Dialogue with Professor Kishore Mahbubani

[Music] hi there in his latest group entitled has the West lasted professor Kazuma purbhani argues that the West to century dominance as the global powerhouse is at the end a new world order with China and India as the strongest economies is dawning how will the West to react to the status of superpower in decline what does the future hold for the global multilateral system and how China navigate his phone calls to greet her prominence to discuss these issues and more and we're happy to be joined in the big in studio by Professor Kate Amara bonny from Singapore to two senior fellow at the channel is queued Fudan University that's our topic this is a dialogue and young right welcome to dialogue professor Giovanni what does the eight in the title of the book actually me here oh very simple you know the West has been the dominant civilization for the past 200 years and there always been the most successful civilization economically politically intellectually culturally and that's how they dominated the world for 200 years and what's amazing is that the world's most successful such civilization is losing it because it doesn't understand that the history has turned a corner because from the year 1 to the Year 1824 1800 the last two thousand years the two largest economies of the world were always those of China and India and it's only in the last 200 years that the West could do so well that's because China and India fell back but now the China in India coming back the West has got to adjust and adapt to this new world and the West hasn't woken up to the reality hood America first a namely he wants to challenge idea of multilateralism with the preemptive strikes such as the trade war that he has to wait with his team which is composed of Hawks you know do you think this is a zero-sum game and do you think we live in a post West world I think it's a mistake to think that the problems are coming just because of Donald Trump Donald Trump is one factor he's the sort of a much more fundamental factor is the failure of the American intellectual establishment the East Coast liberals the famous people the New York Times The Washington Post the CNN who don't get it that they have to tell their people that the time has now come for the West to adjust to a world waking alonger dominate the world in the way that he used to do so in the past you know what happened to go bigger than Donald Trump invocation what happened to me a few years ago when I visited at Brookings we just consider the top think-tank in that you see a young research fellow lost temper to me you know for what reasons even because I said it seems the United States and lived in the past you are still living in the 20th century and we are now at the corner of a new millennium and he he was so angry with me as if you really do not understand the new reality you know I'm really glad you had that experience because what you have experienced is the rage of the American intellectuals who are so angry that they could one well at one point in time they could control the world dominate decide do what they wanted to do and they can feel the power evaporating from their hands so the purpose of my book actually is to help the West to adjust to a new world which is it where it is in his own interests to stop being this such a dominating force in the world and my goal is to help the West because I think both one thing that China and the rest of the world share in common is that we won the West were just carefully slowly and not react angrily to the shift of power but I believe Elise and the whole of establishment in United States are still convinced that they have the bestest soft power the best education and in tertiary education for example the best resources the bestest system the best Constitution except for the worst the presidency for the establishment but what do you think of the idea in Chinese there can't be two tigers in one Mountain and this is a zero-sum game the United States believes that China's the future of China's economy is at the mercy of their strengths so the treatable you know you're you're right America still has a tremendous amount of soft power I spent three months in Columbia and Harvard universities this year they have the world's best universities they have with the rest vesting tanks they have the best newspapers but what they have completely lost is the art of long term strategic thinking and this is a quite a shock for societies that have been successful for so long as I said for the past 200 years to suddenly not realize that the world has changed that they must adjust and adapt and I actually don't think that there is just in this world one mountain and two Tigers I think our world as you know as the Prime Minister of India former prime minister India Manmohan Singh said very wisely the world is big enough for both China and India to continue to grow and China and India were the two largest economies of the world for 1800 after the last 2000 years so as they keep growing they're just occupying the natural space in the global order and what the West has got to get used to is the fact that the 200 years of Western domination of world history in the 19th and 20th centuries was an aberration now all aberrations come to a natural end so the first idea that the West must accept especially the East Coast liberal intellectuals is that this 200 year period of Western domination has been an aberration it cannot continue but is a finding of the Acacia there is a small aberration in your analysis I'm afraid sure there are growing divisions across the Atlantic in the relationship between education the European Union between the United States and other member states of the NATO with regard to the defense costs bigger shared by European allies of the costs not only that it's also about punitive tariffs on steel and aluminum so Chancellor Angela Merkel starts to say is time for us to take the destination of European unity into our own hands and we'll give more force to a closer relationship with the TRC and perhaps with India so what do you think of you know not having a monolithic voice or coming out of the West quote-unquote the reason why they're having these difficulties the reason why you be by populous president is being elected in America the reason why populist parties are rising in Europe is precisely because the rest has failed to make a structural adjustment to the return of China and India and when you fail to make structural judgment in my book as the West lost it I point out that after China joined the WTO in 2001 it was inevitable that because of China's new competitive dynamic jobs would be lost in the West and so the populism that you see in the West today that creates these difficulties between Europe and America is the result of the structural changes that I point out in my book has the West busted so if they want to find a long-term answer to the challenge of populism to these divisions that are rising in the West they must look at the big picture and see how the rest are just to this big picture is their failure to adjust to this big picture that has these problems among them today both Europeans and Americans accused China of a practicing state capitalism a meaning the government that led industrial policies beated their expectations about plastic domestic internal political transformation since our day one of the entry into the WTO they want China to be one of them in terms of universal values of sharing the same political institutions so and so forth but Chinese are not and therefore do you think they have been left disillusioned and do you think China China exceptionalism will start to pick up I mean what what do you think of the differences well I think you know I'm glad you mentioned this idea of state capitalism because there are many in America as you know believe that China is competing unfairly and China has a trade surplus with the United States because of what they call state capitalism actually the reason why United States has trade deficits is because it has the exorbitant privilege as someone said of being able to print money to import goods so when when Chinese export products to America Chinese workers have to work very very hard and get paid very little to export product to America how does America pay for this product it prints money so it clearly is that exorbitant privilege says the cause of this problem what do you think of the future of it using euro to replace or to face out the American dollars so that will not kill our future on the American dollar hegemony well when you first deal with your first point that you raise which is a very important point about some voices in America wanting to thwart China's rise in fact I was going to tell you my project this year I'm on a sabbatical this year for nine months and my goal this year is to write a book on us-china relations because clearly the most important relationship is between the world's number one power which is United States America and the world's number one emerging power which is China and history teaches us in Grandma sandesh oldest that when one when the number two powers about to overtake the number one power you get rising levels of tension within the tomb so clearly we have to worry about us-china relations but I would say don't just listen to the voices like Navarro right Iser Steve ban and there are other voices in America also and it's important for us to also deal with the other voices in America because the other voices in America are advocating a more constructive approach towards China also and he mustn't assume that you know the United States is not a monolithic country has never been a monolithic country but the other point about Europe I think I agree with you this is a tremendous opportunity now for Europe to show some leadership because the Europeans deeply disagree with president Trump's trade policies in fact they are much more even more angry than China is in some ways because they say we are your friends and you're treating us like an enemy right that's why that's how the Europeans feel and that's why Chancellor anonymously must allow the Europeans you I would say give them time to apply the pressure for that to be the reaction and then I see you will find that America will moderate these policies thank you so much should we relate the unilateralism of the Trump presidency to isolationism of that have started from the farewell speech of George Washington founding father of the United States we'll come back to examining and figure out what President Trump really wants you are watching dialog with the professor Education mobile Barney a true research fellow with the photon University but he's actually a professor with the National University in a Singapore still with us we'll be right back [Music] welcome back at you pleasure you are the author of many many books with the end of the Cold War do you think you have remained consistent with your focus about the decline of the West and the rise of the eastern hemisphere or in other words the rise of Asia hemisphere well absolutely and indeed one of the key points I make in my latest book has the rest lost it is that one of the biggest strategic mistakes the rest made was at the end of the Cold War because you know that was incredibly triumphalist spirit in the West and this added bit that Francis Fukuyama's famous essay at the end of history that said hey the West we have made it the rest of got to copy us we don't have to do anything and as I say in my book in a very cruel fashion Francis Fukuyama's essay did a lot of brain damage to the West because what he did was that he put the West to sleep at precisely the moment when China and India were waking up and the reason why the West feel so lost today is because they were asleep when China and India woke up and so this is why the goal of my book always is to help the West to understand the strategic mistakes it has made to one was of course falling asleep at the end of the Cold War and the other was things like a foolish decision to expand NATO and alienate Russia and the equally unwise decisions that Russia was seriously committed in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War in the eastward expansion of the NATO now many liberals in China we have a huge army of liberals who are so through us through years of Ally's found out that they are very sad about the present Trump was ready to give out the American global leadership do you think that's gonna happen well I mean the global leadership I think America's global leadership rests on many pillars it doesn't just rely on the president and I think we should we should appreciate the many strengths that American society has and I must tell you after spending three months in Columbia and Harvard University's I'm just astonished at how amazing American universities are and how powerfully they try to reexamine what's going on in the world so for example my ideas resisted by the American media but welcomed by the American professors who want to say hey this is a different point of view I must listen to it and I must see what I do about it so I would say we should continue to work with America and not assume that president Trump's relatively unilateral policies represent the mainstream of America in fact I expect the pendulum to swing back after President Trump towards a more mainstream president because that represents the consensus of the American body politic and James Matt is the Secretary of Defense serving his a team of future the graduation ceremony of the college naval ecology that Russia and China DPRK and terrorism will be the major threat to the national security of the United States so when the pendulum swings back I mean those we are afraid that there will still be the consensus bipartisan consensus that China will be a jubilee to the rivalry of the United States we come back to the beginning of that the only job political rivalry between the United States and China that's a given you can't stop that but when you use a word like a threat it implies that there might be something like a war in merging between US and China and no serious person believes that a war is likely between US and China despite what grandmother's and said in his book but I do want to emphasize why are you on the other side they are both nuclear-armed I know I think yes definitely if you have a war within two nuclear-armed powers you have two losers and moving us that's a fact of life and that's why there's been no war between any two nuclear powers but you are absolutely right that your political rivalry between United States and China will grow that's an inevitable fact that will come in our outer context the question is how the question is how you manage it and that's why it's very important and I'm very good question you asked a very good question professor Milani you know why the Korean War have started is mistakes by both sides all right China didn't believe the Americans will the land in China and the US policymakers have didn't hear listen or heated your device I was warning by a late premier to a life they permit or less it we never treat our caustics and the principles are for whatever you want and will never ever accept a Americans crossing the 38th parallel yeah but both sides turn the blind eye or deaf ear to it which is why it is so wonderful that you had this meeting between President Donald Trump and present kim jeong-hoon in singapore a few weeks ago because that meeting was so critical and so important because as you know the Korean border is the most militant militarized border on planet earth and most dangerous border and planet Earth and I'm so glad that President Donald Trump ignored the advice of everybody and had a meeting with Kim jong-un is enough so you think I think president coming the guy has power to give in to him absolutely I think that President Donald Trump and President Kim jong-un should be given the Nobel Peace Prize because they broke a problem that had been frozen for you know almost 70 years now that that's not easy no American president before President Donald Trump had the courage to have a direct meeting with a North Korean leader and I think that's why in some ways we can acknowledge that President Donald Trump has made mistakes like in trade wars and so on so forth but when he does the right thing we should praise him and as you know unfortunately Mike will not breathe you're saying Nobel Peace Prize would be given to a summer who is considered by most Chinese mad lunatic and when he used the words like fire my fury rocket man maximum pressure to be imposed on the DPRK and English the emphatic ability of this man most of the elites and these people of the established in the United States don't believe him and do you think this guy should be given Nobel Peace Prize give me a break well I guess this is where it is a mistake for you to accept the political correctness of the American what I call liberal elites they they they don't understand that you needed a man like present donald trump who was in some ways wild enough to organize his meeting and I must say I'm shocked by all this negative commentary that is coming out on that meeting because frankly one one major problem in the world whose temperature was this high has now come down and that's a significant improvement what we need to do is to build on it and do it King Julian came to China twice within one month and we provided him with a billion plan and took him to Singapore we played a pivotal role in brokering the peace and like what we did during the 60s as a Six Party Talks so maybe our leaders should also be given know about his like III think the two other leaders who play the critical roles were the leaders of China President Xi Jinping and the president of South Korea president moon so I think these are the four leaders who played a very critical role and I think we deserve to be applauded and rewarded Chinese government has always a court for the two sides DPRK and Washington to suspend a the war game and be nuclear missile tests and what happens now is exactly what we want then what the Chinese authorities want so what do you think of the attitude and policy options of ASEAN out the South Tennessee I mean Chinese viewed as assertive territorial claims that go against other competitors so what do you think of the latest development well I I'm actually very happy that the temperature on the South China Sea issue has gone down I don't know how to read about in the papers every day and I think it's very important that ASEAN and China have a good relationship because I can tell you one thing as China grows and becomes more and more powerful there will be a lot of concern about the rise of China it's important for there to be one place where all the great powers can meet and talk to each other comfortably and that's the biggest contribution that ASEAN is making the geopolitical stability and the murmuration is that the Pentagon has sent a warships into the territorial waters of China and this aroused the risk of having direct head-on confrontation between the two biggest militaries I as I agree with you that we should avoid military maneuvers by thing is equally important for that to continue to be venues where you can have trust building grow and develop and that's what ASEAN has been doing with this animal belong in my last book we are shammiracle I propose that last year or I see on his 50th anniversary should have been given the Nobel Peace Prize - exactly ASEAN is a no-doubter one of the most successful regional bloc's in terms of maintaining peace and prosperity through the collective a consensus building efforts now the last question I need to have a quick answer before we conclude it's a meaningful discussion about why the West has lost it the affected China rises fast and that's one of the major topics we have and our discussion very quickly what do you think of the negative than joking and what do you think of the most important things in your memory in your vocabulary about the success of China's economy when we commemorate the 40th anniversary of China's opening up and reform this year don't forget things helping paid a visit to Singapore in the wake of the Cultural Revolution and to a lot of inspirations from and they leader Lee Kuan Yew yeah I think the one phrase of mr. Deng Xiaoping we should all remember is his famous quotation it doesn't matter whether cat is a black or a cat isn't white if he catches mice it is a good cat so it doesn't matter where the president Donald Trump is black already is right if he brings peace in the Korean Peninsula he is doing a good thing let's be pragmatic and that celebrate the pragmatism of mr. Deng Xiaoping on the 40th anniversary of China's reforms thank you so much for giving us this advice with that we come together this additionally the professor Kazuma Bonnie from the National University of Singapore thank you for watching see you next time good luck [Music] [Music]

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Length: 24min 51sec (1491 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 22 2018