[Lecture] Ambassador Richard L. Armitage - New World disorder

good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome to the St lead distinguished annual lectures I'm Candi Bajpai director of center on Asia and globalization of the lead one new school of public policy and it's a great pleasure center to organize this lecture series on behalf of the school the STD lectures are funded by businessman and philanthropist dr. V sang T director of the League group of companies as deputy chairman of the Lee foundation dr. Lee supports education particularly higher education around the world through donations towards building libraries in particular towards academic projects and towards lecture series at major universities such as anyways the SDE lecture was established in 2012 with a generous gift from dr. Lee we host this series as a platform for scholars and practitioners to address critical international issues on behalf of the school I want to take this opportunity to express my very great thanks to dr. Lee and the St Lee foundation for their generous gift just a word about the series recent speakers in the in the St Lee series have included s Jaishankar the Indian foreign secretary then Indian Foreign Secretary and now Indian foreign minister Klaus wriggling head of the European Financial Stability Mechanism Lord Adair Turner former head of the UK's Financial Services Authority and it's pensions Commission and professor Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University this evening speaker as you know is Richard Armitage former US Deputy Secretary of State in George W Bush administration and now as my colleague professor uniform Kong the cashing professor of politics and vice dean of research at the Lee Kuan Yew School to introduce our speaker and to chair the evening's proceedings [Applause] your excellencies distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore it is my pleasure to welcome you to the SD Lee Distinguished Lecture of 2019 our speaker is ambassador Richard Armitage and the topic he has chosen is New World Disorder ambassador rich Emmett age really needs no introduction he is one of the most prominent practitioners of foreign policy in the United States and is no stranger to Asia he's truly an old Asian hand as the president of Armitage international he is a frequent visitor to Asia and the key bridge between the United States and the economic dynamism of the region ambassador Matej has a truly unique career in government much of it dealing with Asia having served in both the Department of Defense and the Department of State at the highest levels in the Reagan administration he served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific affairs and assistant secretary of defense for international security in the Josh W Bush administration he served as Deputy Secretary of State to Colin Powell but his formative years were spent here in Southeast Asia having served three combat tours in Vietnam after graduating from the u.s. Naval Academy in 1967 after leaving active duty he served in the defense attache office in Saigon from 1973 to 1975 when Saigon fell in 1975 at the tender age of 30 he was sent by Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger then to work with the South Vietnamese Navy to implement what they call operation frequent wind which was the US Navy effort to evacuate civilians and remove South Vietnamese military personnel and equipment before they could be seized onboard the u.s. Navy destroyer USS Kirk ambassador Armitage led Rep let a ragtag flotilla of approximately 30 South Vietnamese Navy vessels from the coast of Vietnam to Subic Bay in the Philippines upon arrival in the Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos refused the South Vietnamese vessels entry into the Philippine waters which would have earned a political rift with North Vietnam which the Philippines was planning to recognize ambassador Armitage conferring with his South Vietnamese counterparts came up with a solution since the vessels were originally gifts from the United States the South Vietnamese Navy could return the vessels to the US and that prompted a frantic search for 30 American flags to race in reef flagging ceremonies before they could enter the base Vietnam would not join ASEAN for another 20 years and the u.s. would not sign the Treaty of Amity and cooperation for another 34 years but which Armitage was already well acquainted with our ASEAN way of practical approaches to saving face and diplomatic problem-solving we are really thrilled that he's able to join us this afternoon and look forward very much to his remarks without further ado I'd like to hand over the mic to ambassador [Applause] well thank you very much I have a question however he described me as an old Asia hand was that a reference to chronological age no okay it's just a number of years in Asia right okay well good afternoon to all of you thank you very much for doing me the honor of coming to listen to me the reason we have chairs up here I'll self-confessed right away 13 years of American football years of jumping out of airplanes and shrapnel in my leg have left me unable to stand for too long but I don't think it's appropriate to stand up and try to talk with this fine audience without indeed standing up and talking we'll do the Q&A maybe from from the chair it's the anniversary the 18th anniversary of 9/11 so many nations were affected all of our ways of life were affected by the aftermath of 9/11 I just want to acknowledge the sacrifice of so many countries both in the Twin Towers and then after in the fight against terrorism and my point of view terrorism is not gone but we've turned a corner and that's a good thing how many know of the author john locke ra i I think many have read some of his books I can't remember which one this was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or the right honorable schoolboy or something there's a scene in the book where some young students mi6 want to be spies have spent a whole day learning about spy craft and the highlight of this day was a lecture by the spy master who remember his name George Smiley and after the lecture or dinner and they retired to the someplace where they had a fireplace and they all had a glass of brandy allegedly and smiley was kind of swirling his brandy and one of the students either inflamed by the discussion of the day by half by the brandy asked a question this is my master it's my master can you tell me what was the purpose of your life smiley whirls is brandy and says hmm well the purpose of my life was to end the time in which I lived so if my posture around today you could say that I failed but it's not around we won or maybe they just lost or maybe just maybe without the bonds of ideological at the bands of ideological conflict to constrain us our troubles are just beginning how prophetic was that right after the end of the Cold War and it's true we don't quite have the same constraints that we had who also have something new and no American should stand in front of you without acknowledging that one of the major regions for the New World Order is President Donald Trump and to say anything else would be to mislead you and I couldn't your to informed this is a man my president who describes himself as a stable genius he's the best deal maker ever he's the best negotiator ever and everybody loved him well I can't speak to his IQ but I can speak to the other three elements I just mentioned and it's a lie he's not a deal maker he is a deal breaker and the first disruption in disorder that we've had has been a series of deals which our president has broken TPP was a real blow in my view NAFTA was another climate change is another and now we have jet power the Iran nuclear deal so there are a lot of reasons for the New World Disorder that I think Americans have to take our share of this we've lost our ability to be predictable to our friends and to our allies and this is not a good thing so I thought I would probably start where you would probably start with a little discussion of China you know I not in the business of feeling sorry for China but I sometimes wonder what she's in bed must think I know that he and his colleagues have come to one conclusion and that conclusion is that the in their view the United States is not going to allow China to take a co-equal position on the world stage that's what they believe where the true or not is it's quite different but they think that and that's guiding I think some of their behavior and has led us into this terrible trade war which has made Singapore and everyone else in the region suffer to a greater or lesser degree in your own development of GDP you know I can kind of understand why she Jim pin thinks the way he does we had a couple of months ago a woman who directed our policy planning staff in the State Department he gave a very regrettable speech she said we're going to contain China and my officers writing the document that will look like George Kennan's famous containment letter which referred a course to the Soviet Union and she went on she wasn't content to stop there she went on and she said we're going to have a Clash of Civilizations ladies and gentlemen that's insane China's civilization is one of the most revered in the world it's no different in terms of reverence for it than our greco-roman traditions and civilization that we claim in a day or two we don't have a clash of civilizations we're not going to we have differences with governance about governance the Communist Party of China but it's not a clash of civilizations and finally she went on to say that this is going to be the first time in history that a Caucasian civilization fought with a non Caucasian civilization which I found extremely odd my father fought in the Pacific during World War two and he thought this was a clash and that it was not exactly here among Caucasians the most interesting thing of all was this woman happens to be african-american so did anyone in the State Department say anything to her did anybody correct the record did the white house say no no she was wrong no nobody said a word so if you're sitting in Beijing what are you thinking you're thinking this must be the policy now she was recently fired but she was fired because of her abusive management style not because of her abuse of diplomacy which is the reason she should have been fired for making those crazy comments and now we have the situations that with wiggers in China we've got Hong Kong we've got difficulties with with Taiwan there's economic difficulties in China all of which it's gonna make it I think somewhat harder for the United States and China to reach an agreement but we will I'm predicting to you there will be a trade agreement between China and the United States now it will be very tiny it's not going to be very big it's gonna be very meaningful and our president of course will describe it is the best thing ever best deal ever fantastic the same way he described NAFTA or will we call how the US MCA where the changes are not visible to the naked eye but the president now says it's besties lever far better than what was here before so fine whatever works whatever it betters the situation here in Asia but our problems and our difficulties and when I say ours all of ours problems don't start and end with China China is affecting a lot of the other problems in area in Asia but it's not necessarily China's fault to wit our present situation with the Republic of Korea our ally is not good our ally didn't inform us beforehand when they made changes to the joint security area to try to curry favor with North Korea our ally did not tell us about walking away from the general security of of information agreement that we had trilaterally with Japan United States says we weren't informed ahead of time those are not the actions in my view of an ally who's really behaving as an ally and you can only do that so many times I'm not suggesting patience has run out but it's noted that our traditional ally the Republic of Korea is not at present acting as one well how about the other Korea how about the DPRK well let me be very clear with all of you there is no chance of a nuclear deal there is zero chance that Kim jong-un will give up his nuclear weapons he is not going to do it the only reason anybody talks to him is because of nuclear weapons and looking from his point of view before the Pyeongchang Olympics a couple of years ago he's not met anybody now he's been to Beijing so many times and she'd been visiting him Vladimir Putin's exchanging letters with him president Trump has met twice probably will meet again in the not-too-distant future president moon jae-in of south korea have met with him several occasions he's met with Prime Minister Lee here in Singapore he's on top of the world now he's got a typhoon that just devastated his country and man he's got famine now from his point of view he's got things that his father and his grandfather never had and the only reason he's got him is because of nuclear weapons but here's the problem here's the problem I told you my firm belief he's not going to give up nuclear weapons and I would bet if we took a vote in here that position would win the majority vote but there are many things that North Korea can do to really make things difficult for all of us for instance if President Trump and Kim shall moon meet again I think they will Kim 3.0 could say mr. president I've decided I'm not going to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles the president oh that's a fantastic deal thank you I accept well the acceptance of that deal does nothing for South Korea does nothing for Japan in fact I would argue makes their situation much worse because the United States walks away thinking we've got some great deal because we're not as before taking into complete account the feelings of our friends and allies I had the great honor yesterday of meeting with Prime Minister Lee and I started off by congratulating him on his shangri-la speech and he kind of wryly smiled and said well not all of your countrymen share that view I said this is true but that's because they didn't understand it you were sending us a signal what we'd call a shot across the bow and I welcomed it and I took it to heart and we can't overlook Singapore we can't overlook ASEAN we can't overlook the feelings and the views of our friends and our neighbors it's wrong it's not appropriately I want to save some time I want to talk a little bit about the Middle East and Europe maybe a little in South Asia with the new situation in Kashmir and our Afghanistan and so let me go briefly to South Asia I'm one of those who thinks the United States cannot prevail in Afghanistan and it's not because our men and women both in uniform and the Foreign Service have performed in adequately they've been fantastic they've done everything their country is asked of them and more they performed heroically and well in arduous conditions but why do I say we can't prevail we can't prevail Oh make no mistake can we give equipment again to the Afghan army with the word again yes we can can we give training again to the Afghan oh I'm sure we can do that but we can't do the following we can't imbue in them the willingness to die for that government in Kabul that government in their view and the soldiers view is not worth the sacrifice the Afghan army and I'm not for pulling totally out of Afghanistan I want counterterrorism forces left there but I think frankly one few times I agree with Donald Trump on anything is that he does want to get us in the majority out of Afghanistan and I think that's probably not a bad thing and just by the for the record the Taliban of 2019 is not the Taliban of 1996 these are guys who have actually they published women's magazines now in Afghanistan so as we've got a bit of a they may have had a long learning curve but they learned and it's going to be a little different than it was 1996 it's not gonna be great but I think eventually they will be the dominant force I mentioned Kashmir first of all I think we have to acknowledge that mr. Modi won a stunning victory fantastic victory but he did it remember not just with Hindu votes but he about 20% Muslim votes which had to remember to take into account the other 80% of the Muslim population scared to death they were afraid that they'll be chauvinistic in the activities and they see the activities in Kashmir to remove the special status through that lens I see it through different lens I see it through the lens of Pakistan I don't know how many times maybe 100 maybe more I've been told by army officers in Pakistan about ISI the intelligence Directorate in in Pakistan Kashmir's in our blood so it's not believable to me that Imran Khan will not have a terrorist attack from Kashmir probably by the la ceiba le t terrorist group into India I think it's inevitable the question is will it be successful because if it is successful like your 2008 Mumbai attack India will attack Pakistan they want to occupy it they don't want to live there but they will punish Pakistan and that's got its own difficulties associated with it nuclear powers and all of that as we all understand and Pakistan first part you know we will here in Singapore you'd be delighted right now with a 2% GDP frankly our GDP numbers were just revised slightly down so we'd probably be pretty happy if we could be have a dependable to 2% a 2% GDP growth rate for Pakistan is a death sentence birth rates are too high poverty is too great and 2% is not going to get people over the hump so just please keep your eyes on South Asia any number of things could happen I go to the Middle East briefly and then on to Europe and then your questions first I think I have to mention jackpoet irani a nuclear deal well why do we do this why did we remove ourselves or two reasons first reason is we've subcontracted in the United States our Middle East policy to Saudi Arabia and the second reason is Barack Obama it was negotiated by mr. Obama and our president famously refers to mr. Obama constantly daily almost hourly and anything he did is by definition wrong etc but those are the two reasons there's one one reason Saudi Arabia Arabia we know of the Arab Persian rivalries and the Sunni Shia rivalries we can understand that but there's one other thing Saudi Arabia desperately needs 80 percent or $80 oil this is what their government has budgeted on and then I'm making I think we were yesterday sixty one dollars at Brent something like that and it's not going to get up there and if the Iranians are allowed to again export their oil at a time when the demand is down anyway because the international demand the manufacturing has struck as dropped there's no way the Saudi Arabia can realize this dream of $80 oil so they've lent a lot of a lot of reasons to want to keep pressurizing Iran I lived in Iran after the Vietnam War and I was a Navy and special operations advisor there and it took me a long time to figure out what was going on but and I lived in it what we called a team house with other GIS I went back home one day and said I've figured it out and this was after this was 1976 after something some few of you may remember there was a famous sound and light show at Persepolis celebrating the 2500th anniversary and I was invited I went I've never seen anything like it I've seen some sound shows from Vietnam but not a sound and light show it was really something but I came back from that trip with a new understanding and feeling about our person friends and that was for me I think for most of you the days of Persepolis was 2500 years ago for our Persian friends it was yesterday it was yesterday their view of themselves on the world stage is so pronounced and I'm not saying that as a criticism this is a fact that we have to deal with they really see themselves as in terms of Darius degrading Xerxes and all of this and once I understood that I was a lot better off I don't think I've seen a more generous cultured educated society and Persian society equally I don't think I've ever seen a more nationalistic ethnocentric society and persians and i said to my colleagues in the team house you know one on one you couldn't ask for a better interlocutor but if there's more than one person talking to you you're out and they're in and they're back in the glory days of 2,500 years ago what's going to happen well I said I only rarely agree with mr. Trump I agreed with my life Kansas town I also agree that he doesn't want to put troops more troops in a person and in the Persian Gulf their Arabian Gulf depending on your how you like to use nomenclature and I think we probably can stay down below a level of violence but in a very real way the United States has been at or with Iran for 30 years and more since the time of the tanker Wars and one could go back 40 years to the embassy takeover in 1979 so for us to have great difficulties and tensions between the United States and Iran is not new in and of itself so how do we get out of this situation it's gonna be a little difficult mr. Trump is willing to meet without preconditions with mr. rouhani in New York rouhani is saying now he's not interested in that he wants sanctions dropped they can work this out they may actually work it out but there's one other difficulty from Iran's point of view their prevailing in the Middle East in Yemen with terrible horrible conflict in Yemen there are more who tease who who the Iran adherence now than there were at the beginning of the conflict there are more who tease who support around so from Iran's point of view huh they're coming our way Syria at great cost to Arad but they prevailed in the support of of Assad regime along with Russian help primarily proxy war between Israel and and Hezbollah in Lebanon well they think they're holding their own they're gonna you watch they'll climb aboard the recent decision of mr. Netanyahu to annex the West Bank in the Jordan Valley and this will further inflame Palestinian and further inflame the situation how about Iraq if you go from Baghdad south that is entirely Iranian and Baghdad north you can still have a discussion but they have their influence is huge in Iraq so from their point of view they're doing okay they're doing all right so whether they're anxious right now even though they're suffering from the sanctions whether they're willing to change horses right and how I change courses right now I should say I think it's an open question and I think probably it's going to be a little longer to resolve this and we thought but it can be with all resolve peacefully we're not going to war with Iran and there are other straws in the wind you noticed we saw a couple of months ago these strange limpet mines attached to some tankers in the Persian Gulf very shoddy work always above the waterline so no real damage could happen to the ships very suspicious now what was most suspicious of to me the Saudi Arabians immediately condemned this Iranian attempt their allies the UAE said nothing said nothing because they weren't sure that it wasn't a false flag operation they weren't sure just who might have done it it could have just been a cry for help from the Iranians look see me I'm over here see me you don't know why things happen the way they do but if it was an attempt to do damage it would have been done differently so you make your own mind up about how this goes but it's thought by the way the UAE just sent a delegation of Coast Guardsmen to Iran to discuss maritime issues now hmm how about that and of course the UAE is stepping away from the Saudi adventurer mainly Saudi adventure in Yemen they're stepping back from that and then there's the gutter dispute which I think will resolve itself the closer we get to 2022 and the World Cup UAE s well on their way to resolving their issues with gutter Saudis take a little longer in the United States we have real equities there because of our great base ello their great base Adel who did that they allow us to use and finally there's Libya we have a UN recognized government in Libya and then we've got a government government or an attempt at government by an American citizen by the name of general heft our received a telephone call from President Trump so who does the United States support in Libya I don't know I can't tell you nobody can tell you oh I arranged the Middle East may be a long ways away but I raised it for the following reason and she had a huge youth bulge populations are growing and still huge income disparities Isis is still alive and still running around and well in fact our military commanders say Isis is taking advantage although they don't have a Caliphate they don't have the territory anymore they have the theology and they're spreading it and spreading it in Africa as well finally a little bit on Europe I sure AM I need lected something let me go back briefly to Asia there's a new factor in Asia that we haven't had to contend with ever Oh three years ago in the Senkaku is off of Japan we saw some Russian ships sailing near two Chinese ships and we had a big debate with the Japanese about what was this all about here's there's some cooperation between the Russian military and the Chinese military we couldn't come to a conclusion because it was inconclusive it's no longer inconclusive the activities around Velcro or Takeshima the islands off Korea by the combined Chinese and Russian aircraft the incursions into Japanese and South Korean airspace make it inescapable that those two are cooperating militarily now China nor Russia has alliances but they're acting as they just don't have them and they've never used them they don't know what to do with them but they're learning and it's a real new factor that at least the United States and I think the Japanese have to take into account and the Japanese are taking this lesson to heart one of the reasons is the leader of the free world right now in my view is Shinzo Abe a clearly among Democratic leaders he's in the best shape in terms of stability Merkel is would the britain is a mess so I mean and I'm being kind and just think about it for a second can any of this disorder before go to and can it even be solved by the UN Security Council think of the makeup of the UN Security Council she's in PIN Vladimir Putin Donald Trump Bojo Boris Johnson and mr. McCrone who ever thought that the smallest eagle in the room would be French but it's the case how Breck's is gonna come out I don't know I think Bojo will lost his mojo here and he's got a big problem we look at Italy their 65th government in 74 years that's changing governments like people change their shirts it's amazing but strangely enough Italy keeps plowing along one foot after the other even with these unbelievable changes of government Germany is tottering a bit as we figure out who's going to take mrs merkel's place and then of course there's the Russian Federation right it smack in the middle of it with a new gas line that will go to Europe bypassing Ukraine so you can further put the boa constrictor on Ukraine at least the polls tell us that they're still frightened they want US forces in Poland because they were afraid that the Russians who by let's face it do have some prior history in Poland that they may want to repeat it and they're particularly nervous and the reason they want US forces is because they're not able to predict mr. Trump's relationship with mr. Putin and whether mr. Trump will stand up to him so I have not done a whole laundry list on the way over here I put down all the different disorders that I could find including trade wars and all the rest well it's quite a list and if you include Colombia and Venezuela and Argentina that northern triangle of Honduras El Salvador it's just unbelievable and the list goes on and on so I haven't had an exhaustive list but I can't leave you or turn it over to questions without saying something about the future look you all know and I know that we can't put toothpaste back in the tube we're not going to go back to normal the normal we knew three years ago we're gonna have a new normal the good news about the new normal is I think that we have first of all some very sort of mid-level foreign policy people in the think tanks and some even in the Trump administration they're very solid they want to do the right thing they believe in alliances they believe in listening to people who have different points of view and not saying it's my way or the highway who have nothing stopping up their ears so they can hear clearly when someone else has a point of view and admire the fact that they're willing to express it we have that we have that there is a feeling that we've lost the step in the United States now I'm not saying it's our country's divided my country it's not divided evenly but it is divided there are those who are fearful of the changed America primarily people who see white Americans as a declining percentage of the population and and all these immigrants but we have to have immigration we depend on immigration both high-end and low-end we've made ourselves a great country because immigration now the president administration doesn't buy that but you're seeing more and more in Congress who are now they don't want to have open borders that's not it's not sensible it's not saying but they want to have a system where people can apply for entry and we can have a society that's very benefiting recently our former Secretary of Defense Jim mattis has written a book and he's doing what we call the full Ginsberg Ginsberg was a lawyer who represented Monica Lewinsky and one Sunday morning where we have all our talk shows one at nine one at 9:31 at aDNA there's all different networks Ginsberg appeared on all networks so from that day forth it's been the phenomenon of going on all of our Sunday talk shows has been known as the fool Ginsberg well mr. Madison doing a full Ginsberg now but he said recently two things that I will say to you the first is that and he's a military man so he said operations operate with the speed of trust speed of trust we can get this trust back it's not going to be easy we had 70 years to develop a reputation that everyone in Asia benefited from including China in the last two and a half years we've subtracted from it to some extent but we can get that trust back but we need it in effect for the reasons madison's because operations whether you're talking to diplomatic political or military occur with the speed of trust the second things he said is that countries with alliances flourish those without them wither and I think that sentiment is becoming more and more widely spread in the United States we don't like to be putting a snarling angry face forward to the world most Americans don't like it some few don't care but most Americans doing it this is not our image of ourself so what I'm saying I guess is I hope our friends in Singapore our friends in ASEAN our friends around the world will help us who advised us we can get this trust back with the assistance of nations like Singapore a nation who after all fifty-four years ago was not looking for independence you didn't want it and look what you've done with it so that's the kind of advice and assistance we need so let me stop there and I'll turn it over for questions for the next 20 or 30 minutes thank you thank you thank you very much ambassador for such a superb toward the horizon of the venues of disorder or potential disorder across our globe speaking of disorder maybe I can kick off the discussion by asking you a question about a minor disorder back in the states yesterday when the president Trump fired his national security adviser I was just wondering if you could share some of your thoughts with us on that event well you'd be right I'd have a few thoughts John Dalton worked for me for four years and there wasn't a day in those four years that I didn't have to slap him off of some meat wagon or another he was doing things he didn't need to do he shouldn't have done he was not illegal I'm not talking that John Bolton is one smart man and if he's on your team you got the best advocate you could have the difficulty is telling when he's on your team it's hard to know the general feeling in Washington coming out and is being put out by the administration primarily is the John was more in it for his ego than for the job that he was a leaker that he had no process he wasn't interested in having a process that would serve the nation in fact that it's not so much in my view Bolton's fault I don't think the president's interested in a in a process he thinks he's his own best adviser which kind of strikes me like a what do they say about a lawyer who represents himself in court he's got a fool for a client that's know if you're you girl if you're your own adviser that's not real good but I can assure you one thing you're going to hear from John Bolton again as sure as I'm sitting here he will speak up and it will not be pleasant for Donald Trump already he started tweeting things saying he resigned he didn't he wasn't fired doc took the truth of it who knows I think most people in Washington Drew Thompson can correct me for thinks I'm wrong most people in Washington would say why didn't it take so long thank you we have about half another left for questions so can I ask that you speak you know use the mic we fear for question do tell us who you are very quickly and please keep your questions short and to the point I have one one request if I may that is he's got to speak up that may need a little help I should wear hearing aids I left a lot in Vietnam not as though a shoe which was one and a half of my ears first question hello thank you very much ambassador my name is Eric and my question is what is your assessment of the approach to foreign policy by President Obama and if as you say we cannot go back and what is the way forward in addition to allies like strategic patience had ever any chance what's your Eric's question ambassadors what's your assessment of Obama's foreign policy and what is the way forward under which policy foreign policy Barack Obama from yeah of Obama's policy I thank you Eric me mr. Obama's foreign policy I thought for the first term his first four years was very good as well as its domestic policy the last four years I thought was relatively inactive he didn't do much and of course it was during that last four years that we had the famous situation of mr. Obama's red line became a pink line became a white line in Syria so I am I voted for mr. Obama the first time I thought his second performance second terror was lacking in foreign and domestic policy he went somewhat too far to the left most of our citizens really are center right center left there are extremes from both ends but most are center right center left within some band and I think mr. Obama forgot that Thank You air second question my name is Deepak Natraj and I'm an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at INSEAD my first question to you ambassador is if you had a magic wand and you happen to be the next Secretary of State under a new president what are the top two or three things you would do to set the disorder right no if you have a magic one what are the top two or three things you would do in order to prevent this disorder and I have one more question if you were the next Secretary of State who is the one person who'd like to have working for you in the State Department who had the one person like yeah deputy or something on the first question if I had a magic wand which of course I don't I would the first wave of the wand would be over US policy as I said in my talk we're responsible for a lot of the disruption not all of it not all of it at all but I would immediately fix try to fix what was wrong with us in terms of our process we're not organized to succeed this our president right now who's the only nationally elected leader likes it that way but most of our most people who live orderly lives don't like it that way and so that would be the first way the second way but wave them the second thing I do is wave the wand over Congress and try to get them to finally move on gun control and gun gun safety gun control and third and these are not in order but I get three passes and that one yeah you do the third is I would try to make the United States as the kids say now in the United States woke means awaken the question is ask think are you woke well I want the u.s. to war to climate change and those would be the first three on the question of who would I most like to have working for me in the pen and the State Department if I were there I'd rather be in the Pentagon but if I were in the State Department there are several folks whose name some known deeds I'm not Randy Shriver who's the assistant secretary for in a Pentagon Richard Fontaine who runs a think tape named Center for new American strategy people like that this is this next generation now why am I so bullish on them I trained them it all worked for me now I'm not certainly not perfect they'll tell you that but the process was orderly we respect our allies with respect to our friends and we most of all respect differences of opinion so I'd want people like that there's a woman at CSI asked by name of Heather Conley was primarily your pianist and if he from the Arctic all the way through Europe she knows chapter and verse probably the leading expert in Washington I'd want her on the team these would if I were the Secretary of State there'd be what I would referred to as my battalion commanders running large organizations very capably be why are they so capable in my view is that just their foreign policy views no it's the way they treat people I want people working with me who value people and they'll take that seriously value the traditional face of u.s. foreign policy where we respect diversity with respect democracy we respect human rights these are the kind of people I want on my team gentlemen oh thank you for your lecture today ambassador my name is Shoshana Crowe and I'm a junior in the AMIA program as an American myself I'd like to know what you think American officials and civil society can do to help everyday Americans adapt to the world the New World Disorder that you're describing because it that that affects so many different states like my home state of California has been affected by the shifts in security and economy in the Asian Pacific and I'd like to know what what you think that American officials can do to help Americans adapt to sort of you know a change in America's position in the world thank you a debt to what I didn't get that adapt adapt to the changes in American America's position in the world oh okay how should American officials think about helping Americans adapt to the changes in America's position in the world I think American officials first of all should have realization that the perception of the United States right now is we are shooing away our friends and allies at the same time China's trying to attract friends and doesn't quite know how to go about it the United States appears to me shooing them away and if you realize that if one realizes that then one would I think adjust their behavior to be sort of more open they're more friendly one of the the second problem is we just had an Auslan talk which is the u.s. Secretary of State Secretary of Defense in the Australian Secretary Minister of Defense Minister of Foreign Affairs we met in Canberra here a couple weeks ago it wasn't it was okay the communicator that came out of it was fine but the meeting itself wasn't as good because the Secretary of State particularly was not interested in having an explanation from the Australians on why their approach to China was the way it was I mean they have economic equities they exist in the area and the proximity of China they have a large Australian and Chinese situation the Secretary of State wasn't interested in the excuses he should have been interested in excuses they weren't saying that China was doing everything right they've tried to explain why Australia has to take a careful approach to China that why Australia has to make a cold calculation of Australian national security but in my view it was a an opportunity lost good evening at best Armitage my name is Jonathan so I have two short questions the first one is what are some of the longer-term repercussions of President Trump's foreign policy beyond his term of office on the US and the world and the second question is at any ways that the US and China could actually get out ought to escape the facilities trap thank you first question is one of the longer repercussions of what the trauma administration's foreign policy is secondly are there ways for China and the u.s. to escape the 2-cd DS trap well I thought the Graham Allison book on the trap was absurd and I thought he shouldn't have written it and he was frankly heavily criticized for it the longest repercussion of the Trump administration if that's if I understand your question correctly probably the trade aspects of it how long it takes us no one knows how long it takes to dig out there's when your only approach to different opinions seems to be sanctions then you're not using all the arrows in your quiver so you've become unit dimensional and it unfortunately it also skews here in Singapore maybe as much as a point and a half of your GDP is true of all of ASEAN it's true of everywhere and I like what we don't know is how long it takes to unscrew that if in the next administration wanted to get away from all the stuff my view is let me look on China's sanctions I think that China's avaricious economic behavior had to be stood up to but it's not just a matter of confronting we ought to be able to compete as well so we're getting the confront down pretty well but we're not doing the competing if we'd had a more a deaf adroit approach to sort of directed sanctions that might correct a few of the inequities in the chinese economic approach we'd have been a lot better off you don't have to you know there's an old saying that the question is asked how do you eat an elephant the answer is you eat an elephant one bite at a time and the Chinese economy was an elephant and we don't want to eat it all at once we should eat it one bite at a time go after something that we can get a change behavior on then another one after that you don't have to get it all at once diplomacy frankly is not the art of getting the maximum position in one fell swoop it's not at all and diplomacy is the act of overtime getting the maximum position you can but realizing that both sides have to win something so in a very real way that means come that it's about compromise thank you I think given the number of people who are asking questions who want to ask questions it might be a good idea to take a couple of questions sure yeah all right why don't we start with ambassador thanks for coming my name is way long and layman sorry if this idea is a bit crazy correct me if I'm wrong but Lani put maybe a doughnut remand sitting paying basically to mafia borer sorry to mafia bosses playing in guns and trying to kill each other the reason why I say that is apparently you have a drug problem in America and I think Ramis Trump is accusing sitting thing of selling drugs to their Americans basically it's causing the society to rot from inside and I think what American trauma is trying to do is to cut off its exports kill its GDP hopefully to incite a 10-man happening in China neither of these are very favorable and a lot of people will die so my question is how is America gonna do this in church I'm told that the churches in America or Europe are turning to gap Alice basically there's no ethics there's no morals and maybe that's how democracy is collapses on a specific part I just observed that why is it go Clinton both lost the popular vote in the elections if our to recall maybe you might be using a 1860s electorial operating system are you oh they are you very vulnerable to viruses in that sense so is it time to improve the moratoria tax in America to out with China and the second thing is is it time you improve your operating system to find the correct president thank you I'll try [Music] yep yeah if you keep your questions short I'll better be able to translate it better so good evening ambassador thank you for sharing I'm Andre from MPP classes junior from Hong Kong as well so two questions very shortly one is from your personal perspective what do you see there attitude of America government or economy the market as a whole to hong kong in the coming ten years given its in everybody now the second is also given us in air right now in hong kong what do you mean the young leaders young people young entrepreneurs and future policy leaders in hong kong should learn the lessons from what is happening right now in hong kong to continuously handling the relations externally I'm not saying diplomacy but external relations like with the US the Western countries and also China thank you can you just repeat the last the second question in hong kong all right so given this in air right now in hong kong what do you think the young leaders entrepreneurs and also policy future policy leaders in hong kong should learn the lessons from what's going on right now to equip our self for future let's say 10 years to continuously handle the external relations to the US and also mainland China okay I think the two first you know so that at least the two of us remember what the questions are okay the first question I think is what are Trump and the President Xi Jinping doing about the drug problem in their respective countries drop the drug problem right and the second part of the question is about the u.s. electoral system is it out of date if I had summarize the first part of the question about drugs the United States says most concerned about the inflow of fentanyl to the United States primarily from China and the Trump administration I think correctly has put a lot of pressure on China to knock it off we have to do some things to it comes in through our postal system many times and there are a lot of things that we have to do without interfering with the privacy of our own citizenry so but the fentanyl is something that I think almost all Americans agree on has to be prosecuted with China on the the second question was on oh the electrical system yes there are some people Hillary Clinton would be one who would want to go to in a straight direct election but for the president because she won more than about three million more votes than Donald Trump did but the theory behind our electoral college is that smaller states which have lower populations also make sure that their citizens get a get heard in Washington so there's speculation about eliminating the Electoral College from time to time I think we're a long way away from that it would be right now and the read why do I say that right now in the polling data in the United States three of the states which went with mr. Trump last time and made the difference in his electoral but college win are very much opposed right now to Donald Trump by as many as ten and twelve points in terms of polling data and so the the impetus for the Democrats wanted to change the electoral college right now it's not there if between now and the election in November of 2020 those states would start to go back to Donald Trump then you'd find more and more Democrats who are interested in talking about getting rid of the electoral college but as it stands today with all the polling data I think Democrats would not be so inclined to do it and in order the Republicans because they got them the victory last time thank you the second question the other question was about Hong Kong what is happening in Hong Kong right now and then the first question deals with what is how does the US view what's happening in Hong Kong and and the second part of the question is not what should the young leaders the entrepreneur's the policymakers of Hong Kong what are the lessons that they should take from what's happening well there there are several the first lesson I think out of Hong Kong is it is not a good one for China who has had 22 years to develop a more thoughtful approach to the hearts and minds of the citizens of Hong Kong and it has obviously failed that's number one number two originally when the Hong Kong demonstration started 14 or so weeks ago I thought that it could be resolved by just having carry LOM step away that's no longer the case and she'll eventually go but there's no one else that can reasonably take her place the Chinese have not decided who that might be yet and they haven't come to the conclusion that's what they want I think that for the demonstrators themselves what they say is quite interesting they say that there may be their last opportunity to talk but the demonstrators have to be careful of overreach I think they've got five demands their fifth demand is not going to happen that is we won't fall democratization of Hong Kong that's not going to happen and so you could say that I appreciate their and their courage but it's not reasonable China is never gonna give on that it can't so they've got to be where young leaders have got to beware of of overreach now where does it go from here my view is that China desperately does not want to put PLA troops in Hong Kong this would be such an admission of failure that it it may be too much and it's not as if she's you been has everything going smoothly at home he's got some challenges I don't mean to say he's challenged in terms of his leadership but he's challenged in terms of his administration's ability to move forward on several fronts whether its economic whether it's in health whether its environment and all of these things what will happen next I think is the Chinese will start arresting the dissonance there was some thought they gave to expelling the dissonance the major leaders but that's not reasonable because if you did that you have a dissonant who's outside and can still reach in and cause you difficulty so I think you'll find people like Joshua Wong and others of Hong Kong probably detained arrested and detained for some time the Chinese as I understand it you would have a better sense than I they've spent so much time and energy on facial recognition they've got a pretty good idea of who's doing what to whom and if I'm correctly informed as I say the troops will not go into Hong Kong but the the People's Armed Police certainly have already gone into Hong Kong but the United States will do I don't think the United States will do much we saw the you saw and I saw the specter of demonstrators carrying signs saying mr. Trump please help us in singing the national anthem Erica national anthem but I think for mr. Trump's point of view now I can be wrong I don't he doesn't talk to me obviously and I don't talk to him but my sense is that he doesn't want to overload his circuits with Xi Jinping he wants to have a deal mr. Trump does and I think that he's feeling that if he speaks out too loudly and too much about Hong Kong that it may make it more difficult for him to reach an agreement with she's you've been that's my opinion I cannot prove it to you next question thank you very much ambassador my name is dicen Randi I'm a I'm an investment fund here in Singapore - train I just had a question regarding the what you talked about on China and Russia and you talked about increasing cooperation between the two but I had a question I guess regarding sphere of influence and especially in Central Asia because obviously for Central Asia a lot of them are former Soviet states so other people speak Russian Vladimir Putin has obviously a very fond memories of the Soviet Union and yet on the other on the other side of things you've got China which increasingly economically this Central Asia is dependent on China through the Boden road initiative to trade how do you see that playing out Central Asia in terms of the great game there good evening a master I had a question regarding the ongoing South Korea and Japan dispute so South Korea's recent decision specifically described the Intel intelligence sharing agreement with Japan what do you think of the current American administration's sort of hands-off approach to this dispute and what do you think are the wider implications of the South Korea Japan dispute to the Security Alliance in the region thank you okay I got that one you got it all right why don't you answer that one no well I just don't know what do I think about the Korea Japan situation well first of all prior to 2015 I was very much supportive of Japan making some serious gestures towards the so-called comfort women in Korea I was a GI I went to war I know what soldiers can do not that they do it all the time but it happens so I had no doubt that when Japan was occupying Korea that there were some very bad things that happened it I've been to war that's what happens so I thought that Japan should make meaningful gestures towards the comfort women at the time now we're standing the fact that in 1965 when there was normalization between Korea and Japan it was written and signed that all issues were solved okay but in 2015 there was another agreement between the park government in Seoul and the mastaba and I'll be sorry and mrs. Park again resolved the issue and binding international agreement and yet moon jae-in walked away from that so at least for me and I think for most in the United States right now there's a lot of frustration first of all because you have to international agreements signed by legitimate governments of Korea which were just forgotten just walked away from number one number two it has been my experience in Korea in South Korea and that people's opinion can change quickly it's been my equal experience in Japan that opinions change slowly but what our Korean friends don't seem to understand is that what happened in 2015 began as over time became Korea fatigue in Japan that was a phrase that used now it's called Korea Angra and many in fact most of the Japanese citizens are kind of fed up with the Koreas but the new situation is normally it's not strange for the for Korea South Korea and Japan to have difficulties it happens from time to time but what's new is the United States is not kind of stepping in to tamp it down we're saying go ahead be be good folks work it out yourselves and that's a new phenomenon and I think not a helpful one so I'd be a little happier if the US we're stepping up a little bit now why this only helps this problem only helps North Korea and China those two countries are the beneficiaries it hurts the United States and our Japan they heard South Korea the first question was in reference to your remarks about China and Russia growing closer yeah and the question I guess is about how does that affect their relationship with respect to Central Asia in Central Asia given what's happening that would it tear the two countries apart bring them together with Central Asia the Russians still feel this is their backyard it's theirs the Chinese equally with the belton Road initiative and infrastructure development the fields that they can make great inroads in to it so there's some friction and then there's some tension between the two countries there however that tension is not great enough to overcome the fact that both Russia and China share one objective completely and that objective is to get the United States passed out past the second island chain China and for that matter Russia don't care if we're the United States is involved from Guam East but they don't want us involved through the first and the second island changed so that objective is completely shared I should have said something earlier term you give me a good opportunity so thank you you know there's students and foreign policies people who have to live in the world we've seen a lot of different leaders we've seen autocrats we've seen former generals what my country has had six former generals the president we've seen some crooks we've seen that so we just had the passage of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe here at I think it Glen Eagles hospital after he was quite elderly there's a man who just plugged in his own country so we're used to all of different kinds of leaders but if we ever seen a leader who was a 100 percent intelligence officer like Vladimir Putin this is a new phenomenon that none of us have had to wrestle with in the world up to this point as I say with all these other characters we've come to be able to live with but a full-up intelligence agents running a country is new it's okay okay okay we have time only for one last question and I will do it yeah you will do it okay all right go ahead Thank You ambassador ah mateship my name is Robert Jenkins from Australia on visiting Singapore you've used the expression on numerous times and I'd like you to explain the difference and that is the term friends and our to my mind it's one in the same but I'm wondering how you differentiate friends from allies how do you differentiate friends from allies how are you different yeah me I did the same yeah but what are the technical answer there is a technical one allies when you have an alliance you have an agreement to come to each other's assistance in line with your constitutional processes and that's true with our alliances for instance we do not have an alliance with Singapore we have a great friendship it's so the difference is the automaticity relative automaticity of coming to the defenses however from the United States I mean I'm not president I can't tell you them with the hundred insurance what would happen but I think Singapore for instance can take some solace from their geographical location sitting right here in the tip and representing in a wage 600 million people 3 trillion dollars great strategic location through which about 40% of goods and services and oil transit it would not be in the United States interest to have something happened to Singapore but that's different from an alliance and I've given you the technical answer better my name is Asha hem Rajani I agreed with the point you made earlier about the u.s. not only confronting but also competing when it comes to China so I wanted to ask your views about Trump and Huawei how much is it about it is about national security and how much about how much of this this whole debacle is about not being able to compete this question is about Trump and Huawei how much is it a question of national security and how much is it a question of what economics of not being able to compete of not being able to compete economically yeah thank you good evening ambassador and roshni Bernadette my question is with regard to September 11th national security and terror washed watch live running through the media coverage of September 11th today on the 18th anniversary the criticism 18 years ago was that they weren't enough people who carried out the attacks on the watch list today were at least last week judges in the United States are ruling that people are being placed on these lists so arbitrarily that it's violating constitutional rights in your assessment or your opinion what is working with these lists and with the advent of artificial intelligence how are these databases being fairly managed thank you can you relate more lady okay all right just like the last one with the balance of power shifting eastward if one day Singapore were to be caught between US and China both of whom be count as our friends how should we choose are we okay with the balance of power shifting East and with Singapore being friends with both US and China how should it choose one day when the when push comes to shove how using a bush juice well the last question first that's the whole conundrum we spent at least I spent a good part of my career trying to make sure that Singapore other ASEAN friends that could be friendly with both and it's a matter of as my sainted grandmother would say of how much emphasis you put on different different cooperations with the two major countries the United States and China and it's completely wrong to make people choose for instance here in Singapore Singapore has to live in this area to want to get along with both when she and report does not like with the Chinese government representing 1.3 billion people who is doing they say it they don't say in a rude way but they make their voice known the same is true of their relationship with the United States we know Singapore is unhappy who this the question is are we really listening and I think it at present we have put all of ASEAN into the difficult positions of seemingly having to choose my font hope is that in 14 months or so that situation will have changed but that's up to a lot more Americans than me on the question the question here was yeah I didn't get the second question very clearly why don't you try to answer the first question that's on my way what ways started in the United States and simply a security and intelligence matter it has morphed it has changed for a couple of reasons it's changed because President Trump said in answer to a question from the press that he considered quietly part of a trade discussion so this immediately took away from the credibility of our intelligence and defense communities who are saying this is an intelligence and security threat which I happen to believe our European friends were not convinced to this in the main the intelligence organizations were convinced that this hot way representative security threat to them but because of what happened in the ZTE situation where the president and the whole administration made a very strong presentation about ZTE and so many of our friends came along and supported us and then the president in answer - eg impends complained about it was too much pressure the president removed it so our credibility suffered terribly finally there's a further morph I think in in wall-e and this is the 5g morph I think there were some less knowledgeable people in the United States who really wanted to 5g and thought this was a way to do it they're wrong you can't stop it so what it began as strictly a security situation has and the other question yeah can I ask you to rephrase your question just in one sentence so that I can repeat it back to ambassadorship here yeah yeah this to use that might speak loudly so that I can hear you and then perhaps uh rephrase it if you can just put it in once or the professor can hear you and then you can tell me yeah so basically what is working with the management of databases that oversee terror watchlist and how is the advent of artificial intelligence and those sort of very sophisticated technologies helping or making the situation more unfair given the recent rulings in the u.s. last week okay I think the question is now what is working in the daily terrorist watchlist in the US and whether artificial intelligence is of any help in figuring out the you know potential attackers all right question is that what is act what is working in the daily terrorists are watch Terry yeah and whether artificial intelligences of any help in that you know and even what is working in in in the daily approach to terrorism has been the international cooperation they're the police and intelligence organizations of all of our nation's to include of course a Singapore that's working quite well but there's something else that's working in the immediate aftermath 18 years ago of 9/11 those terrorists couldn't force us to change our way of life but we could change our way of life and we started to we gave counsel to our fears and this was wrong and I think many other countries started to do that but I think we've gotten on top of that and we've realized that yes terrorism is bad and it's troublesome and it can be deadly but can't force us to change our way of life and I think having come to that realization there's a lot more of a sensible approach to the whole question of terrorism doesn't mean you take your eye off it in any way shape or form but that you do realize that they're a threat they're not the mortal threat that we probably at least in my country thought at 9/11 okay ambassador thank you so much for sharing your insight may I come in no I'm afraid thank you very much for your like a thoughtful lecture and just one comment ambassador can you speak a bit louder so that I can hear it okay and invest I mean she mentioned that Korean government is kotti the true agreement with Japan but in case of 2015 comfort to women agreement Korean government did not discuss discarded it they mentioned that they pulley respect the agreement however when it was made they did not Korean side they did not pulley yeah listen to the voice of the victims and that their view is not to be limited so they are making some different approach of this and still this case my government mentioned that they are basically the agreement itself is to be respected we did not discarded it and the secondly in case of 1965 claim settlement agreement at the time the claim settlement is focused on the issues of the properties and including the debt and that that kind of like related issues my government is fully abide by the agreement but in case of like some issues of a person labor it's a incurred by the illegal yeah or unlawful act of the Jefferies pumps during that period of time it's not included at the time although my government continuously be commanded that but during the negotiation period Japanese side they refused to acknowledge that kind of liquor claims so it's a porous we think it is not clearly yeah clearly terminated so for some lumpy of time even some Japanese government maintain their stance that this kind of individual right or claims is not has not been terminated so there is kind of services I can ask you to get to the question in this one we will suggest you that some kind of discussion and the consultation to resolve this and I hope it is to be resolved through the diplomatic consultations thank you very much thank you I don't think there was a question I think ambassador was responding to your points about the previous agreements that you say earlier the South the South Korean government had accepted but they'll cut that the current government seems to be revisiting so I guess ambassador was responding to that and I don't think there's no there's a question in it okay on that note thank you ambassador we really like thank you for sharing your insights and wisdom with thank you are on the coming world all day [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Views: 4,654

Rating: 4.0666666 out of 5

Keywords: Richard L. Armitage, richard armitage, kanti bajpai, new world order, new world disorder, world order, america, United States, politics, geopolitics, public policy, international affairs, international relations, trump administration, china, us-china conflict, geopolitical conflict, global challenge, lee kuan yew school of public policy, lkyspp, lee kuan yew, lee kwan yew, american power, democracy, diplomacy, trade war, US-China trade war, kishore mahbubani

Id: 8ZTnD6LEJ6k

Length: 86min 11sec (5171 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 26 2019