Translator: Jaegun Lee
Reviewer: Denise RQ Once upon a time there was in the West a mighty empire called the Roman Empire, and the Romans had a very interesting map of the world. it's a small world in which Europa, Asia, and Africa were closely connected with each other, and America was nowhere to be seen. Then, the world became divided, and has become divided until now into some 200 political units
called nation states. And they are divided
along the lines of territory, and along the lines of sovereignty. Many of these nation states
are members of a global body called the United Nations. What about the future? Can you imagine
what the future world will look like? Here we have to thank
the Chinese for it largely, because the future world, as I saw it, the other day
when I gazed at my crystal ball that the world will be connected
by high speed railway looking something like this. You may wonder how this will happen. Are the Chinese really able
to connect the world by high speed railway? Well, my answer is yes, to a great extent;
the Chinese can do that. To support that answer I have a plan. And this plan of mine
consists of two parts. One part is about history. We should try to draw lessons from the past to inform our present. And the present is
the second part of my plan to try to explore with all of you
what China has been doing recently and what China is likely to do
in the near future in the development
of high speed rail industry. If we look at history,
we don't need to look too far back because the development
of high speed railway in China has been only about ten years or so and the Chinese did this very smartly by introducing a full set of train
from countries like Japan, from Germany, from France,
and from Canada, and then, through a process what engineers often call
reverse engineering, the Chinese engineers disassembled the whole train into smaller parts in a methodological manner, step by step, and then rebuilt from the basics,
the small parts, into a whole train. And through this process,
in a simple way, the Chinese learned the skills
of building a high speed rail. But of course one has
to give credit to the Chinese engineers, they're also very smart and able to input their own skills,
the technology, into the system. To the extent that now China
has the largest high speed rail network in any single country in the world, measuring some 16,000 km which is about half the world's total. And this number, by the way,
is increasing over time. So if we look at the future,
the near future at least, we can examine to what extent China is involved in the global market of high speed rail industry. And that is something astonishing. It is a wobbling 34%. That percentage is increasing
over time as well, as estimated by scholars and specialists. What China is doing at present
and in the near future is also of interest because China is negotiating
with some 20-30 countries around the world in order to build systems
of high speed rails in countries in Asia, Africa,
Latin America, and beyond. Let me give you a few examples. In Asia first. China has a plan to build
a high-speed rail system from the Chinese city of Kunming
in southwest China to connect with Vientiane of Laos, and then, all the way down,
to connect with Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur to the southern tip
of the Malaysian peninsula, Singapore. Another line is from Kunming in China
to Hanoi of Vietnam, and along the coastline of Vietnam
to Ho Chi Minh City and turn west to connect up with Cambodia, Phnom Penh, and then, Bangkok again, and then to Myanmar, and onwards. And eventually, this pan-Asian network
is going to be connected with the Eurasian network through China. Africa is also an interesting example. The Chinese government,
in fact, the Premier Li Keqiang, announced last year
that China will connect all the 54 capitals of Africa by high speed rail, eventually. And here I'll give you an example
of a line connecting Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia to Djibouti. Djibouti is very interesting
because it's of great strategic importance because it's situated
at the mouth of the Red Sea connecting to the Gulf of Aden
and onwards to the Arabian Sea. And there are proposals to try to build a bridge over the stretch of land between the Arab world
which is South Yemen to connect with East Africa. If that bridge is built,
or if that sea tunnel is built so that the high speed rail
can go through, then East Africa will be connected
to the Arab world. Another interesting point
of this line here is from Addis Ababa. There is also a proposal to build a line westwards to south Sudan, and then, still westwards
to the Central African Republic, and then, to Cameroon
to the coast facing the Atlantic Ocean. So imagine! Connecting the Atlantic Ocean of Cameroon
all the way to the Arab world. Isn't that amazing? Another amazing story
happens in Latin America. This story is becoming true these days
because China, Brazil, as well as Peru have signed agreements
to do feasibility studies to build a line across the continent connecting the Atlantic coast of Brazil all the way to the Pacific coast of Peru. Not only these two countries
are interested in this project because it is going
to boost trade, transportation, communication, people, and so on, other neighboring countries
are also very interested in this because they want to join into this line
to develop the economy together. So instead of what Brazil is doing
currently when trading with Asia, Brazil has to go through either the Panama Canal through Central America or it has to go by shipping
through the southern tip of Latin America, and then across the Pacific Ocean
to China, to Korea, Japan, and India. But with this line in place,
things will speed up a lot. Beyond these three continents, there is also the proposal
to build the world's longest railway line by high speed rail system connecting London and New York. And this proposal has been made by both Russia and by China. And together, for example,
Canada in agreement with the US this line can be built. The major obstacle of this line in fact the sea separating Siberia and Alaska. If something can be built,
a sea tunnel across the Bering Strait separating Russia far to the east
and Alaska of the USA, a distance measuring about 300 km, which is the distance about
- for those of you who know Europe - is about 5 times
the length of the Eurotunnel connecting Britain and France. The difficulty with this project here is the very severe,
punishing weather in that sort of climate. I think it calls for ingenious engineers. I'm sure they can do it
if they want to do it. So that's a huge project there. All these projects
are of course part and parcel of the so-called new Silk Road system that the president Xi Jinping
announced in late 2013, consisting of two major components one by land and the other by sea, connecting some 64 countries
along the way, representing about 60%
of the global population, and around 30% of the global GDP,
the global economy. So is that a new globalization
in the making? I'd argue that it's likely to be, although it is likely to be
slow, incremental, instead of a big shift in terms of the change of geopolitics, a point which I'll go to very shortly. The big question is:
where is the money coming from? All these major mega projects,
they're very nice, can we share the finance of this? The Chinese have proposed,
as you're aware, several major regional international banks such as the Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank, the BRICS bank,
or call it the New Development Bank. And also the Chinese
have initiated his own, which is the New Silk Road Fund. All these mechanisms have
a huge amount of money ranging from 40 billion USD in the case of Silk Road Fund to about 100 billion USD
in terms of the authorized capitals. Apart from these regional initiatives, China's state-owned banks can also help. Banks such as
the Export and Import Bank of China, the China Construction Bank,
and the China Development Bank. And in fact China Development Bank
has surpassed the World Bank in terms of extending the amount of loans. In other words, China Development Bank
has become the largest lender of loans to the third world
to build infrastructure. So, here we have political will and we have some sort
of financial support. So what are
the implications for the world? Basically, I'll focus on two points. One is geopolitics. There seems to be
a new balance of power developing here. One is in Eurasia, or Central Asia, where Russia and China
are competing for influence. The other is towards
China's Asia Pacific coast, is a competition or cooperation
with the USA over influence in that area. Especially facing
the American so called 'Pivot to Asia'. So somehow, China has to balance between its maritime security,
on the one hand, and also land order on the other. The second point
I'd like to share with you is that of a new global norm in the making with these interesting features such as the focus
on building infrastructure, on a win-win mutually
beneficial formula by co-financing - is not only China
but also the host countries who are building these networks
of systems of railways - and it is led by economic growth on a little or no strings-attached formula that China is proposing. So all these major features if you like, and I'm trying to think and find an appropriate concept or a keyword to capture the spirit and essence
of these various characteristics. And here is some food for thought for us. This is the word: Geo-Neo-functionalism. Functionalism
because it's led by economic growth, it's dealing with human welfare, and it is based on the aim and the hope of building peace
through incremental steps. And Neo, because it is, still, - despite China's
market measures these days - very much state-managed,
if not controlled, system of running a political economy. And Geo, because it deals
with Geo-politics and Geo-economics. So that's a new word
I'd like to share with you and five years from now,
if you were asked, "Where did you first hear
about this rather clumsy word?" Then you can say with full confidence that you heard it in a TED talk in Seoul. Won't you? And secondly, I'd like you to imagine
the future of high speed rail system. You're familiar with this map
that I showed you early on. Let us concentrate and focus on the area around northeast Asia. Eventually, and hopefully,
a kind of a ring road can be built, connecting both North and South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China through high speed rail,
and over bridges and tunnels, making the East Sea or the Sea of Japan kind of an inland lake in Northeast Asia. So I'll share a dream with you as we've been talking about dreams. I dream that one day,
we can take a high speed rail to travel from Seoul
all the way up north to Pyongyang. And with the agreement
of the supreme leader, we can travel all the way to London in the far west or to New York in the far east. Oh yes, it's New York in the far east. How the world would have changed by then? And more than that,
we don't have to take a flight, a plane from Seoul to either Beijing
or to Vladivostok in order to join the Euroexpress line. An initiative proposed
by your president Madame Park, started in July and finished
about one week ago. That's the hope, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for sharing
this hope and dream with me. (Korean) Thank you. (Applause)
