Is This the Middle Power Moment?

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: As all of you know, in his speech at Davos in January, Prime Minister Carney said, quote, the middle powers must act together because if we're not alone, we are at the table. It's not alone at the table, not at the table, pardon me. Forgive me, Minister Anand, for misquoting our prime minister. I won't tell him. My prime minister, too. If we're not at the table, we're on the menu. That was a call to action. What we want to know is what that appeal has delivered so far. Minister Anand, we haven't seen the U.K., we haven't seen Japan, we haven't seen Australia, we haven't seen Saudi Arabia, we haven't seen Brazil rush to that table. Is there a real middle power moment or, for now, just a bunch of bilateral deals that don't add up to anything collective? [00:00:56] Speaker 2: Well, it's multilateral and bilateral, but let's just call a spade a spade and start with the most important point, which is the rupture in the international order, the erasure of rules and principles upon which the world order has been operating since the end of the world order, for middle powers and others, do we want to be passive observers or do we want to step up and lead, take a leadership role and craft the new international order that is being developed as we speak? Again, Canada is taking that latter role, making sure that we execute both bilateral and multilateral deals. And I will say that the idea is to work with other countries for the benefit, not only of our strategic autonomy, but for shared values and so the idea is coordinated leverage, making sure that we have that ability to work together for our domestic economic resilience, and to uphold international rules, and I'll just look at the G7 alliance coming out with the buyers club for critical minerals, stabilizing supply chains for critical minerals. So the idea is it's very positive in the sense that there's work we can do together internationally to further strategic autonomy. And the final point I'll just make, it's for us, for Canada, it's not just about working with middle powers. It's also about furthering our domestic economic resilience. It's also about diversifying trade relationships. And so working with middle powers is part of a broader foreign policy package. [00:03:07] Speaker 1: So you would argue, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but let me say then, are you making the case that it is delivering results beyond Canada's own interests? [00:03:21] Speaker 2: Yes. And the work we will continue to do to double non-U.S. trade over the next 10 years is founded on those agreements that I mentioned. In fact, if you add in security and defense agreements, that's over 20 in the last year alone. So that's tangible evidence. But this is a long-term strategy also. And again, bring it back to the vacating of the premises by global hegemons, the increased protectionism of the United States. And the question being posed to middle powers and countries alike, regardless of how you choose your nomenclature, is do we want to be passive observers or are we going to shape the international order? And Canada wants to lead with other powers. [00:04:14] Speaker 1: Kevin and Rishi, as representatives, if you will, of two other middle powers, let's call them, do you agree? Is it delivering tangible results? And as the minister says, it is a binary choice between being passive or active? [00:04:29] Speaker ?: Kevin, do you want to? [00:04:29] Kevin: You're the senior middle power. The whole idea of middle powers in the world is not new. If you look at the San Francisco conference when we shaped the order in '45, most of the middle powers back then, including India, including Canada, including Australia, were there in the active drafting of the provisions of the UN Charter and the subsequent arrangements. So this wasn't just an Atlantic Charter US-UK deal. It was much wider than that. Secondly, there have been various efforts of what have been called over the years, creative middle power diplomacy. And now we are opposed to Mark Carney's speech at Davos this year, looking at what it means in the current geopolitical context. I think just two or three quick facts. One is nothing happens in the world unless you have critical mass. We can have wonderful ideas. Jai, you and I have had wonderful ideas over the years. And we had critical mass too. And we added critical mass. You had both the mass and the criticality, by the way. We Australians were just there to provide the drinks. But the bottom line is this. You can have a concept of order, which is supplemented through the agency of other powers, on the condition that it is not just a good idea. But the between us, we actually have leverage and heft to bring to the table. So you do the maths across the democracies of Europe, the major ones. Take the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy. Take the major democracies of Asia, leading with Japan, leading with India, leading with Korea, ourselves. Take Canada. You aggregate that. You're quite rapidly at a point where the combined GDP is much larger than that of the United States. And frankly, the combined GDP is much larger than that of China. So if you have that as your organising principle, which is there is a critical entity here among the other democracies. And the question is, do you have the political will through which to deploy that leverage in trade and investment flows and in capital markets and across the usual list of other levers of power? On the trade question, if we do face increasingly protectionist America, and we're being pragmatists about what happens in '28, even under Democrats, does it remain protectionist? Let's just put that on the table. Then how does the rest of the world organise itself for the future? And so therefore, one of the ideas which we should explore with each other, and has already been happening at one level, Britain becoming a member of the TPP, for example, Trans-Pacific Partnership, how has that broadened out to the European Union joining with the Trans-Pacific Partnership? How has it further broadened out again, maybe with India? Now, then you're starting to talk about a combined economic entity, which would cause both Beijing and Washington to say, hold the phone, and something real is happening here at scale. Last point, it's just the institutions of the multilateral order, which Anita spoke of before. These are of critical importance and are being debilitated by US withdrawal. Well, trade organisation, despite the fact that 90% of the world's trade is still done under WTO rules. UNFCCC, climate change, guess what, the work continues to grind on, not at the pace at which we need. How do the rest of us as middle powers, frankly, provide the critical heft, both in terms of financial and policy support, to ensure that the existing machinery of the UN multilateral system continues to function as well, until America resolves what sort of country it wishes to be in the world in the future? Because this is ultimately an exercise in US domestic politics. What future does America want for itself? [00:08:32] Speaker 4: You know, I think, look, we're in this world, it's obviously, you know, multipolar. We've seen breakdown of some things that we took for granted. As a result, people are trying to diversify their relationships in one way, that one sense the world is, you know, converging on Jay's foreign policy of strategic autonomy, which some of us are waking up to in a way that he's been talking about and India's been practicing for many years. Now, having said that, you know, I'm less confident or persuaded that what we will have is one overarching middle power architectural institution. And I think what is more likely is that you get a set of overlapping mini-lateralism, right? Where are there going to be groups of countries that come together, middle powers, maybe every so often with some of the bigger ones, on a particular cause or overlapping set of interests? And I think part of the reason for that is if you just look at this stage, we're on here on a middle powers panel, we've got actually an enormous diversity, right? We've got one country that shares a very large land border with the United States. We've got two middle powers over here, both of whom have a deep and abiding security relationship with the United States, which is always going to be the foundation of everything else that Australia and the UK do, even as they look to hedge and diversify a bit. And even between us, one's a Pacific power, one's a European power. And then in India, and we're talking about middle powers panel, I think, I mean, I'm sure Jay would say this, that's probably not the right description for India, right? I don't know what you've described it, Jay. [00:10:04] Speaker 5: I'm the host, so I'm here for courtesy purposes. [00:10:08] Speaker 4: Whether it's upper middle or emerging leading, which obviously has a very different perspective. Right. So, you know, I think that diversity illustrates why it's tough that on every issue, you're going to have exactly the same set of overlapping things. [00:10:23] Speaker 2: I think there was this idea that there'd be a replacement of the current architecture with a middle power architecture. In essence, the current institutions are serving a purpose, but they, A, need reform perhaps, think of the UN, but B, there are issues like Ukraine, like Arctic security, like information technology, where middle powers coalescing. [00:10:47] Speaker 4: And that's exactly what I'm saying. So these are the examples that you get. So look at Ukraine, right? Whether it's the Coalition of the Willing or the other institutions that have formed to help with that issue. Coalition of the Willing is interesting because it's the first time there's been a real European security issue which doesn't have the US involved in the command architecture for that. So that's actually quite a significant change, right? And then Kevin mentioned CPTPP, which I would echo as well, right? Like that is the UK joining a very significant trade alliance, significantly after the US decided not to participate and now conversations with the EU. And if that comes off, you will have created something quite significant, I think, there. But that's exactly my point. You will have these issues and Jay will have the various coalitions that India is part of. And that is where I think we are heading. It's this kind of mini-lateralism where there will be different issues, where different groups of middle power countries come together in a way to support their interests and indeed work together in a way which we haven't seen before and often without the involvement of the "G2" if you want to call it that way. So that's my kind of sense of where we're heading. Exactly. Dr. Jayshankar, you are here for [00:12:00] Speaker 1: more than just courtesy. And I do want to note for those in the audience that I will be doing something that appears to be rude, which is to say checking my watch every so often. There's a reason for that. Dr. Jayshankar has to be at a cabinet meeting and has a hard stop and I want to be respectful of that. And so if you see him leave the stage at my queue, it won't be because it's a mic drop. I've had enough of this moment. It'll be because it's not it's not wise to be late. It could be. Prime Minister Modi. Yes, that option is there. I suppose that option is still on the table. Dr. Jayshankar, Rishi made a very good point. India does not like to be called or described as a middle power. Why is that? [00:12:48] Speaker 5: Okay. Let me before I come to that, you know, I would say more than middle power in a way we are powers in the middle. I mean, you have it's partly what we are today confronting when we look at the global landscape. So what what really would define a middle power? I think countries who have the ability to to use the prime minister's words, who have the power to empower. He used that yesterday. Yeah, very effectively. More domestic sense. I'm using it more in an international relations sense who have the ability to make a difference. So let's use a very loose terminology for middle power. Would India be a middle power? You know, it's a it's it's not a comfortable description, because if you are the most populous country in the world, you have a GDP of four trillion, give or take. Yeah, and you have a lot of growth ahead of you, staring you in the face. Then a middle power somehow seems to be limiting yourself by that definition. But that's not what I would really quibble about. I think the issue and and in a way what Prime Minister Carney did at Davos was he was expressing the predicament of really countries who are part of an alliance and who now find that that situation far more complicated than it has ever been before and that they would now have to often take decisions of their own or go on paths which are divergent from that of the United States or partly only partly overlapping. So the the let's not take it literally, let's take it conceptually. Conceptually, what I hear him is really arguing for the fact that the powers in the middle now need to be more active, need to deal more with each other and, you know, figure out a way of moving the needle on issues of interest to them. Now, I would say, well, some of that we already knew because in our case, we were not members of an alliance. So, you know, we've always sort of learned to be in the rain without an umbrella. But there is a there are examples. Did you get wet? Well, not where we have our own Teflon. But look, I would cite to you already examples. Now, some of them, you know, would involve already middle power. So Quad is an example. I make is an example where countries come together for a purpose. Of course, those two also have the U.S. in them. But you could have groups of countries who have and and that was Rishi's point that you're not going to get it's not like the middle powers are going to be around the table. Exactly. You know, the middle powers would now each apply their own mind, stake out their own interests, figure out their own policies and then reach arrangements with each other. [00:16:14] Speaker 1: How much I have a couple of questions to ask you, how much influence can little middle powers wield under that structure you've just described? What the prime minister, Prime Minister Carney, called different coalitions for different issues. They're not all acting as one at the same time. Can they wield real influence? Maybe if I may, I'm going to do something really dangerous, particularly with my company on stage, which is I'm going to try to invoke Dr. Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger, Kevin's going to read me later for this. But Dr. Kissinger described, if I'm not mistaken, Kevin, you know, order as requiring two preconditions. One is a generally accepted set of rules among participants. And the second is an enforcement mechanism. So let's say these countries that we're talking about, the middle powers can agree on a set of rules, even if it's the old set of rules. We like the old set of rules. We want to keep the old set of rules. What's the enforcement mechanism? That, I suppose, cuts to my question about influence. [00:17:25] Speaker 5: No, I mean, Dr. Kissinger isn't here, so we can't second guess him on that one. But I would say that he was speaking for a certain era, which has passed us by. Today, a lot of enforcement is going to come out of consensus and understandings and self-interest. You're not going to have somebody standing out there saying do it or else. So that era is behind us. We've got to understand that. [00:17:52] Speaker 2: I might just add on this very point. Enforcement in the international arena is a very ambiguous, if not vulnerable, concept. International law has long suffered from the fact that there is not an enforcement mechanism. And that's why it is so important to support the international adjudicatory institutions like the ICC, like the ICJ, because they give, to the extent that is possible, some enforcement mechanism to the principles of territorial integrity, human rights, state sovereignty, etc. So that's in response to your question. I just want to go back to what we're all talking about. We are all pragmatic in the sense that we're speaking about how do we enhance our strategic autonomy? How do we ensure that we are resilient economically in these times? But we cannot forget the role that values place places in this conversation. Values-based realism, principled pragmatism, whatever nomenclature you want to use. The idea is that there are fundamental principles or values that will motivate us as well. Canada opened a consulate in Greenland in February and stood with the Greenlandic people in Denmark to support the argument they were making about state sovereignty and their territorial integrity. That's principles. It's not just a pragmatic look at middle power groupings. And so, let's not forget there is a role that principles and values play in this conversation. Eric poses the [00:19:40] Kevin: very good fundamental question though for us all invoking Henry, the architect of all wisdom in international relations, as Henry would say in his more modest moments. He was a great guy to talk to. And that is, why order? Essentially, what's the alternative to order? It is international chaos. And if we look at the history of international relations, even in the modern era, let's say since 1500. The bulk of that period has been disorder. A very thin slice of it has been, whether we're talking about east, west, north, south, a thin slice of it has had various levels of order. People talk about the concert of Europe, to some extent, until the Franco-Prussian War. You talk about the League, well, we know what happened there, the United Nations multilateral system. Henry's thought about there being ultimately an underpinning power to give effect to the rules of the security order. It's a very realist view and can't be dispensed with, given he was speaking within a Cold War context. But on this question is, is it better for us as constructive powers, as creative powers, as middle powers, let's use whatever nomenclature we choose, to rally behind the proposition that order with rules either enforced or frankly consensually agreed is better than the alternative. I think we'd all say yes, yay and amen to that. Because frankly, we can drift in completely the reverse direction where there are no longer any rules at all. And it's simply the law of the jungle. So, what are we left with? The security domain up there, which since the beginning, we all solemnly proclaimed that the UN Security Council would be the arbitral mechanism for all questions of international peace and security. Well, yeah, if we did the history since '45, not always the case. And that wasn't just in the post-Trumpian period. Alliances have stepped into the midst of that and those in the non-aligned world exercise their own autonomy to achieve other ends. In the non-security order, which is fundamentally relevant to trade, investment, capital flows, currency markets and now the future governance of artificial intelligence, governance. There is an imperative for those of us who are constructive creative middle powers around the world, or great powers on the edge, to use our leverage as systems who have phenomenal diplomatic networks between us, phenomenal creativity between us. And then to agree on mechanisms which can enforce a global set of normative arrangements to govern these areas of activity. Otherwise, the drift towards nothingness is real. So therefore, what we do has an imperative attached to it. Please, Dr. Cheshantar. [00:22:31] Speaker 5: You know, look, I think this dichotomy of order and disorder is a false dichotomy. We are talking of order as we know it currently, with all its limitations and flaws and a different kind of order. You know, does order evolve? Are there other forces which maintain order? Now, what we saw after 1945 was a certain kind of maintenance of order in which a few, you know, one or two countries had a disproportionate capability and responsibility and benefits. Now, what we are now moving towards, because we have seen in the last few years also limits of power of, you know, we've seen conflicts initiated with very different expectation of outcomes, and they have demonstrated the limits of power. So what we now are heading towards is a different kind of order, an order where many more, let's put it this way, the shareholding is changing. The board of directors is expanding. There is a much more active shareholders discussion about where the company called Planet Earth is going. And there is a new understanding or a different understanding, may not be very neat, may not be, you know, everybody on the table, bit messy. But at the end of the day, a combination of what you inherit, self-interest, you know, some degree of what happens if it goes off the rails that concern, and that's how you evolve the order. You're still in the order zone. You're not in the disorder zone. [00:24:16] Speaker 4: Yeah. Just to take this, I think, slightly not abstract in a bad way sense, and bring it to something real, which is the economics, right? Because we're moving to a world where the foreign policy and your economic policy as a country, particularly as a middle power, but I think more generally, you know, they have converged. We used to keep these files separately, and now the world that we're in means that these things have to be treated together, and we're seeing, you know, geoeconomics come up as a term. So then the question is for a middle power, and you asked this, right, how do you have agency, right, in this world of very large scale powers who are willing to weaponize all sorts of things, but particularly in the economic sphere, what's the answer? And now, partly the answer is, as Jay and others were saying, we will form these coalitions, these networks, trade is an obvious one, where you can recreate a lot of the rules of an old multilateral architecture inside these blocks, right? Whether it's the UK and CPTPP, hopefully the Europeans becoming more involved with that, whether it's the network of trade agreements that India has signed, which is prolific, right, under, in the last four years, whatever, Jay will correct me, nine deals, you know, dozens of countries, 60 trillion dollars worth of global GDP covered. So that's one way to do it, is you create those rules and influence that way. I think the other way, though, is to remember a little bit what Lee Kuan Yew said about Singapore, when he talked about the big fish eating the small fish and the small fish eating the shrimps. And he was thinking about what will Singapore's path going to be in that world, and it was, well, we have to make ourselves a poisonous shrimp. And what does that mean in today's world economically? Whilst these middle powers, you know, they can't be independent, they can't operate at the scale of the big ones, what they can do is make themselves indispensable, right? And the Dutch are a great example, right? This critical infrastructure that we're building in AI on semiconductors, you know, the Dutch have the machine, and only the Dutch have the machine that makes those things. Germany, the only country that has the optics and the lasers that go into that supply chain. Korea, right, provides the bulk of the memory chips. Japan has all the chemicals that go into these filaments, and you can go on. So, you know, for if you're a middle power, finding those ways that you can make yourself indispensable. Become a choke point. Become a choke point. And again, it can be in technology, it can be in other areas. I think provides a kind of strategy for protection in this world. An insurance policy, if anything. An insurance policy, leverage, because look, you have to make your way, right? That is the world that we are in. We might wish it away, we can't. So then the question is, how do you protect yourselves and ensure your place at the table? You started with Mark's phrase, right? You know, that is how you make sure you have a seat at the table, that you can't be eaten like the little shrimp. It's because you bring something to the table that everyone else needs and wants. And you don't have to provide the whole buffet. You just need the one dish that is the best coffee available. That's competitive advantage. [00:27:22] Speaker 2: That's competitive advantage. And leveraging your competitive advantage to, as you say, make yourself indispensable. We call this building our strategic stocks. In essence, looking at AI and tech, looking at energy, looking at food supply, looking at financial market systems, and transactions, and making sure that we are leveraging our capabilities, our capacity in these areas. The one thing I think is important, at least from a Canadian perspective, and I would like other middle powers to grab onto this idea as well, is that we will never utilize our competitive advantages as a weapon. We will never weaponize agriculture and agri-food. We will not weaponize our competitive advantage in energy. We will use that for the good. We will ensure that we are cooperating with other middle powers in order to ensure that that international system is built on top of existing [00:28:29] Speaker 1: multilateral. Dr. Jayshankar, before you have to leave, any last thoughts you'd like to share with us? [00:28:35] Speaker 5: No, I think, actually, we're pretty much agreed. So, which is that at the end of the day -- [00:28:43] Kevin: I'm still struggling with the concept of a poisonous shrimp. [00:28:45] Speaker 2: Okay. Or I'm struggling with the board of directors being part of the world. Dr. We agreed on that. I'm still terrified by what we should say. [00:28:54] Speaker 5: Yeah, here's the point. I'm glad you used that word -- I mean, that phrase "choke point" -- because it's not just a world of middle powers. It's also, today, a world of choke points. And, you know, the tendency to weaponize -- I mean, we tend to think of red earths as an example. But the fact is, even finance is a choke point. I mean, sanctions is a choke point. I mean, people are weaponizing their grip on finance or on banking. The U.S. dollar. Yeah. So, the point, I think, is we are moving to a world where the competition is going to be, to some degree, who has what to bring to the table. And then, deals among them, saying, you know, you do this, I do this, let's develop this together, let's trade this for each other. So, as I said, it will be at the end -- you know, what's an order, finally? It's a table. So, the table will exist. That's the order. People will come to that in different ways, with different things to bring to the table. Their behavior around the table will change. Who will talk, how loudly, and who will sit next to whom will also change. But I still think we should not have a, you know, a sort of a pessimistic view about this process of change. This process of change was happening. You know, it's just taken turns which we may not have anticipated. [00:30:28] Kevin: If I could bolt on just one idea, though, to what both Jay and colleagues have said, both Anita and Rishi, and that is, each has spoken their own different ways about lifting our national stocks based on our own comparative advantage. In Australia's case, you know, we are the periodic table on critical minerals, rare earths. It would never cross our mind to block the supply of that mind or refine to any partner in the world. But here is the difference. We can leverage our national stocks. We've all got them in one way or another. The question at stake here via the order, taking Jay's concept, it's not an ultimate binary between order and disorder, that there are grades of new emerging order, is whether we, constructive powers, creative powers, middle powers, can construct orders which are then accessible to others beyond our national interest and, in fact, involving smaller powers as well. [00:31:24] Speaker 5: This is where I violently disagree and leave. [00:31:29] Speaker 1: Thank you, sorry for this. We are going to continue here. Dr. Jay Shankar, thank you so much. [00:31:39] Kevin: Kevin, continue. So I'm still wrestling with the poison shrimp. So the whole question is, we can do this nationally, Canada can do it, the United Kingdom can do it, we can do it in different ways, because we've all got different equities you bring to the table. But the question about orders, or orders within the order, and they can be compatible with global rules, as someone suggested before, for example, on trade, is, are we therefore mindful of how we construct these arrangements? Which are accessible to a much wider group of nation states? In other words, not just the rest of the so-called middle power confraternity or consorority, but smaller states. And that is in part, you know, Lee Kuan Yew's point as well. And given the predisposition currently, which exists in the United States on the economic agenda, then I think there's also a responsibility to head in this direction, because we do not know the future destination point of the American body politic. Someone raised the G2 question before. I think this is grossly overblown. In reality, I've just come back from Beijing last night. I've been there for four or five days. I now live in the United States. Frankly, the reality of a G2 agenda emerging between China and the United States is close to zero. If you look at the fundamental strategic differences, the ongoing strategic competition between them. The question is, while all that unfolds, how do the rest of us sustain our interests, Anita's point, our values, in various plurilateral arrangements, which also have a wider table around the order, and not just ourselves? [00:33:19] Speaker 1: And to that point, Kevin, ladies and gentlemen, I'd love it if you pulled out your phones and participated in a poll. So we're going to show you the polling question on the screen in a moment. Here it comes. What should middle powers prioritize in a more fragmented world? As you can see, strengthening their own domestic security, reducing external economic dependencies, acting as a block to shape global decisions, or preserving the freedom to align issue by issue. We have heard varieties of all four of these in the course of this conversation. So we would love your perspective. Rishi, I'm going to come back to you for a moment, because you said a few moments ago that it was important to get real. And I think this offers us an opportunity to get real on an important issue to your country, which is this. Last month, Ursula von der Leyen floated a novel idea, associate membership in the European Union, and she proposed Canada as the first candidate. Now, we all know that associate membership may never become a thing. You know as well as anybody sitting here how difficult it is to get 27 member states to agree on anything. But if it were to become [00:34:36] Speaker 4: a thing, should it become a thing for the United Kingdom? Well, it's hard to it's hard to answer that without knowing what it means. And I think straight away, actually, I think the Canadians dismissed the idea. So I'm not sure how much legs it is. But what, you know, what I would say is, look, you know, we may have left the EU, but we're obviously still a European nation with a huge amount of overlapping interests. And you can see that most clearly in Ukraine, right? You don't have to be an associate member of the EU or a full member of the EU in order to work closely with our European partners on this issue, which is dominating every single capital in Europe. And the coalition and the willing that we talked about with an enormous amount of UK leadership in that is an example of that. But I also don't think you have to be part of the EU in order to thrive in this world that we've been discussing. And again, just to look at the UK and how it's used that flexibility to grapple with the issues that we've been talking about on this panel. Well, it's building a next generation fighter jet with Japan and Italy. We've talked about the coalition of the willing. I need to mention that the high north, that's something the UK has an interest in. So we're a lead nation in something called Jeff, which puts all those nations together. And I remember leading that summit up in Sweden on the issues that we were confronting there some years ago. CPTPP, we've talked about. India trade deal, we've talked about. AUKUS, another good example, right? Australia and the US and the UK coming together, not just on submarines, but actually to share technology in an advanced way amongst these three countries. And Kevin did sterling work, you know, supporting and arguing for this deal in DC during his time there. So, you know, I've just listed, you know, half a dozen different things that the UK has been able to do to strengthen its set of economic and security partnerships, none of which rely on EU membership, some of which involve members of the EU. But I think that demonstrates a way for a middle power to operate in this new world. And I think that is ultimately, as we've been discussing, which is a mix of, you know, mix of all of these things. But I think there's no reason that you have to be part of a big block to thrive, right? I think that ultimately, you know, Canada, Australia, the UK, all of us are able to provide security and prosperity for our citizens, you know, without being a formal member of a big block, as long as we are being agile about the relationships and partnerships that we [00:37:09] Speaker 1: form. Before we wrap up with a final question, the poll results are in. Shall we see what they show us? Here they come. They're still coming. I'll take this opportunity to ask one last question of our panelists. We've spent. Oh, there we go. Okay. You should be able to see it on some of these screens. Oh, here we are. Good. Acting as a block to shape global decisions comes out first and then preserving the [00:37:45] Kevin: freedom optionality, effectively. It shows our audience are actually deeply realist about the whole overriding question of realism. Yes. And that is leveraged. Collectively, we have a voice. The democracies of Asia, the democracies of Europe have a voice. And collectively, they have muscle. The question which I think this reflects is, how do we deploy it? In a series of orders, with others around the table as well, which is still compatible with the principles inherent in the multilateral world space system. [00:38:15] Speaker 1: So here's our last question to all three of our panelists. We've spent the better part of an hour talking about middle powers. Does this talk of middle powers go away once Donald Trump has left [00:38:25] Speaker 2: the White House? Minister Anand. If you look at U.S. foreign policy pre-Trump 2.0, you will notice that under Biden as well, there was increased protectionism. So the answer to your question is... No, this is the direction of the problem. It does not go away. And we should see our trade diversification, our middle power strategy, our work on strategic autonomy as a long-term plan to ensure domestic economic and security resilience. I will just say, since we're in India, we as a country, Canada, had work to do to ensure we had stable, elevated relationships with countries around the world, including India, the sixth largest economy in the world at $4 trillion. And to see this bilateral relationship beginning to flourish is part of the work that we're doing to ensure that we're working with countries around the world with whom we have not, at least in the recent past, been working with. [00:39:41] Speaker 1: All I can give you, Kevin and Rishi, is a yes or no to that answer because we have run out of time. After you. Uh, yes. We will. We will no longer be talking about it. Oh, no, we will be talking about it. [00:39:51] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you talk about President Trump. I think it is more a symptom than a cause of the change in the geopolitical environment. And all these issues will be relevant. You know, the COVID shock, supply chains, the war in Ukraine, energy impact, all of these things have nothing to do. Add up to where we are today. And all of those things have nothing to do with President Trump. All of those things are also indicative of this new environment we're in and why we're all reacting in the way that Anita described. [00:40:17] Kevin: Yeah. And I would add a yes to the remaining three musketeers on this question. Um, and that's because we are looking at 2,000 pound gorillas out there, China and the United States, whose view of the future order, um, is not necessarily always aligned with what animates, I think, these countries that we've been describing, which is a set of democratic principles, open politics, open societies, open economies. These are quite precious values that we've evolved over quite a long period of time. And therefore giving that effect through, let's call it a democratic economic union, point three in the poll, actually I think has some merit for us collectively to explore, exercise, leverage and then do. [00:41:01] Speaker ?: Thank you.