00:00As multilateral institutions come under increasing strain from rivalry among major powers,
00:06questions are growing over whether they still serve the interests of middle powers.
00:11Speaking on the sidelines of the 39th Asia-Pacific Roundtable,
00:15International Relations Professor Dr. Ken Jimbo from KO University says
00:19the answer is not to abandon multilateralism but to reform it
00:24by making it more flexible, inclusive and regionally driven.
00:31Jimbo pointed to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or CPTPP
00:37as proof that multilateral cooperation can still thrive even without the participation of major powers.
00:44One of the primary examples is the establishment of the CPTPP.
00:49Even the United States decided to withdraw from the TPP negotiation.
00:55U.S. minus, I mean, the country minus the United States have decided to go for TPP-11
01:02and that eventually turned into the CPTPP has been defining what kind of a rule-based economic order
01:09should be placed in Asia-Pacific.
01:12And then we actually have a different standard sets of what kind of economic liberalism,
01:19you know, the rule that really satisfy the business activities in the region can be placed.
01:24And everybody tried to subscribe towards it.
01:27So we are happy that the U.K. is in, and also that many of Southeast Asian countries are now
01:33thinking about how to deal with the CPTPP agenda.
01:37Those are, I think, one of the prototype models that we can think about how to reconstruct the wider range
01:43of the global order.
01:45So you mentioned about OCAS, Quad, and many of the multilaterals.
01:49And I think that, I do not think that they are very much interested in, you know, adding new members
01:55into those.
01:56And these are designed to be very much exclusive and competitive.
02:01It has certain strategic benefit for participating in Asia for strategic alignments and military exercises
02:08and emerging technology cooperation and so on.
02:12But it's not really designed to be, you know, inclusive for the regional grouping.
02:18So that I think both sides of the multilateral character can coexist together.
02:23But I'm talking about, you know, when it comes to the connection to the global order.
02:28But Jimbo said middle powers must take greater ownership of solving their own regional challenges
02:34to strengthen their strategic influence.
02:36He cited Malaysia's role in facilitating talks between Thailand and Cambodia
02:41as an example of how Asian countries can lead in resolving regional issues.
02:46One of the examples that I also like to cite is that, you know, last year that Malaysia
02:53hosted the Thai-Cambodia, you know, like stakeholders to get together in Malaysia
02:58and play the very important intermediary roles to get them to be on board
03:05to talk about each other and come up with temporarily but very important solutions.
03:11And I'm very satisfied with Malaysia's chairmanship role in those.
03:17But something that I also like to say one word is that, you know,
03:21you also have United States and China back on the board.
03:26It's a kind of interesting dynamics to have a layered solution on this.
03:31But I think this is one of the particular case that ASEAN also needs to demonstrate
03:38how much they can really solve by themselves.
03:41It's a regional problem and it has to be, you know, solved by the regional capacity.
03:47And that can also be going to the question of Myanmar as well.
03:51So these are something that I really wish to see in the years to come
03:56about demonstrating the capacity to solve their problem by themselves.
04:01It's really creating the logic of how middle power can really exhort its power.
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