Can America and China Avoid a Collision?

good evening I'm John cotesworth Provost of the University and it's my pleasure to welcome you here to the George W ball lecture to be presented this evening by Professor Kishore Milani on what may be the crucial issue for the future of our fragile planet can America and China avoid a collision a topic about which some simple-minded publications have appeared in the last year we're hoping for a correction first the word about George ball George ball as you may recall served as US Undersecretary of State from 1961 to 1968 and briefly as um US ambassador to the United Nations his service in these posts was marked by vigorous and lonely descent which he did not make public until much later from the Johnson administration's escalation of US military involvement in Vietnam he also dissented in both the Kennedy and Johnson administration's from ill-considered aspects of US policy toward the Soviet Union and in the Middle East through the generosity of a farsighted and anonymous donor the George W ball adjunct professorship was created at sefa in 2009 the ball professorship enables sefa to seek out and recruit outstanding and far-sighted individuals who combined experience as principal international practitioners and innovative thinkers on international issues it falls to the ball professor to deliver each year's all lectureship I can think of no one whose views on us Asian relations need to be heard in this country more than those of this year's George W a ball professor Kishore mobile Bonnie and it gives me great pleasure therefore to turn the microphone over to Cephas Dean Merritt Jane out to introduce him [Applause] well good evening everyone and thank you all for joining us for this important George Ball lecture it's probably our most one of our most important lectures here at Seba and as mentioned by the Provost was established in 2009 to support an adjunct faculty member who had demonstrated really remarkable leadership and innovative contributions George ball's principled and farsighted dissents from cold war orthodoxies especially the early stages of u.s. involvement in vietnam really established him as an exemplar of reasoned and loyal opposition during a period when pressures of conformity were very much upon him and as his New York Times obituary noted he was perhaps best known as an early and consistent opponent of American involvement in Vietnam in fact I was looking over the George ball record and one of our alumni had written a very good book about him and he produced a a 67 page single-spaced memo questioning the u.s. policy in Vietnam that he presented to the National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy in the hope of influencing President Johnson and his clear-headed and rigorous analysis was not heeded he was not an Asian estándar ground when he wrote those words and of course Vietnam was not the end of his influence or impact on u.s. foreign policy in fact it wasn't his main focus his real focus in fact he thought Asia was a distraction for a better US focus on Europe in an interesting I think symmetry with tonight's focus on the United States and China George Balch contended that communist China was overrated as a menace and its existence should be accepted forthrightly he indeed favorite expanded trade with China and UN membership so that's an interesting collection of George Paul's own thoughts previous holders of this appointment have included mari pangestu former minister of trade and creative industries for indonesia jorge Castaneda foreign minister of foreign affairs from Mexico les Gelb and others and tonight were really honored to have with us ambassador professor Kishore ma Bhavani to deliver this lecture and to be with us this semester as noted he is simply one of the leading thinkers and scholars on contemporary Asia and Asia relations with the world with a remarkable and distinguished service as both a diplomat a scholar and an author he had an extraordinary career with the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004 as the diplomat postings in Cambodia Malaysia Washington New York and indeed two stints as Singapore's ambassador to the United Nations and indeed as president of the UN Security Council for a period as well he was permanent secretary at the foreign ministry and the founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore which I'm pleased to note SEPA has had as part of our network of public policy schools a partnership with the Lee Kuan Yew school and we have a wonderful flow of students going back and forth currently ambassador ma blue Bani serves as a senior advisor and professor in the practice of public policy at the National University and concurrently serves on a number of boards and councils around the world his books and articles have appeared in numerous publications foreign affairs foreign policy Washington quarterly one of his early books I particularly like the title Ken agents think it was very provocative and his newest book which is about to come out is titled has the West lost it so I think he's not afraid to challenge us in his thinking he's been awarded many recognitions listed as one of the top intellectuals of the world received numerous honorary degrees and tonight he will speak to us about us-china relations please join me in welcoming Kishore mah Blue Bunny Thank You Jon Thank You meryt for this very generous introductions and let me say it's really a great pleasure to be here in Colombia amongst so many young old friends in the room as you know I lived in New York for ten and a half years and probably the new york city is my second home and so it's a great pleasure that after i stepped down as dean i got this invitation from colombia to be the george ball adjunct professor here and of course i i've chosen a rather challenging topic as john said but in doing so I want to mention that I'm going to try and observe the spirit of George ball in my remarks as you said he was a great dissenter so I may also be crossing some red lines it might comments today but I hope you'll forgive me that I for doing so in the spirit of George ball now of course the question that I've chosen to address this as as John said is really the biggest question of our time what is going to be the relationship within the world's number one power the United States and the world's number one emerging power China and as I will describe later there's growing pessimism about what's going to happen I think the conventional wisdom now is that there's more likely to be a collision than not so the goal of my remarks today which I hope to actually develop into a book which I hope will have equally propagated title and so what I'm going to share with you basically or some preliminary thoughts my ideas I'm working on and I would of course since I see so many good friends yeah I hope that all of you will come back to me some feedback to it but this is how I propose to sort of organize my remarks I'll give a three-part answer to the question can China and America avoid a collision in part 1 I'll talk about the global context in which we are operating in because the global context obviously influences the relationship within China and America and then I'll talk about the impact of this global context on China and America and I would like to conclude by giving some some sort of practical advice to both China and America on how to avoid the impending collision so let me let me begin by talking about the global context and yeah I'm going to take the perspective in the sense of a future historian someone in the year 2100 looking back at 2018 and what would he see in our world today and frankly what the future historian would see is the exact opposite of what is a contemporary wisdom especially in the West and as you know in the West there's a tremendous amount of pessimism about the world where we are heading and so on so forth but actually from the perspective of a future historian he or she will see clearly that the human condition has actually never been better and indeed in this book that which by the way technically is not launched yet he'll be launched in London in April called has the West lost it this is what I say in it and this actually describes that great how much our world has progressed I say imagine a world where virtually no human being goes to bed feeling hungry or where absolute poverty has all but disappeared where every child gets fascinated and goes to school where every home has electricity where every human being carries some kind of smartphone giving him or her access to unlimited troves of information right such a world will be considered as one that borders on utopia but that's where we are today in study after studies will show you that we have done a far greater job by a better job reducing violence Steven Pinker's documented this it from Arvin as he said we have gone from 65 thousand deaths per year in the 1950s to less than 2000 per year today and others have note that in 1800 there were 120 million people in the world that could read and write today they're 6.2 billion people with the same skill and let me just quote and we just want code from Johan Novick of the Cato Institute he said if someone had told you in 1990 that over the next 25 years world hunger were declined by 40% child mortality would have an extreme poverty would fall by 3/4 so you'd have told him they were naive fool but the naive fools were right and I want to emphasize that by 2030 global poverty is going to go down to virtually zero so there has been a tremendous upliftment of the human condition and why has this happen I can say very very simply that at the end of the day the Western project has succeeded because one of the goals of the West's always was to share is best practices it's wisdom with the rest of the world and they have spread and I and I've said that there are seven pillars of Western wisdom that explain Asia's rise I mean seven plus things like free market economics mastery of science and technology the culture of pragmatism culture peace rule of law education all these things are spreading around the world and then the net result is that the the human condition is improving and a large part of their courses are due of other is due because of the performance of the two most populous countries in the world China and India and here again a future historian would say well that's not surprising from the year one to the year 1820 the two largest economies in the world were always those of China and India it's only in the last two hundred years that China and India went down so it's perfectly natural to go back to a world where China and India become number one and number two and that's going to happen by 2050 and the latest and United States will be number three and people say hey that's a normal world that has come back so clearly we should be celebrating but as you all know we're not and the question is why not well there are many reasons for that but one reason for that of course is that as a result of the tremendous outstanding performance of China the power balance between China and America has shifted dramatically and I can tell you this the future historian be very surprised how fast this has happened now actually I was thinking of putting up some slides I thought is better if I just give you just two statistics to remember to show you how fast the relative balance has shifted one statistic is in PPP terms purchasing power parity terms one statistic in what they call nominal market economy terms so in PPP terms in 1980 China's share of the global GNP was 2.2 percent 1980 United States share was 25 percent more than ten times larger than that of China's but by 2014 and even the so few people notice in PPP terms China became number one America became number two and no one paid attention because everybody was paying attention to the nominal GNP figures but actually the change in the nominal GNP figures even more is even more astounding and is a much more recent in the year 2000 in market economy terms China's America's GNP was eight times that of China's eight times 2000 by 2015 it was 1.6 times from eight times to 1.6 times in 15 years and by 2025 or even earlier possibly China's GNP in nominal terms will also become bigger and of course this changes everything right China will no longer behave in the same way that it did with the United States when it has a bigger economy it's one thing when your economy is 10% or 15% it's another thing when your economy is bigger and of course this has clearly raised a lot of alarm bells and here I must say I'm actually astonished by the number of senior American figures who keep speaking in louder and louder voices saying China is becoming a threat the word threat is used very frequently I just let me just give you three or four examples in September last year B CNN says America's top military officers General Joseph Dunford told Congress and I quote I think China probably poses the greatest threat to our nation by about 2025 right and he says China's military modernization targeting capabilities with the potential to degrade core US military technological advantages and of course you've heard of the statement by general mattis the he built on the u.s. DoD report in January 2018 last month and said we said that the to us rivals Russia and China are actively seeking to co-op or replace the free and open order that has enable global security and prosperity since World War two and general mattis had a great power competition not terrorism is now the primary focus of u.s. national security and then you had the head of CIA Mike Pompeo saying 18 days ago 21 days ago don't exist January he told the BBC that the Chinese efforts to exact covert influence over the West's just as concerning as Russian subversion and then the FBI director said On February 13th eight days ago he says one of the things that we're trying to do is to view the China threat it's not just a whole-of-government threat but a whole of society threat on their end and I think it's gonna take a whole or Society response from the United States to deal with China this is all very senior figures and then of course you have the economists coming out a few weeks ago predicting that there'll be war and you of course you have the best-selling book by Graham Allison saying war is more likely between United States and China so the question therefore is what's driving this pessimism about China because if you look at Chinese behavior the Chinese have given no indications that the marshalling great forces out to conquer other nations or even trying to sort replace the American role in so many parts of the world China is still today fundamentally concern they what's happening in China and to the best of my knowledge does not want to step into the shoes of the United States either in the Middle East or in Eastern Europe or anywhere else but nonetheless despite that China is perceived as a threat the question is why and this is a key point I want to make I think the fundamental reason why China is seen as a threat either consciously subconsciously unconsciously by people in America and many tragic thinkers in the West is because China is succeeding despite the fact that it is not a democracy China is succeeding even though is run by the Chinese Communist Party and I think that the core is you from which this fundamental distrust Springs and so the question we need to ask therefore is there something fundamentally wrong with China not becoming a democracy should China become a democracy right and I find that this is a thing that is very much in the subtext of people's minds but that question is never discussed in full so this is what I hope to do as the core part of my remarks to try and dive down to find the deeper sources of the distrust that's there and but let me begin by emphasizing that what I'm not discussing is whether democracy is better than Chinese Communist Party rule it's very clear that democracy obviously is a better system no one's going to stand up here and argue that Oh democracy is an inferior political system that's not a question the question is whether China today would be better off if it gives up is Communist Party rule and converts overnight to become a democracy which is in some ways or another a sort of hidden wish of many people and here maybe here this is where I'm invoking the spirit of George bowl I may say that if you try to view this question objectively rationally it's not clear that China will be better off in fact in many ways China will be far worse off right and this is how I think the Chinese leaders would view this question if they were asked candidly in private they would point to several reasons why you be a disaster for China to switch his political system today I'm not talking about 30 years from now today won many of the countries that made a sudden transition to democracy in the last few decades have suffered a great deal and you can have many examples exhibit a is Yugoslavia that country broke down you all know how many people were killed how democracy led to demagogues being elected nationalism and violence and conflict the Chinese saw that activity was even more important for the Chinese they saw what happened to Russia Russia went overnight from Communist Party rule towards democracy and you know when I described you just now the how the world global conditions improving infant mortality going down life expectancy going up in Russia the exact opposite happened after the more seeking life expectancy went down infant mortality went up the economy imploded and people suffered enormous Lee and I I do know that the Chinese have studied in great detail what happened to Russia because he said hey this could happen to us too so they have seen it and they know what could happen to China and the second point is this if the Chinese view their history objectively and observe what happened in the last let's say 40 years since Deng Xiaoping launched his four modernizations exactly 40 years ago in 1978 if you look at against the backdrop of the last to 3000 years of Chinese history the last 40 years are clearly the best 40 years in the last 200 years since the opium war definitely of 1842 but even more amazingly if you view objectively the human condition of the Chinese people from the top to the bottom it's never been better in 4,000 years so the last 40 years they have delivered a human condition that the Chinese people have never ever experienced where virtually everybody goes to school where everybody has a meal and we can do an amazing number of things I can tell you when I went in 1980 for the first time the China the Beijing people couldn't choose what to wear they all wore Maoist suits right they couldn't choose where to live where to work where to study none of these choices would for that were available for them today the same Beijing which usually have only bicycles and no has got massive traffic jams used to have low buildings not only as skyscrapers and has amazing booming middle class that is big that is already today the world's largest middle class so in the last 40 years China has produced the world's largest middle class population and of course they don't enjoy many of the political freedoms clearly that Americans enjoy but I can tell you that 40 years ago no Chinese young student could go and study in any Ivy League or any other American University today over three hundred thousand do and most of them go back but when let me give an even more stunning statistic in a year in 1980 there were zero Chinese tourists going overseas zero only government officials travel it was impossible for an ordinary Chinese season to travel today a hundred and twenty million Chinese right go overseas freely an hundred and twenty million Chinese go back to China freely so I mean to go back to the old Soviet analogy this was a nation of gulags repress oppressive state why would hundred and twenty million Chinese go back right so clearly something fundamental has changed in the Chinese condition even while it's been under communist party rule so what the United says sees as a completely static picture of China still remaining under Chinese Communist Party rule is a China that has been completely transformed in the last 40 years but even other things that are even more amazing about contemporary China now as you know that theory is very clear if you don't have democracy if you don't have freedom of speech if you don't have freedom of media people cannot think they cannot innovate and they cannot become masters of world industries right now I can tell you that the Chinese people don't have the right to vote they don't have freedom of speech they run a freedom of media but they're developing the most innovative economy in the world in theory is not supposed to happen in practice is happening and I can tell you for someone like me goes to China regularly it's mind-boggling how China keeps changing year by year and I find out I come from Singapore one of the most successful states in Asia right we always thought we'll be ahead of China and that I discovered to my embarrassment that Singapore is so far behind the cost we still carry cash around no one in China carries cash everyone carries a smartphone they look at me very strangely when I produce cash what's this don't you know and when I went to give some lectures at Peking University the guy escorting me just took his phone put it on two bicycles i bicycle to my destination just for the phone you can do anything in China with a phone right and if you want a hot fried egg for breakfast at your doorstep you get it in China that kind of got a quality of innovation that they are doing it's stunning and this is not just in consumer areas I mean I don't know enough about artificial intelligence I don't know enough about super computers I don't know enough about space exploration but I do know that they made huge advances in those areas so what in theory is not supposed to happen is happening but at the same time the American perception hasn't changed and here let me read to you something it's a literal quote from the national security strategy of the United States of 2002 george w bush's administration thank you Andy Andy Nevin was my source I saw it in his class I said wow I must use this fight he's and this is what the statement says we welcome that emergence of a strong peaceful and prosperous China the democratic development of China is crucial to the future yet a quarter century of the beginning the process of shedding the worst features of the Communist legacy China's leaders have not yet made the next series of fundamental choices about the character of the state and if they say they are in China in in time China will find that social and political freedom is the only way that China can become great but China is becoming great and this statement seems so strange this is what the theory is supposed to be but the practice is completely different and so going back to the perspective of a future historian looking at American perceptions of China and insisting that China must follow the American path the future historian was scratch his head and say this is a civilization that's been around for 4,000 years it has had his ups his downs ups and downs now it's rising with great ferocity the last 40 years in the best 40 years in China's history and just at a moment when he's doing incredibly well a young 250 year-old nation is telling the 4,000 year civilization you don't know what's good for you we know what's good for you if you don't become democratic if you don't have human rights if you don't so that you will go nowhere again a future historian would be very very puzzled by this statement just looking over the long view at what China has done so clearly what I'm trying to suggest to you very delicately is that it's time for America to change its language and concepts that it uses to understand China and it is obviously what's happening in China doesn't fit Western political theory so you have a choice do you want to stick to the theory or do you want to pay attention to the facts and the facts don't fit the theory and so we have to adjust and deal with this because if you don't do it then clearly the collision cost will come because China I am almost 99.9% certain will not change his political system on the advice of the United States of America it won't it just won't it's going to keep on doing what he thinks is right for itself and the question therefore is can the United States accept this right and I here I want to add an important historical footnote that actually I must confess I just read from Grandma Allison's book the Thucydides trap book and he says many in America wish that China could be like America a way as it was rising and grandma listeners be careful what you wish for because he says in 1897 soon after Teddy Roosevelt arrived in Washington DC within ten years of Teddy Roosevelt arriving in Washington DC and he tarried as far as you know was so confident that the American Century was on the way so sure that history was on his side and he marched on and this is what he did United States declared war on Spain expelling it and acquiring Peto Rico Guam and the Philippines threatened Germany and Britain with war supported insurrection in Colombia to create Panama declared itself policemen of Western Hemisphere and asserted his right to intervene anyway United States as a rising power so grandma Allison gives some very good advice please please don't ask China to be like America as it is rising because if you're doing that you're giving the wrong advice to China so the question therefore is what is the right advice to give to China and how do we handle a situation which clearly doesn't fit into any of these perspectives and I believe there is actually a three-part solution to this question of how to handle and create a sustainable positive relationship with China between China and America there are two things that America can do and one thing that China can do on the part of America and this is an idea that comes not from me it comes from Bill Clinton and actually I discuss it in one of my books the great convergence and I heard it I heard it being said recently the dinner in the home of Michele from Gareth Evans Gareth Evans former Australian foreign minister was in a panel with Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton's advice to his fellow Americans as far as I can tell was clearly America has two choices today either you continue to strive to be the top dog forever to be number one forever or if you think you can't be number one forever why not try to create a world in which you be comfortable in when you're no longer than a born and therefore the repentance I must say sensible advice was why not create a rule space world we have more international law partnerships multilateralism and the reason for doing that the reason for creating a multilateral world is that America by slipping on the handcuffs of multilateralism on itself well then pass on the handcuffs to the next number one power which is China that's Bill Clinton's advice and I agree completely with it why doesn't America why this still number one create a world in which will be comfortable where it is no longer number one and the good news here I have to give you some good news since I've given you so much bad news is that I think China can accept a multilateral rules-based order the reason being the Chinese don't have a global plan or global vision to shape the world change double they're actually quite happy with the world that exists today China today is the biggest beneficiary of the rules-based order that America gifted to the world at the end of World War two so why should China want to change it and I can tell you I was in Davos last year in January 2017 hearing Xi Jinping speak about how China wanted to create a rules-based order and I think he meant it quite sincerely because China is everything from it and as you know I mean this is a subject of a long discussion but America's attitude to as multilateralism has always been ambivalent on the one hand is created lots of institutions IMF World Bank WTO and so and so forth on the other hand it has weakened many of these multilateral institutions so why not switch from a policy of weakening multilateralism to strengthening multilateralism and if we can create a rule space order that rule space order will lubricate the relationship between China and America and avoid a coalition I say this by the way as someone who like Josh ball was also ambassador to the UN for 10 years and I can tell you that multilateralism works when you put people together in a room you get them to negotiate you get them to agree they do reach agreements they rule they do reach conventions and then the conventions hold like the United Nations Convention the law the sea which is fundamentally holding and is still there even though the United States has not ratified it yet so that's one thing that the u.s. can do the second thing that the u.s. can do is to demonstrate the power of democracy not through preaching but through its internal behavior by showing that if you have a democratic society you outperform everybody else you produce the world's most dynamic economy you produce the best research and you produce the best political leaders right because at the end of the day the reason why I must emphasize I admire the United States I grew up as a child in control by the United States because the amazing society is done things that no other human society had done before but he was your internal performance that inspired everyone when you send someone to the moon Wow that's amazing it inspires everyone so the best way to show the power of democracy is not by talking about it is not by saying like george w bush saying that if you don't become a democracy you have failed just do it show the world that a successful democracy can outperform everybody else and by the way if it leads to a competition between China and America in the economic sphere right between your industries and Chinese industries that's good for the world economic competition is not a zero-sum game economic competition at the end of the day produces as we know better results for everyone so more economic competition between US and China in a rules-based world is a good thing and that's what the United States can do so we can do better than you it can be done you can still do it but of course I would say don't underestimate the competition from China because if you see how much they have achieved in the last 40 years put on your seatbelts the next 30 years will be even more amazing so don't underestimate Chinese economic competition and the third thing as I said what China needs to do that China needs to understand in a very deep way that it's rise its rapid rise has created concerns all over the world not just in America even in his own neighborhood in Southeast Asia where I come from there is a lot of concern and it's a natural concern imagine we are all in this room together right now as a tiny little mouse in the corner and suddenly while you're sitting in the room that Mouse becomes an elephant in the same room surely you be concerned right that's how all the neighbors of China feel it's perfectly natural and the Chinese are sometimes puzzled by that he said we haven't done anything to you we haven't sent an army to invade you we haven't taken things away from you we haven't done what Teddy Roosevelt did in 1897 why why are you so worried about us well sighs and China of course and this is not a secret has made some mistakes it has become rather assertive in its foreign policies by the same time I had a qualification it has become assertive but not aggressive and this is one thing that future historians again will compare and look back let's say that dipped in the 28 years since the Cold War ended China has not bomb one country not one how many countries is America bombed now behavior matters so if we want to ensure that China continues to not bomb countries you have to create again the logic for that not happening but I think we can persuade the Chinese that because you become so big everything you do has a mega effect so please be more careful in what you do and my sense is that the Chinese are beginning to understand that they have to be more careful in how they handle the rest of the world because they can feel the blowback that's coming so at the end of the day to conclude I would say clearly we face a big challenge in ensuring that there's no coalition within China and America but if we all make the right strategic adjustments and this is a critical point America had never ever maybe in the last 150 years had to make strategic adjustments to another power never now it's got to learn the art of making strategic adjustments it can be done and I hope it will be done thank you let me start us off with the first question but then open it up we have tremendous expertise in this room but I guess what a question I'd like to ask you is I fully understand the sense that we need to give China more space if you will in multilateral institutions to express themselves to have influence in those institutions but how is it that you imagine that those institutions would somehow better align China's own ambitions and economic practices with those multilateral norms I mean I think what what evidence do you have I mean they've joined the WTO they've made many reforms and doing so but having taken these steps what do you see is the efficacy the effectiveness of those institutions and actually playing a role going forward in bringing China more deeply into a rule-based system in fact we're seeing a lot of pressures in the United States and globally against those institutions going deeper into creating binding frameworks that bring us together well let me let me give you one concrete example of how multilateral institutions and processes have changed Chinese behavior fundamentally and this is of course in the area that is of great global importance today which is global warming and look at the two conferences that were held the Copenhagen conference that was a disaster and the Paris conference that led to agreements what was the difference between the two now up to Copenhagen China took the correct view by the way which is that global warming is happening today not just because of the new flows of greenhouse gas emissions from China and India it's also happening because of the stop of greenhouse gas emissions that has been put in the atmosphere since a Western industrial revolution so the Chinese point of view an Indian point of view and the China India as you know agreed completely on this subject was that hey if you want us to pay an economic price to reduce the flows of greenhouse gas emissions you the West must be a price for the stock and if you don't pay a price for the stock I will not pay a price for the flows and I expected the Chinese to stick to that agree because there is a legitimate argument to make and they could have just hung on to it but some are other the Chinese number one did their own studies their own study showed that China would suffer greatly from global warming number two they observed the global opinions forming on that is in that area and said okay why don't we position ourselves in a more reasonable position and then BOOM they said okay we will take on our obligations and we make a commitment to join the Paris agreements and these are hard commitments these are mean I mean you know the in terms of the economic cost they have to reduce the number of power stations they have to change the energy usage and things are there they do they did require a lot so this is a concrete example how in a sense global opinion change China's behavior on a fundamental global challenge and I have a I am considered ambassador to the UN I've actually observed that people walk into the room with very stiff national positions but after they hear all the voices in the room they human beings you know they say okay that guy has a point well he has a point she has a point maybe I should listen to that kind of thing so the process I think is a very important one and I think that Chinese clearly want to be seen I mean as you know Bob Zoellick famously call upon China to be a responsible stakeholder Chinese want to be a responsible stakeholder because they are a great beneficiaries of it but that what they want some changes to give us the obvious example is you know that since the IMF and World Bank were founded in the nineteen forty something you have a rule that says to become the head of the IMF you must be European to become the head of the World Bank must be American and that rule hasn't changed like almost 70 years now right now that rules got a goal surely out of the population of 7.3 billion people in the world you can find one or two maybe smart Asians or Africans to become the head of IMF and the World Bank you know I'm it can be done but this there are some institutions where the West has a sense of proprietorship of them and refuses to share power in them I think the best thing that the West could do is allow non Western people to run these organizations and then you get a different multilateral order okay very good well I think we're going to have I know professor nathan is going to give as asked question now I'm terrified and then we'll well really open it up I disagree with two parts I want to Jerry to talk about one of those parts I won't which is whether China is better off Jerry I give that to you but I want to ask about sources of American mistrust of China I agree with you that we should that we should get the size of the China threat correct they're not invading us etc but it seems to me there really is an important strategic area of friction with China which has to do with Southeast Asia and the western Pacific and the fact that the United States has been militarily dominant there for all these years and China doesn't like that and wants to change it and I think that's an important source of perhaps not world war but of real conflict and you haven't mentioned that you act as if it's just the so-called values question but there really are some strategic games and we don't really know the extent of China's strategic ambition what the belton road is going to be what the port in Djibouti is going to be how much they need in order to feel safe we don't have a good sense of that so I wanted you to talk about the sort of hard material aspects of the security issue thank you I I'm actually very surprised that Andy doesn't disagree with that much no but you're right I mean there are there are many areas of contention and in fact you could you can also give a lecture on the military slice the economics or slice and other cultural slice of the competition and so on and so forth but on the military slice Andy my response to you is that the Chinese have a very nuanced view of the American military presence in the region for example I don't think that the Chinese want you to walk away from your defense alliance with Japan because an independent Japan will become a nuclear Japan and they don't want that so they actually value having the u.s. alliance with Japan and by the way you know if both you and I were discussing Kissinger's book on China and how Mao Zedong actually tole Kissinger you must spend more time in Japan you must look after Japan I mean that's amazing you know Mao Zedong saying you know don't Japan is an important country you must take care of it so the Chinese have a very nuanced view of these countries but at the same time I know the one thing that that the Chinese are very very angry about an assist effect is the aggressive naval patrolling by US naval vessels twelve miles of China shows that they really upsets them because you know whenever you know any country will do this by the way any that's right so the and and and and I Rexy believe that what you do today China will do tomorrow so you aggressively carry out naval patrolling twelve miles of China's Shores they've already begun I think of Hawaii second on Guam but they all reach California the Chinese Navy will carry out a dressing-table controlling of California and I think that's not necessary neither side benefits from it and of course the rationale from the American Navy for doing so is that we are protecting freedom of navigation and ironically the country that needs freedom of navigation more than America does is the world's number one exporter which is China China actually wants him greater freedom of navigation then then you need then the United does so the Chinese would be happy to work with you in that area but when it comes to the aggressive naval patrolling or as you know in the case of planes that fly close in Chinese corners that's what really upsets them and you have to reach an understanding in there you know South China Sea is another issue okay now the the South China Sea issue is a complicated issue as you know several countries are claiming reefs and rocks and over there there there are four ASEAN countries Philippines Brunei Malaysia Vietnam and then Taiwan and China are claiming their and it's true that the Chinese have been claiming a lot of land in the South China Sea but the Chinese didn't start this game by the way unfortunately I mean I say unfortunately because the Malaysians and Filipinos they had no idea what would happen they they claimed two acres three acres the sign he said okay you claim I claim for the Chinese came 2,000 acres why it's a game that they unfortunately started and they are stuck with it now now this is how the Chinese are being assertive now if they want to be aggressive the Chinese can remove the Malaysian Filipino Brunei malaysian soldiers or Vietnamese soldiers of those islands in 24 hours they can do it if they really want to be aggressive and by the way that's what the United States would have done in 1897 but China in 2018 will not do that and and and and that to some extent show some degree of restraint now how will the South China Sea issue be resolved I can tell you you'll be resolved eventually through various kinds of bilateral negotiations and this this has been documented and studied nd in fact it's on one of the readings I saw that too the Chinese have been very generous in their border settlements except for the only other three that are not resolved yet but most of the time when they resolve border issues they've been quite generous they say okay you take more I took miss so that that will be part of the negotiations that will carry on but again a lot depends on whether not you're dealing with an angry China that feels is being pushed around or a China that says okay you treat me respect I treat you a respect we could work together I think that's what it's going to happen but I can take a bet with any of you that there'll be no war in the South China Sea in 2018 come and see me after the 2018 is a short timeframe let me invite Jerry Cohen to add his voice and I know he'll disagree courage and coming back here and telling us how we should set things right and I think you would be surprised that the extent to which many of us agree with your message certainly the burden I'm not an economist we have many distinguished economists here I'd love to hear them address the issue of whether the next 40 years will be as promising for China's economy and develop as the past 40 have been as you rightly point out I would love to have you also talk about you mentioned mildly there's no freedom of speech in China I think you have to recognize the reality of what's been taking place in recent years there is increasing repression if things were so good for the growing middle class that the economic development has spawned why the need for increasing repression arbitrary detention lawlessness party domination of the judicial institutions as well as why is that necessary but that is my real question my real question is no one has yet mentioned Taiwan could you give us your analysis of the Taiwan situation the way you've just given us your analysis of the South China Sea situation because I think the Taiwan issue will prove to be more difficult to deal with and we may not have forever to deal with it decision coming here was that tough questions but let me answer them as honestly as I can actually the Taiwan issues very easy to answer because the you know there's this I I didn't have time to say this the Chinese this is actually this is all those if you read immediately read Kissinger's book on China and everywhere else they describe to you when Chinese look at a problem they always take a long view they don't have the American expectation that you can solve problems within one presidential term in four years four years is just a drop they often have a 10-year 20-year 50-year perspective and I'm absolutely certain they have a 50-year perspective on Taiwan and I think they're getting they're going to develop a level of interconnectivity between Taiwan and China that'd be so phenomenally Rody's already is there in terms of economic dependence of Taiwan on China in terms of people traveling from Taiwan to China China to Taiwan as you know millions travel and so on so forth so by the time when Taiwan becomes so interconnected with China the idea of independence will disappear and they of course will be uncomfortable if a non KMT leader emerges but they are now confident enough to know I guarantee you this no country in the world today is going to recognize Taiwan no country as an independent country it will not happen in fact the few countries that still recognize the Republic of China are there because China wants to allow Taiwan to save face and they still allowed to keep some countries but those countries if the Chinese wanted them to switch the switch overnight okay so the Taiwan issue is not a problem in that sense you'll be managed and they'll be there also by the way be no conflict on the Taiwan issue and I think the Taiwanese themselves are also understanding the the correlation of forces is working against them and they have to adapt and adjust after even fraction some of you may know him you must know him the former foreign minister of Taiwan said to me in a Harvard lecture in 1991 now this is 27 years ago he said Kishore all the Chinese have to do is to announce a blockade of Taiwan the insurance costs of every ship going that I want to be so high will be killed as an economy so they want to they can they can turn off the Taiwanese economy whenever so Taiwan is not the issue I think they want to make sure it doesn't become independent but it's not the one that they worry about your first question is a harder one why is the increasing repression and the honest answer I can give you is that at the end of the day the Chinese leave that for the 1.4 billion people to continue to do well you need to have a very high degree of political order and stability and Chinese history teaches you that when the center weakens you know the Chinese word for chaos I think is luan or something of that chaos returns so they actually believe as a principal of China's rule that strong central control is always necessary now when you talk of let's say higher levels of repression the question is which is the benchmark you're using I mean certainly if you use mouse times things obviously are much better if you if you look in terms of the I don't have the data I think you do on the number of political prisoners and so on so forth I would say on balance if you if you go if you go to China on a day-to-day basis you don't see that in front of you you know and and you know I would say even I used to go to China and the early 1980s there was still a sense of fear it was there right today that sense of fear has diminished and you're right the it's it's a complex story but if you give that to any Chinese government the choice between stability and order or allowing dissent and chaos they will choose stability in order and that's what they will do I would say the situation in Taiwan and you have a very optimistic view of the internal situation in China you keep saying if the Chinese the Chinese are one leader and the people around him now there are huge members of the elite who are very unhappy Xi Jinping's father after 16 years and the maoist wilderness came back in the early 80s and he preached to the party we will never achieve our goals unless we allow differences of opinion Buitoni Jim despite his preference for Confucianism which makes shall filial piety so crucial Xi Jinping has gone against the advice of his father he was a Chinese too and there are many Chinese in the elite who are against the current repression which is why you have the repression so I think China is a more unstable place than Xi Jinping knows it better than the rest of us in terms of the corruption the poverty the environmental problems he knows I think China is a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that has a terrific worldwide PR system right now so I think we have to be realistic and looking at what's going on in China let me tell you where I did agree and disagree with you and Jerry I agree with you that Xi Jinping is acutely aware of the tensions within China I agree with you that let me tell you where I disagree with you I've heard statements like yours consistently over the last 30 years people are you have been making these statements about China on a Hot Tin Roof about to collapse and so on and so forth and I would say for 20 years I've been writing that he won't happen he can go back to my first book and Nations thing is very definite of si down there saying you got it wrong okay so I no no I thought that that China will keep on growing he will become stronger it will remain stable it will have a bigger economy he will educate more of its people he will send more with young people overseas more with young people horses will go back to the repressive country it will continue to send not 120 million but two years from not 200 grand Chinese overseas and 200 in Chinese written overseas to the repressive society you speak about so that's the data I give back to you firstly and also for your answers to the professor about Taiwan I'd have to say based on my experience in China extensively in meetings with Chinese business leaders regularly I concur with your farsightedness in this regard there it's one ethnicity at the end and the political differences will evaporate as the cultural and economic ties grow especially for the younger generation and thank you for stating that so eloquently but there's another elephant in the room and I would love to hear your views on the problem that I think is worse potentially namely the Korean problem how are we going to deal with with North Korea and how is there any hope then for the US and China to become closer in attempting to resolve that thorny issue please give us your views issue is a very complicated issue okay but let me suggest that I again I'm optimistic number one that there'll be no war on the Korean Peninsula and I'll tell you why because none of the great powers want a won Korean Peninsula I see United States and China have disagreed on many things but if you look at the wreck the diplomatic record of the last 20 30 years paradoxically that the North Korean issue has often brought American and Chinese negotiators bat the same table to keep on talking and that's an issue on which they both agree on and as you know China has to my surprise I never thought if you had asked me 20 years ago whether China would have voted in favor of UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea I would have said no way China would veto them I am astonished China's water for several Security Council sanctions on North Korea and that's a big deal and and and it's important to emphasize that if United States feels frustrated with North Korea China feels even more frustrated with North Korea very deeply and they're very angry and if you want to know how angry something unusual recession xi Jinping became president he's never met the North Korean leader that's a very powerful signal that's being sent over there that's very unusual and so the Chinese realize that a war on the Korean Peninsula will be disastrous and they would there be caught in a war that they don't want as there was you know in the first Korean WAPA is their solution and I think there is a solution are written about it and building on an idea by a Harvard professor Roderick MacFarquhar who said if the United States wants to give an incentive for China to encourage the reunification of the peninsula the United States should declare that in the event that North and South Korea reunify all American forces would leave the Korean Peninsula Korea would be no longer be an ally United States and therefore an ally the United States planted against China by neutral independent country and then it then of course the Chinese would have invested interest in sea okay maybe a reunified Korea that is not a ally of the United States would be not something that they can live with and but let me add something else something more mischievous which I put in my book it's in the I put it in print so I can tell you what I add down there is that a neutral independent career would be a far bigger problem for China then a Korea that is an ally of the United States because the Koreans and Chinese have had friction for 2,000 years that friction is not going to end so even if North Korea goes and there's a united Korea that United Korea will assert is independence of China fiercely and as fiercely as the Vietnamese are doing and this is our history you know so in that sense a bit more diplomatic flexibility on the part of the United States could make a difference to the issue let me ask you one follow up on that you know short of a reunified Korean Peninsula what do you think is the I mean we have very bad behavior by North Korea and the sanctions joint sanctions was a really important development but I think you know we're in a situation where we're hoping that China will do more hmm and has more influence on the north than any other country and so what do you think we can reasonably expect they will do in their own interest to reduce tensions and produce better behavior on the part of the north because you know it's looking quite escalatory but for the last few weeks well I mean the the sad part is that there as I said under North Korean issue there are no good options yeah there are only bad options and for example if you you're right it's it's it's absolutely wrong for North Korea to have a nuclear capability we must stop it how do you stop it you start a war you start a war tomorrow you know about I don't know what the estimates a half a million to 1 million citizens of Seoul will die within 24 hours not because of a nuclear bomb but because of artillery shelling the North Koreans have a few thousand several hundred thousand artillery positioned to deliver thousands and thousands of shells in Seoul as you know which is within artillery range to you there's not an option so you was that a war you got to be prepared to accept 1 million dead in first day know none of us wants to accept threatening we don't wanna see one people die in the first day so there's no military option so again what do you do you go back to a diplomatic option and so you got to try and continue the process of squeezing North Korea but yeah the one radical idea I have is that you know diplomacy was created about 2,000 years ago not to Nabal you to talk to your friends got you a new sent an ambassador to a friendly capital he comes back with his head on in the old days you sent an ambassador to an enemy capital the king would decapitate the Ambassador if he said something he didn't like it's a fact it happened so you created the concept of diplomatic immunity the concept of diplomatic immunity is the core of what diplomacy is all about it means that you can send ambassadors to enemy capitals the United States is the only country that's reversed 2,000 years of diplomatic norms to say that when I sent an ambassador to a country it's an act of approval but it's all wrong diplomacy means when I sent you an ambassador with diplomatic immunity I don't trust you that's why I'm sending him a diplomatic immunity but United States believe he establishes relations with North Korea is an act of approval if he establishes relation Iran is an act of approval if they established in Cuba and ekam approval is the opposite so why doesn't the United States go back to a two thousand year norm and immediately establish an embassy in North Korea what have you got to lose well here's a former diplomat let me ask Danny Russel to offer a few comments or questions if I may I'm gonna be in trouble well thanks Kishore you covered a lot of ground and there are many many areas where I could comment much that I agree with as others have said you asked for feedback and constructive criticism and one point I would make is that I think that you're offering a bit of a red herring when you pose the question in terms of whether China should move to democracy tomorrow I don't think that that is the issue or the question that's surfaced by the laydown that you created about China's astonishing economic growth etc I think the real question is whether and back up to say you're right in posing the the riddle of whether the assumptions about from about China and about the inner court the correlation between engagement and behavior economic growth and the emergence of democratic institutions is validated or not in the case of China of course history didn't end with your lecture and I think these are questions that we'll have to watch to find the answer to but the issue isn't whether China is quote-unquote ready for democracy there are a thousand and one excuses why democracy is inconvenient to any authoritarian government the question is whether China has the legitimacy from institutions whether China has the processes that will allow it to sustain social stability and economic development over time so that's one issue the second issue is I think you're awfully benign and your interpretation of China's behavior the huge mistake that's commonly made in Washington and elsewhere is to conflate China's rise with China's actions and the actions that are generating so much mistrust include not only the reclamation of of land in South China Sea but the threats and the interference with the shipping and the activities of rival claimants and smaller powers so the principle here is not the freedom of navigation operations by the seventh fleet of the u.s. Navy is threatening to China the issue is that unless and until little Brunei has the ability to sail throughout the South China Sea in international waters without being threatened by the Chinese then the global principle of freedom of navigation freedom of the seas which you rightly point out China ought to prize is subject to the China exception and and that I think is a manifestation of the behavior that generates such anxiety in connection with China's rise Thank You Alma that's very helpful constructive feedback because I'm actually looking for points like this that I can deal with in in the book one the three key words you use one is about the democracy is you which you said is a red herring so I would say is it possible to persuade the United States to stop saying in its public statements like the one I quoted from the George W Bush that China should become a democracy why do we let the Chinese decide whether they want to become a democracy why does the United States have to tell China you should become a democracy I mean as I said one of the few at future historian why why is this young nation giving advice to all civilizations you know so I would say that if you can do that then you stop being a problem but if you continue to use it regularly it actually what it does is that you know if I'm in this army I don't wanna I was gonna mention in passing okay but it's there's a huge cultural dimension to this problem also there is a fear of what is called the Yellow Peril deeply embedded in the subconsciousness of Western history and that's a big subject but when you keep using the democracy thing it's part of a weapon to try and keep that distrust up that's why I say let the Chinese decide how they're going to become a democracy then I would say then then that the problem will be such a big bomb the second big question uses a very critical word is legitimacy now that's why the question I want to ask very simply is do you how many countries in the world view the Chinese government as a legitimate government of the Chinese people and how many countries in the world viewed the Chinese government as an illegitimate government as an ambassador to un I can tell you the vast majority of governments in the world see the Chinese government as a legitimate government and the sources of legitimacy in the West come from the process of election to power the sources of legitimacy and I can refer you to a TED talk by someone correctly look at the competence of the Chinese government look at what they have done for the Chinese people and you can say surely many other governments would wish that they could do as much for their people in terms of improving the human condition of the population and that I would say is the fundamental source of their legitimacy now thirdly and finally on South China Sea the as you know the United States has become a key actor on the under South China Sea issue but what the Chinese say is that the Chinese the United States is always advocating that China should abide by the norms of the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea in South China Sea they say why does the United States ratify the Convention thing because I think once you do that if you don't do that you have no moral that you didn't see to advise others if you don't respect a convention how can you ask others to respect the convention but I can tell you on the South China Sea just to also add to that in my conversations with the Chinese officials many other ways to be fair retire officials they do concede in private that they have made mistakes on the South China Sea and the more thoughtful ones agree with the argument I put them I say you know your China is a global power today China needs freedom of navigation globally if you claim the South China Sea within the nine dashed line to be your territorial waters you may get three percent of the world's ocean you lose ninety seven percent of the world's oceans is not in your interests to create a set of rules in the South China Sea that violate your global interests and I think they're beginning to understand that and that's why as you know we survey the ASEAN countries the temperature we're not as you know 2012 2014 you know it's gone down significantly and hopefully the progress will be made on that code of conduct and it's a result I think in the part of the Chinese understanding also that they've been to as assertive on the South China Sea and it has cost them something I think we are almost out of time we have one could I collect two last quick questions and let you have the final word press or French and then decide I'm gonna try to be quick this is pressure I want to raise the possibility with you that there's been first of all many things to admire and to among your comments but I want to raise the possibility that you have possibly I don't think that's from here mr. Fraley let me just hold it in a different way maybe um one of them looking backwards the other one looking forwards so you have placed great emphasis on the United States lecturing China about democracy I would warrant that the trend over time actually has been in the opposite direction that American diplomacy places public diplomacy places much less emphasis on democracy in general over time and especially in discussion with or around China and you can combine with the explicit term democracy assorted related terms such as human rights etc etc that the United States the trend if you were able to plot this via news articles or State Department accounts is actually in giving to be crude about it more face to China on this issue the bigger question when I asked you looking backwards though is whether you have not failed to give sufficient credit to the United States for accommodating China in terms of its economic rise in other words I don't say this is a protectionist at all however the United States has made possible China's rise by absorbing its surpluses by helping to usher it into the World Trade Organization and as these things have happened at debatably some considerable cost to the United States what we've seen on the Chinese side is in fact a language that fails to acknowledge these things with its own public and the fact this fact I want to ask you I want to ask you whether or not this fact doesn't create the possibility of a grounds for mistrust in the United States about the socialization of Chinese public opinion and attitudes toward globalization toward multilateralism and toward the United States and specific the second question I'll be quicker what this going forward a great question and a lot for him to speak to the last 40 years and the next 40 years the economic prospects for the Chinese economy in the next 40 years in the 1990s 1980s 1990s the economy grew if the Chinese numbers are to be believed 10% GDP growth rate current GDP growth rate at sort of 7% annual okay same time the has created enormous labor shortages wages have gone up and that is creating problems for policy makers that's affecting the growth rate of the economy and now telling people to have two children instead of one child as before I mean or would they allow migrants to come to China from I don't know from Vietnam what do you think the economic prospects of this economy with a very high wage rate and labor shortage well I know your time is pressing yeah let me answer your question first part my if I come to you on on the Chinese management of the economy you're right I mean the one-child policy and they have demographic problems coming up and so on and so forth but I would say the the the one thing the Chinese are good at is looking at a problem twenty years down the road thirty years down the road and working backwards and saying okay what are the implications for the policy today and as you know they have switched from the one-child policy to now encouraging to children all kinds of qualifications but more or less most people can get two children but the the surprising thing about the Chinese economy is it is no longer is moving from his reliance on cheap labor and China today I think has the largest army of robots of any economy anywhere in the world they have they obviously anticipated that there's going to be labor shortages so China will move ahead of the curve in terms of switching away from cheap labor yeah yeah the robot so they have they have they're massively invested in robots and so on so forth so their head of the curve in terms of dealing with that issue and in and by the way China doesn't have to grow at ten percent doesn't have to grow at seven percent all you need to do is grow at five percent you will double its economy by the law seventy-two in 14 years so can you imagine in the next 30 years double double and by then the Chinese economy will be maybe twice the size okay possibly of the United States and I always say you know when you when you have two armies if your army is twice the size of the army opposing you you have one strategy but when your army becomes half the size of the army dealing with you change of strategy and that's the fundamental thing that I think the United States will have to do will have to deal with a much bigger elephant than it had in the past and I think that's what I mean about is growth 5% is all you need to do and it can deliver 5% quite easily now how will your question is a very complex one but I completely agree with you that the United States has been exceptionally generous to us China I mean I I'm sure this is another question the future historians will scratch their head and say do you notice it so China emerging as a great power competitor why did he switch off its economy and prevent Chinese exports to America and I'm sure the Chinese himself a bit puzzled Wow United States is still being so generous to China and it is a fact and it's an important fact because it also explains why at the end of the day the Chinese are also very careful in the way they handle the United States both sides and I must say incidentally since I foresee problems coming up to now both Washington DC and Beijing have managed this relationship incredibly well I give credit to both capitals the diplomats on both sides have done a very good job they've been ups and downs you know they've been problems and all that but they've managed it so far and I would say they can continue this level of management right I mean their dialogue discussion your strategic economic dialogue every year those things make a difference and those things should continue and of course if you continue to increase the level of economic engagement that will also be an extremely important thing to do and I must say to beef at the United States it's it's amazing how generous you've been to China well I think unfortunately we've reached the red end of our time I've noticed we've had very few questions from students I think but I think the lepton news come up and ask you a few for a moment or two afterwards please join me in thanking about

Channel: Columbia SIPA

Views: 371,991

Rating: 4.4131737 out of 5

Keywords: Columbia SIPA, Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs, Kishore Mahbubani

Id: _dFK2Wxd2FI

Length: 93min 17sec (5597 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 08 2018