Has the West Lost It? Can Asia Save It? | Kishore Mahbubani

[Music] good evening I'm Alexandra Rosen the executive director of the long now foundation and tonight is a special night for a few reasons but the the primary one is that we have started a partnership with the SF Asia Society and/or Northern California Asian Society and that's how we have found this amazing speaker tonight and we're going to be curating a few talks a year with them and I wanted to introduce Jack wodsworth from the edge of society to talk a little bit about that partnership sander thank you very much I'm delighted to be here representing not just the San Francisco Asian society but the global Asia Society we were founded by john d rockefeller the 3rd in 1956 and he said Asia will be important and we need to understand its culture if we are going to understand Asia it couldn't be more important today and that was a vision that I think conforms to long now we are delighted to have the opportunity to bring more speakers with Asian backgrounds Asian flavor Asian knowledge to these lectures and nothing could be more important to us here in the Asia Society in San Francisco to be looking into a future as partners with long now so with that thank you very much and we know that age is going to be a very big part of the future and the long now and we're looking forward to hearing about it tonight thank you very much [Applause] yeah you know the next speaker that the Asian society is is bringing on to this series is the famous Asian George Shultz former secretary of state of the United States these talks do get into these kind of continental issues and one of the speaker's a couple years ago was Ian Morris a history professor at Stanford whose book and whose talk was why the West rules for now and the title of tonight's speaker be sure my boo bonny is Brooke that just came out I think that are in the lobby house the West lost it and the rest of that is Asia and the process of basically taking power in the world and he has been in the thick of that and can speak from experience as well as very interesting perspective Kishore ma Bhavani [Applause] thank Thank You Stuart I must say I'm very happy to be back here to see some old friends and young friends and as you know when you have a title with a question mark has the West lost it I'm supposed to keep you in suspense to the end so that your least is sitting on the edge of your seats you know to find out what the answer is but I'm gonna give the game away I'm going to give you the answer at the very beginning so you can relax and not worry about what the answer is and the answer is no or more or why currently not yet but I fear I do fear that it may do so and that's why I came up with this book which I actually learned literally a week ago in London so it's a very new book and I'll try to explain to you why I wrote this book because in many ways the West has done so much for the world and indeed the first part of my room I'm gonna divide my remarks into three parts in part one I'll try to explain why does the West matter I mean why should we be concerned about whether or not the West is going to lose it or not lose it and as you know at the end of the day and I'll be using this statistic often the West only makes up 12% of the world's population 88% lives outside why does it 12% matter that's what I hope to answer and then in part two I'll try to explain why I think the West has gone off course and has lost the strategic directions what mistakes it has made and then in part three to end on a optimistic and positive note explain why I think how I think the West can still change course and at the end of the day as a friend of mine who read this book actually said Kishore this is actually a love letter from you to the West to say hey wake up you know the world is changing so let me let me begin with part one of my story why does the West matter the West basically matters because if the West hadn't succeeded if it hadn't been the first civilization to transform itself an Asian over several centuries of transformation the Renaissance the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution all that amazing transformation that the West did which it originally in a sense kept to itself it is fundamentally now shattered with the rest of the world and the reason why the world is today a much better place than it has ever been is because of the success of the West now and I say something like the world it hasn't been in such a good place there's a look of puzzlement often especially to my Western friends who as you know not necessarily the most optimistic people in the world today but let me give you some data to explain why the world has never been better and in that sense I'm glad Stuart that I'm speaking after Steven Pinker because I'm actually going to begin by citing something from him and actually I had a very interesting conversation with him I was just spent some time in Harvard and I had a very good one-on-one conversation with him and I gave him a copy of the book by the way and I signed it I say to a fellow lonely optimist well this is what Steven Pinker says and I quote in this book he says violence has fallen dramatically today we are probably live in the most peaceful moment of our species time on earth he adds global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the 20th century according to a human security brief 2006 the number of battle deaths and interstate Wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2000 per year in this decade now that's a remarkable reduction in violence now I know you wake up in the morning you read serious stories of Assyria and fighting in Yemen and so on and so forth but if you like a long term look the world has clearly become more and more peaceful now take another area where clearly Humanity has been trying to transform the world which is of course in in trying to eradicate global poverty and here again I'm actually quite shocked people don't know how amazing advances we have made in eradicating global poverty and so let me let me quote what Oxford's Max Rosa says in 1950 not so long ago that's two years after I was born in 1950 three-quarters of the world were living in extreme poverty in 1981 hero still 44% but by 2016 the share and extreme poverty had fallen below 10% so in my lifetime the number of people living in absolute poverty went from three-quarters of the world's population to less than 10% and hopefully within my lifetime by 2030 the National Intelligence Council predicts you go to zero I emphasize this because any future historian looking at our time will say what an amazing time that was from 1950 three-quarters of the world population living in absolute poverty to 2030 to zero now this is the biggest ever improvement in the human condition that we've ever seen we are living in amazing times and I can tell you by the way that poverty is not just about physical deprivation when I grew up in Singapore as a child Singapore's per capita income was the same as Ghana's $500 and I happened to come also from a relatively poor family in a poor Society in fact at the age of six I was sent for a special feeding program because technically undernourished as you can see today I'm over nourished but I tell that story because if you haven't experienced poverty usually don't know how psychologically debilitating it is to your soul you feel helpless you're just clinging on to life and you're trying to survive not quite sure where your next meal next income is gonna come and guess what we've got rid of that that's an amazing leap in the history of human civilization and who did it the West did it another example somebody else on literacy max Rosa in 1800 there were 120 million people in the world that could read and write today there are six point two billion people who were the same skill now that was let me conclude I have lots of data let me conclude the last one johan nova of the cato institute notes 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 zero told them that they were a naive fool but the fools all right this is truly what happened so we live in amazing times so why has this happened why has humanity especially in the last 30 years made this incredible transformation and why did it happen before and the simplest answer is that the West gifted to the rest of the world the best aspects of Western civilization which the rest absorb and as a result of that humanity left forward in such a dramatic way now there are many you can give many examples of the gifts that the West has shared in one of my previous books I think if I'm not mistaken I spoke about it at the Asia Society in San Francisco in my book the new Asian Hemisphere I talked about the Seven Pillars of Western wisdom that the West shared with the world but in this book I point to three enormous gifts that the West made the first is what I call the gift of reasoning now reasoning is one of the most sort of commonly used words but people don't understand how special it is when you make this leap forward and enter the world where suddenly you can figure out you know through science and technology through cause and effect why the world works and how you can improve the world and I can tell you again the advantage of being having my kind of history and background is that I have seen the world before the spread of Reason and I have lived through the change and I saw the consequences so let me explain in a very personal way I'm ethnically a Cindy Cindy's come from sandwich is now part of Pakistan but my family were Hindus and so they were refugees from this result the partition one of the most bloodiest partitions in human history and because of that my family ended up as immigrants in Singapore but the reason I tell that story is that before my generation my mother my father my uncle's my grandfather's my granduncle grandmother's none of them ever went to university none of my ancestors the first person from my entire family chain to go into university was me I broke some order I broke through you and my three sisters didn't go to university I broke through I fortunately studied philosophy Western philosophy understood the magic of it and understood how it transformed the world now what's significant is that after me my generation virtually no one when the university but the next generation below mine all my three children all my nephews and nieces all the children of my first cousins all went to university right in that amazing you can see what a great lead you make from a world where you don't have any access to the kind of modern education to a world where everyone has access and that's what happened again in the last 30 40 years that's amazing so the number of minds that have been opened around the world by the spread of Western education is quite amazing the spread of reasoning has transformed the world another gift which I also attribute to the West it's what I call the change in psychology and here again I'll make it personal when I look back at my parents and their attitude towards life and they suffered a lot in some ways their view was if it happens life is fated you can't change your life it's all written for you for my generation as a result of Education said no it's not fate we can change the world we can make it a better place we can have a better life when you can take control of your life you can do so many things and that's what hundreds of millions billions of people are doing around the world and last six last example of a gift from the West and I can again say this with some conviction because my last job I was Dean of a school of public policy for 13 years and the last gift from the West what I call the gift of good governance and here again it's quite amazing people are not aware what our fundamental transformation has happened as there's other West sharing good governance he said again if you look at ancient Asian history when you had kings and queens and feudal rulers they believed that they had a right to rule and never thought that they were accountable to their people right today every Asian government believes that they are countable to their people so what do they do they improve the livelihoods of their people in the national bill thousands of schools for his children countries in Africa will establish clinics in all parts of the country good governance is spreading and transforming the world this too is a gift from the West now clearly I can go on and say a lot more but it's very clear and the future historian will see this very clearly he was first the West that succeeded then the Western civilization shed is fruits with the rest of humanity and now the rest of humanity has succeeded and a future historian looking at our slice of history will say this is where the Western project to create a more civilized world has succeeded and therefore this should be a moment of the greatest celebration for the West you should all be very happy I'm serious I'm not even kidding I'm dead serious that you have changed the lives of billions of people who are today even at the very bottom experiencing a quality of life that even the top 10% couldn't even dream of having life expectancy for most of human history you would die by 30 or 40 today around the world 70 80 amazing right so why is it why isn't the West celebrating what's gone wrong so this is part two of my comments and part two is a story that clearly the West at a time of the great transformation of humanity has made at least three major strategic mistakes and these strategic mistakes have I think led to the condition of the West today where you get this sense of depression uncertainty about the future so what are the three strategic mistakes the first strategic mistake you made was at a high point in the history of the West when you had one of your greatest victories you defeated the Soviet Union you demolish an entire empire without fight without firing a shot a great victory and also resolve the great victory after a great victory comes great hubris and you thought that you had reached the end of history all you had to do was to go on autopilot cruise control carry on you won the rest of the world has got to change the West doesn't have to make any strategic adjustments you succeeded you're number one and the reason why that was a strategic mistake is that you decided to go to sleep and this is what future historians would notice you decided to go to sleep at the precise moment when the two largest civilizations started to wake up after 200 years of slumber as you know China woke up first in 1978 thanks to tongue hopping four modernizations went on so China woke up in the 1990s also is when India woke up right and why is this significant it's significant because from the Year 1 to the Year 1824 1800 over the last 2,000 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 Europe took off and America took off so if you view the past 200 years of world history against the backdrop of the past 2,000 years of world history the past 200 years of world history have been a major historical aberration all aberrations come to a natural end so it's perfectly natural to see the return of China and India what was not natural is the speed at which they came back give you one statistic in 1980 as a share of the global GNP in purchasing power parity terms United States share was 25 percent China share was 2.2 percent less than 10% in United States 1980 you all remember the Year by 2014 boom China's share had become larger than United States 34 years amazing so they were going to wake up and guess what at the moment when China and India decide to wake up you decided to go to sleep and so for you obviously your puzzle this wasn't supposed to happen you're supposed to remain number one forever with the end of history but the end of history unfortunately was the moment of the return of history so you got just the wrong advice and I say somewhat cruelly in this book that Francis Fukuyama's essay did a lot of brain damage to many leading minds leading them to completely misunderstand world that was coming that's a first strategic mistake the second strategic mistake you made was in the year 2001 what happened in 2001 normally when I asked what happened in 2001 yeah and says of course 9/11 happened in 2001 and as you know 9/11 was a big shock to the United States I was there I actually was in Manhattan when 9/11 happened I was the Singapore ambassador you and then so I could feel the shock and it was a big event and it's perfectly natural to be shocked by an even and therefore focus on that unfortunately as a result of that shock the West didn't notice that something much more significant happen in the year 2001 far more significant or far greater earth-shaking significance and that was the entry of China into the World Trade Organization and by the way I'm not how do you say trained economists but I can tell you just from the basics of economics that when you suddenly inject 800 that's a hundred million new workers into the global capitalist system they would of course be creative destruction quite naturally new competition so you should have anticipated that there will be loss of jobs and indeed one economist recently I think his named one of Michigan's author a uto our google him has come up with data to show how many jobs have been lost in manufacturing as a result of China's entry into the global capitalist system it should have been anticipated but you didn't you had your strategic sites focus on the Islamic world you got deeper and deeper entangled into it well something far more important what's happening with China's entry to WTO and if you want the simplest explanation of why Trump happened it's quite simple you didn't pay attention to the challenges that your working classes were having as a result of China's entry into WTO big strategic mistake so what's the third strategic mistake this happened more recently and I can tell you I am absolutely certain that future historians will be amazed that something quite remarkable happened in human history in 2014 and nobody noticed and I already told you what it was in 2014 China's share the global GNP became bigger than America's and why is that a big deal because for the first time in almost 200 years a non Western power had emerged and become number one and what's even more significant in that year PPP terms number one economy China Asian number two United States in America number three India Asia number four Japan Asian what a remarkable transformation from 200 years of Western domination boom Asia comes back and you didn't pay attention at all to that change and it's pretty obvious that when the world changes so much you have to make strategic adjustments and I can tell you as someone who spends a lot of his time trying to understand the world trying to understand what the major strategic developments in the world are it is a source of great mystery to me that in a country where you have the best strategic think tanks in the world you spend more money on think tanks in any country in the world us you have the best universities in the world you have the best newspapers in the world and you didn't even notice that history had taken a big turn in the last few years and while history had taken a big turn you quedan in cruise control and kept going straight and that's why the West feels it is lost it's not sure where it is heading because you haven't understood that the texture and chemistry of the world has changed fundamentally when you go from a world where only 12% were the active dynamic citizens of planet Earth making the big decisions forging the biggest breakthroughs and then suddenly the 88% has woken up and the world has changed and he's going to change even more and all your mindsets all your concepts all your perceptions of the world are still stuck in the 19th and 20th century which I said was the era of great aberration and therefore you have to fundamentally change course in the 21st century if you want to deal with a world that is coming so in an effort to be helpful to the West because I can tell you someone like me with my life story you know from where I came from if I had followed my natural destiny of my uncles and cousins and all I would never have gone to university I've never had the kind of Western education that transformed my life my life has improved so much so I appreciate what the West has done for the world so I do want to help the West but as you know sometimes when when you want to have one you only want to help your friends you sometimes have to provide bitter medicine and therefore the bitter medicine I give is all with the intention of helping the West so what I propose in this book which I grant to you by the way will not be reviewed by the New York Times will not be reviewed by any of the leading journals I know this all the books I publish in New York over the last 10 years each time trying to tell the West watch out the world is changing three books published in New York none reviewed the New York Times none review the New York Review of Books it's very difficult to accept advice that is so different so what is the advice I give in this book I say why not adopt a new 3m strategy three amps doesn't stand for the Minnesota mining company I think 3m s r 3m words the first M is minimalist now what do I mean by minimalist very simple for the last 200 years the West has injected itself into every Society of planet Earth initially as you know it was an unhappy experience in the 19th century virtually every corner of the world was colonized by Western societies and when America woke up it also began to colonize colonize Philippines intervening of the countries that was how you dominated the world for 200 years the trouble about dominating the world for 200 years is that it then becomes a habit you get used to you assume that it is your fate your responsibility to manage the rest of the world and to fix every problem that is fixing because it's the responsibility of the West and to be fair as I've said many other things you did were good for the world the world has transformed itself strong societies are emerging around the world but when that happens you got to adjust to a new reality and so why not become minimalist in what you're doing and here again I can tell you one fact that future historians will gain marvel at why does the West believe that it can some are other miraculously on his own by selling aircraft carriers planes bombings transform the Islamic world and make the world a better place you know when you injected your hand into the Islamic world it's not surprising it's like injecting your hand or Hornets nests and getting bitten right and I say one of the things I say in this book which is politically incorrect he said I know you worry a lot about terrorism and you think that that's a big threat but how much of it is a result of your interventions in their lives when there be a backlash now of course you say but if we withdraw things will only get worse if we don't intervene they all suffer let me tell you one simple fact there's one part of the world which actually has almost as many Muslims as the Arab world that part the world is Saudis Asia FAC Southeast Asia by the way is the most diverse corner planet Earth in my book the Asian miracle which I could brought out last year I say there are about 650 million people you have 250 40 million Muslims hundred ten million Christians hundred fifty million Buddhists Mahana Buddhist in eye on a Buddhist you have Tao is your confusion is you have Hindus you have even have communists Saudis Asia I know what's interesting the last 20 years especially its 9/11 you've been so absorbed in the Middle East and you neglected Saudis Asia guess what let's resolve you neglect of Saudis Asia is now one of the most peaceful corners our planet Earth doing very well growing a 6% a year already the seventh largest economy in the world about to become the fourth largest economy in the world I didn't even notice how many of you paid attention to ASEAN the Otten miracle maybe some of you did sure but we couldn't ask the average man of the street lost yeah never heard of it but you asked him over Syria yeah I've heard of Syria yeah so I'm just telling you this that the strategic impulses that you had in the nineteen and twentieth centuries to intervene in other parts of the world may have been justified may have been rational right at one time but clearly not when the world has changed and just this weekend I was reading in the New York Times a statistic that someone said about again United States share of the global GNP in PPP terms in 1945 it was 50 percent in 1985 hero 22.5% soon will be down to 13% from 50% in 1945 to 13% so your share the global GNP clearly has gone down by 75 percent has that change any of your attitudes approaches to the world none so as a friend I can tell you that you're much better off adopting a minimalist strategy it doesn't mean disengagement by just means a more prudent way of engagement with the rest of the world and I must emphasize one thing your gift of Education of reasoning to the rest of the world is still continuing to make the a better place with or without your intervention so be minimalist what's the second M the second M is multilateral and I know the word multilateral is designed to put an audience to sleep whenever you talk about United Nations global governance people's eyes begin closing what a boring subject but guess what what will save the world is multilateralism why because the one of the results of the amazing transformations that the West has gifted to the rest of the world in the last thirty years is that you have completely transformed the world in fact in my book the great convergence I use a simple board metaphor to explain how the world has changed in the past when 7.3 billion people live in hundred ninety three separate countries it was as though they were living in hundred three separate boats but captains and crews to take care of each boat and rules to make sure that the boss didn't collide but as a result the world having shrunk the 7.3 billion people no longer live in hundred ninety three separate boats the 7.3 billion people live in hundred and three separate cabins on the same boat but the problem about global board is that your captains and crews taking care of each cabin and no captain crew taking care of the global boat as a whole and if you want to understand why we are having global problem of the global problem of the global problem it's because we haven't woken up to the fact that we are in the same boat that's why we're having global warming that's why we're having global financial crisis that's why we're having global pandemics that's why we're having global terrorism it's a small interdependent world and this is the time when clearly we need to strengthen institutions or global governance and fortunately this is a gift from the West in 1945 you gave the world a wonderful set of multilateral institutions I talked about in the book United Nations I am F well bang well WTO gives from the West and what have you been doing you've been undermining these gifts you know I've been ambassador three UN twice from 84 to 89 and 98 to 2000 four and when I was ambassador you and I just couldn't figure out why is it that the United States which gifted the United Nations to the world spends so much time trying to weaken or undermine the United Nations that's against global interests indeed against Western interest too but that's what you've been doing at a time when we need to strengthen our institutions or global governance you've been undermining them and precisely at the moment when you need a stronger WTO you start a trade war and you say trade wars are good and our time we need to strengthen the United Nations you appoint John Bolton as your National Security Advisor I mean that guy is so ignorant about the world he lives in a bubble a small mental bubble that never thinks about the seven other billion people on planet earth again a future historian wonder how could you do that how could you not realize that this is the moment for stronger multilateral institutions but my third M is the one that you will probably feel the most uncomfortable with M stands for the word mark your valiant strange I'm actually advising the West to be more Machiavellian and I know I did a whole course on Machiavelli when I studied philosophy I know that Machiavelli is a figure very controversial figure in the West in fact the great American political scientist Leo Strauss and I quote Leo Strauss in this book describes him as a figure of evil right but I can recommend to you a wonderful essay written by the great British liberal philosophers Isaiah Berlin very well-known philosopher and it's an essay on Machiavelli in the New York Review of Books and in that essay Isaiah Berlin explains why Machiavelli is one of the most misunderstood persons in the world his goal was actually to promote vet you vir tu I guess the best English translations virtue and to try and achieve the right good outcomes and that's why Machiavelli is still relevant and indeed if the West wants to find its way again in this different world it may be better for it to be a bit more Machiavellian so let me give one example of a Machiavellian advice and this advice was given by President Bill Clinton in a speech he gave at Yale University in 2003 I'll read it to you and I'd be curious to see whether you think it's Machiavellian this is what he said if you believe that maintaining power and control and absolute freedom of movement and sovereignty is in an absolute freedom woman movement freedom of movement and sovereignty is in your country's future there's nothing inconsistent in the US continuing to behave unilaterally the US is the biggest most powerful country in the world we've got the juice and we're gonna use it then he has a but but if you believe that we should be trying to create a world with rules and partnerships and habits of behavior that we would like to live in when we are no longer the military political economic superpower in the world then you wouldn't do that it just depends on what you believe and Bill Clinton by the way is the only American politician who has the courage to say in public what no American politician can say that America is going to become number two hey wake up you know baby number one forever so what do you do when you become number two so clearly it is in America's national interest as he says to live in a world where the next number one place by the rules place by multilateral rules multilateral partnerships and this is where Bill Clinton was being very cunning he was saying that if we won China if you want to slip on the handcuffs of multilateralism on the China what we do we slip the handcuffs of multilateralism on ourselves first on United States and then when China becomes number one you pass on the handcuffs to number one and say hey this is how the number one behaves it's so simple it's so clear he gave the speech in 2003 not one American paid attention to it no one has ever cited that speech or Menten - mentioned that speech again it's so simple so clear and clearly this is the moment to do so so at a time if you listen to Bill Clinton this actually actually reinforces my point that America should be pushing for stronger multilateral institutions instead you're undermining them and when you do so so for example let me give another example when you ignore the United Nations right when you learn when you unilaterally intervene in parts of the world you justify it by saying you know what this is a struggle and this is what nikki Haley would say in the UN this is what Samantha power would say the UN this is a struggle between the freedom living countries of the world and the tyrannies of the world Russia and China who of course will support dictators like Assad so when you paint it in black and white terms your white the rest is black now let me give you an example to illustrate why you have to get rid of that black-and-white view of the world because if you say this is a struggle within the freedom-loving democracies in the world and the tyrannies of the world fair enough which is the world's largest democracy India which is the world's second largest democracy Unitas America which is the world's third largest democracy Indonesia do you want to hear what the other democracies are saying you think them using their views matter okay let me tell you what an Indian official has said about your practices of unilateral intervention in the rest of the world he says in most cases this is shams Iran in most cases the post-intervention situation has been rendered much worse the violence more lethal and the suffering of the people who are supposed to be protected much more severe than before Iraq is an earlier instance Libya and Syria other more recent ones a similar story is playing itself out in Ukraine in each case no careful thought was given to the possible consequences of intervention so this is the world's largest democracy speaking think twice be careful and if you look at your most recent case you have intervene in Iraq twice the first time was in 1990 under the presidency of George HW Bush what did you do before you intervene George HW Bush sent n voice to over hundred countries around the world got the support of hundred countries they all join in you are a spectacularly successful intervention in Iraq 2003 you tried to get the same support the world said no don't do it I was an ambassador the UN at the same time at that time you couldn't get a Security Council resolution so Kofi Annan said your intervention was illegal you went ahead unilaterally and look at the consequence so you can see that in a world that has changed you have to change and adapt your impulses and if you do so you'd be good for you and also good for the world so this is actually I know many of you feel that we live in a dark difficult trouble place actually the truth is the exact opposite we live in a moment of the greatest historical opportunity to create an even better world and future historians looking at our time will say this generation brought us to the verge of utopia in improving the human condition all you have to do is complete the next lap and our work would have been done but to do that please change course thank you that's great thank you yeah most your remarks were properly since you're in the u.s. addressed to the US behavior the West for quite a long time has been transatlantic and if this was a European audience what would you be saying well I can I do have a lot about Europe well you're absolutely right because I'm speaking to an American audience I focus in America I did I did get launched this book in London and in Amsterdam and I focus on Europe and and I think Europe is also making similar strategic mistakes I think the Europeans have been very unwise and also as you know I mean this is just a recent instance when they when they remove the government of Gaddafi in Libya you saw the consequences the flutter board people that entered into Europe and so my advice to the Europeans is very simple Joe politics at the end of the day is about geography so when the United States intervenes in the Islamic world the United States by and large is protected by two big oceans Atlantic Ocean Pacific Ocean Europe is not protected by any big oceans from the Islamic world so it is in Europe's interest to participate in the calming of the waters in the Middle East instead of roiling the waters in the Middle East and by the way I am actually I must emphasize this fact since I come from Southeast Asia I actually believe that the Islamic world can succeed and modernize on its own and it will do so you may take a bit longer but he will succeed so Europe should be participating in the efforts to modernize that world and not get involved in trying to bomb the countries and start wars in that the world so that's my first piece of advice my second piece of advice to Europe just to give you an example of geography Europe's long-term strategic challenge unlike Americas is not China Europe's long-term strategic challenge is going to come from Africa and you know why in 1945 at the end of World War two Europe's population was twice that of Africa's today Africa's population is more than twice that of Europe's by 2100 Africa's population be ten times the size of Europe four billion to four hundred million now surely it is in Europe strategic interests to promote development in Africa and you know the best partner for development in Africa will be China mm-hmm and so Europe should be working with China to develop Africa to protect its long-term interests but but you notice that the Europeans join in the American chorus of disapproval of what China is doing what your what China is doing in Africa so the Europeans basically my message to them is you've got to start thinking independently and develop your own perspectives understand your own geography understand your own environment and adapt to it with the Europeans having done yet a couple of questions about basically the Asian side of all of this and the vs what are the top gifts from the east both historically and in in current times gosh that would take another lecture I think what we going to see I mean one one reason by the way I can tell you I'm 70 years old now I'm actually very excited to be alive as an Asian at this point in history because in the last thirty years of my life I have personally directly seen the Asian economic Renaissance it happened in my lifetime I'm very happy but after an economic Renaissance there comes a cultural Renaissance and you know I am amazed I never thought I would see this explosion of cultural confidence on the part of my Asian friends they look at the world so differently today so much more confident and so much more interest in their past heritage and culture so the great rediscovery of Asian cultures of Chinese civilization Indian civilization all will come there'll be an incredible explosion cultural explosion happening and it'd be good for the world and you will make the world a much richer place and you know you can it can be things like by the way as you know Prime Minister Modi to give one concrete example if I'm not second I start of a ministry for yoga if I'm not mistaken am I correct yeah so yoga is something that would be Indian gift to the world the Chinese as you know are rediscovering some of the virtues of Chinese medicine and as you know one of the virtues of Chinese medicine is that you take a holistic view of the body and you try to do something in that lines something of that so all all kinds of new things will surface but at the same time I will also emphasize that all the Asian countries sang the West for the gift of Science and Technology that you're given to them a question from Liz bowler what is surprised you most about Asia's rise over the past decade or so so you were there too thick saying all this is anyone saying it for a while yeah yeah and when he be thinking of a said to you sort of on track with what you expected 25 years ago or their surprises a long way still I I would say number one the speed has surprised me I mean I I frankly if you even if you had asked me 1990 let's say when I started writing all these things I don't sa call the west and the rest in 1992-93 I would never have anticipated that China's share the global GNP will become number one by 2014 that was a complete surprise to me and and then I would say that the Southeast Asia right which everyone as you know is described as the Balkans of Asia as emerges one of the most peaceful corners for the world in fact Southeast Asia by the way has the second most successful regional organization in the world after the European Union and nobody knows most of most in the world haven't heard of it that's why it was called the Austrian miracle and you promote that say more about it yeah because you know if there was one part of the world that was supposed to break up and become like the Balkans and and to create more Yugoslavia's it should have been Southeast Asia and Indonesia for example is an amazing story because in 97 98 Indonesia went through a wrenching this is only 20 years ago wrenching financial crisis and at the height of the financial crisis I must say that I shed the conventional wisdom in 97-98 that Indonesia could break apart like Yugoslavia not if you had told me in 97 98 that Indonesia would then emerge as the most successful democracy in the Islamic world twenty years from now I said no no way but it happened this is a real you know in the Indonesian story so it's a real miracle why wouldn't it break up and yes it's not even a comment in Tunisia is scattered it's denied several thousand islands and it's a country that's designed to be easily broken up and it's ad separatist movements and I can tell you in one of the most unfair things that I've ever seen in human history you know when president SBY susilo bambang yudhoyono of indonesia and his deputy use of color managed to achieve peace in our che now the conflict in our chief or your informations been going on for long time you know several centuries they finally produce peace in Aceh and what the Nobel Peace Prize kept Peace Prize Committee do they give the Nobel Peace Prize for Peace in Aceh to a Finnish gentleman another friend of mine Matti Ahtisaari but they should have given it relations and that's what I mean people don't notice it when the Asians do remarkable things you just end up giving Peace Prizes to fellow Europeans and you forget sedation to accomplish this well the Nobel Prizes are sort of done in Europe earth could come from somewhere else and maybe I should marry cave Magus dad who is a journalist he's worked in China for a long time yes what's a plausible future in which it turns out this is not the Asian century how could a ship blow how could a ship lloyd well she could blow it in several ways if you ask me my biggest concerns my number one Z by 2050 you know the world's most important geopolitical relationship is always without exception between the world's number one power and the world's number one emerging power today is the world's number one powers United States still comprehensively the worst number one emerging power in China so that's the most important relationship twenty years from now the world's number one power be China the world's number one emerging power will be India aha so the China India relationship could end up very badly and therefore it's very important for China and India to manage that relationship well and unfortunately when I was in India in January this year I noticed a significant rise of what I call anti-china sentiment in India and and that that that worries me so you asked me am I worried about that I'm worried about that but if you ask me will there be war within China and India I take bets with you there'll be no war within China and India they actually have managed it that border quite well no shot has been fired for forty years or so I guess it helps if the border or sort of unpleasant mountains to know actually if you look at the border within India and Pakistan is equally mountainous by their shooting but you say there's this sort of anti Chinese thing in India now based on what what are what are they arguing about well I think there is there's a feeling in India that China is moving aggressively in its neighborhood right that China is establishing close relations with Sri Lanka with Bangladesh of course in Pakistan sorry they're building a big port in Pakistan yes yeah and and and and by the way it's actually a good thing that China is building this infrastructure whether we infrastructure is that not a zero-sum game you know infrastructure is actually good for the for the reach for the country for the region and for the world and of course sometimes you end up with mistakes like as you know the Chinese build a huge spot in Sri Lanka that has become a white elephant now yeah and that white elephant unfortunate becomes China's burden so China's going to be very careful what happened now they the it's a it's a long and complicated story but they thought they thought they could sort of compete with Singapore and they didn't realize how good Singapore Singapore is exceptionally good in terms like port services and all that I mean we are number one in the world I'm sure you know this so it's very difficult to compete with Singapore this may be a good point your Singapore the world in Singapore is a sort of people have a kind of a vague idea about something kind of benign the kind of autocratic and Disneyland the death penalty or something like that and I think the the the role of Singapore in Asia is much more key than most people recognize but what's your perspective from within Singapore of that yeah well III would say that Singapore has changed a lot you know what ended in part of its geniuses yes the one from platform to platform yeah and and and one of Singapore's biggest contributions I suspect when future historians look at Singapore's role in Asian history its them they might say that it was Singapore that was the first Asian country to absorb what I call the Western virus and then share that Western virus with his region and let me tell you one story that brings his home and I can say this now because one of my very good friends was the lead foreign minister of Indonesia his name was Ali a lathis was his name and he and I became good friends because he he was the Indonesian ambassador to the UN when I was a Singapore ambassador to the UN and he told me an amazing story you know he said Kishore for many years Indonesia would send its urban planners to Europe so they would go to Amsterdam they'd go to Zurich they'd go to London they go to Paris and then they will come back they'd write report how wonderful urban planning is in Amsterdam or London that they come to last paragraph and then they would say but Amsterdam is in Europe Jakarta is in Asia we in Asia cannot do what the Europeans can do sign report filed away he said one year my whatever whatever reason they send their urban planners to Singapore they came back and they wrote a report about how wonderful urban planning in Singapore is and by the way Singapore you know I'm chairman of the Lee Kuan Yew world city nominating versity price nominating committee so I've studied cities around the world Singapore is clearly off the charts in terms of urban planning okay it's amazing so the in donations came saw this they went back they wrote a report and they came to the last paragraph and they said but Singapore is in Europe Hey Singapore no in Europe Singapore is in Asia and he said that's the first time they realize hey maybe we can do it too and she you if you haven't lived through a psychological mindset where you felt helpless and you couldn't change things you really don't understand why it's like when you suddenly change your mindset you say hey I can do it too and that's why I mean I I tell you one of the most impressive leaders I met is the present president of Indonesia Joe Kobe and before he became president he was what you call the mayor or governor of the capital city Jakarta and before he ran for president he actually invited me to travel with him in a jeep as a driver and he and I sat behind someone interpreting for us in front and he showed me he took me around the city to show what he was trying to do in Jakarta hmm and then he told me came to a spot he said sure you see that see those slums over there our dream is to build Singapore style public housing in that area so what we have done in Singapore has been a source of inspiration for many and by the way I'm sure you know this China has learned so much from Singapore Deng Xiaoping users say go learn from Singapore we have actually hosted in Singapore I would say thousands of mayors from China and so Singapore is small that it is has actually made a fundamental transformation and just to complete the story let me tell you another story you know Ratan Tata is one of India's most famous industrialists a man of great integrity and he said you know for many years he would try and persuade his fellow Indians why don't we go to Singapore and learn from Singapore and his fellow Indians would say huh Singapore is so small India is so big what can big India learn from Singapore and he said China took off he told his fellow Indians you see the Chinese learned from Singapore see where they are we didn't learn from Singapore see where we are this is from an Indian so this and this gets burnt terms of the question of sort of the autocratic role in an emerging nation basically and and also the city aspect which interests me a lot because Singapore is basically a city staying even more than Venice was in some respects because it doesn't have much else besides the city and the people of the city but Lee Kuan Yew is this I think astounding character and personality and force in the 20th century primarily to basically design and build with great cunning as you pointed out of the Singapore example which was a new kind of example in that century which is as you say continuing into this century this is kind of one guy telling how it should be done and a lot of people you and many others realize the genius of it and went along and then made that a patient so it kept moving through time but Singapore was not famous for its democracy say the way India is famous for its democracy so there's questions that are in their stack as you can imagine saying what's the role in democracy of all of this is democracy a different thing in Asia than it has been in the West hmm well I actually I have discussed this in the book and also elsewhere and I would say that I actually believe in the long run all societies are going to become democracies I mean that they no doubt and and what's interesting about the Asian story is that India is succeeding it's a democracy mm-hmm China is succeeding is not a democracy right right and so but they're succeeding differently yeah yeah there's a time at least when sort of Asia Watchers here we're saying well it's going to be a race between China and India who's gonna you know rise fastest and clearest and cleanest or whatever and that's not an answer China rose fastest but as far and yeah but I think it's also fundamentally a major misunderstanding of China in this country say more and I let me tell you what the major misunderstanding is you all you've seen that China was ruled by Communist Party in 1949 a common rule by Communist Party in 1979 it'd be ruled by Communist Party 2019 and you assume that China hasn't changed is still being run by the same Communist Party but the Chinese Communist Party has obviously changed fundamentally I mean from and I I went to China for the first time in 1980 when I went to China for the first time in 1980 the Chinese people couldn't didn't have the freedom they couldn't choose what to wear they all wore Maori suits they couldn't choose where to live where to work what to study then suddenly zero Chinese could travel overseas zero now you go back to China the Chinese people can choose what to wear where to live where to work where to study and guess what every year hundred and twenty million Chinese right think it's more than population in California 120 million Chinese leave China freely as tourists amazingly 120 million Chinese returned to China freely now if China was a communist gulag Stalinist aid would you go back to China and so there's a complete misunderstanding of China clearly there while the political freedoms in China have an increase the personal freedoms of the Chinese people has exploded and I can tell you one of the one of the questions that future historians will be very puzzled by is the judgments made by America on China and I tell you why they be Puzzle the United States of America is about 240 years old Chinese history maybe two thousand four hundred years old in today's world you have a society which is two hundred and forty years old passing judgment on a society which is 2400 years old and at a time when China has had its best 30 years of history the Americans are telling Chinese you guys are not doing very well really you should change your political system listen to us become a democracy all we well with you and I can tell you one thing that Chinese leaders there's a whole shades of opinion among them the one complete point of agreement that they all have is that they saw what happened to the Soviet Communist Party they saw what happened to the Soviet Union they saw what happened to Russia he went overnight to a democracy guess what the Russian economy imploded life expectancy came down infant mortality went up the Russian people suffered and the Chinese said this is what happens when you have an instant democracy so when the Chinese said give us time let us transform our political system when our own will I said let them do it why do you think that you would know better what's good for them does that reflect the fact that for 200 years you got used to doing it telling the world how they should behave and therefore you think you can be a better judge of the rest of the world so that judgmental character in the West has got to adapt to a rest of the world because the rest of the world today is less willing to be judged by you so how much of this China sensibility is awareness of what was going wrong in Russia another communist country sighs close neighbor what was going right in Singapore that kind of attention outside the sort of national it's a very nationalists with all of that history very aware of China is the Middle Kingdom yes they had this awareness looking out and where I'm going with this is the Politburo seems to have been made up by so many basically technical leads people from the engineering and scientific background probably more than in the governmental leadership than any other country in the world that I know of democratic countries for whatever reason don't elect scientists and engineers so much so is that part of the dynamic that made China this perceptive this capable of sort of changing things in a peaceful way in an adaptive way yes in fact I I just gave a lecture the Fairbank Center in Harvard talking about this I see this question and the question I address was is the Chinese government legitimate and clearly as you know the different sources of legitimacy so when people compare the American government with the Chinese government they say this is a comparison within a democratic system and an authoritarian system and a democratic system is of course better than Authority and system and I agree a democratic system is better than an authoritarian system but if you go if you dig one level down and you look at the functioning of the government and how it makes his decisions and you analyze it you may see that the democratic system may be performing as a plutocratic system serving the interests of the people the tiny elite and leaving thus creating a situation where I think half your population hasn't seen an increase in his median income for 40 years that's what plutocracy is the Chinese system is a meritocracy the Chinese Communist Party by the way has got one of the most amazing meritocratic selection systems when I had a research assistant that works out a story many levels process when I had a research assistant in Columbia University a few weeks ago she told me and she was obviously one of the brightest students she said she was very disappointed when she left high school because she said when you graduate from high school in China that top student one student is selected to join the Communist Party and you want to be that one student selected to join the Communist Party and then in the first year and university she says five students are selected to join the Communist Party again the top students so can you imagine the system which tries to select the best brains to run the country now the Chinese Communist Party is not perfect it has a lot of flaws in making lot of mistakes by in terms of harvesting the brainpower of China it has done an amazing job and I tell the story you know I was in diplomacy for 33 years when I started my career in 1971 if you had asked me do you want to talk to an American diplomat or Chinese diplomat I would say of course and talk to American diplomat is graduate of Princeton Yale Harvard brilliance the New Yorker every week knows what's going on the world the Chinese diplomat 1971 would walk around with a mouse little red book in his pocket and when I talk to him you'll produce mouse read book and read to me of a mouse read book why should I waste my time Chinese that's empty one you fast forward to 2018 and you ask me to fly to a capital somewhere and you said you want to talk to the American ambassador or the Chinese ambassador the likelihood is that the Chinese ambassador would speak the language of the country would have been posted there several times would have a very new and sophisticated view of the country and the American ambassador would be one who's demoralized knowing that his budget is being cut knowing his chances of becoming an ambassador and the top capital is practically zero because there are political appointees so you have a demoralized the American diplomatic service and an incredibly dynamic Chinese Foreign Service that's what that's a big change that has happened since 1971 and that's a result of meritocracy and I can tell you you'll be quite amazed how good some of these Chinese diplomats are today and it's not supposed to happen in a closed authoritarian dictatorial system Kevin Kelley yes what's the role of diversity will our culture's converge on assertive universalities in the long run or in a way get more and more checker well I think the we are actually I mean the most exciting thing about our world that is happening today is that for the last 200 years there's been a theme of my remarks you've had one very successful civilization Western civilization and the other civilizations were underperforming but now we're going to enter a world where we going from what I call a mono civilizational world to a multi civilizational and a Marty civilizational world is almost by definition a much more interesting world to live in and is whether you in terms of diversity in terms of choice of as you know for a start you go to any major cities the choice of cuisines today is amazing the diversity of cuisines even here in San Francisco it's quite amazing right so that's a world that we're going to see you're going to get diversity of experience in many dimensions in the world that's coming and I guess India is pretty diverse China is I mean China is everything it's so big and it's so much there it is diverse in a sense it's been has been historically kind of tough on some of the minorities and we're in China and so on is that the future do you think are they getting over that or what's the tension there yeah well I think I think China clearly has a lot of challenges handling the at least three difficult areas Tibet zinc young and of course Taiwan so those are three difficult challenges the Chinese have to deal with and clearly if the Chinese want to create a happier outcomes they have to live by what they have themselves said they should give greater autonomy to these regions you know but of course as you know the problem comes when there's armed struggle mm-hmm right and right now I'm lucky the armed struggle in Tibet is not it's not that but the armed struggle in ching-chong is pretty bad and that's going to be a big problem right and so it's it the Chinese will have to show a lot of political wisdom in managing that problem the last question and it's from Richard Lee says what the Train is now giving to the world in terms of its new Silk Road and initiatives in Africa that you mentioned infrastructure in the infrastructure is sort of good for everybody but it's a huge commitment that most Americans don't know about that China has been making to basically link to Eurasia and to one connected continent both by sea and across many paths across the yeah I you know III I mean that there are lots of positive contributions that China is making the number one positive contribution that China is making by the way is that you know the Chinese that can technically take the view which is correct that global warming is not just due to the new floors of greenhouse gas emissions from China and India but because of the spot of greenhouse gas emissions that the West has put up and for a long time China and India insisted that the West should where the main price and they shouldn't so when United States went Ramdas had to walk away from the climate change agreement I actually thought I was a frightened that the Chinese would also walk away from the climate change agreement the Chinese didn't do so right and I think that's one of the wisest decisions that China made not to give up its commitments to think you know if they keep the commitments of climate change it helps the whole world because Chinese are not going to be number one industrial power in the world right number two the infrastructure that China is building in Asia is going to help Asia enormous Lee and you know Y if infrastructure building is very very critical if you want if you want your economy to grow you have to build the roads the railways the ports and sometimes schools and so on so far the Chinese are investing in that and and that's a that's a that's a positive sum game for the world and and just for your information I think this Google and double check I think about 70% of the incoming Bri investment the China goes through Singapore and 33 percent of the outgoing Bri investment goes through Singapore so Singapore plays a very critical role in the Bri initiative and we are playing a critical role because we see this as something that's going to benefit the region and similarly I think we'll also benefit from all this infrastructural investment and this is something frankly that the United States can work with China so when when when China set up the Asian infrastructure investment bank it was an unfortunate decision on the part of the Obama administration to oppose it and today I meet more and more Americans including some very senior ones I can't mention their names or told me privately that was a mistake that America should actually work with China in this area and if you work with China you actually help China develop the standards of good governance that are very high in these organizations and the Chinese will welcome that it sounds like more than the West in a way China feels like it's got a job to take responsibility for the well-being of the world is that their perception of their role now I've heard this from Kevin Kelley he thinks that young people well I I would I would recommend I would recommend to you two speeches that Xi Jinping gave last year in January 2017 the first speech was in Davos the second speech was in the Geneva and actually I was very heartened by those speeches because it showed that the Chinese actually believe that in the world of tomorrow to go back to the most boring M word multilateralism the Chinese actually believe that we need to strengthen multilateral institutions and so the going back to Bill Clinton's wise advice to the Americans strengthen multilateral institutions right now Xi Jinping wants to do that so this is this actually is a moment of great historic opportunity if America can make the right decision to actually collaborate with China to strengthen global multilateral institutions well let's see if that happens thank you for always [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Long Now Foundation

Views: 70,467

Rating: 4.7068968 out of 5

Keywords: Government, Globalization, Infrastructure, Future, Economics, Business, Singapore, ASEAN, United Nations, Public Policy, China, Indonesia, United States, Kishore Mahbubani, Diplomacy, Foreign Relations, Diplomatic Relations, The Long Now, Stewart Brand, Long Now Foundation

Id: T1AY9H89tTY

Length: 91min 19sec (5479 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/BetaCycloner]

Why would you bother saving a gaggle of moneylaunderers, lobbyists, and crooks in general

[u/Medical_Officer]

Yes and yes.

More and more we're starting to see (ironically enough) socially right-wing, economically left-wing (so nationalist + socialist, but NOT talking about Nazis) intellectuals in the West promoting East Asia as an example to follow, at least in certain respects.

The decline and erosion of the positive aspects of Western Civilization (and yes there are plenty of positive aspects, or at least there were) is self-evident at this point to anyone paying attention with any knowledge of history. This juxtaposed against the meteoric rise of China leads to only one rational conclusion: "we need to learn from the Chinese, maybe not for everything, but at least for some things".

If all goes well, we may one day arrive a near-universal theory of politics, culture and economics that combines the effective elements of both Western and East Asian thought. It's possible, never hurts to be optimistic.