Perspectives on Peace: a conversation with Kishore Mahbubani

good evening everyone or good morning depending on your time zone welcome to perspectives on peace the first of this year's kishore moba barney speaker series my name is nick altchen i'm head of uwca east campus and i'm delighted to welcome you to our auditorium tonight where we have a carefully screened and selected group of teachers and students live in fact a delight in these times and it's a special occasion for at least three reasons firstly it is the international day of peace and also uwc day what better occasion could there be to join a global conversation about peace secondly we're delighted and honored to be joined by kishore mullabani himself and for him to be speaking with our college president karma elliot and i'll introduce them formally in a moment thirdly this is the opening event in our 50th year celebrations our anniversary we've come a long long way along with the rest of the world since 1971 and we're looking forward to another 50 years in partnership with singapore and with the united world college movement with colleges around the world but despite all the changes in these fast-moving times one thing remains absolutely constant for us which is our guiding mission to make education a force to unite peoples nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future here at uwcsea in our learning program we think about peace in three ways we think about personal peace whereas we as individuals learn to accept ourselves to know ourselves to know our strengths to know our weaknesses our preferences our needs and our own aspirations working on that ourselves and with our students leads to thinking about peace in our community between people between groups between schools within the school between us and our host country and a whole range of stakeholders and if we and other parts of civil society and governments do this consistently worldwide across the globe it contributes to global peace ultimately and that was a vision of our founder kurt hahn all those years ago and when we talk about global peace we mean a positive peace that is not just the absence of war but the existence and pursuit of attitudes institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies by the removal of direct and indirect violence so the conversation today will largely be looking at this latter idea the way that attitudes institutions and structures support peace it's an extremely timely conversation for obvious reasons just this weekend news about the uk australian french us situation for example raises many many interesting questions about so many issues but above any specific example there are perhaps three themes that you'll see emerging today the first one is the changing rules and influence of the rules-based international order that's been so successful in many decades and it now seems to be facing challenges the second theme is the global response to the rise of china seen perhaps through the lenders of confront and concede or engagement in isolation the third theme may be the role of one particular institution and one particular set of structures that's locally relevant for us asean the association of southeast asian nations in a post-pandemic future a few weeks ago asean introduced announced a partnership with britain the first nation to be accorded the privilege since china 25 years ago what does this development tell us about asean and the future of regionalism in a post-pandemic world when we get there these are big ideas and they are tightly related to the peace aspect of our mission so we're honored and privileged to have two eminently qualified people to discuss them kishore mumba bani and karma elliot kishore barney is currently distinguished fellow asia research institute at the national university of singapore he's had two distinguished careers in diplomacy and academia and he's a prolific writer who's spoken in many corners of the world in diplomacy he was with the singapore foreign service for 33 years twice as singapore's ambassador to the un and twice as president of the un security council he was also permanent secretary to the foreign ministry and was conferred the public administration medal gold medal by the singapore government in 1998. in academia he was founding dean of the lee kuan yew school of public policy and professor of the practice of public policy elected as an honorary member to the inter american academy of arts and sciences he was honored as a distinguished thinker and placed in the company of several of america's founding fathers who've also been honored that way the institution has been going since 1780 and kishore joined them in a prolific as a prolific author having published eight books he's written about geopolitics and particularly asian and asean culture his two children are sca alumni and mr mr mubani served as chair of the board when the decision was taken to expand sea to grow east campus the speaker series and the kishore mubabani library downstairs were named in honour of his tremendous contribution karma elliot joined uwcsda in august 2019 as our first college president a career british diplomat for 23 years until 2010 comma worked on a wide variety of roles across the world and as consul general in chengcheng jeddah and shanghai karma spent much of her adult life in china as a student and also as executive director at china's single largest international ngo the half the sky foundation focused on enriching the lives of china's orphaned children before joining the british council as director of china and concurrently minister for culture and education in the british embassy in beijing throughout our professional life khan has worked for meaningful change in the government in international education and development sectors and in doing so developed a deep knowledge of the cultural nuances required to successfully navigate and create intercultural understanding and appreciate the importance of respecting diverse perspectives khan has been honoured twice by her majesty the queen for her service to the uk and abroad she's single with two adopted daughters i hand to karma and kisha for the conversation thank you thank you nick so that was a very extensive introduction and i'm humbled that you agreed to to join me here tonight uh for a conversation that was a wonderful expose both of your um previous but also your your current roles and your uh commitment to continuing uh public service on behalf of singapore here in singapore but also with a global perspective as well i'm also humbled that one of the things that nick didn't mention there but we are also here to celebrate tonight is the partnership between the asian peace institute and uwcsea and in our 50th anniversary year we've agreed to work together with a fellow in your in your institute looking at how we capture the voice of youth in in peace um and in the conversations about peace and conflict in the world with um things like an essay competition that we've been discussing and so on so that's a fantastic you know you know the extension of your connection here to the college and with the ambition that in future we would do more um together as well so we thank you very much and we're very humbled by the fact that you agreed that um we were a suitable partner for this um this work with you as well i also know and i wondered if you wouldn't mind saying a few words about it nick mentioned your two children were graduates from the cottage and that both were involved in the initiative per piece here in the college um in its early days during their time in the college and i know you've told me a little bit but i wonder if you could share with our current students and parents who are with us today a little bit about that and bring that to life for them as well thank you thank you very much i i hope you can hear me we can i want to begin by saying it's such a pleasure to be back here in the i guess you call it the universal united world college southeast asian family yes and i truly enjoyed my time as chairman of the board and it was uh actually very inspiring to learn about the ideals about the united world college movement and it's quite remarkable what it has done over the years globally and certainly white has done in in singapore and the fact that the singapore government actually uh allowed the campus to be doubled was an indication that they really appreciated the contributions of the school uh to singapore and to its uh to its role in the world also and uh you spoke about my two children my my daughter shayla and my younger son jamaat studied in inaudible college and of course in the dovo campus because they said campus hadn't been built by then and uh but i want to tell a slightly uh funny story please about the first time i brought my younger son jamat here about must have been 10 years ago i suspect i'm not sure and when he walked into the campus to this campus he looked up and suddenly he saw the kishore mabubani library he looked at it he was very surprised and he said dad you're not dead yet how can we live your life here [Laughter] so the honesty of young people is very inspiring but uh both sheila and jamaat had a very good time in the school and and as part of the peace initiative that they were involved in uh sheila went to sri lanka which as you know was recovering in fact she was going through an interim period between two bad faces in the wall and my younger son jamaat went to cambodia to help do some rebuilding you know in the rural areas so they both participated in the peace initiatives but i'm also glad you mentioned this new partnership that the uw csea is setting up with the asian peace program that i've launched at the uh asian research institute and you know we share common goals to try and bring about peace in the world and the paradox about our times is that on the one hand we live in the most peaceful era ever in human history i mean this is statistically speaking in terms of number of people dying from interstate wars is the lowest it has ever been and this has been documented in great detail by a harvard professor called stephen pinker and if the students haven't heard of stephen pinker i strongly recommend him to them because they will find he's done an amazing job of collecting all the data in this area so on the one hand we live in the most peaceful era in human history on the other hand uh we are also about to enter uh one of the most dangerous periods uh in human history because you know the prospects of a nuclear war in a nuclear war of course is is something that the world actually has never experienced uh we've had two bombs that were dropped in japan after world war ii and we saw how much devastation they did but in the nuclear war let's say the one that it could happen is one between china and the united states uh you know uh the united states would lose 10 to 15 cities at least china would lose more than double the number of cities millions would die in theory such a horrible outcome the prospect should be zero but they're not zero and that's why that's why i think it's very important for us to understand what leads to wars and what do we do to prevent wars from happening because peace is a bit like the oxygen in this room all of us are breathing it but we don't notice it you'll only notice it when someone sucks away the oxygen in the room so in the case of these two once it's sucked away and when war breaks out then you realize how how amazing peace is you don't you only notice it when it goes away and how so just in the last week alone as as nick also mentioned you know there are a lot of shifting sands and shifting alliances in the world now and and there was mention of you know what the uk is doing in this region you know greater references to the indo-pacific rather than the asia-pacific region and you know that seems to be also stimulating instability on the korean peninsula as well and notice that kim jong-un also referred to the prospect for for nuclear war as well and and has been firing missiles again as as south korea so where where do you think you mentioned possible tensions between the us and and and china um what do you think are the key sort of areas of tension between them that might lead to such a standoff hopefully nothing you know nothing concrete but the standoff is it around taiwan is it around just the rising superpower and that china represents what is it that you feel um made you reference that particular relationship as being one of the big risk areas you know you're absolutely right tama that there are many many geopolitical flash points and sadly they're all in our region because the prospects of war between any two european states today is zero i mean unfortunately uk and france will never go to war i mean they may insult each other they may say you stab me in the back but they won't go to work zero zero chance of war within uk and france uk and germany germany and france and so on and so forth and frankly zero prospect of war between united states and canada or even frankly in south america from in most of africa or so you won't see major interstate wars but paradoxically most of the most dangerous places where you get the you can get a big wars like the ones within india and pakistan or within china and vietnam or between china and the will take place in our region but of all these flash points i mean you mentioned korea but i you will see lots of missiles being fired uh in what they what he calls uh to get attention by north korea but there'll be no more in in the green peninsula because both sides understand the stakes very very clearly and whereas by contrast the place that is becoming the most dangerous place in the world is taiwan and what most people in the world are not aware of is that the last 10 months of 2020 were actually very very dangerous because what kept peace on taiwan straight was the agreement between us and china and the one china policy whereby the united states would maintain official ties in beijing and unofficial ties with taiwan and this was part of what they call the one china policy so as long as everyone's stuck with that policy no dangers but when mike pompeo the secretary of state tried to change it and say why can't we have official relation to taiwan and the minute we start to weaken the one china policy that's when the prospects of war went up dramatically because no chinese leader can accept taiwan becoming independent and and and through the danger of a war starting accidentally went up uh dramatically and you saw what's been revealed in this book by bob woodward which is which is if it is true it's actually quite stunning that the head of the u.s military's chief of defense forces called this counterpart in china to say please let me assure you that even if president donald trump orders me to launch a nuclear strike against china i will not do so now that's for him to do that show that he was aware that this could happen you know and the fact that he thought that a nuclear war could happen should be a major wake-up call for all of us and so we need to pull back from that day from that dangerous point so when you said that um you know that a war in the south china seas or between china and taiwan with or china and the us with taiwan in the middle could start accidentally what what did you mean by that that you know are we getting the politicians that we deserve or need who understand enough about the nuance of how these policies have been developed to actually deal with them in the modern age when they've got the toys to do um the wrong thing as much as the right thing well i the i would say south china sea i don't worry that much frankly in the south china sea there'll be maneuvers but there might even be a skirmish but there'll be no war i mean major war because the there's room for flexibility in that area right uh there's no room for flexibility on taiwan zero flexibility because the chinese as you know you know this better than i do karma for them the century of humiliation 1842 to 1949 is like yesterday you know the from the seizure of hong kong in the first opium war uh to the loss to the japan the sino-japanese war in 1895 which led to taiwan being seceded for the first time as you know so all these memories of the century of humiliation most of them have gone away except for one which is taiwan and there is a total unanimity of views in china that at some point in time there must be reunification within taiwan and china the best case outcome is some kind of peaceful reunification or even something where you postpone the current situation and let the status quo remain where the people of taiwan are at peace and the people of taiwan enjoy a wonderful life by the way i love taiwan uh i've been there many times i've been there many times and it's a wonderful place and people are very happy and doing very well so don't disrupt the status quo but this is why when mike pompeo said hey we're going to try and establish official relations with taiwan that's where he didn't realize that he was crossing a chinese red line and therefore could have triggered a very strong military response from china and the military response would have come because the chinese leaders cannot afford to be seen to be weak on the taiwan issue the hands are actually tight and and what the good news by the way is that the biden administration that has come in since january understands that and if you notice that every biden administration official without fail i heard the secretary of defense lloyd austin speak at philippine hotel when he was here a couple of months ago he reiterated the biden administration stands by the one china policy and as long as the the the us keeps saying that then there'll be no nuclear war okay well that's that's mildly reassuring i would say um but good to have your view on that so um could i take you back to your time in the united nations and um what the united nations embodies as um you know you know perhaps the ultimate embodiment of you know the post-world pro-second world war order and the as a body to bring nations together to create greater understanding and therefore build trust between nations as well which are fundamentally part of you know the core to to our own mission as well and those rules and orders that were established in that time now 80 years later it's difficult to believe it's 80 years since then but you know we a lot has happened since then of course and there's so much challenge now too doesn't matter where you are in the world to those established orders some of it um through i think direct provocation some of it i think through a mission or a lack of understanding of why those rules and orders are in place what do you think the the the united nations general assembly is happening this week um there's still a lot to do on the united nations to-do list in terms of some of the things that it's taken on um some of the commitments made through those vehicles with the sdgs and um you know the the sort of um trajectory to 2030 and whether we're going to achieve some of the goals we've set ourselves not least with climate change the crisis around climate change and the intersection with so many other issues as well do you do you think do you feel that with some of the challenges to the un and it's its funding its composition the way it works some of the challenges we've seen recently with um the breakdown of everything in fact afghanistan and so on do you feel that the united nations now is is fit for purpose and will be able to respond in the way that the world needs that our youth need you know to be able to rely on uh systems which help us to deconflict situations as much as create the peaceful conditions in the first place well as you know i was ambassador un twice and fortunately or unfortunately i fell in love with the united nations and i know in many uh parts of the world in many sectors it's not fashionable to love the u.n but i'm a great believer in the united nations and i think the un charter is one of the most beautiful documents uh ever written in human history and if we could obey its principles i think the world would definitely be a much uh safer place and and as you know the opening lines of the u.n charter declare that his mission is to save mankind is it mankind uh from the scourge of war uh and to that extent it has succeeded because it has prevented world war iii so let's be clear in terms of its core mission since we are talking about peace today it has succeeded in preventing a world war iii because when the the statesman who wrote the un charter they had lived through world war one they had lived through world war ii and they said let's not have a world war three and they succeeded in that sense so that people all the people who rubbish the un don't understand what a difference is made in human history and i earlier mentioned stephen pinker describing how we now live in one of the most peaceful eras in human history where we no longer have the reflex which we had even in the first half of the 20th century whenever countries had problems they immediately would go to war right i mean whether japan and china japan and korea germany and france uk and germany you see you all went to war all the time and that now we don't why because the u.n charter changed the course of human history so let's be very clear that the united nations has made a profound impact on human history but at the same time its reputation and standing has gone down and that's primarily because the world's number one power the united states for a complex variety of reasons has decided that a strong united nations is not in american interest and if i had any doubt about it it was removed when i had a bus ride at a conference with a gentleman who was like almost like the director of national intelligence of the united states a former director of national intelligence and i had just given a speech praising the u.n and he said to me very categorically zakisho i can understand why you were coming from singapore like the united nations because the united nations enhances the power and influence of small states like singapore which is true it does you can go to the u.n we can put forward a case and we can get influence in the world but he says from the point united states the united nations is a constraint on us you know the united states wants to have the ability to act freely as a great power and you and united nations keeps getting in the way because it has rules that say you cannot start wars and as you know i mean this is as a fact the united states has got involved in some wars which are technically illegal under international law which kofi annan said about the iraq war in uh 2003 and it's international because it's sorry it's illegal because under international law you can only go to war if it's either an act of self-defense or if it's endorsed by the u.n security council so the invasion of iraq was neither an act of self-defense nor endorsed by the u.n security council so therefore it was an illegal war but it's illegal because you have the united nations charter that says it's illegal so that's why the un uh plays a very important role and i you know i've written a book about this as you know the great convergence and i begin the book by actually citing a speech but that bill clinton gave in 2003 the former president and in that speech bill clinton says and this is a real a very wise advice he gave to his fellow americans bill clinton said if the us is going to be number one forever and fine you can keep on doing what you are doing we are number one but bill clinton added a but he said but if he can conceive of a world where united states is no longer number one then it is in the united states national interest to strengthen multilateral rules partnerships institutions and so on so forth so bill clinton was saying that the united states should switch his policy away from weakening the u.n to strengthening the u.n and what he said implicitly was that's our best way to constrain the next great power which is china he never mentioned china of course but that was his hidden agenda yes so so you can see therefore i've been arguing that the united states should stop its policy of weakening the u.n and realize and that you can only appeal to self-interest i want to appeal to the united states to say it is in your national interest now to strengthen the u.n and if you can persuade the united states to do so then the whole world will change dramatically so perhaps if we um move on to them talking about the rise of china and the challenge that that um presents um do you think that america is yet able to conceive of that world that bill clinton urged almost i guess 20 years ago now do you think the current administration is looking at china in that way as a as a partner um under a rules-based system or you know do you think that china wants to be considered in that way you know is china in a position where it feels actually it's and it's strong enough now to make those rules for the world and actually that it's for the world to listen to what china wants now well the uh as you know i've written another book thankfully my latest one has china one and which unfortunately says on page one of the book page one of the book it says the u.s china geopolitical contest was launched by donald trump but he will outlast trump unfortunately biden proved me correct he continued it even biden and trump disagreed on everything except on china so there is obviously a bipartisan consensus in the united states on china and as i explained in my book what the us is doing is rational behavior of superpower no superpower ever gives up his number one step status willingly never he'll fight to maintain it uh as long as possible so sometime in the next 10 to 15 years china's economy will become number one and united states for the first time in 130 140 years will become the number two economic power in the world now that will be a huge shock for the united states and so when the united states is trying going all out to stop the rise of china that is normal behavior we we should expect it that's what happens for thousands of years of uh history but of course we hope that the contest will be paid out peacefully and not in the form of a major uh war between the two sides and that's what i think i think maybe your microphone touched your neck there sorry i could bring the mic down a bit lower you're good okay and and and i think we can prevent a war between uh us and china but it requires a process a very complex process of them talking to each other regularly so that they understand clearly where each other's red lines are and and that unfortunately is not happening now so uh on u.s and china i'm actually somewhat what i well i think on taiwan they have receded the danger of a nuclear war has receded the overall relationship remains very difficult and just today a friend of mine in washington dc sent me a message he's a very seasoned observer washington dc he said sure the mood in washington dc today is so anti-china that if biden gives any hint that he's going to be soft or flexible on china he'll be killed so the this is an example of how difficult it is to get peace in uh in the world because countries get locked into positions and for the the in the united states today it's politically impossible for any of the politicians to stand up and say hey why don't we reboot and consider a different policy towards china that's impossible and i'm going to ask you to take out your crystal ball so having looked back and and your view of the united nations based on your own experiences there and your real love for the for the institution and what it does and what it can do i'm going to ask you to to think about um what china is currently projecting and and whether you think that um some of the most recent announcements from presidency the crackdowns that we're starting to to hear about not least on the human rights front and i think um it would be good to have some questions perhaps on some of the you know the challenges that there are in addressing real concerns about human rights in a country that is so um closed to outside influence in that area um but if i look at some of the things that presidency has recently announced you've got a raft of measures over the last two or three years from the social credit system and the controls inherent in that you've got a real you know crackdown on feminism in china where you know issues around gender diversity and the role of women in the economy have also been impacted it's something i spent quite a lot of time looking at um but also most recently the you know the announcement about the control on tech firms and um you know their ability to run their businesses without um further state control now a crackdown it would seem on international education and the influence of that as well crackdown on english and the teaching of english do you think that we are looking at a new cultural revolution that that's where xi jinping is is going that only through that very coercive control does he feel that he can be that president for life that he's signaling is that is that coming should we be scared of that well the um i would say that on the subject you just raised uh is there a cultural revolution taking place or coming back to china uh i can say uh confidently that there are two schools of thought the first school of thought i would say is what you will find in the anglo-saxon media that this is clearly xi jinping going back to the ideological rules of the chinese communist party and saying the time has come now china is rich enough now we can go back to socialism we're going to crack down on these big firms big tech and uh now focus on redistribution basis between the pie and as you know the the phrase uses common prosperity and let's take care of people at the bottom and so on so forth so and uh if that happens of course if indeed he's cracking down on industries and uh big tech and big money and all that then uh you could see in a sense uh interior retreat from capitalism people will stop investing in china and frankly the chinese economy will collapse okay so that's school number one and i would say it is i don't rule it out completely you know i don't say it's uh there's a zero prospect of that happening you know but there is another school of thought that uh says that actually uh xi jinping appreciates what china has come accomplished against under the free market system its economy has grown faster than any other countries in the last 30 years right i mean just imagine that in purchasing power priority terms china's gnp was 10 the united states in 1980 2014 it became bigger in ppp terms in nominal market terms the us gnp was eight times the size of china's now is only 1.5 times larger so this had a tremendous track record uh but he thinks that at this point in time there will the there have also been some excesses have developed uh excesses have developed in the sense of the big firms becoming too large and monopolistic and trying to control the regulators in the same way that big tech in the united states controls the regulators in washington dc so as you know in my book i have a chapter on how the united states has become functionally a plutocracy which is a government of the one percent by the one percent for the one percent and xi jinping is saying i do not want a plutocracy in china and i'd rather that we [Music] break down the power of this large monopolistic giants and that's what he's doing and if that's what he's doing paradoxically he may actually unleash entrepreneurial energy by killing the by restricting the power of the big tech because today and in fact there was an article in the financial times today if i'm not mistaken saying that the big tech in the us is so successful every time a potential competitor emerges they gobble it up before it can become big enough to be a threat and there's a guy who's a real expert on artificial intelligence he's one of the biggest investors in artificial intelligence he's written one of the definitive books on it his name is lee kai fool and i heard him speak at a interview with the economist and in the interview he's invested in a thousand startups in china he says all these new moves make it easier for his startups to succeed because it can no longer be eaten up by the giants so paradoxically even though in theory xi jinping is cracking down on big tech actually he may be unleashing entrepreneurial energy now frankly which school of thought is correct is is xi jinping destroying capitalism in china or xi jinping rejuvenating capitalism in china at two schools of thought uh we'll find out within 10 years but i as a betting man i place my bets on the second school of thought okay yeah so i i have to say i agree with you and i'd highly recommend for those who haven't read kaifu lee's books as well um very much worth um worth reading he used to work for google of course so he he knows all about big firms that gobble up the the small firm so i think he's he's now you know joined the other the other side as it were but his his advice on what is happening in china i think is is spot on potentially so i would like to ask you i know we're going to move on to questions from the audience shortly but i would like to just turn to as nick said we'd like to to talk about asean um as the united world college of southeast asia and in celebrating our 50 years um the original founding documents talked very much about the role of of singapore within southeast asia and a real um desire um you know to to as a school and as a college with the support of the then prime minister who opened the college um for this to be a beacon for education um in the region but also um you know to to attract um scholars from the other countries of of asean in order to um to be a a good friend to um some of the challenges around development in in other parts of of of the region as well and we're seeing as we've already touched upon a real um growth in in sort of region in in this region of sort of the different regional bodies different alliances forming most recently um we've had the uk joining as a partner with asean following china 25 years ago what role do you see for singapore as a traditional bridge in some of those relationships as the those traditional bodies change as they start to look for partnerships elsewhere in the world themselves as the bodies themselves are having to balance out perhaps some of the competing interests within and without what role do you think that singapore will continue to play on asean yes in asean uh well first of all let me let me begin i i i you know i'm i'm come i may come across as being a very sentimental guy uh i told you i love the united nations uh i love asean equally passionately we need a positive view of peace genuinely i mean i i think asean as you know i wrote a book called the asean co-authored a book called the asean miracle and it is asian is a miracle and i tell you why because no other region or planet earth is as diverse as southeast asia is actually southeast asia is one of the most interesting human laboratories on planet earth out of 650 million people in asean you have 250 million muslims and christian muslims 150 million christians 150 million buddhists you have mahayana buddhists you have hinayana buddhists you have towers you have confucianists you have hindus you have communists you know it's it's amazingly diverse okay as a region and everyone predicted uh including various british historians that southeast asia would become the balkans of asia with war starting within many countries and there were wars between southeast asian countries so what's amazing is that southeast asia has emerged as the second most peaceful corner planet earth after the european union right where you have we don't have zero prospect of war like the european union but we have zero wars and that's amazing in such a diverse region and and uh that's this is one of the most under appreciated success stories peace stories in the world and that is asean and singapore as one of the smallest countries in southeast asia cherishes this piece of southeast asia and in fact tries very actively behind the scenes to play a role to keep southeast asia and the way that it is today i mean the whole story of how it came about is it's quite amazing because for example one one thing that kept peace in southeast asia was a close relationship that was developed between the prime minister singapore then mr lee kuan yew and the president of indonesia then president suharto now i knew i met both these men and you cannot imagine two people who are more different in their outlook because mr lee kuan yew was a trained anglo-saxon lawyer with a sharp rigorous analytical western mind president suharto his mind was filled with javanese mysticism javanese history spoke very little english and and would behave very very differently from how an anglo-saxon gentleman would behave so when these two men formed this friendship it was a remarkable development but that showed how southeast asia was so amazing people who are very different have learned to get along with each other and therefore what southeast asia has done is a model for let's say for south asia mortal for india and pakistan it's a model for the middle east between israel and palestine come and see how we get along in southeast asia so really therefore the southeast asian story i would say the united world college of southeast asia should try to sell the southeast asian stories to the rest of the world we can work together on that i think i was going to say to you you know i i you know i i hadn't really appreciated um what you've just said around being a role model for other regions of the world which have had long-standing tensions as well many many of which not always based on religion but where religion is a factor um and maybe maybe sometime the asean body will be nominated for the nobel peace prize in the same way as the european union was that's why that was what i said in the conclusion of my book yes exactly so maybe the college can get behind you and but we need we need more of those examples in in order to um you know build those partnerships for the future and around some of the big issues for the day the you know the big challenges um we're not going to solve themselves and it needs fine minds from across regions to work together on them that's that's very clear um i think it's probably about time um for us to open up to questions i've got many more questions but i was enjoying listening to you but i think we probably should let our um audience ask those questions now so over to nick who's going to coordinate okay thank you first of all keyshawn karma for a phenomenally wide-ranging and fascinating talk i'll open with one of the questions that's come through online and then we'll follow up with some questions from the audience and as i do so because of the conditions can i say that the microphone will be past you um tina will hold the microphone for you please don't touch it just so that we maintain strictest possible safety measures one of the questions here um you've addressed partially but perhaps you could say a little bit more how would you respond to some of the criticisms levy toured the un regarding its ineffectiveness and inability to enforce its actions um that that's a very uh good question and it's true that the united nations is a very weak institution but the united nations uh is not weak by accident it's weak by design what do i mean weak by design that the great powers and this is this was especially for example true in the cold war when the united states and soviet union in the cold war disagreed on everything except one thing they both wanted to keep the united nations weak and the way they kept the united nations weak you see if you if you want to get things done as you know nick if you want to transform an organization you want to make it strong when you when you select the ceo you will pick somebody who's dynamic strong driven ambitious how to change the world now if you are dynamic strong ambitious driven out to change the world you disqualify from becoming the u.n secretary general because the united states and soviet union both agreed after the sub by the way after the success of doug hamershko who was a very good u.n secretary general that subsequently they pick weak spineless candidates as u.n secretary general for example kurt walheim of austria so if you pick weak and spineless candidates as secretary general how do you expect the organization to deliver results so i think therefore the problem can be fixed very easily from now on they should say that if you are weak in spineless you cannot become secret generally i'm going to challenge you on that one do you think that kofi annan was weak and spineless yeah well kofi annan was selected because they thought he was weak and spiders okay and they made a mistake no kofi anand was a very dear friend of mine very dear friend i mean really i he became very close and he actually showed a tremendous amount of spine and the sad part this is a very sad story because i knew him very well when he stood up and said that the iraq war was illegal that took a tremendous amount of courage but because he said that the united states launched a vicious campaign to delegitimize him and you know leaking all kinds of stories about the corruption of his son and so on so forth because you know unique stories to the media and i know this for a fact kofi annan became very depressed because he was attacked ruthlessly by dick cheney and his gangsters uh so so this is an example of someone they selected and they thought he was weak and spineless but he turned out to be a really brave guy that's good to hear yeah okay thank you um moving on now to one specific question around one of the topics you've addressed keyshaw you mentioned china's red lines when it comes to um taiwan well a question now from zhang jin what are the us's red lines when it comes to china that's a very good question uh i think the the reason why you cannot answer that question is because the united states has not formulated a long-term strategy on how to manage china and i say this with great confidence because my source for this is america's greatest living i guess statesman or thinker who's henry kissinger and i mentioned in my book i had a one-on-one lunch with him in march 2018 in new york and at the end of the lunch i was trying to digest what he said to me and then i said well he's obviously trying to tell me u.s doesn't have a strategy so i wrote him a note and said can i cite you in my book saying u.s doesn't have a strategy he said yes okay so in my book i say and and and this is this is why there are no clear red lines because i actually think and this is what i've argued in an essay that i published in national interests in uh two three months ago saying that the united states should work out a long-term strategy and actually it is possible for the you american people who by the way the sad part about united states is that it's the only developed country where the average incomes of the bottom 50 have stagnated for 30 years and united states is the only major developed country where life expectancy has come down you know everywhere else in the world like singapore's life expectancy is going up so if the united states focuses on improving the well-being of its people and if china focuses on improving the well-being of its people us and china can and should get along and i try to convey that optimistic message so i'm trying to say actually that if the they if they did a brutal calculation of where their real interests lie their real interests actually lie in cooperation and not in conflict or competition okay thank you so we'll turn to our audience now the microphone is coming around please raise your hand if you've got a question and speak speak out hello my name is kartik i'm a global politics student in grade 11. my question is what is something we can learn from china how can i hear you if you don't speak a bit loudly sure my name is karthik i'm a global politics student in grade 11. my question is what is something we can learn from china how can other countries adapt to a world in which china is a hegemonic power what can we learn from china and how can we adapt to china yes okay uh well i mean the i think the one thing we can learn from china [Music] uh is that you can take a country where in 1980 about the figures vary like 80 to 90 percent of the people lived in poverty okay 80 to 90 percent and today is almost down to zero china's poverty eradication program is the most impressive and most successful poverty eradication program in human history it's a tremendous accomplishment i and i for me poverty eradication is actually very important because actually i was born in poverty you know i i know i was like i spent a special feeding program when i was six years old i didn't have a flush toilet i've lived through all that so i think eradicating poverty should be the number one moral imperative in the world and china is the leading example of how it can be done and how we should learn lessons from china in that area and in terms of how we adapt to china i think it is it is a fact that whenever a new great power emerges uh the world order has got to change and reorient itself right and the question is whether or not to put it very simply will china emerge as an angry dragon or a peaceful dragon and we don't know the answer to that because it's what we do today that will determine whether china emerges as an angry dragon or as a peaceful dragon i think both are possible which is why the the my thesis is that we should try to work with china as it is rising and persuade china to accept the current western rules-based order that is a gift from uh from the west to the rest of the world and fortunately as of now china actually loves the rules-based order because china has succeeded in developing so well in the last 30 years because the rules-based order has facilitated china's rise so the world trade organization is responsible for china emerging as the world's number one trading power today so it is not in china's interest to disrupt the rules-based order but all this can work out if you work out an understanding with china but if there is no missile if there's no no understanding with china and if there is growing tension and conflict then it is possible that china could emerge as an angry dragon then i think the world will be a less comfortable place thank you keisha there's a question here which i'll paraphrase a bit i think it follows up on what um what you said there you mentioned that um china has done well out of the rules-based system and it's currently let's say number two but you've also mentioned that as soon as a superpower becomes number one it no longer benefits from those rules um so how does that figure into the future that we're seeing ahead of us now that's a very good question and you know the implicit in uh bill clinton's message you know that uh the united states should strengthen the multi-rated rules-based order the uh that would then constrain the next number one which would be china right uh implicit in the message also was the was the mess it was a uh in was a sorry another point that every loophole that united states creates in international law today is a loophole that china will walk through tomorrow so it is in the interest of united states therefore to close all the loopholes do they prevent china from doing that i'll give you a concrete example the united states has not ratified the u.n convention on the law of the sea china has but if china becomes number one they say okay but not previous number one didn't ratify the unconventional law of the sea i will withdraw my ratification and that's not like that's not you don't want china to do that so the way you prevent china from doing that is the united states should ratify the u.n convention in the lord's seat but of course politically i just want you to know this politically it's impossible in the u.s senate and congress to achieve that so and so in many ways united states is acting against its own interests when it creates all these loopholes for china but the question is will china demolish the rules-based order when it becomes number one and in my book i argue that it is not likely to do so for one actually important cultural reasons for the chinese having order is very important you know because the history of china has taught the chinese people that whenever there's disorder under the heavens people suffer so the best thing to have is order stability predictability which is why by the way the chinese according to the harvard kennedy school study support for the chinese communist party has gone up from 86 percent in 2003 to 93 in 2016. why because the chinese communist party has been delivered order stability predictability so when china becomes number one and if china becomes a much bigger global trader by then that it is in china's interest to preserve the order and stability not just inside china but around china also and so i actually think we can persuade china to continue to abide by the rules-based order but you got to do that now before it becomes number one and not wait till it becomes number one to say hey why didn't you keep the rule space order okay thank you thank you for that extremely insightful answer karma as a long-term student of china and having worked there what's your take on that from a cultural perspective uh in relation to what keisha just said um so i i agree very much with what kishore said that one of the the key um fears i think for um the communist party in particular in china in recent years has been that idea of disorder and and luan in the in the system and um when you look at um some of the you know the pronouncements and some of the work that has been done to um verify the legitimacy of the party so the communist party is 100 years old this year and um you know there's been a lot of the you know the the um pronouncements and you know the the propaganda around the communist party and what it has done for um ordinary people in china is undoubtedly um you know it is important to remember you know where 30 years ago china was and as you said that eradication of poverty so as as china's move through various sort of political movements first of all the moderately prosperous society so dealing with you know people moving up the the sort of hierarchy of economic wealth um now dealing with those at the continuing to deal with those at the bottom of the economy as well i think that's so very important to maintain that legitimacy of the party so with the party in control staying in control growing popularity continuing to remind people of its roots which was with the common man and bringing the bottom rung out of out of poverty so very very important to avoid that um disorder as well because the biggest fear i i would imagine i don't know i don't have that sort of listening device but i would imagine one of the biggest fears for the party in china is that for those who are disaffected by what's happened in china that generally speaking the causes of that disaffection have been for different reasons and traditionally those who've been disaffected haven't sought common cause either and that must be a fear that anytime there's a single common cause for those who are disaffected for human rights reasons or you know who who worry about the impact of the state on you know on so many areas of life that if people sought common cause to sort of you know create disorder as well so i think that um you know that that that is a significant um thing that the um you know something significant that the west should be aware of as as a means to continue to engage with china as well um i do think um what you said about um doing that now before china becomes the um you know the dominant number one economy in the world is important too so there's a great sort of sense i think that you know [Music] you know that that sort of um blowback against in western interests in china that can't be to the detriment of actually learning from from the west's mistakes as well in order to help china develop in a more perhaps a less aggressive way and to prevent that sort of aggression coming through so i think i think it's all to play for at the moment very much in how we engage with china i worry that many western nations in particular don't have embedded the literacy about china how to engage with china you know a sort of common language about some of the issues in in the in the public service in in our politicians and so on and i think that's where singapore could play a fantastic role again in bridging that gap if you don't have enough people who know what it what good engagement looks like and what the language to use is what the what the sort of levers are then you've got a problem i think yeah okay thank you i'm going to turn to our audience now i can see some hands up can you uh ask the michael thank you um hello i'm amber a grade 11 global politics student and i have a two-part question um if the united states were to shift their stance on the one china policy and a war broke out but like particularly nuclear war between the three main actors china the us and taiwan then to what extent would this become a global disaster affecting perhaps allied states and to what extent do you sincerely believe education could play a role in ensuring peace and deterring a fate like this i didn't get the last part because i heard the first part the question is last part to what extent was the deterrence so to what extent would this be a global disaster affecting allied states as well and what extent would education play a role in deterring this from happening oh uh by the way yeah none of us know what's going to happen when nuclear war breaks out let's be very clear about that and you've heard the phrase nuclear winter right uh once uh i i mean we have no idea at all i mean uh actually what's crazy about humanity in theory we are the most intelligent species on planet but we earth this so intelligent that we have developed a capability to kill humanity several times over there's absolutely no reason for the united states to have still 6000 nuclear weapons russia to have 5 000 nuclear weapons china for some strange reason still has only 300 there's something strange about the chinese but if you add up all the nuclear weapons in the world they can kill humanity several times over we don't need them but we have them and if they're unleashed then no one knows the consequences fortunately most people understand that a nuclear war should be avoided okay i mean except as i said briefly in the last 10 months of the trump administration when something went wrong with a policy making when people like mike pompeo didn't understand that he could have started a nuclear war so so first thing we need to do is to and i think this is this is something your generation should do you should study every possible conflict that can start a nuclear war so i can mention what they are gonna start i mean taiwan is number one right i would say korea is number two because north korea has nuclear weapons so that can start a nuclear war i would say maybe russia and ukraine a good start a nuclear war because russia has got a tremendous number of nuclear weapons so let's go to the conflicts where you can start a nuclear war and then analyze what you do to prevent them from happening and i don't and i don't think we spend enough time doing down doing that because we become very lazy and complacent i remember during the cold war there was a lot of concern about nuclear war starting so there was a lot of attention to it but we've stopped paying attention to it now i think we got to swing back to it because if once it starts you know let's see let's i give you a sort of hypothetical example um let's say united states flies in troops to defend taiwan after taiwan declares independence whatever it is right china reacts and launches missiles to kill american troops in taiwan american troops are killed by chinese missiles united says okay i'll teach you a lesson so they start to bomb let's say guangzhou send senator nuclear bomb the congress china has to respond san francisco get that's hit by a nuclear strike see how it goes one one one one and before you know it you end up with several cities right and i'm actually quite shocked that no one prepares for this you're mad it can't destroy the world but you you take that small step and you think okay i i am just sending some troops in to defend the freedom of the taiwanese but you got to understand when you do that you're taking the first step towards you know a inevitable slide that will result in the first nuclear weapon being used that's the kind of analysis you need to do to understand how nuclear war start and nobody does it you know i want to emphasize this nobody doesn't just crazy that's what we should be paying attention to and and that's why the subject of peace is so important because you cannot you cannot assume that it will not happen i mean i suspect it won't happen in my lifetime so i'm safe but i'm not so sure about your lifetime it's more likely to happen in your lifetime than in my lifetime so you got to you really really you've got to focus on this nuclear issue and surface it and discuss it to ensure that everyone understands oh these are the red lines let's not get near them yeah maybe if i could just add as well i think that um you know when you asked um anna i think you you asked about um the role that education can play and i think you know united world colleges around the world and you know with our mission for for peace and a sustainable future ultimately sustainable future is all about you know deconflicting and creating situations that make peace and maintain peace and i think you know in education in a school it it's as simple as making sure for example we talked a bit before about the rules-based um international system making sure that um you know what might seem like ancient history and you know or recent history but around those institutions that were created to you talked about nuclear um possibility of nuclear war you know the institutions like the international atomic energy agency and so on which have been quite diminished in their funding and power over the last few years that that is part of the history of what was created after you know after bombs were dropped on japan in order to contain um those things from ever happening again so making sure that in our education you know that for those who are interested in pursuing the initiative for peace or global politics and so on that history is front and center as being as current today as it ever was because we really need to validate that those agencies and strengthen them um because they are so important as you said you know the charters of those institutions are what we need to refer back to as well i think that's so important that we've got young people who want to be able to look at these things as well yeah i'm so glad that uh you you address the education dimension which i failed to do so which is by the way which is why i also launched the asian peace program at the national university of singapore to try and see what we can do to avoid these uh worst case scenarios and i'm glad that the asian peace program will be collaborating with the united world college southeast asia so i hope you'll all participate in that collaboration too thank you i think we've got time for a few more questions my name is lynn i'm a grade 12 global politics student well about southeast asia i believe that it has a really huge geopolitical significance so in terms of relationship between the us and china how do these two superpowers approach this region politically and what role can southeast asia play in order to promote peace and keep the war at bay so your question is what are the attitudes of u.s and china towards southeast asia and what can southeast asia do to preserve peace yes well i think it's southeast asia has a very important role to play frankly because i think and i talk about southeast asia especially asean the association of southeast asian nations because it's very important for the asean countries to make the point that this growing contest between us and china is not just going to disrupt lives in united states disrupt lives in china i mean and by disruption i don't mean necessarily war even without war there'll be disruption i mean for example farmers in the united states lost their incomes uh when the united when china retaliated against american trade tariffs farmers in america got less money and then the u.s congress had to give farmers money so these are these are examples of disruptions so if the disruptions are going to be confined to united states and china then they can keep on doing whatever they're doing unfortunately if the united states and china when they launch a trade war it just doesn't affect these two countries it affects the global economy it affects the lives of people around the world it affects lives of people in southeast asia too so that's why it's important for southeast asians who say please why don't you just press the pause button on this duo political contest because frankly we have more important issues to address number one in the short term we still haven't overcome covet 19. so let's come together and kill covet 19 first i mean the fact you're all wearing masks and the only reason why karma are not wearing masks because i did the anti-gen test okay so i'm confident i don't have uh covet 19 the and at the same time and there's one subject i'm actually surprised we haven't raised at all which is climate change and the great another another great moral imperative of our times is to fight climate change and there is no way you can fight climate change unless united states and china cooperate because if united states and china don't cooperate forget it this we lost the battle already against climate change because these are the two largest uh emitters in the world right so that's another reason why we in southeast asia i argue should speak out more about me the trouble is that southeast asians the problem with southeast asians they're very nice people they're very polite people and polite people never speak the unpleasant truths to others so my my mission in life is to persuade southeast asians to become as rude as me and to speak out more loudly and clearly and frankly to united states and china and say stop this stupid game stop this contest let's focus on the common challenges we face that's a challenge yeah i think linda's going to take that one forward i think we've got time for one more question we're a bit short of time i'll ask you to be brief please one more question one final question hi i'm ryan a grade 11 global politics student my question is should countries like the u.s look past human rights violations in xinjiang or hong kong in order to maintain peace well that's a very good question the the question is do you want to em reduce the human rights violations in xinjiang or do you want to make political capital out of the human rights violations in xinjiang so that your goal is to be very clear if you want to make political capital out of the human rights violations in xinjiang raise it publicly make a lot of public noise and you know it will make no difference at all most countries in the world never accept public embarrassment so you will not improve and will not change the human rights violations in xinjiang at all zero impact but i can tell you as someone who was in diplomacy for 33 years if you want to change a country's behavior do it quietly don't raise it publicly don't embarrass them publicly talk to them and quietly and then the and then you will find to your surprise that things can change and things can improve it takes time but it can be done so that the moral choice you have is do you want to do good or do you want to feel good if you want to feel good yes raise it raise the human rights violations publicly make a big deal sound very heroic and all that you make no difference at all but if you want to do good and make a difference then you don't raise it publicly raise it quietly privately and see why don't we try and do some find something about this so my my my advice is the best way to to do these things is to do them quietly and then you'll find over time things will change and improve okay sure do you think enough of our politicians are actually raising these things quietly with china sorry do you think enough of our diplomats or our politicians are actually raising these things quietly uh i think to some extent they they're they're it's happening i mean like for example you know the interesting thing is the you know one of the most uncomfortable uncomfortable statistics i give in my book is that china is accused of interning 800 000 civilians in xinjiang i mean that's the public allegations that i made but united states has actually i mean this is from brown university uh 800 000 muslims have been killed in wars in the last 20 years this is from brown university watson institute so if you look between the uh internment of 800 000 muslim civilians and the killing of 800 000 muslim civilians i would say a killing of civilians is a far greater human rights violation than internment of muslim civilians but the question therefore is when you talk to the muslims right the interesting question is this there are 1.3 billion muslims in the world there are i think about 40 to 50 i don't have the exact number muslim countries in the world but when the west decided to pass a human rights resolution on xinjiang in the u.n commission of human rights right not one muslim state supported it now i think that was a very clear sign right that the muslim states saw that this is just a clearly propaganda weapon that was being used against china and they didn't want to participate in it but if you if the west can work with the muslim states and then talk to china privately that's far more effective than to go and try and attack them publicly so that i would say the answer is if you're concerned about the muslims in china get the muslims on your side thank you thank you kishan thank you for the um sort of stirring call to think about action that makes an effect not just creates a noise i think that's a really powerful point for all our global politics students i'm going to wrap it up now because there's a million questions we could ask and i'm sorry we haven't got to everybody's questions either online or from the audience but i'm just going to give you a couple of minutes if you'd like to make any closing remarks just to say from what you've heard maybe what would your advice be to young people watching today as your your the thought to leave them with obviously well i mean the one thing i would like to emphasize is that the great one great hope the world has is the idealism of the young and i can tell you as someone who's i think i suspect i'm far older than anybody here as someone who's 73 years old you see a life cycle okay you start off very idealistic then you start working struggling trying to make a living supporting your family and gradually you become more and more pragmatic and you forget your ideals right the challenge as you get older is to actually remember your ideals but then find pragmatic ways of applying them and making sure you get results that work and that's a real challenge because it's easy to be idealistic to give speeches to you know to sound good to feel good have no impact there's no point being idealistic and having no impact the real people who really make a difference in the world i i copy none as an example uh therefore he's very idealistic but he also knew when to push when not to push how to push how to change country's behaviors he did that very carefully artfully and he often did it quietly behind the scenes without embarrassing countries and then he will quietly get changes uh accomplished so he actually deserved the nobel peace prize that he got you know for vietnam so that's that's the kind of uh how do you say person you need to become someone who remains idealistic but yet can get concrete results in a very difficult massive world i would just say you know this is a fantastic college um and with a fantastic mission this is 50 years we're celebrating the mission that's still our compass and our north star so picking up on your idea of idealism i think the mission is is very idealistic but 50 years ago 60 years ago so atlantic college is 60 years next year um you know that mission is as true now as it ever was and in fact needed much more now probably even than then as well because all of the there's so many things that are dysfunctional about some of the systems we set up to deal with that mission being created in the first place so i think for our students in particular being part of that global movement 17 other schools and colleges which have a shared mission what a fantastic opportunity that is to engage on the big issues of the day so i think now you know one one piece of advice i would give is as much as possible you know where there are opportunities to engage the uwc um colleges have come together around a statement on cop26 for example it may seem like a lofty statement it is idealistic you know it's a sort of how are we going to come together with net zero in mind but ultimately without that you've got nothing to aim for so let's let's have those ideals and those lofty ambitions and then you know we can work together with our sister schools and colleges also to achieve them because that is in itself a representation of that fantastic intercultural experience that our young people can have it's it's there it's ready it's waiting to engage on the big issues so today's uwc day is as well as a day of peace and i think it's important to celebrate our mission as being as alive today as it ever was keep keep the idealism alive i would say just like you said as well yeah thank you both i'm going to give one final brief question and i'll ask you this is one for keyshaw i think this one's coming in from washington online i can't tell where it's from it says keyshot if you are offered the job of un secretary general now today would you accept it uh i i'm currently unemployed so i'm looking for a job okay they say they'll be in touch okay ladies and gentlemen wherever you've joined us from thank you for being here thank you for your time thank you of course to keyshawn karma for such a riveting session um please join us over the course of the year for future speaker series please watch the recording online share it with your friends special thanks to everybody good night everyone [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: UWC South East Asia

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Keywords: UWCSEA, video, UWC, international, boarding, school, Singapore, Uwcsea, alumni, uwc, movement, my, IB, School, century, learning, 21-century, skills, curriculum

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Length: 88min 38sec (5318 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021