So, A Song of Ice and Fire is a lot different than your typical fantasy story, like, you know, we think of Lord of the Rings and such when we think of, you know, traditional fantasy. And a lot of people have discovered the series in recent years and thought, well, okay, this is great, you know, because it's really dark, it's a little more realistic, has less magic in it, it follows a relatively small cast of characters that we actually see it through, rather, that we actually see the story through, but the overall cast is still huge and just, you know, things like that. And so, sometimes people ask me for recommendations, or they give me recommendations, for stuff that, you know, if I liked Game of Thrones, I'd like this and, you know, that sort of thing. And so today I just thought, you know what, let's talk about, if you like A Song of Ice and Fire, you know, if you like the following a decent sized cast of characters, if you like the dark fantasy elements or playing with fantasy tropes or whatever, then you might like some of this other stuff. And none of this is going to scratch every itch, obviously, like, you know, George Double-R Martin has a pretty specific style of writing and all that, but this should give you something to, something to read. Okay, so the first thing I have is the Mistborn trilogy, and I did contemplate whether or not I wanted to put this on there, because while it is pretty dark overall, it isn't nearly as hopeless as A Song of Ice and Fire feels sometimes, and it has a lot of violence and all that, but it doesn't really have sex the way that George Double-R Martin has, or in all of his works really, have. So I did consider not putting this on there, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized, you know what, yeah, it belongs on there, because it is still a pretty dark story. It does still follow relatively small cast of characters, and it does still play around with traditional fantasy tropes. So if you don't know, Mistborn is all about basically a world where there was a traditional fantasy story quest that went on a thousand years ago. There was a hero, he was going on to fight this Dark Lord, and he failed, and so the Dark Lord took over the world, and so now a thousand years later the world is ruled by this immortal demigod, and so a small group of people decide, okay, let's fight back, let's try and destroy him and destroy his empire. I already reviewed the whole trilogy, if you want to go watch those feel free, but overall right now I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. I just think, you know what, if you're looking for a dark sort of dreary depressing story, then okay, go for this, it's not as bad as A Song of Ice and Fire, but go for this, this is great. It has tons of violence and action, it really doesn't shy away from that sort of thing, so again, that's great. And it follows a smaller cast, you know, we don't really have the sprawling character lists that we have in A Song of Ice and Fire. And the POV characters, we only get like six or seven altogether throughout the whole series, but it does jump around a bit and you do see things from different people's perspectives. The only real substantial area where it's a lot, a lot different from A Song of Ice and Fire is that there is a pretty clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. You know, you're never really going to stop and say, oh, are these guys in the right, because they always are. The next one on here I have also reviewed, it is The Name of the Wind, which is Book 1 in the King Killer Chronicles. Now this one, this one is also a little different than maybe what you would expect, but I think it works as a recommendation. I think if you really, really like A Song of Ice and Fire, you'll probably think that The Name of the Wind is at least decent. So this story follows a guy named Kvoth, and the thing is, it starts up years after the main story has already happened, and Kvoth is supposedly dead. He's faked his death, but he decides to tell the story of his life to this other guy, and so pretty much the whole thing is just him telling about what his childhood was like and how he got to the point where he was now. And it is a more of a low magic setting than most fantasy worlds. It has more magic than A Song of Ice and Fire, admittedly, but it is still low magic, so there's not a whole lot of wizards and everything running around that are going to solve problems, which I know people who aren't super into fantasy find that sort of thing annoying, but that's there. And again, it is pretty dark. There's violence and sex and stuff that it doesn't shy away from it, is the thing, because I don't think that any of that makes a story good on its own, and I don't think many people would disagree with that either, but it's just that it doesn't shy away from it, so it really does make you feel like, okay yeah, there's some brutal aspects to this world, and it feels very real and very in your face. The only thing is that this has a much more focused narrative, so if you're looking for like a sprawling political thriller, this wouldn't be up your alley. Next up we have The Night Angel Trilogy, and I don't have a copy of that anymore, I used to, but it's gone now, and so The Night Angel Trilogy, the first book is called The Way of Shadows, and it follows this guy named Azoth, who later changes his name to Kylar, and he's just an orphan living in the slums of a city who eventually becomes an apprentice to a magical assassin, and then he himself grows up and becomes a magical assassin. Now this one does have the political thriller aspect, so if you're looking for like some maneuvering and assassinations, backstabbing, that sort of thing, The Night Angel Trilogy has some of that, yes. Particularly in the first two books, the third one not quite as much, but that one's more wrapping up the trilogy, and again you have the character of Kylar who is not really a saint. Again this one, there's not a whole lot of moral ambiguity, but Kylar is not a saint. He is an assassin, he does kill people, and while he does try and usually do the right thing, he doesn't always succeed at it, and so this one does fall into more of that moral ambiguity area that a lot of people look for, and beyond that again, you know, lots of sex and violence and all that, and it is kind of dark and dreary and a little depressing, and for me that is one thing that I felt the series went a little too far on, but a lot of people disagree with me, they think it's actually a really good example of grim dark fantasy, and so yes, if you're looking for that sort of thing, then feel free, go ahead. The only thing is that this one does have a lot more magic in it, so if you're someone that doesn't really like that, if you like George Double R Martin's way of doing it where magic is still extremely mysterious and every time it comes up you're a little nervous about it, then you probably wouldn't like this one as much, but it does have following multiple characters and it does have political thriller aspects, and it is pretty dark and all that, and then we have The Expanse, and okay, so this one isn't fantasy, I know, it is science fiction, but it's really, really good science fiction, which has basically been called Game of Thrones in space a million times, and honestly in this case I think that, yeah, that is an appropriate label. So the first book I just showed you, Leviathan Wakes, that one only follows two characters, but the later books start having four, five, six POVs, so it does have that spread out sort of way of telling stories, or way of telling the story, and so if you're looking for that, that's great, and beyond that, even though it is science fiction, yes, it is fairly hard sci-fi, so again, you could look at softer science fiction technology as almost being like magic in the land of fiction, because it doesn't operate on real world logic, but this one being harder sci-fi, it relies less on that sort of thing, and so you could in a weird way compare it to a low magic fantasy setting. So the first book starts off with this guy named Holden, who is the protagonist throughout the series, and he is just on a ship, an ice hauler, which takes ice from the rings of Saturn and brings it into the inner solar system so that people have water, and his ship gets attacked and blown up, and they don't know who did it or why exactly, but Earth and Mars are the two main military powers in the solar system, and both of them kind of sort of think the other one did it, and look, things get complicated really quick, and it goes to shit really fast, and I really can't go into a lot more detail about it because the whole series later on takes on a much, much different form, but I will say that yes, this is more of a political thriller, it has plenty of backstabbing and maneuvering and that sort of thing, so if that's what you're looking for, then yes, this is probably great for you, and again it is pretty dark at times, it doesn't shy away from the more brutal side of life in that world, and it is kind of morally ambiguous at times, not really, but then you remember we're seeing it through the eyes of these characters who are usually all on the same side, so it does kind of make sense that it wouldn't seem as ambiguous as it really is. The next book I also don't have a copy of, or rather I do, but I couldn't find it, it is The Black Company, and this one I did a review on a little while ago, and I didn't think it was particularly good, but I think if you're a really big Song of Ice and Fire fan and you're really hankering for something similar to it, you might be, I think you'd enjoy it. So the first book in The Black Company series follows a mercenary company called The Black Company, hey, who would have thought, and essentially they wind up working for this evil empire of sorcerers that wants to take over the world, or rather one major sorcerer called the Lady who wants to conquer everything who already tried to conquer everything, but she was sealed away a long time ago, as well as her little cabal of other really powerful evil sorcerers. Now this one, again, is a much more focused sort of story, it only follows one character really, but it has all the darkness, it has all the political maneuvering, it is a more high magic setting, yes, but I think that a lot of people will be able to look past it because it doesn't seem too bullshitty, they don't use it as a way of solving all their problems, and probably most important it does play around with those traditional fantasy tropes a lot, like there is a prophecy and a chosen one and stuff, but the way it comes about is considerably different than what you would normally think, and again with the moral ambiguity thing these guys are, you know, they're the bad guys and they're working for the bad guys, but the other side isn't necessarily angelic either. So with this one we're getting outside the realm of fantasy again and into the realm of alternate history, so this one is The Great War Trilogy by Harry Turdledove, and so a couple of months ago I did a world building analysis on the Southern Victory series, and that one is like 11 books long in total, but The Great War Trilogy is one that's sandwiched in the middle there and it just follows what happens in this world during the events of World War I, which is The Great War, and in their world they call that the First Great War, and then later they have another one, they call it the Second Great War, World War I, World War II, that sort of thing, anyways. And I think that even though this one's in the middle, you can pick up on it really really quick and just get absorbed into it, because it's really written in a way where if you just pick up the first book, American Front, which I just showed you, then you can read a little bit of it and you already basically understand the world, like okay this is what happened and you have a basic overview of what things are. And the thing about this series is that it follows so many different characters and you see it from so many different perspectives, you see all the events, all the battles, the wars, everything, from so many different sides that, yeah, there really isn't a good guy or a bad guy. And again, if you enjoy getting into the heads of multiple different people, which I'm sure people who like A Song of Ice and Fire like to do, I certainly enjoy doing that, then you would be super happy with these books because you get to do that a lot. And if you enjoy the more sprawling narrative of A Song of Ice and Fire, if you enjoy all the political maneuvering and all that, rather than just having one character journey from point A to point B, which I'm not saying that's a bad type of story or anything, I just know a lot of people don't like it as much, then yes, you would definitely, definitely really enjoy these. And I've been meaning to do reviews of the whole series at some point. Like, I will eventually, I know. Like, I did the World Building Analysis, I will do a review of the first book in the series at some point, okay? I'm sorry, I'll get around to it. The last one here, we are moving outside the realm of literature, but back into the realm of fantasy and I have Berserk.   So yeah, there's just a guy who's being hunted by demons, and he wants revenge on some people, and that's all I'm going to tell you plot-wise, but I will tell you that basically every character we follow in this is super interesting, okay? They all have a lot of depth to them, they all have dark kind of fucked up parts to their psyches, but they're overall trying to be decent people for the most part because Guts is kind of a psycho at times, and yeah, just again, just like most of these other series I've been talking about, it doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of life or from the darker aspects of this world, and again, to some people that would probably be off-putting, and I know at times it is off-putting for me too, but the thing about Berserk is that it never feels exploitative and it never feels too edgy. It always feels like it serves an actual purpose in the story. So that's about all I got for you today. I just wanted to thank Desk Brendon and all my other patrons, who their name should be going across the screen now, so if you see your name on there, thank you, you're awesome, and check out my page and see what other kind of stuff I have on there besides just having your name on there because there's some other goodies that you can get your hands on to me, and bye.


Hi everyone. Happy Choo Tuesday coming at you with 2023 gold rush autographed big balls four box Random letter break number two. We're going to go by the first letter of their first name So pretty self-explanatory if it's Bryce young and there will go to be Tom Brady goes to tee each year Oh goes to I so on and so forth. Well, Erlen Holland goes to eat Kevin Durant Kobe Bryant goes to K Now there's not all obviously all not all letters are are represented This represents the all other letters spot right there in addition to those letters All right, so with that being said Thanks to this group for getting in on the action. Appreciate it There are the letters right there appreciate the letters. Let's roll it Let's randomize names and letters three and a three six the hard way one two three four five and six and final time Got Nancy down to Aaron after six Three and a three six the hard way for the letters one two three four five and Sixth and final time After six we got D down to eight All right, Nancy with the letter D Ken with T Mike Q R code C H with B Aaron with G Eugene with K Nancy with N and P. No prob C with E Ed with M Steve hi H I Eugene J Ken VW X Z and all other letters not on this list nested with S Ed with C and Aaron with a Let's so let's sort alphabetically by a letter and We're gonna pause the video just for a bit when we come back. We're gonna see if there's any trades Then we'll have the four box breaks stick around. We'll see you on the other side All right, welcome back everybody. No deals were done. So here on a two Tuesday May the second Big balls break number two that list remains the same all four boxes right here and We've got an opportunity to play a little bit of who am I so put your thinking caps on and remember It's a multi-sport a good way. This is a good opportunity to get some full memorabilia in Into your collection consign here All right, I think basketball put your basketball caps on All right. Well, I I share I share a name with a character in the best-selling gossip girl book series That'd be quite a crossover if someone took that trivia information and realized who this player player was Old-school guy Currently 74 years old was born in New York City 6 1 1 50 went to college at Arizona Western and then UTEP and was a second-round pick and then ended up being a Ended up being a Hall of Famer Played for the Cincinnati Royals the Kansas City Omaha Kansas City Kings Then played for the New York Nets and the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks Was an NBA champion when I was with the Celtics six-time all-star an NBA all-star game MVP a three-time all NBA first-teamer To all NBA second team a scoring champion in the early 70s an assist leader that same season and part of the NBA anniversary team 50th and 75th anniversary team my number one retired by the Sacramento Kings Who am I? Lifetime 18.8 points a game 7.4 assists per game 2.3 rebounds per game Who am I? None of those are basketball players Mike Tower could try though Remember basketball player Don't be like Mike Tower Correct, but not basketball players. This is basketball Mike. Come on try to keep up It is it's old Nate archibald There's his silver ink autograph right there You got the HOF you got a game ball series basketball Right there and then the the JSA card in here Should be a JSA sticker somewhere on here Nancy Sure, it's there somewhere. Oh, there it is So there you go Nancy with the letter N start next box It might be I think most of the the hits have been deflated though. Oh, this one's inflated spoke too soon Who are you? This has an upper deck authentication in here All right All right, I am currently an active quarterback in the NFL 29 years old six four two thirty one a former number one overall pick Play for two teams my entire career a pro bowler an NFL passing yards leader a national champion a Heisman Trophy winner Lifetime 139 touchdowns to 96 interceptions 21,840 passing yards sixty one point three percent completion percentage 1200 over 1200 rushing yards and 11 rushing touchdowns. Who am I? Adrian McCarrad not a former number one overall pick Speaking of basketball Rex watch the funny highlight reel LeBron faking getting fouled Rex is in it in a part of the world where people hate LeBron, so he thinks that LeBron's the only one that does that You could probably find a video for every player in the league faking getting fouled Rex. That's just the league these days. It's not just Limited to LeBron Stop listening to your LeBron hater friends Rex All right, so this quarterback by the way Had a really had an interesting distinction of being part of the 30 30 club back in 2019 he had he had 33 touchdowns and 30 interceptions While throwing a career high 5109 passing yards which actually led the league that year Yes, it's the famous James Winston So there's his autograph right there on a multi-panel NFL ball Matt Castle wishes he is thrown 33 touchdowns in his career There's the upper deck authentication right here. You know old crab legs himself And that goes to Eugene and the letter J Imagine the the entitlement of a college football player to walk into a grocery store Get a bunch of delicious delicious crab legs and just walk right out the door All right, so there you go Eugene random letter number two with the letter J for James a couple more to go Those crab legs were made for walking That's just what they'll do. I wonder post a post playing career I wonder if James Winston should just lean into that and then open up a series of Crab shacks Oh This is a multi-signed soccer ball ladies and gentlemen. It's an MLS ball signed by Team members of the Montreal impact. That's really cool So there's a ton of autographs here Here's our word ahead and there's a certificate of authenticity And let's see if we could find this and get a full list of names or as close as possible To a full list of names. All right, so there are 24 autographs on here according to JSA but I Mean obviously I'm not gonna be able to identify all 24 of those what we're gonna go with is the notable names that they've highlighted here Those are probably the main reasons why you want this ball anyway So it'll be a randomizer between I S a E K M R D and D So we'll do that. We'll do that after we show this ball It's another multi-signed soccer ball and this is signed by Toronto FC So there's your certificate of authenticity And there's another multi-signed ball and again, we'll do the same thing We'll just go by the first letters of these notable signatures that they've highlighted. Alright, so there we go Let's start with Montreux FC Montreux impact that is Wonder what the did they win the cup that year? Is that why we're doing this in 2018 No, they weren't even in the playoffs, but just a multi-signed Multi-signed soccer ball. All right So this is for Montreux FC. We had the letter I S We got Ignacio We got Saphir Alejandro Evan Bush Ken Michael Rod David and Daniel So we'll use one dice roll for for both lists So for the Montreal impact four to six ten times letter on top gets it one two three four five six and a four Seven eight nine and ten Letter on top is the letter D and that'll be for Nancy. So there you go, Nancy. You'll get the We'll get the autograph all the authentications right here. You're getting a You're getting an official match ball signed by Team members of the 2018 Montreal impact team. All right. Congrats, Nancy You have volleyball Nancy getting a soccer ball So the other match ball didn't have this but this is a match ball from this game Toronto FC versus DC United I feel like there's more players. I recognize here. We got guys like Josie Altador on here, too Josie Altador, you know a name that jumps out at me right there So this is a 2021 Toronto FC ball From a match on July should should we look up what Toronto FC did that day? I'm curious Was this match ball from a particular game? That's a date of the autograph, but I'm not sure what the date of the match was That says 721 So this was the 2021 season. Let's go back to 2021 Toronto FC. Let's go to their Their games that they played. This was July 21st. Hmm. This says they played New York Red Bull. Oh This is 2022 ball was signed in 2022 sorry not 2021. Let's see what they did in July 21st. Wait November 7 21. I'm not sure what's oh November 7 Sorry, I can't read It's November 7th, 2021. I see Let's go to November 7th, 2021 That was the last match of the season Toronto FC lost that day to DC United DC United beat him 3-1 all right, so let's Some more letters on this one here for under notable signatures Josie Altador We got a Jacob Justin Omar Jaden and Eric and Io Chris Aroco a Luke a Subasa a Nick D Leon a Jordan a Julian a Richie and a Jonathan a lot of J's there once again, we got Josie Jacob Justin Omar Jaden Eric Omar Jaden Eric Io Chris Rocco Io Chris Rocco Luke Subasa with a T and Nick And then Jordan Julian Richie Jordan Julian Richie Julian Or a Jordan Jonathan Alright, we're gonna use the same dice roll four and a six ten times letter on top gets it after ten one two three four five six seven eight nine and Tenth and final time after ten. Yeah, the J's have a lot of J names on there and that's gonna go to Eugene There you go Eugene autographed soccer ball Looks like it's a match ball One of the match balls they used from From this game Kind of a weird way to do the year, but we figured it out. There you go gang. I'm Joe for jaspeys case breaks calm Thanks for watching. Thanks for breaking with us. I'll see you next time for the next one. Bye. Bye


opportunity to bring you another exciting show. This is our special program, by the way. It's called Point Count Point. And this week, we have the first in a series of sessions where we have a chance to explore the world around us. Today, we're going to take a look at Southeast Asia, the Philippines, China, and India. And hopefully, we will be able to generate some discussion among those of you in the audience. If you have any questions, I would like to actually encourage you to send your questions in, because we enjoy hearing from the people that are listening to us. So let me begin by getting you acquainted with our panelists this afternoon. We'll start off with Shrini. Shrini, tell us a little bit about yourself, please. My name is Shrini Sitaraman. I work for the Daniel K. Inoy Asia Pacific Center, which is the Department of Defense Regional Center. We work along with the US Indopee comm and our bosses out in DC. And we look broadly across the Indo-Pacific security issues. And I'm originally from India. I did all my schooling in India. And I did my graduate school in the United States. I was a college professor just outside of Boston before moving here about four years back. And my regional focus is South Asia, economics and security. And I also work tech issues, particularly AI and open networks and things like that. So that's from me. I look forward to chatting with you. Thank you. Thank you, Shrini. Christopher, tell us a little bit about yourself. Thanks, John. Hi, everyone. My name is Christopher Cottrell. I am a Thailand-based independent journalist and analyst. I cover ASEAN and Pacific Islands development issues and Indo-Pacific current events. I got my master's in Pacific Islands history from the near-urban ship Wai Manoa in 2002. And I spent 18 years working in media of all kinds of stripes inside of China. So I speak Mandarin and I watch the region literally from that perspective as well. So I'm glad to be on. Thank you. Well, welcome, Chris. You know what I did want to ask you is, where exactly are you at this moment? You can say I'm in Bangkok. That's Faridah. Bangkok. I'll be in Hanoi next week. Actually, I move around quite a bit. So yeah, no one knows where Chris is at. Thank you for I'm going to ask, because everybody out there wants to know practically 90% of the people. What time is it in Bangkok? About 5 a.m. In the morning. It's now 12 noon in Hawaii. And the crow flies. Yeah, it's just a little after 5 a.m. So the sun's coming up. It's very beautiful here. So yeah. All right. So we're going to move over to Jim. James, tell us a little bit about yourself and the country that you're going to help us understand. Well, that was a foreign country, I should say. I was a Foreign Service Officer, a U.S. diplomat for 36 years. I served primarily in South Asia and China and Taiwan. Highlights included being head of the political sections at both the American Institute in Taiwan and Embassy Beijing. And then Ambassador both in Kathmandu, Nepal and Dhaka, Bangladesh. I just recently finished up six and a half years as chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, which is the nonprofit set up by Congress to manage the U.S. relationship with Taiwan after we broke relations with Taiwan to become formal diplomatic partners of the People's Republic of China. So there, that's all I'm going to say. Thank you. Thank you. As you can see, folks, we got a really extensive knowledge base right here that I want to take advantage of, so which I will start to do. I'm going to do that right now. Trini, you got the first question today because it's been on my mind. India recently held the G20 summit. And some of the reports that have been coming out of that event have been very positive actually for India. Now, I understand, and this is the question I have, and I understand that the post-conference declaration, so however you refer to it, that came out of that conference for the first time were unanim that all participants supported. Tell us a little bit about how that was achieved and what it means. Yeah, sure. G20 was particularly interesting because it was held in New Delhi. India was first time chairing the G20. And it just concluded last week. And as you mentioned, Governor, it was a big success for India. Modi rolled out the red carpet. President Biden was there. Justin Trudeau from Canada was there. And Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister Brickin was there. But importantly, what was missing, who was missing from was President Xi Jinping from China. And obviously, Vladimir Putin from Moscow was missing at that particular summit. Did those countries get to vote on the decorations? Well, they sent in their, like Sergey Lavrov was there at the summit. And he obviously was taking directions from Moscow. And the equivalent of Chinese Foreign Secretary was there. But what I understand is that they developed a consensus document. It was a consensus document. And the language was made in such a way that it did not ruffle the feathers of Russia and China. And it probably got in a few words about Ukraine that the US, Canada, and the European partners wanted it. So the consensus document, which actually was unusual because they released a consensus document on the first day of their conference, which normally they didn't do. They do it at the end of the meeting, but they released it for the first day. So obviously, they've been working on this document even prior to the beginning of this particular summit. So talk, well, James, tell me, China wasn't there. But they signed on to this document. And as Srinig just informed us, they probably were part of some kind of a discussion prior to the issuance of all of that. So what's China's game?  China's trying to thread a needle there. I mean, there was a big, frankly, very rarely mentioned competition between India and China for leadership of the global south. The third world countries we used to call them in Africa, Latin America. And recently, that friction has been picking up. The Chinese have come up with a map that shows much of a large Indian state as being part of the People's Republic of China. And so Xi Jinping didn't want to go. He didn't want to give Prime Minister Modi face. So that's why he did not. That's the back story, right? Yeah. And the other part of that, the other edge of the needle he's trying to thread is not to back out of a forum, not to have China back out of a forum that includes a number of those third world countries that they want to appeal to, like, for example, Indonesia. And so I saw that as just a, hey, look, we're not pulling back entirely. But going forward, I think China is going to want to be most active in these multilateral forums that it controls. I saw some reports, actually, in Canada, which is not necessarily in your range. But Canada kind of worked over a little bit by Modi because of the way that, I guess, is the Sheikh issue. Have you heard anything about that, or are there? See, what happens is that there is that part of India on the Western side bordering Pakistan, which is called Punjab. And as you know, the region from what is traditionally what is known as Pakistan today, to Myanmar or Burma, including Sri Lanka, was part of the British Empire until 1947. It was the Queen's Crown colony. It was directly ruled by Queen Victoria. And when the split happened, the province of Punjab was split into two pieces. It's like Ukraine because it has a lot of, it's one of the largest grain producing states in the world. So there's a group of all this Punjabi started migrating. These are the guys you see with this big turbine that you see them more commonly in the mainland and other places, but they migrated in large numbers, UK, Southern California, and Canada. They've been advocating to create that own state. And there's various, and it was a big problem. There's a problem with Mrs. Gandhi in 1984, who solved it. She sent in a team of commandos into the Sikh temple and they took out the leaders of this cell who were agitating for this. But she in turn was assassinated in October of 1984, our own personal bodyguards gunder down. And since then the issue kind of died down a little bit, but it has dropped up. But the argument against Mr. Trudeau is that he is not doing enough to control these elements which are targeting Indian leaders, particularly the Indian High Commission in Canada in Ottawa and Toronto and other parts, and that they are allowing these restive elements to function in the country. But my understanding as an analyst, not as a government servant here, to say that I think there's some electoral dynamics in why Mr. Trudeau's unwilling to go after them. That's been a big sore thumb. And apparently not just India, other countries also kind of gave them the sideline. Yeah, Trudeau really didn't come out of that summit too well. And here it is, we have this great declaration, one earth, one family, one future coming out of the summit. But Trudeau, unlike Biden, unlike almost anybody else who attended, this didn't seem to make well. Now, one of the interesting things, Chris, is the fact that one of the countries that was actually praising India, actually saying India really scored by all of this was Pakistan. And I noticed that one of the interesting things about that entire summit was that your part of the world was really not part of it, including Pakistan. I mean, Vietnam is not a member of the G20, as far as I understand, but Marama, obviously. How are they affected by all of these events? The G20 was looked at very closely on ASEAN as a hope for economic restoration in the face of what all analysts are talking about, which is a cool in China. So there is engagement in Southeast Asia, hopefully for tourism business within India. And there's a lot of excitement for sure about India's prosperity coming up, and that's watched very closely in the region, from ASEAN perspective. Well, let me ask you a question. There's the African Union in the G20. There's the European Union. Will we be seeing some kind of an ASEAN Union in the future? Is that anywhere? I don't think that's on the cards yet, but that would certainly be something that is something that will be discussed. What about the Philippines? I'm aware of how I don't know. And what role would the Philippines play in any of this? The Philippines is actually quite strategic geopolitically and geoeconomically as it shifts very closely with the United States. So that's where I think you would see Philippines rising within that ecosystem. But the Philippines at the minute, it's very close with Washington and signing a lot of trilateral agreements. So it'll take a bit of genesis before they're at the level to talk about fully with the G20. So James, you know, China's sitting back and seeing all of it. This is the fallout in the world. And I don't think it's unusual to say that China and the United States at least are in some kind of competition for influence in the region. So where does China go from here? And how does that affect Taiwan and the rest of the world? Well, we've all hinted at the problems that China is going through economically. I mean, we're not talking to depression, but we're talking about an obvious slowdown in growth. A lot of people assume that that might make China more cautious going forward, maybe not as aggressive with respect to Taiwan or the South China Sea. I would point out we're not seeing any signs of that. The Wolf Warrior diplomacy seems to continue. The exercises on the going around Taiwan, threatening Taiwan continue. And I would say that the real issue now is that our previous ways of judging China probably don't hold true anymore. China has shifted from a collective government to a one-man dictatorship. I can say that because I'm no longer working for the US government, but that introduces a lot of uncertainty. We don't know how Xi Jinping measures various factors. We can bet that the people around Xi Jinping, all of them are loyalists who've gotten their jobs because Xi Jinping thinks that they're gonna do what he wants them to do. All those people when they describe the problems to Xi are trying to figure out what Xi wants to hear. That's how one man or one woman shows work. So it's very hard to predict what's gonna happen, but you can say that Xi Jinping has made recovering Taiwan as one of the center parts of his rule, of his legacy. He wants to have Taiwan reunified with China under his rule. And he wants to leave a legacy of China being the greatest power on Earth. I'll stop there. Well, let me ask you a question about that because the last time in Asian country wanted to exercise that kind of dominance in the region, what happened was that Pearl Harbor here in Hawaii got bombed. What, tell me, what are we looking at here? I'm gonna bring this home, you know? I'm gonna bring it home and say, that's why the fall of Taiwan to China would be absolutely horrible and threatening to US national interests. You know, the US needs to be able to get through that island chain that stretches from South Korea, down through Japan, down through Taiwan, importantly, and through the Philippines and Indonesia if it can protect its interests. Conversely, if a hostile power can get through that island chain at will, US interests in the Pacific, including Hawaii are a great risk. And that, you know, we're looking at the mirror image of national interests here. China wants that free access. They want to deny us access through that island chain and Taiwan is absolutely key. If it's taken over by the Chinese, it will be run by the People's Liberation Army. They will establish the bases and the capabilities necessary to go out will any place in the Western and Central Pacific. And because of what James just said, Christopher, seems to me that the importance of some of our former enemies, like Vietnam, and the role that they might play in balancing all of this off because we're important Vietnam, or some of our allies like Thailand and the rest of it. Give me a little bit of sense on the region in terms of this dynamic. Yeah, sure. People are scared. They're genuinely scared of the dragon and eagle entangling one another. And you'll hear that in Manila. You'll hear that in Bangkok. Vietnam is trying to balance itself. Vietnam has a variety of challenges coming out of the pandemic economically. It needs to engage with Beijing for cross-border issues. Their neighbors share borders, and also they have tit-for-tat in what the Vietnamese call the East China Sea. So the East Vietnamese Sea, right? That's one element. They purchase a lot of their security kit from Russia, which is a challenge that supply chain diminishes. Meanwhile, Washington, Biden after the G20, arrived in Hanoi and signed a comprehensive strategic partnership that elevates the diplomatic status of Vietnam to a very high level, I think it's the highest level, with the United States Ambassador, or already correctly defined titles of what that really would entail. But overall, Vietnam talks a lot with the Philippines for more exercises monitoring coast of waters. And that's something that is daily. It seems like the United States went out of its way in recent months to make Vietnam the new Japan, the army enemy, and now all of a sudden our best friend, you know? Well, I think since the early nineties with Senator McCain's engagement with Hanoi, which this new deal actually has continuity with, there's always been an urge and need to have better relationships to make one makeup of the war, but secondly, move forward. And finally, I think we're at a neat stage of moving forward in a way that Vietnam wants to move. Washington's obviously happy about this. China will always have mixed opinions about this, obviously not welcome Washington's presence on their border. But you know, what's interesting to me is the fact that there are thousands and thousands of Vietnamese in America who are very clear about their continuing opposition to the government, the communist government in Vietnam, and whose political leaning are actually opposite of that position. So is this recent re-approachment or whatever we wanna call it? How is that gonna play out? This may be an unfair question, but let me ask it anyway. How is that gonna play out in the American politics? How's that gonna play out in what we see in America now? Which is a pretty divisive political scene. Okay, despite being an American, I get my optics sometimes with the United States because I don't live there. So domestically, I'm not sure what they would play out with, but yeah, it's in the new cycle. There are criticisms that human rights weren't raised, but I've seen no evidence that human rights were not raised diplomatically. The State Department has not changed its position on human rights whatsoever. So let's see if this really has legs going into the 2024 election. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but certainly those issues are all valid for discussion. Well, you know, we just talked about the fact that Trudeau may have some domestic problems or what his actions in India may affect him politically, domestically, but I'm watching the world now.  I mean, they've gotta be involved in this old scenario somehow in the entire Asian region. I mean, what is India's response in the region regarding all of these other people coming in and attempting to exert influence? Well, as you know, and this cuts into many of the issues that Ambassador Moriarty, you know, alluded to, and it really speaks to PRC here, right? That's really the crux of the matter. India and China have a long standing border dispute. The border dispute predates India in many ways, but it is with the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the Republican China and the Communist China conflict and then the ROC running off into Taiwan. At the time, Britain had a lot of this control over Tibet. So in 1950 to 1959, what Mao did was the PRC started asserting military control over Tibet. If you look at Tibet today, it's an occupied territory. The Dalai Lama lives in the India in Dharmashala and the Tibetan exile government runs from India. There's a minister, prime minister, they have exit and they've been there and the Dalai Lama is 86 years old, I think, and there's going to be a next new Dalai Lama and they don't know where he's going to incarnate, maybe in Mongolia, maybe Taiwan, we don't know. The process is controlled, but the Tibetans never really posed any threat to PRC. They just took over that land now. And the border areas with just Tibet, not China, is an India which is open, right? But China and India, once they became communist China in 1949 and India became independent in country 1947, the borders have been clashed. They fought one big war in 1962, the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis and since then it's been conflictual, right? And they've had major skirmishes along it. In June of 2020, 20 Indian soldiers and five PLA, People's Liberation Army soldiers died in that hand-to-hand combat up in the Himalayan mountains. Since then, the relations between India and China have broken down, India has cut off all links with China, did not participate in the regional comprehensive economic partnership, RCEP, they pulled out of that. So they are not in any China-centric with the exception of BRICS, which is now expanding. The exception of BRICS, they're not in any China-centric modes of order. So India has conserved most about China, particularly submarines now operating in the Indian Ocean and its special relationship with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives and China's putting a lot of pressure on Nepal and Ambassador Murari can talk about it and to a certain extent with Bhutan and they're also encroaching about Nepal and Bhutanese territory. Let's talk about that. Jim, why don't you tell us a little bit about what Shrini was just talking about, which is the tension in the region that's going on. Yeah, you mentioned the folks in the Vietnamese diaspora who oppose warming relations with Vietnam. And I would say the ballast there is the fact that US opposition to what China is trying to do is about the one foreign policy issue where you have broad-based support by the US public and broad-based support by US political parties and individual politicians. That's reflected in a lot of the countries we're talking about now. I mean, if you see the polls out of India, if you see the polls out of the Philippines, the distrust and fear of China is as widespread as in the United States. It's tough for some countries to manage just because China's market is so important to those countries and many of them share borders. Nepal is a classic case. I mean, China did not take much interest in Nepal up until the past 15 years. And they ended up building high-speed railways into Tibet. They all of a sudden realize that, well, wait a sec, India doesn't, India has assumed that Nepal is their client state as a buffer state. We want to change that. We're not going to accept that. And so they've pushed hard. Srinu is absolutely right. And frankly, I think that in some ways they're pushing too hard and they're going to get a blowback inside Nepal. That's one thing that has been happening with what they call welfare diplomacy is the diplomats, the official statements can be so harsh and so aggressive that the Chinese speakers end up doing more harm to their national interest than if they just left the issue alone. Well, you know, it's really interesting because India is aligned with Russia, somewhat anyway. And so you've got China, you've got Russia, you've got this, and we're going to take a short break now and we're going to bring some of this home to Hawaii. The reason why I mentioned some of that is that very few people know, for example, that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs actually passed a resolution supporting a free Vietnam that was lobbied by the Vietnamese community in Hawaii. And even expanding that just to show you how all of this international intrigue affects us in a political, in an international political way, is the fact that one of the Wall Street Journal just had an article showing reporting how China is using, I guess, false information accusing actually the U.S. of destroying Lahaina itself because it was testing some kind of weapon. So there's obviously a linkage. Hopefully, point counterpoint as we discussed the impact of Hawaii. Hawaii is the home of the major command for the United States. I think it's called, what is it called this time? Christopher, you take us into this and what it means for the Philippines. Used to be called Simpak, but I think it's something else. It's Indo-Pakam. Oh, that's it, go ahead. You are seeing all the branches of the U.S. military organized out of Indo-Pakam, whether it's Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy. And as the waters are contested in the South China Sea or parts of which the Philippines claim is the West Philippine Sea and the Vietnamese claim has the East Sea as well as claims from Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia. You're seeing far more of Indo-Pakam presence in the region primarily in Manila. This year has been an explosive year of tensions, if you will, between Manila and Beijing. It didn't begin that way. President Marcos went to Beijing, signed some MOUs and came back to Manila and people seemed very happy. That maybe this would alleviate the tensions, it didn't. I was in the Philippines for two months earlier this year when those tensions began to just sort of spiral, if you will. There were fishing ships in the Philippines. They got flashed in the eyes of lasers by Chinese coastal. They've been host with cannons. And I spoke with strategic, the strategic and analysis unit within the Philippines Coast Guard and they explained to me that this is not new. During the Duterte administration, they were not publicly reporting that these incursions were taking place. They were using back channels. That position shifted earlier this year with Philippines Coast Guard encouraging their citizens to report any kind of incursions into the waters on social media. And the Philippines as a social media landscape is massive. It is extremely active with social media. So that also has been driving a lot of the domestic politics in the Philippines. You know, for us in Hawaii, it's interesting that we are, you know, the president is Marcos again.  Bong Bong Marcos. Yeah, Bong Bong. You know, he kind of grew up in Hawaii. I mean, his dad was exiled here for a while, right? I mean. Correct. So anyway, the point, and I want to get back to you, Jim. I mean, well, how much trade, you know, trade has been mentioned as the possible offset to some of these tensions. How much despite all of these things going on, how much trade, if you know, does America have with China at the moment? I mean, we're doing this period. Some idea, has it gone down up? People like, what's his name that runs Tesla seems to be keep going and it doesn't seem to affect him at all. Yes, he's been very careful to have good relations with Beijing. The trade actually went up during the pandemic. If you take the three years as a whole, you know, we were all staying at home using computers and new gadgets and a lot of those were assembled in China. You do have a movement now though, you know, some, a lot of small and medium sized businesses, US investments in China are pulling out just because they're too nervous about what's going to come next. They do have a lot of tariffs still in place that make it harder to export back to the US from there. The Chinese have a habit of trying to develop local champions to take the place of cutting edge industries that are invested in China, cutting edge US trade. And so, you know, there's a lot of businessmen who are just saying, well, wait a sec, you know, this is really hard. The market is huge. I mean, you know, you're talking about a middle class of 400 million people. The market over time becomes less attractive as local champions. And this is happening for folks like Nike and Adidas right now. They're seeing the local brands take over. I think everybody's covering a lot about the electric vehicles now where the Tesla's place inside China is dropping rapidly as Chinese companies like BYD, I think that's the name of it, now build, you know, first class electric vehicles. They've done that with a heck of a lot of support in terms of subsidies and tax breaks from the Chinese government. And I assume a lot of technology from outside. So Srinu, does India step up? I mean, you know, how does all of this economic watch, trade watch, what does this mean between the US and India? Well, India is doing quite a bit of trade with the United States. You know, all the back office processing, cloud computing, all the major tech CEOs are Indian origin, you name it, Microsoft's Google, many of the major companies are there. So the tech world is trying to move where India is probably facing a little bit of challenge is setting up those manufacturing facilities. You know, moving, manufacturing, and that's why Vietnam is really key and maybe Chris can talk a little bit more about it as he is from the region. So moving, manufacturing has been a little bit easier. Vietnam is emerging as an alternative up to China. So is India, but India definitely is a step behind compared to Vietnam, I would say. Some of the iPhone processing is going to come to India, but Vietnam has actually got the edge on that. So pick that up, Chris. Tell us a little bit about how that fits. So over the course of the pandemic, a lot of those factories were mothballed in Vietnam. So Vietnam, this was reports coming out yesterday, are struggling in some ways to recover their factory sectors. And so there's opportunities for investment, but it's not gonna sweep away Guangdong province. Guangdong province is still going to be a powerhouse of manufacturing without question. However, there is mass interest within Vietnam to restructure and continue to develop IT. And Vietnam also is looking to India for its solutions for collaborations in IT. So is Thailand for the matter? We've talked about some of these major players, but in your region of the world, in addition to Vietnam, what's happening in Thailand and what's happening in Malaysia and what's happening in some of those places where, in prior years, were cornered as potential partners of the United States. Okay, well, one of the biggest ones is almost an unspoken one, which is really important for Hawaii, but a lot of Americans recognize that there's a civil war in Myanmar. It's a brutal civil war and refugees are pouring across the region, not just into Thailand, but into Bangladesh, into India. So there's a variety of ways that reporters are looking at Myanmar. So following what's happening in Myanmar, it's tragic, it deserves far more attention, but that is another thing that the region is paying attention to. But then Thailand itself, Thailand has a new government. This government has ended the dictatorship government or that was the criticism of it from the previous government that had come into power in a coup in 2015. So they held parliamentary elections and the more progressive move forward party came into power, but the way that the parliament works, their coalition fell apart. So there is a new government in power that is pro-investment and pro-everyone. They're not really interested in the larger ticks between Beijing and Washington. They pay attention to them, but that's where Thailand is at right now. Singapore. Singapore, go ahead, yeah. Yeah, Singapore is also becoming a regional option to Hong Kong. And you're seeing a lot of attention in Singapore with subsea cables. So Singapore is positioning itself between this new end of the Pacific dynamic with rising India, yes, and as some people de-risk from PRC. Well, just as a quick, we've got to add a little bit in for as we say, for ratings. With Thailand had that king who was hanging out in Germany with about 20 wives and all of that stuff. And in Thailand, apparently, you can't say anything bad about the king. But the ledge mass rules have not been changed. In fact, that was one of the things that the move forward party was pushing for and they lost. So people here do not do that. There's a high reverence for the institution, but in general, yes, it is illegal to do so. And with the penalties. All right, so as we go through the region again, Taiwan, Taiwan, Jim must be booming, I think, given what's happening elsewhere. Taiwan did great during the pandemic and now with the global slowdown and particularly with the slowdown in the Chinese economy, it's doing much more slowly. And so that's gonna be a big issue for the election coming up, which is gonna be a huge issue in terms of stability of the entire region. The PRC really despises the most likely, the candidate most likely to win the election, who would be a continuation of the current ruling party representing continuation. But what is the, you know, Taiwan used to be, tank I checked, left the mainland, took over three million Chinese, took over Taiwan. It was actually in a sense, some people think it was actually occupied. And now what you have is basically younger Chinese who had moved over and younger Taiwanese and they have their own ideas. How reconcilable are these new forces with the old Chinese position, which by the way was the spouse vote by tank I checked involved, that there was only one China? I mean, is that realistic? Well, what the Taiwan body politic coalesces around is the concept that independence just way too dangerous. We're never gonna declare formal independence from China because that would force the Chinese to invade. And God forbid, we're never gonna be part of the People's Republic of China because they're brutal. They're gonna do horrible things to us, probably to our economy. So you got, actually when I was there in the 1990s, you had 85% of the people say that they supported maintaining the current cross-strait relationship. And- Because Taiwan does a lot of trade with China. I mean, as you pointed out, you get your visa in Taiwan, right? Yeah, you know, it's a huge part of Taiwan's market. There is caution on the part of Taiwan businessmen now, many of whom are pulling back, particularly the small and medium-sized businessmen that can do their manufacturing of apparel or shoes in Vietnam or Bangladesh or Indonesia. A lot of them are getting out now just because the rules of the road are unclear. The really big companies that make most of their money just are desperate to find a way to appease the Chinese while continuing to do business as usual. That's getting tougher than ever before, particularly in the high tech sector where we have a lot of sanctions that are affecting Taiwanese businesses that have invested heavily in mainland China. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you we got a question from the audience. And this person wants to know, how does all of what we've discussed, what does that mean for Hawaii in terms of potential investment? Is it realistic to look at, say, any of these countries, any of these countries, is it realistic to see them as potential investors or markets for Hawaii? Maybe start with Srinni and then we'll go to Christopher and maybe Jim, you can just give us your take on the whole thing. I can tell you that in terms of Hawaii's biggest industry, which is tourism, right? The Indian footprint could be larger. They are looking at 1.4 billion plus people there, but Hawaii's not really in their radar because it's seen as somewhat remote and outside of their budget. And that's really a problem, but I've been hearing stories of some movies being shot here and some of the community members going to participate as extras in the movies. Some people took time off from their work to do it because they wanted to do it. I heard about it only after the fact. This was, I think, at the ranch on the other side of the island. I forget what movie apparently they shot a dance sequence and it was over a couple of days or more than a couple of days. So the Indian movie industry would love to come here because the lookouts are exotic, beautiful. They love to shoot the dance and song sequences here. Even when I'm driving around on the island, I'm thinking, hey, this would be a great site for a song. You know, Bollywood. Bollywood is a production. They can afford it. Yeah, they're making global films now with audience and beyond India. So they have Indian diaspora, which is very strong in mainland USA, as was in Canada, across Europe and other parts of Asia. So there'll be a good opportunity. That, I think, is a big, big opportunity. And a more scaled-down version here is I would think the tech sector. I know a lot of people come from India to work here and its temporary is retaining Hawaiian Airlines, I believe, as a big employer. HMSA is a big employer. Walmart is an employer. Bank of Hawaii is an employer. Many tech workers come here. So converting Hawaii or creating a base in Hawaii for tech companies, start-ups could be great because the location is ideal, especially if you think you wanna do business with Asia. And it's just eight hours by flight to Tokyo. And it's equidistant from mainland USA, roughly equidistant from mainland USA to Japan and other places. So what about the rest of Asia? Is there an opportunity for investment or business? Vietnam, for example, there's... I think there's many lessons that Hawaii can take away from the current events, taking it that they're transforming very rapidly and remapping the region. I don't mean the remapping that Beijing puts out that upset Malaysia and India. But Thailand is a great case study for Hawaii because it's massive tourism also. So they're diversifying their nuanced approaches to different markets, including the Chinese people. Despite what other governance issues might be, the Chinese 400 million middle class and beyond want good medical care. They want good fresh air. And Hawaii has opportunities, especially with the governor of Korean as a doctor to look at medical tourism as a way to diversify the tourism sector. Japan has a good model to study. So to South Korea, so to Thailand, all of these have official governance of medical tourism boards for vetting this. This would also give confidence for those in South Asia, also Indonesia, who want to come to Hawaii for a longer care surgery like cardiology, and then they stay for sports medicine, the aloha spirit is very calming and the organic food that you get in Hawaii. There are traditional Hawaiian medicine clinics for lomi lomi and these sorts of things. So putting together, I think governance that organizes medical tourism is something I would really hope that Hawaii could consider doing across all sectors. Okay, China a few years ago was considered the new exciting market for tourism. I mean, it wasn't that long ago when we were encouraging travelers from China to come to Hawaii. In fact, I remember it wasn't that long ago when Japan before the Olympics, the Tokyo Olympics was talking about the fact that Chinese were invading Japan and that they had to build casinos and all of these things. And it seems, where's all of that? Where did it go, or is it still there? Chinese overseas tourism still hasn't really recovered much of what it was doing before the pandemic. You can get different perspectives on that, but even at a lower level, it is still significant. I love the idea of medical tourism because I've seen how well it works in places that practice it. I do think that there are possibilities in terms of, if we have our act together in specific tech fields, this is attractive enough a place for Taiwan, Japan, some of the more advanced economies to explore possibilities. Can you come up with a functioning model to make foreign investors look at Hawaii, not just at Silicon Valley or the Boston, Massachusetts area? I think there are a lot of folks looking for alternatives, but that takes a whole of government approach. It takes attention by the universities, but it is doable. Well, Bob, just building on that comment, we have a question again from a member of the audience. And he is, what he's asking basically is that what can our delegation congressional delegation do to enhance our own relationships with promoting the kind of economic possibilities that we're discussing? Is there anything centered to shots of Hirono or any of these people? Oh, you're with the Inoi Institute. I mean, the father of that place would have been on all of this. Right. I'm just thinking a slick campaign, a media campaign is necessary in other parts of the world. And that could be done with technology now. They can run it in online or visit Hawaii kind of program to attract tourism or make it a location attractive for filming or anything like that. It's just, I think the awareness is lacking is that, oh, you have to open up the aperture and let people know that places exist here that could potentially serve as, it's a very well-developed place that's got the infrastructure and the materials and the resources necessary, the hotels and everything to host the large delegations, have it a convention center. And I think COVID played its part. I remember in 2020, in March of 2020, there was going to be a large international relations conference right here in Hawaii Convention Center and they had to cancel it because our state shut down because of COVID concerns. So I think we need to launch a promotional campaign at the very least and that, I think is going to draw people in. And they're like, huh, okay, well, I'll think about it. It's not that far. As people think it is, India is not that far. Singapore is not that far. Japan is not that far. Korea is not that far. Well, let me ask you, again, I'm just picking up these questions. We got some interested people out there that are actually listening to us guys. So they're sending stuff in and one thing is for you, Jim, is the press doing a good job in presenting a balanced presentation, I guess, around the China-Taiwan issue? I mean, are they? Yeah, I think the press has gotten much better precisely because much of the press has been kicked out of China and a large portion of those kicked out, a large number of those have ended up in Taiwan, forcing them to look at what things are actually going on there. With respect to what's going on inside China, it's become so much more difficult. We have many fewer reporters from the West inside China now. They're watched very, very closely. It's very tough for anybody who's within the government or party or even just universities to have real heart-to-heart conversations like the ones I used to have when I was there 15, 20 years ago. And so it's, and the last comment on that is the Chinese love of saying that we have in English, one man feeling the elephant, of the blind man feeling the elephant. The country's so big, 1.4 billion people, you can get any sort of anecdote you want. Now, having said all that, I think the press are doing a pretty good job trying to cover the fact that China has changed. It's no longer the place where engagement opportunities seem limitless, that it's one where, you know, the national interests of the US and Western slash Asian democracies in general are at serious risk and it has to be treated at least partly through that prism. Most of the issues you're gonna be dealing with, including trade and economics. We're talking about the Hawaii place and all of this in this region. Chris, I'm a board member of the East West Center.  What can the East West Center do? If you, I'm presuming you know what I'm talking about. The East West Center at the University of Hawaii Manoa. What can they do to make Hawaii's place in this region a little better known? Again, to Ekashwini, a media campaign would be extremely effective in languages like Bahasa and Hindi and continue to hammer point home that Hawaii is open. Hawaii has a loha. It's not burned in the ground Maui, okay? There's a lot of things that can be done to have reporters come and visit. One of my mentors there was a Dr. Daniel Kwok who used to run the China seminar lectures every month for journalists in particular and he did journalist training. So increasing journalist training on issues of the Indo-Pacific, but also from the Indo-Pacific, already the East West Center does bring a variety of folks from Vietnam. They have Indonesia, Fiji to study within journalism programs. But more programs like that would be helpful. And then again, a last point, we need to figure out how to diversify media businesses. Yeah, I think that... We got really quick questions. We got about a minute left, I saw real fast, real fast. Right now, India is siding with Putin and then this is an audience question, siding with Putin and China. China and India both siding with Putin in the Ukrainian situation. Where is the rest of Southeast Asia on that issue? Chris. Largely neutral, largely neutral. I mean, okay. And let me see, for India, they're building, what's happening? Will India step up and take over the building of the road that highway? So sorry, just my mind just slipped. Does India step into any of the foreign investments that China was doing that they may not be doing any? Let me step into the previous point. India is not siding with Putin. Just to put it in a historical context here, you remember India is in many ways, the current Indian military is many ways, the byproduct of a British military which leans Soviet during the Cold War. From 1949 to 1989, roughly, right? During the Cold War period. The military architecture of India and the military hardware was Cold War base. And they run the Russian military hardware and Russia was willing to, or Soviet Union then was willing to sell them. So what the posture they have adopted now is I would also say it's neutral. They do not want to make enemies of Russia and they're buying Russian oil because it's available at half the price of global but they're paying them in Indian rupees, right? They're not paying them in dollars and which is becoming a bone of contention between India and Russia. So they're paying them in Indian rupees which does not have that much usage because it is not that highly transactable. So they are not agreeing with Putin on his war against Ukraine, but at the same time, they do not want to necessarily directly poke him in the eye because they'll have direct consequences for them. It's their national interest to not anger Putin. We are getting over time, a little bit over time, but we're getting great response from our audience. So I'm gonna real quick, as one question to all three of you. If Trump gets elected president, will any of the current situation change? Yes, no, or maybe, you know, it doesn't matter. So maybe Chris. It would certainly, it would certainly create a different dynamic altogether and that dynamic would be so chaotic. It would maybe not pay to the best for her American interests, I can say that. What about you, Jim? I'm a little more cautious. I look at the current China, Taiwan policy as being basically a continuation of what started during the Trump years. And so with respect to the big issue, I'm not sure that there's gonna be that much of a change, but of course, the overall things, you know, does he try to pull out a NATO or crazy things like that? That's hard to predict. But again, I think there is a consensus among both parties that China is a competitor that we need to deal with effectively. You got any thoughts on that issue? Well, I agree with Ambassador Moriarty here is that China is going to be a persistent issue and Ukraine is going to be an issue. The respect of war is the president of the United States. Ukraine, you know, the longer the war stretches out, the long and Putin now has gone to North Korea to get North Korean weapons from them. If North Korea gets more nukes, that's really going to mess up the international order in ways that we can only imagine. In, you know, we do those games and simulations and we introduce the scenarios to check what we're going. So I'm actually worried about the long running war in Ukraine, the impact on oil prices, the impact on grain supply and how disruptive it is going to be. So whoever comes in to power, they will have to confront with major international challenges, which, you know, if Henry Kissinger's language, you're just basically kicking the can down the road until the can kind of bounces back at our face. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. And especially, I really want to thank our panelists for a most interesting discussion. Christopher Cartrell, James Moriarty and Shrini Sita Rahman. Thank you for participating with us. The audience, we have enjoyed having you. We will be having another one of these point counterpoints in October. So again, aloha, everybody. Thank you for your attention.


Alright y'all I want to gather around if you can. I know it's a little wet, but I want to thank everybody for being here number one This is a really important event I just gotta tell you my name is Alamon Jenkins I'm from One People Project originally based out here in Philadelphia, but I'm now up in Jersey Really good really happy to see you all here today, but you're not here to talk to me The folks here who want to try to make sure the Julian is out of jail was soon possible And I'm glad and I'm glad that we're here in Philadelphia I'm glad that I'm here in Philadelphia because I'm gonna be reminded when I come here Then we also got to make sure that that brother Mamea is out as well It isn't over y'all everybody keeps thinking when you go when I go around everybody's thinking it's over it's not it's not so So I just want to put that out the last time I was here We was teach we was doing a teaching about the proud boys and trying to let people know what they were about How dangerous they were now everybody knows we most certainly knew that day because they showed up and tried to intimidate us But after 20 minutes they realized that wasn't going to work. So they left So now I want to introduce y'all to some other people that will not be intimidated I'm just gonna hang over the Mike Gianni to Continue the song Real political prisoners free of all Real political prisoners Julian Sange is a political prisoner And we need to be engaging this case with that clarity and that understanding My name I'll introduce myself. My name is Yanne Indigo and I am here Representing the black alliance for peace and the black alliance for peace demands that Julian Assange be free Along with all political prisoners the reality that you know a lot of times we look at these situations like This situation and we we think of it as like a clear Understood Issue of the left But when you look at the way that the left has handled and stood by Assange in this situation It does not seem to actually be clear Assange like Chelsea Manning where they were abandoned They have been abandoned by the left and it demonstrates this reality and this truth demonstrates the way that the western left is not really all that left at all and You know when you look at like the way that the left has responds or treats acts like there's a big difference For instance, then the Obama administration and the Democrats or the Trump administration Assange was pursued by both of those administrations and these administrations collaborate as it relates to any of the issues that affect working class people and at the end of the Day what Julian Assange did was tell the people what they had every right to know And instead of prosecuting the people who were who weren't behaving in an inappropriately who were committing acts of acts against humanity Who are committing war crimes instead of actually prosecuting those individuals? They want to prosecute the person who had or the people who had the gore who had the heart Who had the courage to step out and tell the truth and say no it is not okay I see what is happening. I Understand what is happening, and I'm going to tell the world what's happening because the people deserve to know but the people also Have a responsibility The people have a responsibility to stand up and it is not sufficient to go to a large Or go to a protest for a day for one issue and then act like that issue now has Received your your contribution and then move on to the next issue and then move on to the next issue They are all connected. We recognize that these things are connected It's great that we're here in the city of Philadelphia talking about this because the city of Philadelphia is a great example of something that speaks to and articulates this idea of justice and Righteousness while it is also a city that has histories like bombing Individend independent people for being revolutionary to civilians and have and again no consequences the contradictions of the city of Philadelphia are a perfect Representation and reflection of the contradictions of the US the contradictions of the US EU NATO Collaboration and the contradictions of the of the Western left We need to be looking at our comrades in the global south When we really want to understand what it really truly means to be a Revolutionary that is the reason why I wore this pen of shade Because the revolutionaries of the global south are true Revolutionaries and we need to look at those examples today when you see what's happening in Colombia when you see What the people are doing in Haiti when you are seeing what the people are doing in Uganda? When you look at what the people are doing in these other locations you recognize and understand what it is that we are supposed to be Doing here. We should not just be sitting and talking. We should be burning shit down situation completely around we turn the system completely upside down or The world is going to end because the planet is not Accepting this kind of behavior any longer So I just wanted to say a few words of introduction to get us started But the most important thing for us to understand or I'm not gonna say I don't know what the most important thing for us to understand But an important thing for us to understand is that we have a lot of fights There were thousands of people in the street in support of Palestine. It's an important fight There weren't that many people in the streets in support of the ensar's fight, but it's an important fight Nobody's talking about Haiti. It's an important fight There are not enough people talking about our political prisoners. All of these fights are completely intertwined All of our struggles are being imposed on us by the same entities the same entities that are Keeping dictators in place in Uganda and keeping dictators in place in Haiti is heroic heroic Decisions and we will not abide it. We are political prisoners free them all We just gotta be safe now On the move and long live revolution I'm here representing the move organization and all the organization that this government dropped a bomb For telling the truth about what's going on here. I'm also here representing moon. Yeah, and boom Jamal From death row has continued to put out the information About our brother and why we should be supporting him. I'm not gonna take long my sister. I may say it a lot Um, I just want to let people know that we're here and people have got to break the silence We're constantly looking for someone to stand up and do for us And when they do they want to be known as if they don't kill them They wound up being in prison for the rest of their life Julian. He's outside the country They want to bring him back here to torture him.  No stand up and support and put out the truth Mark Lamar Hill he was supposed to be here to do a Interview with the two of them. He had a family emergency and he could not make it. So We're turning the mic over to the people who know what is going on on the move and thank you for your strength Way out of my comfort zone to speak to you today Defense committee and to Julian Assange and to other people are in the situation who is in Smith I know first and foremost as an educator at youth build where we work together where he is every day Literally lifting up the young people of Philadelphia and supporting them with all of his heart in his mind He is also into challenging power structures here in this city and nationwide Who are that are oppressing the people for black working-class people of the city? What happens? this connected to The protest in May of 2020 he was arrested and the government decided to try him Federally, which is a choice that they made which comes as a mandatory seven-year sentence if he is convicted This is clearly a politically motivated charge that is designed to suppress the voice of a powerful person advocating for change in our city and beyond So we the defense committee and many many many organizers across Philadelphia are Committed to standing with it and making sure that the government does not swallow him up as it has so many other for Powerful powerful voices for change in our city I have fliers that I have here that I passed around to some of you I'll make sure that you all have them we look for your support and again We thank you for allowing us to make this connection to something that's obviously much broader That's happening to many people who have been dissenting across this country this year and in the past We must stand up and refute that and I welcome the opportunity to speak to you all and to make sure we are standing behind One of the citizens of our city. Thank you so much Because my name is John Shifton. I'm Julianna Sanders father. This is Julianna Sanders brother Thank you for your welcome. I've adopted into my vocabulary. Now this expression you all Really nice. Yeah, thanks you all Behind me here is one of the most profound civilizational artifacts in the world The first amendment. This is a treasure of the United States. That's been slowly eroded by Washington and Washington no longer wants this this golden artifact to dominate the Corresponds the conversation in in the United States. It's a really important matter. Now Julianna Sanders in his publications is Becoming a victim the first victim of the destruction of the First amendment so your support will assist us and assist yourselves and all the other People in the United States with treasure and utilize the first amendment to express themselves with their friends publish their thoughts and have Conversations where in they can get We'll put together a point of view and understand that the government Or not to do this or off to do something. This is so important. So thank you very much and The pipe goes on Thanks for coming down in the rain and I was a bit wet, but it's good to see all these spaces here and You know, we were sort of communicating all this back to Julian that you know people are coming out all over You know, we've been to we started off in Miami. Then we went to Boston. We did New York yesterday Philadelphia today and we'll be in DC tomorrow and You know, we're just letting Julian know that everyone's coming out and there's a lot of support here on the ground and that keeps in going in prison So Julian lost Julian one is a tradition case on the on the 3rd of January, but the US DOJ appealed You know instantly basically in a few days later. He was refused bail Six there's been six months since that day and and and he still doesn't know whether that when when there will be an appeal hearing So he's just been sitting in in in the maximum security prison on on the man. He's not he's not sentenced So, you know, he's surrounded by people who are serving life sentences 16 year sentences, but for Julian There's no finality. There's no No sentence. So there's no, you know, we can't even plan a party or anything You know when he gets out So this is a sort of technique that's being used against Julian to sort of wear him down You know, it's one of the meals most of the special repertoire on torture as He's from the UN as You know, he's called a psychological or no touch torture, which Julian's been suffering under For almost I think it's 12 years and he's 12 years now Why is this happening to Julian Julian? And so when the surveillance became the surveyor so that the people who do bad things in our name now have to think twice before they You know before before they sort of commit their corruption or their crimes because they know that there are people like Julian out there Who will expose them? Well, that's about it, but I like to say but yeah, thanks for everyone for coming out We'll be in DC tomorrow. We're continuing on for the month of June One other thing is a lot of people think you know, I think one thing we noticed in New York is a lot of people feel Powers they don't know what to do You know, especially when with Julian's case where you know feels like we're up against such a such a You know, the national security state is so powerful. So I think I was what's been successful in Australia is just He think things local. So you you You know petition your local Congress person set up a local petition You know among your local constituents and target your congressperson get your friends and family your neighbors You know all to express what they want to their congressperson through a petition and then submit that to that to your congressperson and then They represent you so so they have to do what you want and then once you've got that group formed through the through the petition You just keep working it keep getting together keep talking emailing and then just keep attacking your congressperson and getting them You know to do something to talk to Merrick Garland getting to drop the charges or You know advocate to Biden, but I think that's the best, you know, what we can do on a local level Is is things like that and and and they work they work in Australia. They work all around the world. So I didn't see why I didn't work here. All right. Thanks everyone Just one more thing, you know, we're all brothers and sisters in this back. There's no separation at all and as my companion here and my left said that it's all joined together so Pushing on this circumstance to get Julian as I'm free also to prevent the erosion of the first amendment is the beginning of Unity and solidarity for us And Gabrielle mentioned me that the secret is in local don't expect Biden to do anything Just expect your locals congressmen to take notice of the 450 or 500 signatures on a local petition So you look these are your people here and this is our concern That's sufficient. It builds and it starts well in Australia now About 80% of the of the parliament that's 227 parliamentarians about 80% of them are sympathetic About 30 of them are actively sympathetic and it's only come about through that technique Facebook page with your friends Talking things over get yourself in the information stream and a simple petition to your local Congressman and say look we've got this concern. What are you going to do old Jack? Very simple build from the ground up Not don't expect them to be rain makers, you know Biden got so much on his plate. He couldn't fix anything Thank you very much see you see Many of the details are things that have about the case. I'm just going to read over a timeline So in 2010 Ricky leaks released collateral The video collateral murder, which was leaked to them by Chelsea Manning. The video showed the killing of Iraqis including a journalist 2010 Afghan war laws and Iraq war laws were released In 2010 a son was accused of rape in Sweden He was never charged there. He returned to Sweden for questioning, but he bought extradition. He feared that he would be turned over to the US 2012 a son seeks asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London Embassy in London. Yeah in 2013 Swedish prosecutors attempted to close the case, but they were dissuaded by the British in 2016 wiki leaks releases DNC emails, which they say were leaked And forensic computer evidence confirms a leak and not a hack Assigned was granted Ecuadorian citizenship But in 2017 but in 2018 a new government Ecuador cut off his communication removed the citizenship After receiving four billion dollars in an IMF loan In 2019 Chelsea Manning was jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury Also in 2019 UK removes a son from the embassy after Ecuador revokes the citizenship US indictment charging him under the espionage act is unsealed Sent to Belma. He was sent to Belmhurst prison where he remains today Eastern District of Virginia is a hanging court where criminals are rare In 2019 us you and rapper rapper. How you say it rapitor? Rapporteur Nils Melzner described his treatment in the embassy and in jail as meeting the definition of torture as just described In 2019 Sweden officially drops the sexual assault charges In 2021 British judge declares against sending him to the US citing his courthouse But also refuses to release him on bail So that is just a quick timeline so people can understand You know a little bit more about this case and I just was wondering if you all wanted to share Like anything about julian like like did you have a hint that he would be this um this kind of person that would take this kind of risk and Stand out in this way and be able to make this kind of impact when you were while he was growing up You know when he was the brother and your son and young we know we're younger and did you when did you did you have hits Um about this person that he ended up being this person in the world Yeah, I think you know from ever Now whenever I've known julian he was always trying to use his skills You know just just to stop stop injustice basically in the world and you know one way he used to do that was He made a you know in the early 2000s he would he worked on a on a Some encryption software called called rubber hose which was developed for journalists who um, you know Say travel over a border and get pulled over by police They would be took you know, they would be tortured and it was a multi-layered encryption program So say if they had a usb stick and and the state was torturing them They could give one password and that would open one layer and the and the second layer will remain undetectable So and so, you know the torturers would be like, oh, you know, we found it. We found everything But that the second layer would hide the information. So so the actual leakers or people who You know were giving the information to journalists would remain remain protected So from a very you know from a very early early time has always been interested in you know, how do we You know hold states to account. How do we prevent? injustice around the world and and how do we expose injustice And and you know that sort of developed from there and in 2006 he started he started wiki leaks and obviously, you know that Sort of eventually grew and grew to what it is today. So he's definitely had a this um in sense of What is right and you know and and how the how the truth will You know really just destroy destroy injustice Oh the the swedish Were allegations that weren't charged and those allegations were never developed They're just there to ruin and smear the character of julian particularly And to divert our attention from the heinous crimes that were exposed in arab war vials in the african war vials and in the guantanamo vials It's an endless list Actually julian They're always had a fascination for fighting for justice and a Dislike of lies particularly lies from the state So Asserting Instantly The freedom only comes through knowledge You've got to know stuff to know when you're free and so that's been his attitude. Also he did set up a An investigation back in the early days and received a commendation for it for tracking Pedophiles Yeah, tracking pedophiles on the internet and he received a commendation from So the suffering the deliberate The people is nauseating That's a julian and to me and gabriel and i guess to you So something to fight against with all our strength. There's just no need to go and bomb iraq And murder in the process a million people or have people like madame All right, madame all right saved on television. We're asked about 500 that and you'll imagine that grief 500,000 children Destroyed their lives the grief That the mums and dads felt 500,000 And she said oh, well, we think it's worth it. Well, these people are just moms And so we fight against them Thank you Can we get we're gonna ask we're gonna we have a few people who want to ask questions. So we're gonna do that You know Uh Inspire him Have a relationship with him or even just uh from a distance, you know expert That's no that's no Uh, you notice they don't mention it no more. He taught the cia how to uh, yeah Uh, when uh edwards ended up in hong kong With abandoned by the intercept on his own julian used The tools of it The secrecy encryption Deceit duplicity To confuse the cia Assuming When I say duplicity having a false trial Laying a false trial So that the cia followed the wrong trial and managed to get Edward to safety Um Edward reached out to julian for assistance Stranded in hong kong. So that's the communication here. He saved his life That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Thanks for asking that question You had a question And how it saved life And every time he investigated more he realized he was being way too naive And I wonder in part of Julian's trouble Is that And All these organizations You know the Department of Defense or State Department or the cia, you know, they're all they're all just made up of people So, you know, there's people in there like like you and I You know, there's good people. There's bad people So, you know, within all these institutions there exists the edwards so then the daniel hails These whistleblowers they're in there You know, they know they know they have a sense of You know, they have principles they and they have a sense of, you know, right and wrong and You know, when they come across You know, these these war crimes or mass spying They feel they feel a need to, you know, release these things and I think You know, what's happened now is that with this prosecution against julian that There's no longer an outlet for these whistleblowers Because this is the first time the espionage act has been used against a publisher So now say the new york times or the washington post or any other media outlet If they were seeing some national security leak They now have to consider whether they will come under an espionage act prosecution So if you're a a good person in one of these institutions, if you're a principled person who Sees injustice and and and you're looking at it and you say I need to leak this I need to put this out But then you turn around and and it can't be printed anywhere because these Um, you know, these publishers can now be prosecuted under the espionage act So that's why it's so important that you know, this this prosecution is stopped because there's all this all this stuff That's being done behind closed doors that needs to come out That needs to be talked about that we need to know what's being done. Uh, you know, in our names Thank you, I just worry about you all Be getting the rain there and it's COVID season We better call it a wrap Yes, there's even a website it's called right julian dot com Yeah, and sometimes I'm back in the early days when he was first wanted to build my they saved up the mail Um for three months. So there's over a thousand great big stack of letters, which I tell you when you're in jail Receiving support from the outside knowing that outside the jail There's people who are interested in your circumstances Is really important right to the strength to go on living So that in the case of me out, you know, writing the letter dropping the line On So I think we're going to be wrapping up Um, just to reiterate the importance of this fight, you know There is no revolution without revolutionaries And you're not going to have people who have the courage to step forward If they know that when they're captured if they if they have the impression or believe that when they're captured They're not going to be fought for if we have to we have to do our part to Build courage in our community this act that these acts that they're doing that this just would Was described with the espionage espionage act for example to silence people Has to be balanced by our courage and by our will to consistently fight So we cannot allow that just because they do this and they they go through these procedures And they capture our people that they are allowed to be kept We have to fight and we have to liberate all of our political prisoners So we must fight for juliana's side because that is what gives the next person the courage To come out and let people know when they are being Dammit when there is when there are inequities that are being exacted and how those things are being done So that we can fight against them. So that is our duty Thank you all