Uh, so, uh, give us a little sense of how, you know, what does this mean if you're an American or an Australian or even a Japanese, you know, kinda campaign planner or whatever, thinking through what kind of support or not you might get from Southeast Asia in all these contingencies?

contingencies?Yeah.

Uh, so in the report, uh, you know, like, uh, the findings, uh, you know, we see that, you know, for the two major powers, they have a lot of leverages, uh, uh, over the South- five Southeast Asian countries, um, mostly in term of trades and also s- security cooperation.

Uh, so I think for, you know, partners countries like Australia, Japan, and other, they can see that and, you know, wherever they see the pressure points, they can actually come in and help.

I think that's the most useful way.

Um, so how much did the US alliance actually matter in decision-making if it wasn't a South China Sea scenario, right? Meaning that the Philippines wasn't the, the victim and the Americans coming in, but in the other scenarios, the, like, the, the theoretically two-way street of the US-Philippine MDT, how much did that factor in?

Oh, so I think it depends on, you know, the administration in power in the Philippines.

Uh, you know, if the, that administration, you know, in their national documents, they highlight that they would, uh, you know, they put n- economic development at number one, for example, uh, then the increasing dependence on trade with China would be something that they have to think about.

Could you unpack that for us, Bich?

Despite the common theme across five countries that they have very centralized decision-making, but compared to the other three, foreign policies in Vietnam and Singapore tend to be more stable.

That because in Vietnam, they practice collective leadership.

The foreign policy matters usually discussed by the central committees, which has about 200 delegates, but they don't meet often.

So that's why for the practical day-to-day, their decision-making, usually it is the Politburo who makes all the important decisions on foreign policy.

This body has about 20 peoples, depends on the terms, but only some of them have experience in dealing with foreign policy issues.

These are usually the four pillars of leaderships, which recently extended to five pillars, so the general secretary, the president, the prime minister, the chairperson of the National Assembly, and then recently the standing member of the secretariat.

But what should Southeast Asia, Bich, be doing? Two or three recommendations that Southeast Asia should be taking note in your assessment, Bich.