Good morning. I'm Kimberly Reed and I'm so honored to be here with this outstanding research conference to discuss the topic of the Freedom based development model in the Indo Pacific region. I have been thrilled to be a part of the Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Center as a distinguished fellow, and I'd like to thank the staff and then the grave and Michael Fish and, of course, Fred campaign for their wonderful commitment to things that I hold, very dear to me and I have worked on for my entire career. We know that the Freedom based development model we need to be focused as we've heard today.
On freedom and prosperity beyond just development in the keys to freedom and prosperity or free markets, rule of law, free press and democracy. I will say that Dan and his colleague Matthew Kroenig are just published. A new book called We Win, and they Lose. And I'd like to read a small excerpt from that. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, the American people having inalienable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness or translated in today's language. They have a right to security, freedom and prosperity. We find the same concepts in the preamble to the Constitution, which.
Says the purpose of the U. S government is to quote provide for the common defense or security. Promote the general welfare were prosperity and secure the blessings of liberty. Or, as we know today, freedom these values articulated in America's founding documents mirror three primary goals of US foreign policy is spelled out in our countless national security strategies over the years, the security of freedom. Security and prosperity of the American people. I rose, most recently concluded a tenure is chairman of the Export Import Bank of the United States, where I had the honor to see prosperity working around the.
World and also seeing where prosperity could work around the world. I witnessed some amazing conversations. I witnessed amazing business transactions, and I witnessed amazing hope in our country for the world. I was so pleased and I wear the color purple today not because I'm an advocate of Alzheimer's and have been on their board for many years, but because I last for the stress on October 27th 2020 When I was in Burma, meeting with state counselor Aung Sang Suu Ki, who was my Burma's de facto leader. We know now that she's under house arrest. But when I had a conversation with her and 2020, it was focused.
On what we're going to talk about today. Freedom and prosperity. I'm also wearing a pin. And it's a bird and I presented this pin to the Sudanese minister of Finance in early January. 2021, Her Excellency, Dr Heba Ahmed Ali. It's a replica of the United States 1st 1st Lady Martha Washington's Pearl Dove pin, and when I presented this to her in early 2021, I said that it was a declaration of Mrs Washington's hope for the future for peace and prosperity for the new United States of America, and I wish the same for Sudan. Unfortunately, we've had a coup in Cdn, and we've seen travesty there.
As well. But this conference will highlight what are the keys to freedom and prosperity and I'm so pleased to have three experts with us. We're going to be hearing from Ambassador Kelly Currie. Who is the former United States representative Yuen Economic and Social Council and former alternative representative to the UN General Assembly. We're going to be hearing from Johanna Cow senior director for Asia Pacific at the International Republican Institute, and from Dr Kotaro Shield. Geary, who is the Japan visiting fellow at the Wilson Center. When I ask you your first question. I'd love for you.
To touch also on your own backgrounds, but very, very impressive. And as we go into our discussion today on the Freedom based development model in the Pacific, I just like to point out if you've not looked at at home or in our audience, the 2023 prosperity and freedom. Index. And as we look at the end of Pacific region, we know that the region is one of the most dynamic and fastest growing regions on Earth. It's an essential driver for security and prosperity. It's home to more than half the world's population accounts for 60% of global GDP, as well as two thirds of global economic growth.
When we're looking at the United States trade between the U. S in the Pacific region reached over $2 Trillion in 2022 and the United States benefits for more than 956 billion in foreign direct investment in the Pacific. And that's important because we believe that prosperity is what everyone wants in our world. So, um, in addition to meeting with Aung Sang Suu Ki and spending time in the region, I was really honored in 2019 when I was the head of Export Import Bank to attend with Ambassador National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien. The 2019 East Asia summit. And I was just in awe as I sat in a room with the.
Leaders of the countries in the Pacific region and learned a lot about what was happening at that time. And what we've seen from then, until today is looking at the index and again, the index ranks countries from the scale of ranking of number one country that 164 Japan in 2023 when it comes to freedom ranked 23rd and prosperity. 22 out of all the countries listed. Taiwan 27 for freedom 26 for prosperity. South Korea Freedom 34 Prosperity 13. Indonesia freedom, 80 prosperity 98 and again out of 164 countries. Globally. The Philippines freedom 100 to prosperity, 80.
The People's Republic of China. Freedom 144 Prosperity 119 and finally, Burma Freedom 158. And prosperity 151. So how do we get at this and I'm going to start with Dr Sheila Jiri. Can you tell us about Japan's initiative regarding free and open in the Pacific efforts and its influence in the region? Thank you very much. It's a honor and privilege to be here and thank you very much for having me here at Atlantic Council. Let me talk offers about the free and open Pacific. Indo Pacific Vision, which is called so called for whip that Japan is presenting and some of.
The challenges actually it is facing and my background is, uh, it was an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan offer about 10 years and I had an early retirement. So I am free from the government. And I'm this is my individual view. And I will be critical to Japan as well. So please bear that in mind as well. But moving back to the Philip idea. What is it about? And I will be very succinct and and well, I was very to the march 2023 speech by Prime Minister Kishida in New Delhi in India that he did, and also we referred to the 2023 revised Development Cooperation Chap Charter that dog Prime.
Minister Kishida also Revised Ah! I'll be very clear about the core concept of the foil, which is and I quote to lead the international community in the direction of cooperation rather than division and confrontation. Which sort of resonates with the domestic politics as well. But we are focusing on international community and international politics, and some of the goals include enhancing the connectivity of the Indo Pacific region, fostering the region into a place that value freedom, the rule of law. Free from force and coercion, which resonates to what you mentioned earlier. And also make the region.
Prosperous. So these are the core concept and quickly moving forward. Let me focus on the challenges that some of the followed by ideas are having which I think is important in terms of how to build partnership in the region. How to move forward with this idea, which is very important. I think in order to implement the idea, so my question is, how do you gain support from the countries in the region? When you have these concepts I think there are three folds to that answer in number One is the power of concept vision. Self number two is the attitude or approach.
And number three is the quantity or the tangible benefit that they will get from this concept or vision number one concept and vision, the power of it, which is sort of very clear from the outset, But I think the defending freedom the rule of law is very important. When you're facing some concerns of attempts to change the status quo, by force, or coercion is something that the region the countries are being worried about. So how to help them address that, including Japan is one of the core concepts and also receptors Spect for diversity, inclusiveness and openness is also something that it needs to be.
Addressed. Which is the full IP is one of the efforts to address that as well. Number two is the attitude and approach, which I think is very important and maybe slightly different from the U. S approach. Japan approach is to sort of through dialogue and collaboration and as equal partners, two ways that relationship needs to be driven and also, the focus on people needs to be done as you mentioned in terms of the importance to focus on people. And quickly move forward and number three is the quantity or the tangible method, which I believe is important and two that are Japan is proposing to mobilize.
A total of more than $75 billion in the public and private funds by the year 2030. Which is probably not enough, And that's why I think Japan needs to partner with other countries, Of course. And that the power of the quote, coalition or partnership matters. So let me stop here by laying out some of the core concepts of and also challenges but saying that it's easy to say difficult to do, and it's a very daunting task. Thank you. Thank you very much. Johanna. Can we discuss the China chapter into general area of the areas? Talk about the broader prosperity opportunity.
And whether it's happened or not. And the clear commitment. By the Chinese Communist Party to inequality. Yeah, sure. I'm happy, too. So just just by way of a slightly extended introduction I the organization. I work for international Republican Institute that we we work on democratic assistance. I'm oversee our Asia Pacific region And And so, you know, covering the scope of the reason we're gonna be talking about today. 23 country programs and I have had the honor of being able to sort of live and work in that region for most of my life. Moving to D C a few years ago. Um, this China chapter working on.
This China chapter. It was a really unique opportunity to take a step back and look at the data with sort of overlaying it with my own direct experience of working with partners, both inside China and outside so I appreciate from the Atlantic Council the opportunity to do that. And I want to get your question by first sort of getting into a little bit of the context on what the industries were really showing in terms of kind of freedom first before we get into the prosperity because, you know, I think One of the things that come across comes across in the data is it's this dance right that the.
Communist Party of China has been trying to do to promote economic growth, while also maintaining control of Chinese society. And so you know what you see in those early years in the index, um is it is it is gradual improvement is gradual improvement of freedom After about 1995. You know, this was a period of experimentation where things were really starting to open up. People's state control was decreasing and people's lives were improving. You know, I went to China for the first time in 1981 as as a child with my family, and I just what I remember from that was the sameness of everything.
And yet by sort of 1995 onwards is to this period that we're tracking. This is a time when China went from a place where everything had been provided by the state to a place where everything was being provided in markets right And that change was really significant. And so around that same time, the experimentation I think also extended to society and governance. And this is where there is this impact on prosperity. So you have projects like increasing women's political participation and enabling some public advocacy on some things. I mean, there are limits, right? This was post Gentleman Square. Um,.
There were restrictions. There were controls and it was particularly difficult for certain groups of people which which we can get into later. But then what you started to see around 2008 2009 in the data is where things started to shift. You start to see the party trying to these efforts to re exert control but maintain economic growth maintain the prosperity. Um And I think that context is really important to to think about as well as we're looking at. I was looking at that the indices and so it's going to get your question the kind of three conclusions from the data that.
I wanted to highlight on prosperity in particular, you know, it's Underwhelming, uneven and unequal. Alright, So so first I think I would say overall the date is underwhelming. Right? You have China, we know had this period of just phenomenal economic growth. Um, you know, but the Chinese people so Really only modest gains, if any right across a range of these freedom and prosperity is indices. When you look at this in comparison to East Asia Pacific, other countries had improved freedoms, even with slower economic.
Growth, right And so it just overall, they seem to do more with less. And I found that really striking looking at the data in that comparative sense, this sense of just a really significant missed opportunity by the CCP to create a more modern and dynamic society, right. They had the means to do it, and it didn't happen. You know, a society that could actually reflect the Chinese dream that she didn't pin keeps talking about. Um, so that's 11 observation of where the process didn't translate into into prosperity for for Chinese people. The second sort of observation is the unevenness of that prosperity,.
Right? It is unsurprising that their sort of most remarkable sort of trend. The most remarkable improvement came in economic prosperity, right And that is, it should absolutely be recognized in this achievement by the party by the government and by the Chinese people. Um, but it's a very complex reality in China. At a very basic level. China's economic growth has been uneven because certain areas got priority and preferential treatment over others, and this is generally been sort of seen as sort of urban coastal areas that got preference compared to sort of the rules inland away from the coast areas right. And.
So while GDP per capita Um, my average out to look like growth. There's a lot of poverty in China sort of outside of urban centers. And I think very importantly, and this really comes through in the data that unevenness of how prosperity is distributed is not. It's not just an even economically it. Basically if you fall outside of sort of some accepted norms of what party says, such as if you belong to a religious or ethnic minority, your quality of life is significantly worse than the average person. Right. And so you know what I take from that is that while while a lack of progress on certain kinds.
Of freedoms it could be explainable, at least by the parties, Instinct to retain control. I think the inability to deliver more equitable prosperity to citizens by the CCP that just seems like a missed opportunity. And then to your to the last one. You know my final conclusion about this What seems to be the CCP commitment to just an unequal form of governance? Right. Since the beginning of the Communist Party of China. It has collected his sort of touted this collectivist approach that it has right. The well being of the collective was more important.
Than the well being of the individual. But what what the data really shows I think is that it's actually more selective approach. There are certain groups that are favored at the expense of others. Right now, this inequality that's not new within the CCP system. There's always been winners and losers. You have party elites, you have their affiliated businesses. They rake in the benefits of this extraordinary growth. Well, you know, ordinary citizens see sort of much more modest gains. But again what I think the data shows is what I see as a shift towards.
A much more absolute rather than a relative sense of inequality. Right? There are clear losers in this system and not only have they not made gains, they've actually seen really significant losses in their freedoms. And so again, it's groups like ethnic and religious minority. These women LGBTQ plus community, right? These are groups that challenge the party's claims to legitimacy, and they have not seen the benefits at all of the prosperity that could have that could have come. Thank you very much. Before we turn to Ambassador Curry. I would just want to remind those in the audience.
And at home to send us your questions at ask a c dot org and we will get to those Kelly, you're focusing on Burma and new research. Can you shed some light on the country's trying new models and what works versus the development models that have fallen short? Thank you, And it's um It's really wonderful to be able to participate on this panel and learn from my colleagues and also I was really ruminating on some of the things that our keynote speaker this morning, Damon, a smuggler said about How what is causing the regression and democracy and how that relates.
To the paper that I'm working on for the council and the project this paper is nested within that compares authoritarian development models, mostly the Chinese development model with what I call the development industrial complex approach that the West has basically defaulted to And I say that because I do feel like we have defaulted to a somewhat lazy institutional ecosystem of organizations. Whether it's the Bretton Woods institutes are our own bilateral aid agencies or the multilateral aid agencies. All of these things they are, like, you know, we make jokes about the blob in terms of foreign policy.
But there's also a development blob, and that is basically what the West uses to promote economic develop. Elopement in the world and neither. It's not serving our interests very well right now, and it's not serving the interests of the developing world very well, either, and I'll give you a good example. Before I get to get to Burma this just this week, the World Bank came out with a new survey that talked about what the priorities for were for its clients. What's what the client's priorities are the borrowers that countries that the bank is supposed to be helping guide towards prosperity and supporting.
That process and out of 17 topics that the banks isn't a list of 17 topics. Climate was number 11. For for the the they wanted education. They want health care. They want jobs development. They want good governance and public administration, the clients the developing countries, It's the the shareholders, the donor countries that are pushing this climate agenda. Now are there. Of course, countries like the low lying island states where climate is an existential threat, and they need real support on there so that they can give health care, education and jobs to their populations, Of course.
But in the aggregate, most of the World Bank's climate clients are not are not prioritizing climate change. It's the donor driven behavior. And so this is a pathology that we see over and over again and the way that we approach these countries and Burma is a great example. And it's also a great way. Burma. I chose Burma as the first case study for what will be. We hope, a series of papers looking at how these different development models that China is putting out in the world and that the Western industrialized democracies are putting out in the world. How they actually play out on the ground where.
They are where they are not meeting the needs of These countries because this this paper on Burma basically shows that both of these models failed in Burma and continue to fail abjectly between and it looks at this 15 year period right between 2009. And now, um, where you saw Burma go from being a pariah state that was ruled by a military regime that was one of the worst roast progressive in the world. They were the one of the lowest recipients per capita of overseas development assistance in the world. World and they were ahead socio economic indicators that were at sub Saharan African.
Levels. They were down in the least developed Band bottom 10% just as they are today, but they've gone for they've gone in a circle right? They went from that between that 15 year period. They had a managed transition to a more democratic or at least more open and accountable form of governance over a 10 Year period, where the military stepped back from direct rule allowed a quasi civilian institution to come in as soon as the West decided. That it was good enough for the Burmese people, which was not very good. I will be very clear here. Military still had ultimate control. The economy.
Was still dominated by rent seeking cronies who owed their their wealth and their ability to do business to their ties to the military. The military still itself had a huge chunk of the economy, like all of these things were still in place. Burma was still spending 1% of its GDP on health and education. By that's not good. Just in case you're wondering, you know, but the West decided. Yeah, good enough for us Soft bigotry of low expectations. We're gonna flood the zone. We're going to change Burma from being a conflict. Fragile conflict affected fragile state.
Into a transition, and we're going to start throwing our transition toolkit at them and just we're all in literally 10% of the part of the Parliament at that point was represented. Did buy a popularly elected party. The rest were still the military's hold over. But the world just was like, Yeah, we're good. We're good with that. The Burmese people, of course, were not. They continue to repudiate this, and they continue to ask for different things about politically economically and socially from the international community. But we didn't listen. We imposed our tool kits and our models and our technical.
Assistance on them, and the results were not good. In the meantime, China had never left Burma. They didn't care what kind of government was there. They cared about their interests, which were getting access as show talks about the coastal areas in China. Inland areas in southwest China, landlocked Not benefiting from this big economic boom. The Chinese leadership was like, Oh, we can go through Burma and get to the Indian Ocean. This will be awesome for us. Let's build a giant ports in Burma boom. They start building a giant court and connecting it through a oil and gas pipeline and transportation corridor. And.
This is their new string of pearls strategy. They're doing it in Gwadar and in Pakistan, and they're doing it in jock, pew and Burma. Did they care that they were building that pipeline through areas where there was a civil war? War going on. Oh, heck, no, They did not. They're paying off people on both sides. They're selling weapons to people on both sides. They do not care. Can we go in and do that? No, no, we cannot. But that's what they're doing. So when things open up the vitamin either Obama ministrations, um decided again Part of the calculus here of why we rushed in despite and and flooded.
This gold rush. Joe was there. She remembers what it was like. It was insane. We just like the number of World Bank I am f. You know, EU Development USA. I'd defeated I'll say Norway, all of them, just like it was insane. It was I I I don't overstate it to say that it was insane. All these people coming in with their technical assistance and their toolkit and all of this stuff and overwhelming civil society, overwhelming the Burmese. Meanwhile, China's just chugging along, doing what they do. Identifying an interest and doing whatever they need to do to accomplish it, And we're like.
All over the place. They did have a bump in Burma, where the Burmese government canceled a big dam project or suspended a big dam project. China got mad at first, They blame the United States for it when it was really misunderstood that the Burmese people really wanted this, um, project canceled but instead of but after their initial kind of pouting about it They went to work. They started taking NLD members on study tours of China, They started taking ethnic leaders on study tours of China. They stopped just paying attention to the government and started paying attention to all these civil society.
People. Meanwhile, we, the West, who had spent decades supporting civil society, providing support to them outside of the country inside of the country, supporting the NLD and their fight for democracy. All our attention is being paid to the government people in Naypyidaw, and we're kind of half way, paying a little bit of attention to the civil society and the ethnics and and China's focused on them like a laser beam. We've like basically done everything possible wrong in Burma that we could China has done basically what for their own interests makes sense. But it's also been a disaster for the Burmese.
People. Today, Burma is back under military rule directly. There is a massive civil war going on. You cannot not blame China for part of it because of their willingness to back the military at all costs and their willingness to ignore human rights and democracy, current concerns, But you also cannot not blame us because we did the same thing. We tried to sort of do a China light approach where we have some concerns about human rights and democracy and freedom. But really at the end of the day, if we could get our companies in there on the ground if we could, you know, get Get our military talking to.
Their military and address our geopolitical concerns. We were much more focused on doing those things and we were on What did the Burmese people want? What do they need? And so we were continually surprised by what the Burmese people wanted. And what did they need? Because we never really bothered to ask them. At least our government didn't so there's a lot that you can learn from this context, I think, and I think it's a very good illustration of how we misunderstand and and misunderestimate to use a good George. W. Bush word what it is our partners want, mostly because we don't ever ask or listen to.
Them when, when? When they try to tell us. It also shows that we don't always articulate ourselves or even show a lot of fidelity and belief in this idea that freedom is essential to prosperity. We go around the world, saying this and acting in a completely different way. That and and we don't. We fail to acknowledge that our principles, our superpowers, and instead when we go around and because we put out these principles, but then we turn around and act and completely unprincipled ways on the ground. It's It's really undermines us and how we can do things and a big piece of this is that you know we.
Because we use this development industrial complex that spends a lot of time talking to itself, Building itself up and and, you know. Coming up with tool kits and jobs for you know. Graduates of elite universities in Western developed countries instead of trying to figure out what it is that people on the ground want. We miss a lot of opportunities, and we've created this system that is not only not affective in in meeting the needs of these developing countries, and it's really annoys the crap out of most Americans, taxpayers to when they see all of this stuff going on, and most most developed.
Democracy, country taxpayers to and so nobody Happy with our system, and it's not accomplishing anything for the people is supposed to accomplish for so I think we need to really start to rethink about how we're doing this and I think putting freedom back at the center of it is the very first step that we need to take. I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, So, so we've talked about Japan and Burma and China Doctor show Jerry. Let's talk a little bit about South Korea, Republic of Korea, and so can you touch on US Republic of Korea Japan relations and Obviously, Korea's doing great on the.
Index. Yes. Thank you very much. So I think the recent development of the trilateral relationship is remarkable. We had the Camp David Summit, and afterwards we had several rounds off ministerial level, working level and development in the economic security area as well. And I thank God. Prime Minister Kishi ERA is coming to D. C in April, but before that, in March, I think it's March 20th. He's going to Seoul. And then after that, he will come to D. C. So there is a sequence there, so I believe that there are trilateral relationships that are developing. And related to the idea of forward. I think South.
Korea also develop its own Indo Pacific strategy and us also has its own in the positive strategy. They collaborate each other and which resonates with what ambassador told us about what is it that our partners want is also something that is very important. And what U S. Japan and South Korea can collaborate on. I believe there are a lot of things happening in the Logical level and also the implementation station level, which obviously needs more time to develop. But I think one of the fields that they are working on and that I focused on is economic security.
Area that sustainability and economic um Security and how to deter economic coercion in the region is one of the topics that I'm very interested in in in terms of this trilateral relationship. Thank you very much. Johanna. So you mentioned that your portfolio includes 23 countries. So, um, what other models? Can you offer the audience that work or absolutely failing? Well, I mean, I actually was wanting to pick up on what Kelly was talking about. Because, you know, I think the ways in which we you know, we as the U. S really need to rethink how we are approaching the countries with which with whom.
We want to partner. The countries who we see as allies or at least a strategic partners really needs a rethink, and I would throw out Indonesia as a case that deserves that sort of warrants attention, because you know this is a place where I think the U. S. Has has has really not done a very good job of understanding what making an effort to understand what it is that Indonesians are looking for from the relationship and understanding where Indonesia is in itself. I mean, this is a country that You know all the superlatives right? It just had the.
Largest single day election in the world. It's the largest Muslim majority country is the third largest democracy, right? It is also geo strategically, incredibly important, just because of the size of its economy, but also because of its location. Um, you know when Kelly was talking about sort of the way in which China has been Making its inroads in in Burma because of the work it has put in to building relationships. We see very similar patterns in Indonesia, where you know the CCP has been taking people to, you know, on party exchanges to Beijing. They have been buying up the media space and ensuring.
That there is they have influenced through various channels in that way, And I think our approach unfortunately has been. You know, Indonesia is a democracy. Indonesian people put tremendous amount of investment of themselves into Their democracy. Um, and at a certain point sort of, I don't know. Kelly was sort of like in the mid 220 tens. I think the US essentially said Well, Indonesia's done where it's like it's a democracy and we don't we don't need to engage with it in the same way and that that's fine. But I think Indonesian people, Indonesian stakeholders were still struggling and what's happened over the last.
Decade. Has been an erosion of the democratic institutions that Indonesian people worked so hard and fought so hard to sustain, and that's where you know, I do think. It warrants that larger rethink that Kelly was talking about. How are we approaching these kinds of partnerships? And if we're leading with our values, which we should? What does that look like, in a context of understanding where our partners what they need from us and how we can cooperate with them. I know it My time at the Export Import Bank of 2019 to 2021 worked really hard to stand up a new program called China and Transformational.
Experts Exports, Congress gave him the ability to match the rates, terms and conditions that the Chinese Communist Party was offering to a foreign buyer of made in the USA goods or services We wanted The world of buy American Not we know we make the best goods in the world. But that's also important for freedom and in many ways, and one of the technologies that we focused on was something that Danny Gray also worked on at the State Department through something called the Deal team with Undersecretary Keith Krach, and that was on technology such as five G. And worked really hard with the prior leadership.
In Indonesia and other key countries and what's happening on this. This this world of technology. I was frustrated to see the Solomon Islands sign up the Chinese Communist Party's five G system instead of America's last year, But what do you see on the technology front? Well, I think again. It's not that they have better tech. They have cheaper tech. That's for sure. And they subsidize the heck out of it so that it's it's stays cheaper, and we can't compete on the price. We can only compete on quality and we can only compete on wrapping it around.
It's gotta. You know, we've got to come in with not just here's the tech, but it's the wraparound services. If you look at a lot of the projects that China has done in the past 10 years on the belt and road, One of the things that we keep seeing is that they put the Come in with a lot of pledges and a lot of fanfare, and they build something and then it sits there and they forget to train people on how to operate it if they don't have a maintenance budget for how to keep it up and the the and it falls apart. And so all of these things, I mean again. China's learning, They're not standing still,.
They are figuring out what they're doing wrong and taking steps to correct it. And so you've seen this with the belt and road. How they have like, said We're going to have higher quality. Um, you know Higher quality projects now, but that's a direct Reaction to what we were doing. Where were you lean into quality, and we lean into higher standards to force a change in their behavior, which I think was really important part of what was done by Dan and Keith Krach and others. I was on a trip with Keith Krach to end but it's also something we can't just do by ourselves. And this is for our partners.
In Japan are partners in South Korea are partners in Taiwan. I went with Keith on a trip to Taiwan, where we were talking. King about what ultimately became the chips Act and building the fab in Arizona and then how hard it was and continues to be. You know, we're still resolving tax issues for the Taiwanese. We make it hard on ourselves and a lot of ways. And part of that is that we don't have a good way to explain. You know, we need to make sure that what we're doing is just as understandable to somebody in Tulsa as it is to somebody in Taipei that it's just, you know, there's some money in Des Moines.
And somebody in Dushanbe can clearly understand what it is. We're doing why we're doing it and what they're going to get from it like we don't do that. We don't even try most of the time. We're so technocratic and so talking to ourselves about this stuff all the time. I mean, I I love the fact that there is a platform called Dave X. That is literally like the in house news organ of the development community, but That's also kind of a horrifying thing. You read it, and it's like Just it. Does everybody know about this stuff? I mean, it's really wild, but we're doing and how we don't do a great job. Technology.
Is our friend. In that way. We can use it to help explain what we're doing better, but it also becomes a lazy default where we think if we put something out there, that means that that's done like we tweet it, and that's it. It's like, no, You can't tweet it and forget it. You actually have to really make more of an effort to explain to our own taxpayers and are developed democracies. Who are the donors funding the stuff. And to the people who are meant to be the beneficiaries. What it is we're doing, but we've also got to become much more ruthless about getting rid of the stuff that doesn't work. We can't just keep.
This stuff around because it works 10 years ago or 20 years ago. We've got to look at this and say Is it fit for purpose? Is it doing what we wanted to do? And if it's not, then we need to dump it and get rid of it. And we don't have the luxury of keeping around legacy projects and institutions that are not fit to purpose. In the world that we live in now in the competition that we're facing today. I could just jump in the technology piece to pick up on that. Kelly was saying, I think the other layer of technology is, of course, the use the export by China of surveillance technologies.
Into countries across the Indo Pacific and again going back to really needing to both work with countries work with our partners to help build and understanding of What are the risks? What? What? What are they getting when they bring these technologies in, But I think also listening to people right, listening to the concerns of civil societies in the countries in which these things are being brought in. What are the concerns about privacy? What are their concerns about access to information and are there ways that we can be constructive and helpful in ensuring that the free the free space the space for Free.
Exchange, the space for Free association can continue to exist? But I thought Damon made her really good point. This morning about how We're happy to give all our data to an accountable corporate entity. But we're very protective of the government having our data and then in other contacts, you know it's the opposite. And I think you know the Europeans have a different system. And then China is out there marketing model that's very attractive to your average country, developing or not, And I think that we've got to be conscious of how our own policy decisions domestically and the way that we think about data.
Protection and all of and privacy. Impact. How we then go out in the world and sound crazy when we're like, Yeah, you should do what we do with the social media and the people are like, Yeah, No, thanks. That's terrible. Yeah, good jump in a little bit that they cannot be. Closure is somewhat close to the technology, field and economy field. And I think there are studies in Australia and Germany that is done that the China's coalition cases there has been more than 100 cases over the last 10 years. How to deter those is one of the core. I feel that we can work on together as U. S. Japan and South.
Korea and other countries, and I think that's where we need to work on it with the freedom and prosperity in mind as well. Well not received any questions yet again, ask dot org. You've just got a few seconds to send it in. But we'll watch the screen here and to close this out quickly love just three suggestions from each of you on what all of the countries in the Indo Pacific region should be doing. To move up their freedom and prosperity. Scores in the index What are your recommendations? I mean, I think I'd pick up on the things we've been talking about a partnership. You know, I think that the.
The the learning that can be done when we're actually really making the effort to understand where where these countries are coming from and what their needs are, and I think, particularly with our colleagues from Japan, Um you know, Japan and Korea and the opportunity that's there for these democracies in Taiwan to be taking More of a leadership role in helping in helping bridge. Some of these these these connections and partnerships, I think is going to be very important. And I m ah I agree. Um more can't agree more. But I think the important phrase that from Kelly is that what is it that our partners want.
That struck out to me as well. And in my opening remarks, I said that it is the second approach and advise you that we need to build on and that's something that we need to do. And I believe that is one of the important things. And I think the study like Atlantic Council's doing about the relationship between freedom and prosperity. I think that matters and the power of those studies and academic world also matters in politics as well. So I thank for Atlantic Council and thank you for being here is pretty straightforward Women if you look at the region and you.
Disaggregate out the growth over the past 20 years The biggest contributor, and I wrote the chapter on this for the book, the map. If women's economic participation had not grown the way it has in the Indo Pacific region, growth would essentially be flat across the region. I was stunned, and I was the U. S ambassador at large for global women's issues, and I was stunned to see this in the data because I figured education, healthcare improvements, regulatory environment improvements that would have more It was women's workforce participation boom. That is it. It's like a huge, huge.
Key. China's going in the opposite direction. They're trying to, you know, force women to have babies Instead of working. They're making it harder for women to work. And if you want to grow your economy, it's one word women. Yeah, well with that. I also want to say it's women and small business world. That's where they were way. So with that, let's thank our Panelists. Thank you so much and looking forward to freedom in the in the Pacific. Thank you.
