Gita Sjahrir, Head of Investment at BNI Ventures, and Jeremy Au discussed:
1. Trump 2028 Tariffs: With Trump’s return to the presidency and Republican dominance in the Senate, House, and Supreme Court, the stage is set for new tariffs on Chinese imports. This is likely to redirect manufacturing to Southeast Asia, positioning countries like Vietnam and Indonesia as key beneficiaries, particularly in sectors such as electronics and textiles. However, this move will also lead to an influx of low-cost Chinese exports into Southeast Asia, challenging local markets and putting pressure on SMEs. Concurrently, rising US labor costs fueled by stricter immigration policies are driving American companies to ramp up automation while also making Southeast Asia an attractive hub for labor-intensive industries. In aggregate, the region's business mix is likely to move from local SMEs & conglomerates to more US and China MNCs.
2. iPhone Ban Protectionism vs. Globalization: Indonesia has imposed device manufacturing local content requirements, thus leading to a ban on the Apple iPhone 16 and Google Pixel. While these policies provide temporary leverage, Gita noted that sustainable growth requires more than protectionist measures, Indonesia needs to build private-sector capacity and improve its business environment. China manufacturers are also building more local joint-venture partnerships to comply with Indonesia's proposed 200% anti-China import tariffs. This is similar to Japan’s relocation of factories to Southeast Asia during the 1970s and 1980s in response to US trade barriers. In contrast, Singapore continues to keep borders open to to Chinese and global capital - with the goal of becoming the regional talent hub vs. Hong Kong.
3. ASEAN Unity & Peace: Diplomacy across the region is vital to maintain regional stability and cohesion to address external pressures. Jeremy and Gita praised ASEAN’s ability to maintain peace despite diverse political systems and cultures. This multi-party relational resilience has underpinned decades of peace and economic growth since the Vietnam War, even in an era marked by rising protectionist policies. Remarkably, they noted how ASEAN leaders continue to come together annually for a group photo and joint communiqué — a symbolic gesture to cooperation among 700 million people across the region’s vastly different nations, cultures and languages.
Jeremy and Gita also talked about Indonesia’s EV & nickel battery market potential, Malaysia’s new proactive foreign direct investment approach, and growth vs. redistribution-focused economic policies.
Conduct predictive carbon modelling and more using AI with Nika.eco, this month’s newsletter sponsor!
Have you ever wondered how governments decide where to best strategically place telco towers, hospitals & nursing homes? Or perhaps how insurers price premiums based on sea level rise and other climate risk? More so than ever in this age of machine learning, these critical decisions today are being supported by large geospatial models that are trained with millions of spatial data points. However, such computing environments can be incredibly complex, expensive and tedious to set up. Nika.eco offers a DevOps solution that significantly saves cost and time by allowing researchers and data scientists to create an optimised geospatial machine learning environment with just one click. Reach out to info@nika.eco if you are a geospatial data scientist or climate researcher who is interested to partner on a pilot or research opportunities.
(01:25) Jeremy Au: Good morning, Gita.
(01:26) Gita Sjahrir: Morning. How are you?
(01:27) Jeremy Au: Good. It's been a big week. I think obviously the US elections has happened. So I think this is a good time for us to talk a little bit about Indonesia, USA, Southeast Asia, and talk about that.
(01:38) Gita Sjahrir: Yeah. Sounds good. Because as we all know, U. S. elections have an entire effect to everybody else.
(01:44) Jeremy Au: Yeah. I mean, I was just chatting with my friend and I was like, wait a moment. I just realized I'm 12 time zones away and literally across the world. And I didn't realize that, my job was so pegged, to this results.
(01:57) Gita Sjahrir: Same with my job.
(01:58) Jeremy Au: I mean, it's all about interest rates, it's about us foreign direct investments regions about tariffs, like I said, it's us, China, it's a lot of different effect factors. So it's quite interesting to kind of like deal with those permutations. And I thought this was a fun time for us to talk about it. So for those who don't know yet, or if you haven't read the newspapers or Twitter slash X Trump won.
(02:18) Gita Sjahrir: Yeah. Or open anything.
(02:19) Jeremy Au: So as a case, you didn't see it in the title of every podcast. Yeah. Okay. So Trump won and it was interesting because I think the election polls before that felt like it was very much 50- 50. So a lot of people was just like, Hey, it wasn't really priced in. Obviously Kamala was in the lead for some of those polls. Trump was in the lead for some of those polls.
And now I think of it. It has consolidated and not only that, I think Trump is, won the White House as well as the Senate, as well as the House of Representatives, right, which is a landslide victory, obviously, but also that means he's got a lot more control across all of it because there's no checks and balances, no veto powers he can do what he needs to do. So, it's not only a Trump presidency, but also very much Trump fully in control.
(03:00) Gita Sjahrir: I agree on all fronts, but I think before we go to say that there are no checks and balances, this is also the U. S. political system. And one of the things that I find super interesting about the U. S. political system is how it's not as top down as a lot of situations in Southeast Asia, right? So this isn't like an a presidency somewhere where if the federal power says one thing, then everybody has to follow all the way down. A lot of rights and a lot of politics actually happen at the state and local level which makes it really interesting. So an entire state, for example, can bring a proposition up that's simply not done in any other state. And that is the part where I think. US politics are more interesting and cannot be easily simplified like a lot of people think. Like you can live in a state, which I mean I did, like I lived in the US for more than two decades, like you can live in a state in the US or in a county and it's almost like you are in your own bubble. And I think that's the part that makes US politics actually quite fun to follow.
(04:06) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And that's the interesting bit because, America obviously has a wide, wide, wide range in stance across like progressive versus conservative both on economic funds, as well as the social funds, right? In a city versus rural I mean, it's a federation effectively. Right. And I think it's not a bug. It's a feature that the political system allows such a wide representation across local city, state and federal levels. It's like, Hey, you can not like the president, whoever it is at that point, but you can live in a county that doesn't really get impacted.
Well, I mean, it gets impacted obviously, but, but, as much as you would, whereas in Singapore, I think you live in as city state, you a hundred percent are impacted by whoever is the prime minister.
(04:48) Gita Sjahrir: I mean, of course, but also it's a it's a matter of scale, right? Like, I US 300 something million people. And I think people keep underestimating or forgetting just how deep the economy is. It's so deep that an entire state could have the same size of economy as insert any other country in the world, right? So for example, everyone's saying like, oh, it's just that state. And I'm like, well, that state has a hundred billion dollar economy versus Indonesia's 1 trillion last year, like the entire country. That's what makes it a very interesting place to understand and learn more. Oh my gosh. My, my inner nerdiness of political science major background is coming.
(05:32) Jeremy Au: I mean, that's why I think the U. S. election matters so much for Southeast Asia. And obviously I didn't give you a like A versus B versus C profession. Some people are impacted more, some people are impacted less. And of course, for people in technology, people are impacted quite a bit. So let's talk about like kind of Indonesia and tech, how's it impacted by the US election? I mean, you know, Kamala scenario is over, done, in the ground. So what does that mean? What do you think for a Trump victory for the next four years for Indonesia?
(06:01) Gita Sjahrir: What a lot of Americans I don't think understand is that their country's policies and their country's politics impact the entire world. And not always necessarily in both a quote unquote good or bad way, because it can also boomerang and ricochet all sorts of strange ways, right? So, for example one of the big ones is about, oh, we need to build up American manufacturing. We need to build up American businesses. So tariffs on China, which, yeah, okay, fine. In practice do your thing. But what can happen next is an entire ricochet for Southeast Asia.
And so it can be, several different impact. One is it might end up dumping a lot of Chinese products into Southeast Asian markets that would make Southeast Asian markets not be as competitive in the short term with cheaper and more cost effective products, but also there could be a lot of manufacturing that also moves to Southeast Asia, right? And that's, Not a bad thing. So you could have more more manufacturing happening in Vietnam. As a result, Malaysia, you could move it to Indonesia and all of that. So I think Southeast Asia in general is positioned quite well no matter where it goes, but it's more about how do Southeast Asian countries then work with all of these upcoming new geopolitical impact of US economic policies.
(07:27) Jeremy Au: Yeah, so it's kind of like the Japanese factories moving out of Japan into Southeast Asia after the US administration had massive kind of like trade barriers that were there to manage the Japan kind of like trade relationship back in the kind of like, seventies and eighties. So I think it's going to be the same where I didn't want to see a lot more JVs, joint ventures with Chinese companies. Like you said, in Indonesia and Vietnam even Singapore to move factories or part of the supply chain into it. So at least the assembly stage. So let's see how the Americans deal with that. It's like, is made in Vietnam going to be seen as made in China? And would it, it has some sort of like sanction slash tariff dynamic. That's one.
Obviously, I think the other flip side of it, of course, is that we probably see more Chinese exports from Chinese factories come into it. And we've already seen I'll say Indonesia erect protectionist measures against Chinese manufacturing. So I think it'd be interesting. I mean, if a Chinese ceramics factory sets up in Indonesia with that, but I guess that would be a way to get past the protectionist barrier from your perspective.
(08:29) Gita Sjahrir: And they do. They're already doing things like that. So for example, Indonesia has a local content requirement for a lot of things. So for example, a big news that happened was, oh, iPhone 16 is being banned from being sold in Indonesia. And if you buy an iPhone 16 from abroad, by the way, this is for everybody who tries to come into Indonesia and move here for, you Permanently or for a while is that if you buy any phones from abroad, you would have to register the number on that phone like you just have to register it to be part of the network, right?
And so they were saying that they're gonna block all iphone 16 And basically it's a different way for Apple in the future to simply just set up something in Indonesia, and then, Apple now is saying, Oh, what if we invest 10 million? Yeah, you heard me just 10 million into the country. Does that count as local? And now we'll see what the negotiations are moving forward. So again, Like, this is the issue with a lot of countries is about, Hey, how do we develop our local content? How would you develop our local capacity and capability? But again, that's a question of you need to figure out if your local capacity actually is backed up by your local capability. And that's, that's not just a challenge in Indonesia, that's a challenge everywhere, including the US. So, like, In the end, tariffs almost always will hit consumers. Like, that's the one paying for things, right? So in the U. S., for example, yeah, you can strengthen American manufacturing, but the question is, are your capabilities there?
And what I foresee for the U. S. is it might actually end up costing jobs because you'll just go towards automation due to a lot of higher labor costs versus labor costs in Asia, right? So I think things like that will just affect stuff moving forward. And that could, don't know impact automation technologies that are being developed in other countries, such as Southeast Asia or Asia that, or parts of Asia that moves their automation technologies to other parts of Asia. So I think that's the ricochet effect that oftentimes as a typical US voter, you're probably not thinking about and for a good reason, but that's something that Southeast Asian countries can see as an area of opportunity.
(10:46) Jeremy Au: Yeah, I think this is where the second order, third order effects of what's happening is happening. I think what's also interesting is that, mentioning that kind of like protectionist measures, I think that what we saw from the Trump administration was that he brought in a lot of tariffs and then it became popular again in Southeast Asia. Before that, I think there was always America as a moderating effect. I mean, historically America led a lot of the free trade agreement negotiations on a bilateral or regional basis. Back then, and then now, there's no one really advocating for free trade. Well, I would say China is obviously that they've applied to
(11:19) Gita Sjahrir: join. I was about to say, someone is, and it's China.
(11:21) Jeremy Au: So it's kind of like a little bit of like, it's like kind of funny. You grow up in social studies books, and then you're like, you read all these American books about free trade is great. And then now it's like, Oh, those books don't apply anymore.
(11:32) Gita Sjahrir: Yes, things change. And I think a lot of it also is, again I'm not quite sure if it's actually better off that the U. S. has a leadership or a type of thinking right now where they're more inward looking in order to balance out any other impact that they've had in the past where they were maybe too outward looking.
And so, yeah, I think this is a time that, probably the rest of the world can see if there are any areas of opportunity as the U. S. continue to build up or work on building up their own internal capacity.
(12:03) Jeremy Au: Yeah, and I think it's going to be a interesting time because I think Southeast Asian countries may choose to erect some barriers. I would say that Singapore has not actually over the past decade, even through the Trump and Biden administrations. So in fact, I think Singapore has probably continued staying open to both immigration as well as capital flows which means China, talent, and capital flows, I guess, in this context, as well as continuing to be a hub for US MNCs. So it's kind of interesting but I would say that there's a bit of a, I think Malaysia actually is trying to absorb more capital. So they are not really choosing the shield under the local industries as much. Indonesia, I think feels like they're probably more .Philippines, not so much. I think Philippines is kind of like, I mean, I think they're anti China on the South China Sea issues that they have from a social level but not necessarily from a economic level.
(12:52) Gita Sjahrir: Yeah. Yeah. Well, actually, I would say Malaysia has done a lot of strides moving forward to allow for more investments in, right? And I think they've been quite proactive in it. They have great leadership on this front. And I think when you're looking at places, let's say like Indonesia, oftentimes again, as I said before, it's a very young electoral democracy, meaning a lot of its legal framework is also very new. Like, this is only since 1998. There was a rewrite of parts of the constitution, rewrites of part of the framework, and so, we're just simply not as advanced in writing these legal frameworks to allow for a lot of these foreign investments in. And so sometimes the quick solution the fix it solution is to impose like protectionist measures because that's more instant and that also allows the indonesian players more leverage for that very short amount of time but again i always say that the problem with indonesia is not just the threat of foreign products it's always is your entire system. Is your country pro private sector? Is it pro business? Do you make it easy for companies to start? Do you make it easy for companies to get financing, scale, thrive? Like that's the real question because otherwise it's just kind of playing whack a mole for the next onslaught of cheap products. And that, that's a problem.
(14:16) Jeremy Au: Yeah, and I think the interesting part is, I think it's true for most countries, right? Because I think having a regulatory tax by saying no to something, like I said, gives you negotiating leverage, but it's easy to do. But working on a supply side measure, like, I don't know, improving the education and nutrition of your kids, and then, you know, the payoff is down the road. I mean, by the time they grow up and have higher IQ points and be a better workforce, like 10 or 20 years down the road, you don't get the benefits of it right now, like, is someone else going to benefit from that, from a political perspective. Yeah.
(14:47) Gita Sjahrir: Yeah, from a political perspective and also from an economic perspective, like you have to understand that these things just have a different level of impact, right? A different level of benefit and timeline. And I think that's the part where you have to balance out the private sector interest and the public sector interest, because those are two different things.
Private sector needs some things to work out so that they can continue thriving and, allow free market to thrive. But there are also public sector interests that are not as easily quantifiable and also just have all sorts of secondary and tertiary impact that we often don't think about. So, this is also the question with lots of things like, oh, how are we going to do energy transition in a cost effective way? You have to think about, okay, what are your public sector interest? And what are your private sector interest? And how do you balance it out? So, It's net benefit over a longer run .
And you're right politically speaking It's not sexy to say I would like to have better nutrition or better elementary education when the payoff is 20 years later. Like that's not sexy it's very hard to run on You cannot say that you did a quote unquote great job at the next cycle because the next cycle, these people are only you know, five years old six years old, so you can't see the results yet.
(16:04) Jeremy Au: Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of interesting because you made me remember that, I think a lot of community organizations are really that have that staying power, right? So if you're like a spiritual organization, like a temple or church or whatever it is, like they often invest in schools or healthcare because for them, their time horizon is infinity, right? From a spiritual perspective, but, it's very different from a political perspective where you're like, I just need to win 51%. Well, not 51, 50. 1% of people who turn up for the next four years. Right. And so it's a very different, like maximization that you're trying to go for.
(16:36) Gita Sjahrir: Yeah. And it's a different cost benefit analysis for these, for these projects and timeframe.
(16:41) Jeremy Au: Yeah, such is life. What are some other impacts that we think that Indonesia will have?
(16:45) Jeremy Au: I mean, obviously electric vehicles might be interesting because Trump has shared that his anti electric vehicles, which obviously played well in kind of like, the kind of like the Rust Belt, the manufacturing side, because, there's a lot of jobs that are going to get destroyed because the American companies are not doing a great job moving to EV structure. Tesla, of course is doing well, but it's a function of both California plants as well as Chinese actually plants for Tesla and a lot of big companies. China is a big electric vehicle base that is kind of like slowly displacing both Germany, Japan, and like the Midwest in America.
So he said no more, or at least he's not, he's trying to slow down electric vehicles. So what do you think that means for us, because Indonesia is a big player in the EV battery space.
(17:29) Gita Sjahrir: Right. So I think, saying no to EV reminds me a lot of saying no to AI. You kind of can't say no to something that's already happening. I mean, I guess you can but you're what you're doing is just delaying something. You're not stopping anything. It's already there It's already happening. There's nothing anyone can do currently to really quote unquote stop AI but I think the problem with, EV, AI, all of these new innovations, it's more about, like, how can any country benefit or leverage from these innovations? And when it comes to EV, again, these can only bode well for Southeast Asian countries that see that area of opportunity. So, story time. I just came back from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where I'm doing my Master in Public Administration, and I was hanging out with my classmates, and I just asked a simple question. I went, Hey, what do you all think of BYD? percent of my classmates have never heard of BYD.
(18:27) Jeremy Au: Well, BYD is already the number one manufacturer of cars selling in Singapore right now.
(18:32) Gita Sjahrir: So the fact that all of these people have never heard of BYD, they're Americans. Like, they've never heard of BYD. I'm like, well, actually, I mean, I guess America is just gonna keep on keeping on with their current local capacity, right? But if anything, this shows that maybe all of these Asian manufacturers have more leverage to sell and to build up their own capacity and capability in their home spaces. Of course, with potential collaborations in other countries, right? So they might move their manufacturing in some parts of their supply chain to let's say Vietnam or Malaysia or Indonesia, and I think that's probably the way it's gonna keep going But I just thought that was super interesting how when I , Do you all like BYD? What are your thoughts on BYD? No one's ever even heard it And so I think you know, the 2019 tariffs that started and kept going, it's not that things were liberalized anyway, during this time, there's always been some element of US protectionism for their own industries.
That for me said a lot, right? And so for me, what I realized is, for Southeast Asian countries, are we willing to be more aggressive in building up our own capabilities so that we can have larger capacity and work together in order to advance and thrive?
(19:49) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And I think that direction of travel is now clear, right? It was just that I think since the Trump administration, then the Biden administration, the only difference is the magnitude of those shifts, but the direction of travel is clear, which is that more trade barriers would be instituted over time. And so that's the game every country in the world is playing and they got to decide are we going to play the free trade strategy, or are we going to play the protectionist strategy, how do we do both, I think it's going to be that world for the next, I'll say decade. I think, I think you and I can probably say like probably for the next three administrations in a row. I mean, the next four years is already settled, I would say, but probably the next two after that.
(20:24) Gita Sjahrir: Yeah. And the real threat isn't necessarily Chinese EV. It's automation in the end, right? If you're looking at Rust Belt, again, the reason why U. S. politics become interesting is there are differences in each state. So education is one of those things that, you know. They're often regulated by the state. So if you're a state that simply did not invest as much into education, nutrition, so the building block of the people in your state, your constituents, then it's going to be very hard for you to compete with states that are, for example, more service oriented, like financial services oriented. That's the real question.
So then you would have to come up with other ways to build up your state. Like is it what kind of taxes are you going to have in your state? So some states, as you know, like are very favorable. Let's say favorable in terms of property or estate taxes and all of those things. But then how else are you going to make money? Like, how else are you going to make money in order to invest into your constituents? That's a question that the U. S. will have all the time. So I think rather than just saying, Oh they're going to save jobs. In the end, just like any other country, and by the way, it's not that Indonesia is safe from automation yet. It's just, automation is going to happen. And so, what are you doing so that your constituents, over time, and let's say 20 years from now is well positioned continue to have a great economic life, because what, whether we like it or not, automation, AI, all of those things will continue to grow. And so do we take advantage of it? Or do we try to hold on to things the way they are because things don't often stay the way they are.
(22:01) Jeremy Au: Yeah, it sounds like if we think about it, there's a bunch of statements that can all be true, right? Like we can say America is likely to have more trade barriers over time over the next 12 years. That's one, which is trade administration. The second one, like yoUS aid, is there's going to be more automation, not less automation by AI or robots over the next 12 years, not less. Another thought in my head is, China is going to keep growing over the next 12 years no matter what. If they have a domestic economy, they're, they're now playing the free trade great game with Southeast Asia now. So, they're going to benefit and they're going to do that. Trade between China and Southeast Asia is only going to grow. I would say over the next 12 years, it's not going to shrink. I think India and China, is this, China is still the number one kind of like trade relationship with India despite that past period of geopolitical tension. But now, no matter what happened, no matter what trade barriers India put up with China, there's just too, too much trade. it's inevitable. I mean, also India is closer to China anyway. So, and India and America have very different trade flows is further away. And he has a different set of economies as well.
(23:05) Gita Sjahrir: Again, there's so many things and so many forces that we just cannot stop in the world today. As the world is becoming more globalized. It's just the way it is. So the question is more, how can each country create a long term plan, especially from the public sector side, because private is going to do what private does. Private willl always attempt, we will always attempt to maximize our growth. So the question is more, what can public sector do to balance out the interests of their people, their constituents, in order to have a longer term growth plan in mind?
(23:37) Jeremy Au: Yeah. And I think that the crux of it is that, I think the US election was very much a debate about whether we should split the pie more evenly versus how do we grow the pie. And I think everyone's just frustrated because the end of it was more like, I don't have enough pie, right? Because, it looks like my pie is shrinking because of inflation. So everybody's not happy. And so I think that's what Southeast Asia is kind of having right now as well. I think everyone's in Asia is kind of focused on pie growing mode so that everybody can eat more pie. And I think Southeast Asia, it turns out, No one really cares about whether it's American pie or Chinese pie. As long as it's more pie, it feels like, you know, the crux of it.
(24:10) Gita Sjahrir: Yes. I, I love that the question tends to be, oh, does Indonesia choose US or China? And it's always like, no, all of these sovereign nations are choosing themselves. They should, just like
(24:23) Jeremy Au: Indonesia chooses Indonesia.
(24:24) Gita Sjahrir: Indonesia. Yeah, and so one of the things that my uncle who was the coordinating minister of maritime and investment once said, and it was really funny, I think it was even caught in the press, was he said, Hey, we learned from America. You said make America great again. What's so wrong with me wanting to make Indonesia great again? And that's a great question.
(24:45) Jeremy Au: And you know, that's a simple negotiation as a result, right? It's like, you have your interest, the self interest, and I have my own self interest, and we just got to make a deal, right? Whatever that deal is, and the deal is, you're happy and unhappy, and I'm happy and unhappy, but we got a deal done, right? Because we're happier with that deal overall than we are unhappy about it, right? That's our every deal that we make, you know? I felt like for a moment you're going to say like Indonesia is for ASEAN. That'd be so funny. Like Singapore is for ASEAN. And everyone's like, what is ASEAN again?
(25:12) Gita Sjahrir: Most people, when I write ASEAN, they would go, what's that? And I went, yeah, see? But I will say this.
(25:19) Jeremy Au: Did you typo Asian?
(25:20) Gita Sjahrir: Right. Did you typo Asian?
(25:22) Gita Sjahrir: But I will say ASEAN has been amazing in one thing, which is in peacekeeping. I think somehow ASEAN, despite us having very different people from all sorts of different ethnic backgrounds and different languages, even different cultural values, for the most part, we've been quite good in our geopolitics. We've been quite diplomatic and positive with each other over time. So I think that's something that probably we could, expand more in the future.
(25:50) Jeremy Au: Yeah. I mean, surprisingly it hasn't fallen apart, right because uh, you know, it is like
(25:55) Gita Sjahrir:
We've been friendly with each other.
(25:56) Jeremy Au: it is like, there's a whole range of like, let's call it, on face value, democracies to kind of like kingdoms to all kinds of variations in between. And, it's, you know, somehow I was like, you know what? We still take our photo opportunity every year.
(26:10) Gita Sjahrir: Every year. And then people are like, Oh, I'll say where's that? How many people? I'm like, it's almost 700 million people. And they're like, Oh, wow. You all are 700 million people who for the most part of a positive and peaceful relationship with each other. We're like, yeah.
(26:26) Jeremy Au: Yeah. ki. you think about it. It's kind of great. It hasn't fallen apart. I mean, obviously a lot of people critique LZN as a result because they say like, Oh, you guys should be doing more team, more proactive sciences on A, B and C. We should, but I think priority one is like, stay together.
(26:40) Gita Sjahrir: Those are the value systems, so,
(26:42) Jeremy Au: It's so funny. It's always a minor miracle that they ever agree on one statement at the end of every year. It's always a, it's always a miracle.
(26:50) Gita Sjahrir: yeah, every year,
(26:51) Jeremy Au: Every year. And then he got a photo.
(26:53) Gita Sjahrir: Right, but I do, I, I agree, like, I think, now with the U. S. working more on its internal capability and capacity, there is more opportunity and there are more areas of opportunity for ASEAN members to collaborate in the future. But again, we at least can say that we're able to maintain quite peaceful relationship for a longer period of time than most people,
(27:17) Jeremy Au: Yeah. I mean, actually, if you think about it ever since the kind of like decolonization after World War II by the British and Dutch and everybody else, I mean, not really significant territorial Oh, actually now I think about it, there's a few and then he's like, Hey, it's like, let's, yeah, it's all kinds. That's not even like, you're like. Let's bring up all the bad blood. Yeah. But, but then surprisingly, I'll say over the past 20 years, I would say at least 20 years. I would say 20 years, there's nothing being significant and material. Right now there's some angry person writing like an angry chat messages, comments about what we just said, but it was like, did you know about this? We're like, yeah, okay. But you know, like we didn't use tanks in the past 20 years.
(27:53) Gita Sjahrir: I mean, well, as angry people can be at the very least, we can say we have that one statement and that one photo. You
(28:01) Jeremy Au: Okay. No matter what happened. That's true. No matter what conflict has happened and define and with, depending on every definition of tank or whatever it is, you still have that one photo and one statement. We can stand behind that. Yeah.
(28:12) Gita Sjahrir: Thank you. Look, look at ours, Indonesia, Singapore collaboration. Look at this.
(28:17) Jeremy Au: know. Amazing. That could never happen in the seventies. Yeah. Well, I mean, actually a fun fact that we had was we had, I mean, I don't know if there's, well, I'll just say it, but it was like, there was the McDonald house bombing by Indonesian. soldiers in Singapore. I just found out that it's the name of an Indonesian Navy ship. And recently it was like denied entry at the port of Singapore. So because Singapore was like, yeah, we're not going to let you refuel here.
(28:39) Gita Sjahrir: No, no, no. I, I am very cognizant that Indonesia has been guilty of things in the past. Let me just say that I am very aware. And then, being Southeast Asian too, we're also kind of like the masters and expert in saying, Oh, okay. All forgiven. Okay. Let's keep moving on. Or we just put things under the rug and hope that it doesn't come up.
(29:03) Jeremy Au: Sounds like my marriage, right?
(29:04) Gita Sjahrir: You said it, not me.
(29:05) Jeremy Au: No, it's a perfectly acceptable coping mechanism. You just got to wait for 70 years to resolve it, in which case you're both dead and it doesn't matter anymore. So delay is susceptible peacemaking technique. There we go.
(29:18) Gita Sjahrir: The the hate dm is suddenly stopping because they go wait, this is getting personal.
(29:23) Jeremy Au: Yeah, I know. It's not geopolitical. It's just two nations at war in the same country. On that note, before we devolve into a marital therapy session, which also could be fun in its own way, when we look at the next 12 years, I think let's hope that I think Southeast Asia as well continues to be that peaceful place because I think if Southeast Asia continues being peaceful with each other, and if every transaction is bilateral, so be it. But I think then I think Southeast Asia can benefit over the next 12 years rather than get suffer from it.
(29:50) Gita Sjahrir: Totally. And I think let's take every area of opportunity and just grow.
(29:54) Jeremy Au: Yeah. All right. Let's make some money for each other. Let's have more pie. You have more pie. I have more pie. And then we all handshake and we just like, move on with life.
(30:01) Gita Sjahrir: Sounds good.
(30:02) Jeremy Au: All right. See you, Gita.
(30:03) Gita Sjahrir: Take care.