western European or the whole European is falling into very serious economic recession. How long will it be? I believe more than two years, the recession of European and the US economy. But in Asia, we can see a positive growth rate working this year, 2020. Maybe the growth rate is much lower than last year or before. In China, maybe two percentage growth rate. But comparing with negative growth rate, about five to eight in Europe and the US, two percent growth rate is still high. It's still high. And like our friends in Korea from Korea said, the supply chain is changing fundamentally from global wide to regional wide. So the supply chain will be shortened. Like East Asia will become some kind of block of supply chain. And we have Japan, South Korea as the top level, China in the middle, South East Asia, ACR in the middle and lower. So this is the whole system of supply chain. And I believe this will be more sufficient and more efficient and more sustainable. And about how about China and the US? I put the ideological and political factors aside. If we just talk about the pandemic, we China, we are tied to choose. We sincerely want to cooperate with the US in this pandemic control. We should cooperate with each other. We should do all the coordinated work together and to exchange information and exchange the technology on this control pandemic and distribution the materials necessary and also work together with WHO. We send many messages and the proposal, these kind of cooperation with US, but they are all refused rejected by White House. So it's a great pity we lose or we are losing this chance, this opportunity to have two powers cooperating working with each other. But we still have time. The US wants to work together with China in pandemic control. We still will be very eager to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Huang. Thank you, Ren Wei. Now, perhaps I can move this conversation on to the second part of where we'd like to go, which is a slightly more in-depth look at the particular countries in the particular subregions we have represented here by our various experts who have a better sense of defined great detail in these particular areas. But before we get there, of course, a reminder so far from Druva about the variation that we see across this very large region, which we now can think about in a bit more detail, also a reminder from Ren Wei about the comparative perspective, what Asia looks like when we compare it with other parts of the world, and some reasons, perhaps, to be optimistic here about the prospects economically particularly as we go forward. And finally, again, the reminder about great power politics, whether it's about the pandemic by itself or more broadly. So these are themes that we will come back to. I'd like to spend a bit of time with each of the speakers in turn now again coming back, circling back to Dewey and looking at Australia's closest neighbouring region of Southeast Asia again. Dewey, if I may, let's think about Southeast Asia in a bit more detail. Obviously, again, a very, very diverse subregion in itself. What would you say some of the major differences in COVID-19 impacts and experiences have been so far across Southeast Asia? Eveline, as you say, Southeast Asia is very diverse and Southeast Asia is very diverse. Indonesia is one with the largest number of sufferers and also the largest number of deaths. Also the Philippines and Thailand, while in some of the smaller countries, there have been zero deaths. In terms of the effectiveness of responses, Singapore and Vietnam, they've been cited as being very, very effective. I must say that Indonesia, there's a mixed record here that some delay, but at the end of the day, there's been improved state capacity in dealing with this crisis. On the whole, one death is too many, but in comparative perspectives, given Indonesia has 260 million people. Although the testing is still too low, it's not sufficient yet, so we don't really know how many people are there at the moment. We have about 30,000. But when you look at the recorded deaths of confirmed COVID deaths, there have been about 2,000. But people say there are many people who are suspects, but the results have not really been out yet. So it could probably go up to more than three and a half times of 2,000. So maybe about the large-scale population, maybe it's still comparatively lower than if you go to this, you compare it to the US or Italy. So variations, some countries are much more effective than others. I must say that while ASEAN has a lot of good intention at the practical level, each country really has to rely more on its own national resources because of the enforced control of the borders, disruption of traffic and trade and so on. So each country really has to look internally. And here, the national capacity is very important, the ability of the state to respond to crisis. And maybe one of the good things about Southeast Asian region is that we are very prone to crisis. Indonesia itself has from tsunami to earthquakes and then we have the financial crisis and so on. There are improved capacity to deal with that. ASEAN plus three have come together. The leaders have met. They want to deal with crisis better in the future, though in real terms now, each country is still very much reliant on its own resources. Do you want me to ask? I might pick up the point about ASEAN, which you've already brought up, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. What has been interesting for many observers in the region is ASEAN's relative lack of high-profile coordinating role in dealing with the pandemic in Southeast Asia so far, which is a little bit surprising, I suppose, for some observers, given that ASEAN does have some formal mechanisms for cooperation, for health security, information exchange and so on. Do you foresee that as this crisis pans out, that ASEAN may be able to contribute more towards Southeast Asian management of COVID-19? Well, the ambition is that, as you know, ASEAN already have the AHA Center, the center that dealt with more humanitarian and disaster risk management. The problem is, of course, in the past, crisis was localized. You have a tsunami in Indonesia or you have the typhoon in Myanmar and so on. So countries that are not affected have been able to get more assistance, but now countries are affected. And ASEAN, as you know, is reliant very much on physical interaction, on meetings and so on. And now you cannot, you know, you can only go through Zoom and so on. So they are able to communicate at the virtual level, but the real, you know, the physical level, there are restrictions. So that means that, and countries that should be in a better position, for example, to send assistance, you know, that they've also been very much forced to focus on their own. But this is a lesson learned. The ASEAN countries and the ASEAN private countries now are talking about better risk management, both at the public health level, as well as a social economic impact. And I think that's one thing from ASEAN, you know, that from each crisis, the regional organizations and the partnership and the partners have tended to to have, you know, better mechanisms in place, you know, they are willing to invest more money and also, you know, create the mechanisms necessary to do that. You also mentioned, Dewi, that, you know, unfortunately, many Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, you know, are used to having to deal with crises, natural disasters and so on, so forth. The other thing that is interesting about Southeast Asia, of course, is that, you know, there has traditionally been a fairly strong status emphasis. The status is a bit clear in many of the countries in Southeast Asia. Do you see the management of the COVID crisis so far reinforcing that very state-centric tendency in Southeast Asia? Yes and no. I mean, the good thing is that when we are talking about crisis, when you're talking about public health, it should be public, it should not be private, you know, it should be made easily available and affordable and, you know, with equal, the equality of access of everybody and that could only be provided by the state, you know, not by private institutions. And also in terms of the social economy impacts when people have lost their jobs, when you suddenly have a large pool of new pool who have not been in the roasters of those who have received government hands-outs, you know, so it's only the government that can do that. And in Indonesia, you know, we have a lot of trial and error here. There have been some good examples, but there have also been, you know, some poor examples of correct data and so on. So the importance of the state is very important here. But at the same times, we cannot simply rely on the state. It's also, and this is one of the good things also. It has to be a whole of government and whole of society approach. In Indonesia, the government has been, the pandemic crisis in fact has shown both the good, the bad and the ugly, you know, in the system. We have seen both the strengths and the weaknesses. From the Indonesian case, typical late response, you know, denial and going off in completely different direction.  The good thing is that because we have so many crises in the past, there's already a system in place. Since the tsunami, Indonesia has this national agency for disaster management. And after chaotic communications and incoherent policies by the central government, then the central government appointed a task force chaired by this national agency for disaster management. And each region, you know, also has its own chapter. So responses have been much more coordinated. And with Indonesia, we have a decentralization system. And this is both a headache and a good thing, you know, one of the bad things about decentralization is sometimes, you know, the policies are incoherent and lack of coordination. But at the same time, when central government is a bit slow, some of the regional governments are much more up to speed. So, you know, and they've been the one, you have seen the emergence of very effective regional leaders with good communication and who have been able to put, you know, both the public health side and also the social economy impact together. So as I said, you know, Indonesia is a very complex mix. We have problems of enforcement. And we have problems, you know, civil society has been great, there's been great generosity, outpouring of philanthropic activities, be our medical practitioners, you know, health care, they've been wonderful, they've been wonderful support for them. At the same time, they've also seen signs of intolerance, where nurses have not been allowed to return to their rooms because the neighbors were worried about being affected by COVID.  But at the same time, we, you know, so there's this fear paranoia, but at the same time, you still see markets congested with people. When malls and supermarkets have been closed down, you see people, you know, the informal sectors defying this. When governments are restricted travel, you know, you see large scale of people still going to their villages during Ramadan. So it's a bit chaotic, but at the same time, you know, the state does function. And here I might mention about the military because the role of the military has been under scrutiny, particularly under Jokowi's, you know, there's been increase, incursion of the military that have been brought into the cabinet and been involved in a lot of military operations other than war, including terrorism. And the current chair of the, of the agency for, you know, disaster management is an active military general. And he had to get the president has to ask for special dispensation because that position is not supposed to be held by military officer. And now he's the chair of this task force, but he's been wonderful, you know, when, when you see different government ministers talking about different things and not getting their act together, the fact that this task force is being held by someone who is firm and decisive and, and, and try to get everybody on the same page has been very welcome. And also the role of the military and the military transports from bringing our citizen from, from China and bring, always setting up the emergence, thanks for example, their role has been very well welcomed here. So if there are two things here, regional governments have been doing quite well. The role of the military here has been largely positive. And the role of civil society has been very, very positive. Thank you, David. Thank you. That's very helpful and actually allows us to move across in a comparative perspective to, to Subchong on the, on the Korea case. Korea, of course, South Korea, of course, you know, is considered one of the success stories and dealing with the containing the pandemic so far. And has some rather different, I think, factors that offers lessons for others in comparison with what David was saying, you know, has been positive about the Indonesian experience so far. So, Subchong, do you think at first start that, you know, the South Korea should also engage in, in pandemic diplomacy and, you know, sharing some of these lessons with, with the rest of the region? Hi, Evelyn. Yes. South Korea has been asked to share our, the epidemic model and we call cane model, which is based on aggressive testing and then contact tracing based on all this IT technology and then successful social distancing with active participation from civil society. So our model has been praised internationally as a democratic model without a lockup and so there has been a very much demand to share our model. So in that aspect, I think it's our first time to use our domestic health crisis model for public diplomacy and our foreign ministry has been quite active in translating our, the governance model to the public diplomacy. For example, our foreign minister has been active in making announcement through the MIKTA network. MIKTA is a Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey, Australia and South Korea, middle power networks created by the initiative of South Korea and the South Korean government is chairing this network and they made a special statement about the COVID-19 corporations. And then also they're using the United Nations global arena as a stage. The foreign ministry has organized group of friends of solidarity for global health security. So that's been also quite active part, but I should say that it is more like the global network rather than the sub-original Northeast Asian network. For example, the European countries are talking about the bubbles, right? So with the similar impact of COVID-19, they are going to open up gradually. So logically considering the low infection rate with the low death rate, China and Korea and Japan could have created bubble quickly, but not until this moment. And of course, between China and South Korea, we have a rapid corridor panel so the businessmen can travel without much hassle. But unfortunately, with the quite negative bilateral relations with Japan, we haven't created the kind of the fast corridor. I think it's very important for us, at least China, Korea and Japan work together to ease the kind of travel bans. And also we have to work together to consolidate the health issues, sharing information, and also working closely with the vaccines and whatever. And that part is still lacking. That's interesting. So, and this picks up on what you said, you talked about earlier, about economically the prospects of actually looking for opportunities to shorten those supply chains in a COVID world within the Northeast Asian context and what Ren Wei talked about earlier also about the possibilities of doing that within the broader East Asian context, including Southeast Asia as well. And I note actually that to bring the two, both of you together into this conversation, I note that Ren Wei published an article last in March, I think, making the argument that the pandemic should really have a positive effect in the end of bringing together the three main Northeast Asian countries, China, Japan and Korea in a period of cooperation economically and with health and travel as well. I wonder if both of you might offer an opinion of how likely you think this would be. Can COVID-19 actually spur the kind of Northeast Asian cooperation that has been so elusive for such a long time? Okay, if I may. Yeah, actually we talked a lot. Our foreign ministries and also Japanese foreign ministries have thought about this opportunity, using this opportunity of COVID-19. They can just engage more, kind of, reversing our vicious cycle of diplomatic relations into the positive one and then include China. However, during this quarantine period as well, you know, with the staff of the free visa entry of Koreans to Japan, South Korea also banned the free and free visa from Japan as well. It became less pro-proc. So, as a PD, I think we need a great political leadership to change this atmosphere. Still, these three big Northeast Asian countries are looking only the domestic side, just concentrating our resources to combat this pandemic. And then they are very much concerned with the domestic politics, how, you know, the political support will be linked to the successful management of COVID-19. So, I think I haven't seen a great leadership from three countries to pushing and using this opportunity to combine three countries in Northeast Asia to come up with the more valuable dialogues that can expand it to the other countries of the region. So, John, I wondered whether I can draw you out a little bit more widely in terms of the impact of COVID-19 on South Korean debates and thinking about other great power relationships so far. Has there been any implication for how South Koreans have been thinking about the alliance relationship with the United States, for example? The alliance, I would say, overall, the soft power of America, I think in my opinion, has been declined. After all, this USA, the richest and then technologically most advanced countries has hit hard the worst by the COVID-19. So, the world is puzzled.  Now they have a political unrest following the killing of George Floyd. So, the Asians are looking at whether the especially Trump administration can have the credible leadership in the Asia Pacific region. However, however, in terms of the alliance, the attitude toward the USA, I think South Koreans have embraced very strong support for aligning with the USA. And I think that attitude has been very much strengthened after the Chinese economic retaliation over the introduction of the missile defensive mechanism called THAAG to South Korea. So, that aspect, yes, we worried about all this transactional approach by President Trump pushing South Korea to pay more in hosting American troops in South Korea. And we were concerned about the President Trump is trying to bring 9,500 American soldiers stationed in Germany. So, we worry about this kind of move. However, so up to now, America has shown their commitment, for example, to the security of the South China Sea by showing all this force. I think it was last week. So, that kind of signal is important to allies in the Asia Pacific region. So, yes, we see some declines of the power in terms of this health issues and democracy issues. But as for the security commitment from the USA to the region, we are still optimistic. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Sung-Tong. Maybe we can stay with this issue of U.S.-China strategic competition, which has been exacerbated and made even more uncertain in many ways by COVID-19. And here, I'd like to bring Runway back in again and also give Dhruva a chance to comment on this particular issue. Let's try Runway's line again. I think China-U.S. religion is going down since last year, the trade war between two major countries. And this year, with the pandemic, the situation is worsening than last year. So, it's still going down. We haven't got a real turning point to be a more positive side in the next half year. And the non-U.S. is facing two or four kinds of crisis, the pandemic, the violence of racial contradictions and economic recession, and then political presidential election. So, four kinds of crisis put together. And how White House to deal with these four real crisis, one of their ways to go out is works on China. The media, the public opinion and the White House together blame China as the responsibility of the crisis in the U.S. and in the world. So, recently, we read the new, released official report on the main Chinese White House in the strategic document on People's Republic of China. And even this official document much worse than the National Security Strategy report in 2017. But I don't believe new Cold War is happening between two major countries because it's very cost, it's cost too much for U.S. to to decide. And also, it cannot really mobilize all the allies countries to go along with this new Cold War against China. And also economically, no one can pay this cost to stop all the links between China and the U.S. economically. And also the Chinese American in the U.S. now suffering from this kind of discrimination. So, I think this is the last part of Trump's policy towards against China. And for China, now we are focusing on ourselves to improve our inside economic and social issues and try to open wider to outside. So, recently, the financial market is opening almost completely to foreign capital and the U.S. financial institutions are moving very fast into China market. Also, manufacturing many capital from U.S. is moving into China. So, there are two trends. One is toward the new Cold War. The other is toward closer economic integration. So, I don't know which one is the main stream. We will which energy if Trump's policy can work, they will give up. If it doesn't work, it will maybe change it. This is a really interesting point, runway that, you know, and Asia is often like this, isn't it? We often have, you know, dualistic, you know, things that should not be happening at the same time happening together. So, on the one hand, that intensifying economic interdependence still between China and the United States. On the other hand, the descent into something like a new Cold War, these two things are happening at the same time.  You know, Dhruva for the rest of us in Asia, of course, you know, that kind of uncertain dualistic dynamic between the U.S. and China just makes life a lot harder, right? You've written recently that intensifying competition between the U.S. and China means increasingly tough choices for the rest of Asia. There is also the popular idea in India for a long time now that a multipolar world is a better one for India, you know. Where do you think the current dynamics leave the prospects for that kind of a multipolar, Asia at least? You know, I think the question is first, to what degree, as Professor said correctly, what degree will there be a U.S. China, an intensified U.S. China competition? And, you know, I would say my sense is actually there's a growing bipartisan consensus in the U.S., not just amongst Trump supporters and the Trump administration, but actually increasingly also Democrats, both in the U.S. Congress, but also Joe Biden and his campaign to take on a more competitive approach to China. And so I suspect we won't go back to an era where there was a more cozy interdependence between the U.S. and China. There will be much harder lines drawn in this respect. I think that that's becoming increasingly clear. I'm also not so sure that the U.S., you know, barring a certain, you know, the investor community and so forth, that there will be the kinds of costs, you know, that the cost-benefit calculation will necessarily adhere to what many expect in the sense that I think there is a growing consensus that on many areas the U.S. has been a relative loser from this engagement that it has engaged in with China over the last 30 years or so. So, you know, the long term is I think we will see a great disruption to supply change. We're already seeing this discussion underway when it comes to 5G telecommunications. But just today, actually in the last 24 hours, we saw an announcement, for example, of the creation of a new body for artificial intelligence, a new partnership body. And that includes the Five Eye countries, the European Union, and several EU member states, but also Japan, Korea, India, and Singapore. And noticeably, China is not participating in that. One of the COVID contact groups that's being led at the vice ministerial level on the U.S. side involves the U.S., Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam. So, again, so we're seeing in all of this is to suggest that we're seeing a kind of a greater fractured, a more fractured relation, dynamic in Asia. And in some ways, you know, one of the things why we may see more of intensified supply chains within North East Asia, within East Asia, the fact is, though, there will be a huge demand for market access that will continue. And those two, the two other very big markets beyond mainland China will remain the United States and the European Union. So, again, I do think we need to question some of the assumptions that we've gotten very used to over the last 20 years or so, and whether these are really sustainable relationships going forward. Absolutely. And, you know, your point about the continued importance of the European Union as a market, of course, is something that I think the Chinese policymakers have have been well aware of. And maybe this is the point of bringing runway back into the conversation and to think about one of the remaining sort of, you know, obvious areas of focus in the economic recovery ahead for China, the Belt and Road Initiative, which after all is a way for China to, you know, deepen and leverage the European market, ultimately, as well. Renwei, you know, how do you see COVID-19 as having affected the BRI, the Belt and Road Initiative? And can we expect to see some alterations and changes in the way BRI projects and initiatives are carried out from now on? Yeah, I recently published an article on Global Times in China on this impact of Biden on the Belt and Road. Obviously, there are several negative impacts that is many projects on the Belt and Road have been stopped since many Chinese engineers and the laborers cannot move to outside from China to these countries. And also second the many local government of the foster countries believe it's too heavy, the burden of debt from Biden Road project. So some of them put Biden Road as part of the debt program of Biden League. So there is a debt crisis on Biden Road too. And also US and some other alliance countries believe it's more geopolitical issue than globalization of markets. So these are more negative part. And also we can see some bright positive signals from Biden Road. One is it is the only one part of the world market that is still keeps on growing early part of this year. The trade volume is 5% larger than last year. So it's very positive. And the second is China is we adjust our projects along the Belt and Road and the more efficient to more less risky projects will be put on the focus. And some projects will be delayed or stopped or suspended. And also we put public health as new items of Biden Road. So last several years we didn't put this on very important position. And the industrial parks along the Biden Road we think is more healthy than the infrastructure projects. So China enterprises is going to work harder to work harder in the industrial parks. However maybe the speed of Biden Road will slow the scale will be shorter, will be smaller than before. But it will be more efficient and more safe. Thank you. On this related issue you know obviously many countries in Asia are thinking already beyond the immediate crisis of the pandemic and thinking about recovery. One of the major issues for the region as a whole of course is this question of prospects for China's economic recovery in the coming months and years. And also issues about how China plans to cope with weak domestic and global demand as a global production center. So would you be able to give us some key highlights on those points please. Thank you very much for this very important question. And I think China, Japan, South Korea and ACM is going to complete our FTA free trade agreement by the form of temporary. And this will change the integration will be much closer. And also last year by the end of last year ACM is number one trade partner of China now surpassed the European Union and the US. So ACM is about 400 million population. EU is 400 million population. US is 400 million population, the same population. But ACM is much lower per capita than US and EU. But trade volume with China is number one. What does it mean? So you can see. And also I think China is the better road is the number one part is in South Asia, in Thailand, in Myanmar, in Indonesia, in Jakarta to Bandung, highway railroad, high speed railway like this. And also we think we should be very careful. Don't make too heavy burden and to the countries of these young members. Thank you. Dhruva, turning to you with a similar set of questions. Again, India's economic importance for the rest of Asia is growing. What do you see the prospects for Indian recovery, Indian economic recovery from the COVID crisis? And particularly how do you see that debate about self-sufficiency playing out in India? Right. So I think the two things. One is that I think we will see a very sharp drop in the Indian economy in the coming year or so. And the question would really be how faster recovery it faces after that into negative territory possibly for the first time since the 1990s. So this would be quite a significant shock for the Indian system. It already is India put an unprecedented nationwide lockdown in two phases. They're now in the process of partially lifting that phase. So I think there's no question that the consequences would be very severe. And particularly for a low income country such as India, this has very important human consequences as well, which can't be overlooked. Now, what does that mean in the longer term? I mean, I think there'll always be certain opportunities. In some ways, this is an opportunity for India to put in place an industrial policy, which it had not been able to do in the past, at least not on a nationwide state scale. So I think that this is what we will probably see happening in the near future. The one question, there has been a renewed focus on economic nationalism. But I don't think that that is as different or as contradictory to globalization as many people see. India has the third largest trade deficit, oh, I'm sorry, third largest current account deficit of any country after the U.S. and UK. And so it's seen as globalization as being something that has benefited other countries relatively more than it has the Indian economy, except in certain areas. So I think we will see a sort of an attempt to rebalance that. Already we've seen the trade deficit shrink to its lowest in, you know, since 1994 or so. But again, how the nature of Indian industrial recovery after this will really be what's in question. Thank you very much, Druba. I'm afraid that we are out of time, comprehensively out of time on this panel. Thank you very much to all of our panelists for a very wide-ranging and also quite in-depth discussion of the varied trends and patterns of COVID-19 impacts on Asia.


Right now, we're playing in Rucker Park. Think about that. This right here, ladies and gentlemen, makes me want to play the game a lot more, bro. And that's why I'd be hopping on here, man.  That makes no sense. Oh my god! Give me that! I see you playing off-ball. What the f***? Are you playing?  We're doing a wager and you've been playing off-ball? Hi, guys. I'm in love. Not with any human in particular, but with NBA 2K on PC, you can't make this s*** up. So I've been doing some research of analysis, and I found out that apparently there's all kind of different mods. What are you doing? Stop. You look good. Yo, I'm in love with the mods, man. It makes the game fun to play again.  So when you see that happen, you can't help but hop on PC and play it. Had a laugh. Why are you doing that? I'm trying to get, I'm trying to, you know, I don't really wear hats, so I'm trying to, like, figure my style out. That's how I do it to the tilt. So I'm trying to... That's hard, yo. That's hard, yo! Oh, s***! Hey, yo! Had a lot of fun last time I brought Lohan. We played some Summer Circuit drew league. So he about to run it up, man. This is where you subscribe. Thanks for subscribing. Everybody else should do the same. Right, Loh? You know what? My second channel. You just started that! Hey, Lohan, get to 30,000 subscribers ASAP. Link is in the description, fellas. Always in the description. Might not be, though. Might not be. What? Okay, so this is what we're going to do. We're going to play, but I want to put something on the line. What should that be? Shoot. Our virginities. Yo, that has to be that shoot. Wow. No, no, I need that. You don't need that. You don't need to have, bro. But that's my whole thing. Like, when I get on, like, when we playing part, I got my fits on. Yo, let me get the happy. Let me get the happy. All right, I'm choosing rock and park legends. Who you got? Let me get a Nike. Let me get Nike. All right, no, no, no. Choose a goddamn team, man. Hold on a minute. Yo, yo, yo, cut this out. Yo, if I lose, though, like, do I have to pay you? No, you don't. Yo, make sure you cut this out. Yeah, cut this out. But like, seriously, if I lose. No, no, you don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. I'll send the invoice and then just post that. And then we'll just. But you're not going to tell Beamstar that I didn't pay you, right? Nah, he not even here. I'm not like Davis or Annoy TV or anything. Hey, get your head in the game. All these other people who have money. Wait. Look at me, fellas. Look at me, killing the game. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, this video was brought to you by Raycon. Wow, what a premium build. Look at it. Why don't you look at that? Ladies and gentlemen, I love these Raycon earbuds. I'll tell you why, all right? Well, first of all, they're like half the price of any other premium earbud. Top of that, the sound quality is impeccable. I listen to a lot of hip hop, obviously. So I need bass in my music. There's nothing worse than the earbud, but ain't got no bass. What am I supposed to do with it? Listen to lectures? You're not going to have that problem with these Raycons. They just dropped their newest model to everyday E25 earbuds. It's actually the ones I have right here. Man, he's real covert, fellas. You couldn't even tell I had this on. Look at this, man. I'm actually genuinely impressed with these earbuds. I'm not lying. They have six hours of playtime, sync immediately with Bluetooth, and their noise is isolated. Ladies and gentlemen, it wouldn't make sense if you didn't get one of these. And I'll tell you what, here I am. I'm the plug.  I always appreciate when companies help support what I'm doing here on this channel, and Raycons show me a whole lot of love. You click the top link in the description that's going to bring you to this page. Welcome, Agent Zero viewers. Why are you doing there? Boom, click buy now, it'll link you. You have all kinds of different options on which color you want, and you get 15% off an already incredible price for your playing yourself. So the link is at the top of the description, or click buyraycon.com slash agent, and thank you to everyone who helps support the sponsors that help support me. It means a lot. Look at Iris, look how fast and explosive he's pushed. Look, hop, that's not the move. Ooh, ooh, we move this way. We move just like that. Julius, Julius, yes sir. Bean, we got the bean on the brawn. If he makes that, okay, we can't do this.  You're not a hardcore game gamer. Oh, that's a fact. No, you're making it easier for yourself. Yes, a fact. So when you mess up your release, and he got his release right, and you get the same result because of Hall of Fame, you try to dumb the game down.  Please, what are you doing, it's not this. Right now, we're playing in Rucker Park. Think about that. I know a lot of quarters though, though. Doesn't it make you just wanna play? I swear to God, if the mic, whoop, she dunked it.   That's clean. Let's go, let's clean, let's go. Thank you, thank you. They just gonna block it. Hey, that noise, why do you make that slurping noise? Now you really don't take my virginity. No, please. That makes no sense, it makes no sense.  I love how responsive it is, man. God dammit. It is, it's very responsive. Feels like I'm playing the game in 2020, not in 1995. Pass it to the bean, the bean don't miss, ah. You know, it's also better than it's like, the graphically, this is like, wait, this is, wait, wait. I know, well, first of all, it's because my monitor is incredible, right? Oh my goodness. That's great.  This is nice. Yo. Ridiculous. You're not. You're not blocked. Oh come on.  Yo, I'm not cap and needed. This right here is for $500, love. So don't troll with your hat, gimmicks. Yo, that is. And I promise you, I'm coming to collect. This right here, ladies and gentlemen, makes me want to play the game a lot more, bro. And that's why I'd be hopping on here, man. Ooh. What? Oh, you're about to lose a hundred bands. I just want to say hundred bands. I'm a gambling addict. I see no inspire me. Boom, we out. Why would you cut, right? Ooh, I see you, Kevin. No way, please no, please no, please no. Let's get it. He's going to come in here. Yo, do you know we're recording? I knew it. I knew it. I knew he was going to come in here. Made it. Let me, let me, let me. We're playing for money, you know we're wagering. Oh, you guys are doing all right. I don't want to lose money like Davis did. But. You put in $50,000 for this game. $50,000. That's it? Y'all done? No, we've waited for a while. Oh, okay. You know, bands are closing. Davis is ready. We got the money in our pocket. Another mode. Damn, he ain't even know about that. You see the film we're in right now? You see the, you see the snap back? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. My main man. The one and only. The legendary. The NBA champion. Kawaii Leonard. Please stop. Kawaii Leonard.  Get it out. Stop, stop. Come on. Come on, stop. Play with me. Come on, we got Kawaii right here. Good pass.  Give me that. Oh my God. Ain't that one, that was not a steal? Oh my God. Keep just going. What's up with you? You good? Yeah, you might not get your money, bro. Yo, yo, no, no. No way. Why would you do that? You've been baited. To the past. I'm the master. He not built like, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Stop. I get it.  You've been on vacation. Step your **** out. I'm gonna tell you right now, I need my money in ones. My fact in quarters. Cash. Yes. He's playing for real. Let's go. I see you. I see you playing off ball. What the? God. Are you playing off? Cash nasty him so said that we can play off ball now. This whole wager is voided. No. Double teams. Cause you're playing off ball. Be a girl. Why would you play off ball in a wager? You good? Cause you double capping right now. That's what you're doing right now. You double capped. Well, this wager is voided. Yes, yo. This wager is voided cause you're playing off ball. What kind of **** You know, 50 cents that this **** it inspired him. He said, what kind of **** that? And I was like, what's 50? I'm eating quarters. No, that doesn't count. I'm actually recording it back. I'm eating quarters. No, it doesn't count. I'm eating quarters. It doesn't count. Look at me.  I'm looking at you. I'm looking at you. Rich doesn't count. Yes.   But I really wasn't playing off ball that often. He doesn't have to pay me. He was off balling, right? Agent, are you a scammer? Davis, you lost $6,000 the other day. Hold on, wait, let me find it. Where is it? Where's that at? First story today. You guys thought he was a good person? He's not. Agent Zero got caught scamming fellow YouTuber, Legend of Simping, and a simple $500 wager. Does he have the funds? We don't know. But we'll put you on the plane, April.  You don't have it, Rich. Y'all.  Hey, hey, okay, okay, so. No, we're not cutting it like a video. So you're gonna make my $500 and not, bro. This game is $500. No off ball. Oh my God. No off ball. It's just the reason why I can't wager people. He missed that. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I'm on the board, baby. I'm so serious about this game, love. A thousand, let's do a thousand.  Let's do a thousand. And he can hit those. And you missed that. He's gonna hit those. That's Stephen Curry III. That's why I gotta do like that. A off ball. That's why you can't. No, no, I was not gonna say that. That's why you said that. That's why you play off ball right there. That is the reason why you have to play off ball. Oh my God. He's so explosive and he's going up. And what? And what? Yo, he snatched that. No. Cause you have to send the double. You have to send the double on Curry. There's no other way to play that except send the double on Curry. Look at how I just played that. Look at the way I'm playing this right now. And I'm beating you. And I'm beating you. And I'm beating you. And I'm beating you. And I'm beating you. And I'm beating you. There's no way. Cash. And you're gonna get bailed out. Cash! Of course. Game you, what? Come on, man. What's the off ball? That's the reason why. Don't be a slow. Slow. Y'all new to the channel. You haven't already. Be sure to. I'm not saying subscribe. Subscribe, ladies and gentlemen. Now you're about to lie about 500 you do not deserve. Oh my God. Oh my God. Did you just see what Stephen Curry accomplished? I remember I can't do that no more. I can't do that. Well, I'm a three pointer away from winning. I just wanna put you on. Why? Why did you do that? Cause it's no count. Why? Huh? What? Lowe, you're not about to scam me, are you? It's no count, bro. We're not about to scam me, are you? You know how we get down. Woo, woo. Got. Get him out of here. Yo, Davis. We're tied, we're tied. Let me call Davis. I just wanna see what Davis thinks about the situation. So we're tied? Okay, actually, hear me. Just won a game and Lowe's saying it didn't count, but for no reason whatsoever, it's often the fact that he's not as good as me.  You lost the first game. Bro, but you were off balling. When we didn't off ball, you lost. Hey, hey, hey, hey. You lost. Hey, hey, the rule on the field stands. Yo, we're running back next video. Thank you. Hey, hey, we're gonna run this back on the next video. Lowe and I, $40,000.