Kopi Time E052: Kishore Mahbubani on dealing with China’s rise

[Music] welcome to kobe time a podcast series on markets and economies from dbs group research am tamara break chief economist your host welcome to our 52nd episode today we have the pleasure of having with us an astute observer of geopolitics kishore mahobani is currently distinguished fellow at the asia research institute at national university of singapore in his long and accomplished career professor mahubani was with the singapore foreign service for 33 years twice he was singapore's ambassador to the un he was also permanent secretary at the foreign ministry from 1993 to 1998. professor mahobani joined academia in 2004 when he was appointed the founding dean of the lee kuan school of public policy kishore haubani is a prolific author of articles in leading newspapers and magazines as well as a number of books including can asians think can singapore survive and most recently which we will talk a lot about has china one professor from hawaii welcome to copy time my pleasure thank you so much for being with us i want to begin with an op-ed that you wrote at the financial times just a couple of weeks ago and the title was biden should summon the courage to reverse course on china so let's start with the u.s point of view why is it in the interest of the u.s to reduce the temperature between the two superpowers well you know i want to emphasize that i want biden to succeed my nightmare is that in 2024 we will see the return of donald trump and i'm not even exaggerating because at the end of the day he did get 74 75 million votes and if biden gets it wrong the world is in trouble so our interests including in singapore and in southeast asia is to help biden succeed by carrying on with trump's policies on china when they clearly have failed in every sense of the term and you know as i explained in my book as china won the fundamental problem about the contest that donald trump launched against china is that he launched this contest without a strategy and henry kissinger told me that the one-on-one luncheon i had with him in new york and what happens when you don't have a strategy you fail and so the obvious question to us is has trump's policies weakened china strengthened the us brought the friends of the u.s to support us on china the answer to all three questions is no so obviously it is not in the interest of the biden administration to carry on in an automatic fashion with trump's policies on china instead be wiser for him to announce hey trump failed on china i'll do a better job right and you are mincing no words so what would you have done differently in the first two months of the budding administration i i would say the first thing that biden could have done bearing in mind the political environment in the united states which has become strongly anti-china is to say hey guys we got lots of important things to do on china let's press the pause button let's first figure out what has trump done has he weakened china has he strengthened america and then after we assess his policies we then decide okay which ones do we carry on and as part of the pause button especially in the first few weeks the first thing he should have done was to lift all the trade tariffs and sanctions on china because i can tell you just a few days ago i was participating in the harvard asia conference with some harvard professors and other china watchers in the u.s and they all said when the biden administration announces that we are not going to remove the sanctions and tariffs because we want to retain them as leverage against china you know what this harvard professor said that's like that's like threatening china by saying if you don't listen to me i'll shoot myself in the foot again so clearly these sanctions and tariffs have not hurt china in fact have not helped the american workers have not helped the american consumers so frankly reverse costs on them because because that will be in the interests of the american people last year you attended a conference organized by dbs where you pointed out that your view was that the chinese themselves have not done themselves any favor in terms of influencing people and winning friends and at that time this was summer of last year you felt that china had no friends left in washington dc does that remain the case uh that that certainly remains the case and uh and why that has happened of course is a very complex story in fact i hold devote a whole chapter in my book has china one to the strategic mistake that china has made in this u.s china contest and of course it was completely unnecessary for china to have alienated the american business community and as you know many american companies make a lot of money from china i mean boeing i think boeing single biggest customer probably is china uh general motors makes more money from china than it does from the united states of america and uh apple absolutely the world's largest company just imagine if tomorrow there's a complete shutdown or trade between u.s and china how much do you think this two trillion dollar apple company will be worth right so apple is benefiting a lot too but what is amazing is that none of these companies spoke out when trump launches trade war against china and that was a clear sign that china had failed and china had alienated the american business community now disastrous start to the first two months of the administration vis-a-vis china notwithstanding we did have john kerry engage the chinese his biden's climate czar on issues of climate change and it looks like that is one area where there will be substantial room for collaboration so it's not all confrontation yes certainly again to be fair to the biden administration they are trying to to do both things at the same time but at some point in time there has to be a certain degree of intellectual and political coherence in what you are doing and frankly you know i was a diplomat for 33 years if you really want countries to cooperate on some things for a start stop insulting them and so for example when mike pompeo almost on the last day of the trump administration declares that there was a genocide in xinjiang that's a complete untruth no it has not been proven that hundreds and thousands of people have been killed in xinjiang it's completely untrue and jeff sex of columbia university just came out with an article that documented why this is false unfortunately the secretary of state anthony blinken repeated that there was a genocide in xinjiang and that's factually incorrect so i think when it comes to dealing with with china i can understand the concerns the united states has about china these are real legitimate concerns it is true that many american interests will be hurt and as china becomes stronger so the concerns are real they are legitimate but when you deal with them the first thing you got to figure out is what is my strategy what is my and if you want to work out strategy what are my goals in dealing with china and so when the biden administration didn't press the pause button didn't say okay let's start afresh with a new approach to china and it's as part of the fresh approach as you know especially when dealing with asian countries public insults never help in fact the whole definition of a diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you feel you're going to enjoy the journey that's what diplomacy is all about okay and i know that america has got good diplomats so why doesn't america go back to the the diplomacy textbook and try to engage china in a respectful dialogue pointing out where the differences are where the concerns are and then pointing out areas where you can collaborate but for to do that you need to have a u-turn a reversal from the policies of the trump administration because we just insult china today in south china tomorrow and we carry on that's not how you conduct international relations i want to spend most of this podcast talking about asia but one non-asia question for you because you are talking about some of these politics of insult which doesn't really you know pay off u.s has been very aggressive against russia the last month or so including the president of the united states calling vladimir putin a killer which i don't think the russians appreciate it much and we're seeing in the last few days significant escalation and the relationship between the two countries is that a mistake as well well again the the the mistake is a similar one what is the united states strategy for dealing with russia and as you know one of the most how do you say controversial points i make in my book is that russia in the long run will not be an ally of china russia in the long run will become an ally of the west and by the way other american strategic thinkers like john miyashima and others have said why are we pushing russia into the camps of china and the reason why the west is pushing russia into the camps of china is because the west doesn't have a strategy for dealing with russia and as you know in my previous books i have documented that it was a huge mistake to try to expand nato into what used to be the geopolitical space of the former soviet union and of course the russians would get upset and sadly you know gorbachev tried very hard to create a new rapprochement between russia and the west and he was slapped by the west nato was expanded unnecessarily and the end result is that the west has succeeded in alienating russia and as a consequence of that russia is now cooperating with china because they both feel that they're being slapped around and i suppose implicit in your argument is that if you as a superpower starts pushing another emerging or former power around instead of energizing your allies in those societies you're actually energizing the anti-western sentiments yes i mean i i i you know i i want to emphasize again that we want the united states to remain in east asia we want the united states to play a constructive role in east asia and there is a tremendous reservoir of goodwill towards america america can exploit these reservoirs of goodwill but to exploit these reservoirs of goodwill don't force countries in this region to say hey are you on china side or on the side of the united states because frankly for the countries in this region who's today their primary trading partner right now in the year 2000 21 years ago america's gnp was eight times the size of china's today is only 1.5 times at the most in the year 2000 america's trade with southeast asia was three times larger than china's trade with southeast asia today china's trade with southeast asia is much larger than america's trade we saw these issues so how can you ask these countries to give up their their real hardcore interests and sacrifice their relations with china for what so you that's why you need to have a much more intelligent thoughtful strategy and unfortunately as you know because the united states won the cold war against soviet union so handsomely they sort of took it for granted hey if people have to choose within united states and soviet union they chose united states and so they say okay today if countries have to choose within united states and china they will automatically choose the united states and of course many countries want to maintain good relations united states but hang on a second they have real interests whether we survey china and china as i keep telling my american friends america will be around in asia for another 100 years china will be around in asia for another thousand years so you've got you you've got to focus on the 1000 year calendar in addition to focusing on the 100-year calendar okay you mentioned that the u.s retains tremendous reservoir of goodwill in the region why is it the military umbrella that the u.s can offer or is it the u.s soft power or is it the economic market size of the u.s well it's a it's again a complicated story but i what i do is i tell my american friends if you look at the sentiment in latin america or even central america towards the united states there's so much anti-american sentiment there and one person expressed this openly was a famous novelist gabrielle garcia marquez and i actually was in the room hearing him say that you know okay by contrast in southeast asia because united states has been far away it has not played an oppressive role in southeast asia in fact it's played a supportive role in southeast asia when asean was created in 1967 he was a pro-american creation and uh china actually denounced the creation of asean as a new imperialist uh uh outfit you know so you know from that day onwards and of course in the cold war it was the asean states that stood with the united states against the soviet union and actions in vietnam and indochina and of course paradoxically of course is that the reason why asean did so well is that in the 1980s there was a complete alignment of interest between us china and asean and this triangle strengthened asean a great deal so you know we have lots and lots of examples of how united states has played a positive role in southeast asia and of course as you know if you look at the educational qualifications of most southeast asian leaders very few of them have studied in chinese universities many of them have studied in american universities and certainly if you want to look for a cabinet which has the highest number of harvard graduates i think it's the singapore cabinet so you can see how how deep and pervasive the influence of american society has been in singapore and in southeast asia and we appreciate it we like it we welcome it and i can tell you that you know american investment in singapore in the 60s and 70s played a critical role in jump starting singapore's economic growth so singapore frankly should send a big thank you note to united states for what it has done for singapore what kind of thank you notes should asian countries be sending to china has china already become the most important organizing principle in this region and is it really so far the economic success of china or you think that china is actually making concerted efforts toward having a broader base influence in the region you know it'd be very difficult to give a definitive answer to your question because what we are seeing is a work in progress essentially number one i think even the chinese themselves are surprised how fast china has grown frankly if you had asked deng xiaoping in 1980 when he launches four modernizations right that do you anticipate mr dung that in 34 years time china's gnp which then was 10 of the united states would within 34 years become bigger i mean dixie bing would have said no way we are struggling we have poverty we have problems you will never get there and of course what the chinese have accomplished frankly is a genuine miracle i mean in terms of the economic growth i mean getting lifting 800 million people out of poverty creating now the world's largest middle class and i think the chinese themselves actually are having difficulty accepting the fact that they're no longer to use their own words they say oh china is the largest developing country in the world come on when you have the second largest gnp in nominal terms the largest gnp in ppp terms you are for all practical purpose a major economic power and i think the chinese haven't adjusted to that and we should help them adjust to that that china got a lot of concessions in the year 2001 when it joined the world trade organization because it was then literally a developing country it was automatically eligible for a lot of these concessions but today it's not right not fair for china to retain these concessions as the world's second largest economic power and actually i think it'd be wiser for china to unilaterally give up some of these concessions and in fact you know hank paulson who's a former u.s treasury secretary who's actually been quite friendly to china i said come on guys please start giving up some of your concessions but all this can be done if you have a thoughtful reflective and respectful dialogue with china but if you insult china how do you think you can persuade china to change that's the mistake right okay so i want to stay on that issue of thank you note should china send a thank you note to the clinton and bush administration officials who helped that accession to the wto because that was a pivotal moment for china absolutely absolutely but you know the negotiations were not easy and i don't know you remember there was a very famous trip by premier chu rongjii to washington dc to meet bill clinton and he went there with a great hope and desire to secure china's admission to wto but then i to be honest with you this is all documented the clinton administration became a bit greedy and raised the bar for china's entry into wto and churanji didn't have enough political power to to meet the race bar in fact churungji was embarrassed back home by the way you know so the negotiations were difficult they were not easy by the end of the day to be fair the united states did agree uh to china's admission to wto and and and that was a gift but of course the other gift unfortunately that the united states gave to china was that after 9 11 happened in manhattan i was there when 9 11 happened the united states got distracted in fighting wars in the middle east the war in iraq was illegal continued in afghanistan and every year that the united states spent fighting unnecessary wars for geopolitical gifts to china so the the the u.s in a sense gave some intended gifts by allowing china to join the wto and some unintended gifts by fighting unnecessary wars in the middle east that's very well said i have heard you talk about and i've seen this you have physiology in several of your columns where you say that you know these large superpowers should try to have a focus on the big picture on the broader strategy as opposed to minor irritants define minor irritants well i mean the uh i would give the example of hong kong right and you know you can you can argue that perhaps what china is doing may have violated the agreements that will reach between china and the united kingdom okay they were reached within china and united kingdom why does the united states have to stand up and say hey what is happening in hong kong is a beautiful sight to behold this is what nancy pelosi said when the violent demonstrators taught violently tore down the legislative assembly in hong kong and sadly she understood that meaning of the phrase what a beautiful sight to behold on january 6 2021 when the demonstrators violated the u.s congress and she was there so it was a big mistake for the united states to encourage violence in hong kong and and of course now you see what the same thing has happened so in on issues like uh hong kong there is a tendency to do grandstanding rather than saying what are my interests right and you know for example you could argue that united states is depriving the human rights of puerto ricans by not giving them statehood okay you want china to make a big deal of it right chinese could if they wanted to but they're not they're not interested they want to focus on the big things and so this is all this focus on all these tangential issues reflects a lack of strategy and and i'm trying to the big goal i have is to help the united states work out what would be the really good strategy and for example let me give a simple example in dealing with china what is more important for united states is it the interests of its people or is it the primacy of the united states in the global arena you got to be clear you know and right now the united states this is not decided which is more important and so the as a consequence of it number one the people of america are suffering as a result of the united states spending five trillion dollars fighting unnecessary wars also the standard of living or the bottom fifty percent united states has remained stagnant for three decades creating a sea of despair among the white working classes we should led to the election of donald trump so frankly if i was joe biden i would focus on the interests of the american people to ensure that donald trump doesn't come back and therefore if that's your priority then primacy is not so important why is privacy important you know at the end of the day you can have a situation where china has a larger economy than the united states but united states remains the most admired society in the world so what's more important so these are these are the trade-offs you've got to make in these big strategic decisions and unfortunately that has not yet happened in washington dc and the people actually the american friends of mine who like my book have told me that i they can see i'm trying to help the united states work out an intelligent thoughtful long-term strategy towards china but this notion of primacy i mean surely chinese policymakers are not immune from that they also dream of a day when they're number one right uh certainly i think in the it it's important to when you step into people's mindsets when you say it's important for china to be number one you have to take in a sense a walk into the chinese mind and when you walk into the chinese mind what you find is that history is so alive in the chinese mind and instead of thinking about what will happen when i become number one the main question in chinese minds is how do i ensure i don't suffer another century of humiliation and you know the reason why i did my mooc course on u.s china relations was again you can watch it for free 24 videos i want to try and enable americans to step into chinese minds and see how the chinese view the thing so the chinese by the way the americans think for example oh when china becomes number one they will take our place in the middle east excuse me china doesn't want to go to the middle east china is actually very happy in china we're very happy with the united states in the middle east for another hundred years nor are they interested in taking the united states place in latin america they have no such ambitions at the end of the day the chinese view of the world is very different from the american view of the world all they want is to be treated with respect and if you treat them with respect they will say fine you can carry on doing what you're doing i'm not interested in changing you or your way of life and and and i can tell you when the when americans say that china is a threat to american democracy how china is not even sending money like they claim russia has sent money to influence the polls in america the chinese are very realistic very pragmatic they don't believe that the chinese system is good enough for anybody else they believe the chinese system is good for chinese and the rest of the world you choose your own system we will not interfere so at the end of the day if the if china doesn't want to step and take over many of america's global roles what is america fighting against now china of course has somewhat contentious relationship with its neighbors whether it is south korea or japan of course then there is taiwan and and even in southeast asia we've seen some issues around south china sea it's important to have if not permanent allies but at least you know friendly interaction with your neighbors uh to that end uh recently president biden and japanese prime minister suga issued a joint statement and i liked the part where they said that they need to encourage peaceful resolution of cross-trade issues can japan act as a calming influence in this relationship well you know if i was the leader of japan [Music] i would be very very careful in not waking up the chinese nationalist dragon because unfortunately for japan the one foreign country that has actually damaged china more than any other country in the world is japan starting from the 1895 sino-japanese war which as you know led to the secession of taiwan to japan and so the separation of taiwan perhaps you can date back to that dates and the chai and it is a fact sad fact the japanese did terrible things in china in in leading after world war two and as you know united states and china cooperated against japan in world war ii so it is actually not in japan's interest to when your country of 130 million people sitting next to 1.4 billion people whom you have made angry quite recently you want to tame the chinese nationalist dragon and therefore i think united states is not being a good friend of japan in getting it to pronounce on taiwan or taiwan is you because the japanese when they establish diplomatic relations with china acknowledge that there is one china and that china and taiwan are one country now i know that the japanese tried very hard to deflect a statement on taiwan by talking about taiwanese trades and they could sort of imply that it was actually the taiwanese people who were creating problems across the taiwanese straits you know they left that door open for that and i think that the united states should think very hard before using taiwan as a stick with which to beat china because the the the this this this is an another example of having a lack of strategy you must understand where the chinese red lines are there is a very hot chinese red line on taiwan if taiwan goes for independence there will be a war let's be very clear about that there and any any chinese leader who appears to be soft on taiwan is finished if there's one issue on which there's a consensus among 1.4 billion people we will never allow taiwan to become an independent country so so i do you really want to start a war unintentionally with china and this is where by the way this is what i give one one compliment to the biden administration the myst the the the way that the trump administration was crossing the red line on taiwan was by sending official current a current officials at envoys to taiwan biden very cleverly reversed that he sent a former senator christopher dodd and two retired officials james steinbeck and richard armitage to taiwan and that goes back to the previous understanding so i thought that was a very clever move by the biden administration very interesting i had not noticed that thanks for pointing that out okay speaking of red lines and sticks with which to beat china technology seems to be the new big stick so we started with a trade war but by the time the trump administration was coming towards its end it had become a full-fledged tech war and the u.s seems adamant uh to make sure that and going back to the issue of primacy that china doesn't attain primacy in the world of semiconductor production and so on is that going to become on the red line if the chinese feel that their tech future is under existential threat because of u.s sanctions and restrictions i would say there's no red line there because it's perfectly legitimate for the united states to try and maintain its technological superiority that's a legitimate desire on the part of the united states and similarly uh it's equally legitimate for china to try and maintain its technological strength also so this is a legitimate area of competition where may the better person win but again you may you can also ask yourself what's your strategy so i'll give you an example when the trump administration cut off the supply of semiconductor chips to china it hurt china in the short run but actually it gave china a gift in the long run because it made the chinese realize i will never ever rely on the united states for semiconductor chips i may be behind now i will catch up and ironically the trump administration damaged the interests of american companies because by taking away their biggest market you cut down their revenues by cutting down your revenues you cut down the research and development budget and therefore you you damage their competitiveness in the long term and by contrast i believe believe me the chinese have a lot of money they will deploy a massive amount of resources to ensure that they're never again behind in semiconductor chips of course the country that really has primacy in chip production these days seems to be taiwan which has this own sort of dramatic implications if indeed china feels that you know tsmc is one of those important companies in the geopolitical chess game but tsmc by the way respects american laws let's be very clear uh it cannot if tsmc breaks any american sanctions is is toast so tsmc is completely subject to american rules and regulations so you could then conceivably envision a situation where under american pressure tsmc dives away from china because it has big plans in china and of course restricts the latest generation of chips being purchased by chinese companies yes certainly that could happen yes and so but then that that all this is part of the big question what is a legitimate form of competition and what is not a legitimate form of of of competition and frankly if both u.s and china are competing to produce the best semiconductor chips the whole world should cheer them on and say thank you very much i'm waiting for my next chip to come to my phone and i i don't care whether united states or china has made it if it's a better chip i'm going to benefit okay from taiwan maybe a little bit of a discussion on india i mean you know this whole notion of you know picking aside seems like india has picked a side they've joined the quadrilateral security dialogue the quad now they're with australia japan india is now sending a fairly strong signal to china that it is on the u.s side on matters of military cooperation and if side has to be picked that's the site it's going to pick is that part of a useful strategy or india's making a mistake well i think the the story of india is actually a very long and complicated one but i don't think that india has in any way become a formal ally of the united states of america and i believe the indians are smart and sophisticated enough to realize that the best position for india to have is to have strategic autonomy between the two powers so it will work with the united states on areas where there's some convergence of interest for example in the quad and it will work with china in other areas where there's convergence of interest as you know india has joined the shanghai cooperation organization india is a member of the china-russia india club and you know that's where the latest meeting took place within chinese indian officials india is a member of the asian infrastructure investment bank so the indians have chips with united states and chips with china too and clearly the whatever happened in june 2020 at the border was a disaster there has been an explosion of anti-china sentiment in india i personally experience it and i try to appear on indian tv shows and sound reasonable i get beaten up so i think clearly there has been a setback in china-india relations has been some improvement in u.s india relations but i don't think india is going to become an ally of the united states and what's interesting about the latest squad meeting is that frankly everyone sees quad as a a defense organization but ironically the only thing that quad could agree on was vaccine diplomacy which i think actually was very smart which was india's way of saying actually this is not a defense alliance and of course india benefited from that because the quad is going to invest in exporting indian vaccines to the world and that's good for the world good for india and good for everybody else from chinese perspective the quad is a provocative measure well it is certainly a a provocative thing but the the the chinese um have a very take a very long term view so i'll give you an example right now australia as you know is a member of the quad there's a very strong ally of the united states and as you know uh australia is having a very rough time he's going to have the hardest time dealing with the u.s china joplin contest because in political and defense terms is 100 percent allied with united states of america but his economy is tied to china much much more so than the united states america so australia is going to have to make very very difficult choices and over time i suspect that the chinese economic pressure on australia could become significant enough that australia might find you might find australia very subtly distancing itself from the quad too and as you know previous australian governments did not want to join the quad precisely because they knew their economy was tied to china so watch australia watch what it does don't be surprised if it moves towards a more what i call midpoint position within us and china right and it's an important point that australia certainly has been characterized by a musical chair of revolving prime ministers in the past couple of decades which has added quite a bit of volatility to its uh foreign policy exactly um professor i've heard you talk in the past about china is not looking for friends that is looking for partners so who are china's best partners these days i mean i see them doing a lot of work with iran and there of course as you pointed out earlier you know doing stuff with russia latin america resource-rich countries in africa maybe is that the direction china is going uh well i i would say that your the answer can be given to you with data you want to know who china's partners are look at the data on who are china's biggest trading partners today and by the way i'm going to surprise you everybody thinks that china's number one trading partner is either united states or the european union wrong answer china's number one trading partner is asean then i think number two is eu or u.s and number three is eu or u.s and then go down the list and as far as the chinese are concerned if we can trade with you you benefit from the trade i benefit from the trade that's all i want china doesn't expect any country to show what you call quote unquote friendship because they don't believe and in that sense they're much more realist you know there is no such thing as friendship between countries at the end of the day countries will respond to their national interests so i give you an example one of the most significant countries is in southeast asia indonesia and an indonesian minister says to me privately of course when the americans come they give us speeches on why china is all wrong they say stand with us and they bring nothing when the chinese come they say do you think you may be good if you have a new port here a new bridge here a new railway here and guess what at the height of profit 19 u.s exported zero vaccines indonesia imported 150 160 million doses most of them from china so you know if you want indonesian as the indonesian minister was implying to me and indonesians as you know are good friends of the united states when you're developing country and somebody comes to you and says i can build a new railway for you and as you know the jakarta bandung railway is being built by china right so so that's that's the real competition and you know as far as zakaria said in his recent column in the washington post united states spent 1.7 trillion dollars to build the f-35 jet which will probably be never used in war it's too good and china spent 1.7 trillion dollars on the belt and road initiative which means by the way if you go to greece there's a greek pot that has benefited from the belt and road initiative and you can go all around the the world so that's the real competition and even though the indonesians may psychologically feel more comfortable dealing with americans at the end of the day they have to ask themselves how do we improve the conditions of the indonesian people and that's why they work with china not because they love china but because they find that they can improve the well-being of their people by working with china and that's that's what china offers the professors are saying with south east asia countries like vietnam philippines also have deeply uh you know important relationship on the trade matters with china but they're both also rather sensitive about the south china sea related disputes and where is china going with this well i'm going to give away a big secret of diplomacy there's no such thing as a benevolent great power the idea that any great power is going to sacrifice your interest to take care of somebody else's interest it never happens that's true of the united states it's true of china it's true of russia it's true of france it's true of united kingdom so it is very uncomfortable living next to a great power if you have any doubts ask the neighbors of united states right and so southeast asia has got to adjust to the fact that china's power has grown it's a reality you can't wish it away and we have to adjust to it but if we are good if we do it well right and so far by the way so far i must say asean is doing it very well china asean relations overall have been very good and you mentioned vietnam if there's any country that knows china very well is vietnam because they have had a relationship for 2000 years they were occupied by china for 1 000 years and they say in vietnam to be a good leader of vietnam you must be able to stand up to china and you must be able to get along with china and if you cannot do both you cannot be a leader of vietnam and that's what every southeast asian country needs to do it needs to be able to stand up to china and need to be able to get along with china now there are certain things that are happening within china as well as neighboring countries of china um that uh you know push the boundaries of you know us being disinterested observers and i'm talking about this uh in the context of uh in your book has channel one the concluding section you write that at the end of the day we always have to make trade-offs including moral ones uh but at the same paragraph you insist that the key question is not if the us or china wins rather if humanity wins so isn't there a tension between humanity winning and making a trade-off on moral issues not at all not at all and and i'll give you a perfect example of a trade-off right for a country like uh united states it's got to ask ourselves ask itself the very simple question looking down the road 30 to 40 years what is a bigger threat to united states is is there going to be an explosion of chinese aircraft carriers coming to california to threaten the military invasion of the united states or is it going to be climate change that will ravage florida and california and other parts which is the real threat chinese aircraft carriers or climate change answers climate change okay trade-off less attention to china more attention to climate change and i'll work with china and climate change that's a trade-off so these are these are the practical decisions and and by the united states does it all the time you notice that the state department came up with a very damaging report on saudi arabia right what did the united states do after that they said we'll maintain our relationship with saudi arabia right so that this is a trade these these such trade-offs are done every day by every country and let's not be moralistic and say how can any country does do it because every country does and one of the one of the most amazing points in my diplomatic career was when there was a dispute between china and asean about the future role of the khmer rouge at a con at a u.n conference in new york that i attended china said kimarus must come back asean said kimeros cannot come back united says walk into the room united says the champion of human rights we said oh united states will support asean against china no united states supported china against asean so isn't that shocking so i have seen with my own eyes great powers making trade-offs it's not new he's been around for 2000 years and so it's wiser for the united states to look at the big strategic picture and decide what's important and at the end of the day the common global trailer challenges like climate change like covet 19 are far more important and therefore to go back to my very first point press the pause button on the u.s china contest okay so final point then on that issue of press the pause button will they i think right now the biden administration is still finding its feet still struggling but i suspect that there is now a growing number of voices saying please stop and i can tell you a leading american journal has asked me kishore to write an article saying please kishore write an article pointing out that all our policies towards china are wrong-headed counterproductive harmful to us you know so the fact that an american journal wants me to write such an article is i think an indication that many americans feel very troubled that biden is just going on automatically with trump's policies when frankly these policies have not hurt china helped america or helped america win friends well we we hope that 2cd strap is not uh manifesting in our our lifetime uh professor kishore mulvaney thank you so much for your time and insight thank you it's great to have you uh thanks to our listeners too copy time was produced by martin taki daisy sharma and violet lee provided additional assistance all 52 episodes of copy time are available now on youtube as well as on all major podcast platforms including apple google and spotify have a great day

Channel: DBS

Views: 167,741

Keywords: China, DBS Bank, Economics, Kishore Mahbubani, Taimur Baig

Id: OBQJc4X9s6M

Length: 49min 36sec (2976 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021