Rise of China: Growth and Geopolitics (14 Mar 2019)

good evening everyone I always hate to interrupt engaged conversation so apologies in advance welcome it's nice to see so many familiar faces welcome to our students and staff and faculty and many dear friends and honored guests it's my pleasure to welcome you this evening to our panel the rise of China growth and geopolitics I know that we are in store for a really exciting event and and intellectually stimulating panel and I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say we've got quite an esteemed group and so you should ask the really tough questions I am genetic vyx and I'm the dean of faculty here at Yale and us and our panelists tonight come from both the public and private sectors as well as from Yale and from the National University of Singapore and they are going to discuss what has been described as an in potential inflection point in history which is a pretty profound I think statement to think about this moment as an inflection point in history the impact of China's growth and geopolitics things like belt and Road are made in China 2025 if certainly felt in Singapore and in the region given our proximity you can probably tell from my accent I'm from the United States where bilateral relations make the headlines just about every single day our faculty many of whom are here tonight are deeply engaged in Chinese scholarship from politics and philosophy to language and culture your work address is critically important questions such as the best ways to foster global cooperation on issues that cross borders like trade and migration economic development human rights and refugees climate change in global health in Asia for the world which is part of our part of our mission statement here at Yale and us it's my pleasure now to actually introduce you not to our panelists but to one of our many wonderful students helena auerswald who is a global affairs major and class of 2019 and in a moment she will introduce introduce our guests helena is a student government representative and a writer center tutor she's worked as a global maritime environment intern at the u.s. Navy and as a government affairs intern at the American Chamber of Commerce in here in Singapore she's currently a research assistant you have to tell us of where you they were safe to tell us about this working on prominent discourses of global citizenship among Millennials and thought leaders so I want to hear more about that later and and relevant to tonight and why I've invited her to have the honor of introducing our guests is that upon graduation in just a few short weeks Helena will join the yenching Scholars Program at the yenching Academy at Peking University the goal there is to build connections between China and the world through interdisciplinary scholarship and so Helena will be starting a master's program there in China Studies the Academy selects young scholars who have demonstrated leadership and innovation with the goal of shaping new generations of global citizens who have a nuanced understanding of China Helena they and we are really proud to have you be representing Yale and u.s. College in this prestigious fellowship congratulations and thank you for your involvement tonight and in helping us to put this together so please join me in welcoming Helena [Applause] Thank You Dinoco vixx and thank you all again for taking the time to join us tonight for this panel discussion on the rise of China so I'm not gonna talk about the book that I'm a research assistant for right now but I will be happy to talk about it with you all later if you're interested my own interest in China began growing up in Washington DC reading ancient Chinese stories like romance and the three kingdoms in high school Chinese classes and watching Johnny Mo movies with my dad and sisters I became interested in learning more about China and that curiosity was what initially brought me to yell on us I thought that being here in closer proximity to China I would be perfectly positioned to become an expert on China and in a sense I was right in my first year at Yale on us we read about Monza and shinza in political and philosophical thought and we revolution in literature and humanities and I had the opportunity to travel to China for the first time on a Yale and us trip on China in the year 1000 but during my first year I also quickly realized that studying China was not going to be about fables and stories that I had read growing up in Chinese class the ways I had been accustomed to understanding China in absolutes did not apply in Singapore the luxury of distance was gone and I had to learn to see nuances and gray areas where I not before I learned that studying China's rise was not only going to be about foreign policy as Dena Kovac said it was going to be about anthropology and economics and international institutions and business and climate science and so much more all at the same time as Dena Kovac said next year I'm going to Beijing to further my studies in China and I'm very much looking forward to finding out how I know even less than I think I do now if there's one key thing I want to take with me as I head from Yale and us to beta it's that by listening to a range of views not only from China in the US but also from smaller states like Singapore we can collectively arrive at a deeper understanding of the nuances and complexities of China's rise and its global impact so I'm thrilled that Yellin US and the Dean of faculty office and the tangent want Chinese culture and civilization program are supporting tonight's conversation on the causes and effects of China's returned to global leadership so without further ado I'm delighted to introduce our panelists our moderator Tricia Craig is the Dean of international and professional experience here at Yale and us she formerly served as executive director of Harvard's Center for European studies dr. Craig is co-author of the quality of life in rural Asia and is a frequent public commentator on education and policy issues mr. Yarmuth is currently president of the center for international relations and sustainable development a public policy think-tank in belgrade serbia mister yara mitch previously served as foreign minister of serbia and as president of the 67th United Nations General Assembly dr. Kong is vice vice dean of research and li kai-shing professor of political science at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS where he researches u.s. foreign relations and international relations in the asia-pacific he is currently working on two long-term projects international politics the rules of the game and the American tributary system dr. Liu is a partner and chairman of Asia at Partners Group he chairs the impact committee of PG Life and is a member of the firm's global Executive Board dr. Liu is a distinguished fellow at INSEAD where he focuses on infrastructure and private equity investing last but not least professor Montero is director of the International Security Studies program and associate professor of political science at Yale University where his research focuses on international relations theory and security studies he is co-author of theory of unipolar politics and nuclear politics the strategic causes of proliferation please join me in welcoming the panel [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good evening let me echo both Helena and my colleague a genetic officience words of welcome I'm very excited to have this distinguished group of panelists here and I'm looking forward to a terrific conversation the topic the rise of China is not new but I think some global events and trends have made it a more urgent question than ever the us-china trade war and the implications of that of course but more broadly a recognition that the post-war global liberal order is shifting but to what we don't yet know is a major conflict between the US and China inevitable closer to home where we in Singapore in some sense have a ringside view to some of these tensions as the u.s. retreats from a global leadership role what does it mean for the region what are the challenges and stakes for ASEAN for example an organization that Singapore is signaled the desire to lead and what do we make of China's belton Road initiative is this a trillion dollar mistake a manifestation of Chinese economic power and influence or is it as one of our panelists has called it a state of mind to encourage people to think about the value of connectivity these are some of the issues that our panelists have been thinking about and so let's let's get to it each of our guests will offer remarks for five to ten minutes and then after a bit of discussion we'll open the floor to you our audience will go in this order Lukie our image will start us off followed by professors Kuhn and Montero and Kevin Liu will bring it home so let's let's start with you you have a unique lens on this from your role as not just foreign minister from Eastern European country but also as top diplomat in the UN how do you interpret the rise of China thank you very much for this kind introduction thank you for this truly unique opportunity to to address such a such a great crowd and to be sharing the podium with people of such distinction I'd like to try and I mean when I was elected to president through the United Nations General Assembly I say elected it was different it was for the first time after the Cold War that there was actually a competitive election for president of the General Assembly this was one of those signs that things were not exactly the way they were in the past and it was actually one of the one of the signs of of the change of international order where there would be no consensus as to who is going to be at the head of the at the helm of the General Assembly but I mean international orders come and go in history and and every time when an international order is established there is a great enthusiasm about it because it usually comes in the aftermath of a huge conflict and the contemporaries of the onset of disorder they tend to see that something that is gonna last for a very long time so it applied to the Congress of Vienna in the aftermath of Napoleonic Wars the same thing went for Versailles after the first world war same thing went for San Francisco and the UN Charter after the the Second World War but then you can't really blame the contemporaries of the fall of the Berlin wall and in the 1991 let's say demise of the Soviet Union in the beginning of the post Cold War order you can't really tie it to any particular place like you came to Vienna Versailles San Francisco perhaps the most closely you can relate it to Davos to say that a new consensus on a new liberal world order would be that there'll be no nationalism and that only economic interest is going to matter and the globalization is good because the economic interest is going to be the only thing that matters well that came to an end and I believe that with a 2020 perfect hindsight one could say that it was the summer of 2008 when it came to an end because in the forty days only of 2008 summer of 2008 Russia made an intervention beyond its borders made its intervention in Georgia and in only 40 days later Lehman Brothers collapsed and together with the Lehman Brothers collapsed one of the repercussions of the globalization was that it wasn't just contained to America it was just spread throughout the world so and only 40 days all the davos assumptions about no nationalism only multinational ISM and globalization is good and it's only going to continue delivering benefits positive benefits for everybody I mean that came to an end so we now live in a era that started then and one of my good friends Ian Bremmer one of the most respected at least I find him one of the most respected geopolitical experts is saying that what we're living through is akin to a climate change but the geopolitical climate change he's comparing this to natural climate change in a sense that a death started in 2008 it was entirely man-made we all saw it coming and we are doing very very little about it despite the fact that we do understand how devastating the consequences of this could be and probably in this era of geopolitical climate change when the old order is definitely going into history rusting more and more and it is not clear at all as to what would constitute the future international order the most significant relationship that will define this interregnum period is the relationship between the United States and China and I'm not the scholar of China but I was once told by a very respected scholar of China I never talk about the rise of China only talk about the return of China because the last 150 to 200 years we're essentially an aberration from the perspective of human history and this return of China is something that that I believe is going to define the act of the incumbent superpower and as of the last I would say maybe six months it has become even a an official policy in Washington I sure I'm sure we're going to have a chance to debate it and in a little bit more detail over the course of this conversation great thank you um even phone let's turn now to you you've thought and written a lot about power shifting from west to east how do you see the current moment Thank You Trish it's working right I'm really delighted to be here to share some thoughts on the rise of the rise of the return of China okay now that power in the world is shifting from the west to the east is probably something that many of us here in this room would agree on we are less likely however it seems to me too have a consensus on the specifics and the implications of this shift who is up who is down and the likely consequences for the world in general and for Asia in particular so what I thought I'll try to do is to share with you my take on these questions by making three points first Asia is moving from what we call uni polarity to bipolarity from a situation where you have the US as the predominant military economic power to one where China is closing in on the US and where the two of them are way ahead of all the others second point which is related to the first China has risen to a point where it is challenging the u.s. the established power or the hegemon in Asia and my third point both the US and China will pressure Asian states to align with them consequently it will become increasingly difficult for states in the region to abide by the mantra of not wanting to choose or not one thing to take sighs so let me elaborate on each of these points today the u.s. is still the predominant power in Asia but its relative power is declining by the day we show the slide on the power ranking okay according to a recent study by the lower institute in australia china's comprehensive power is already approximating that of America's 89 percent of America's to be specific the lower Institute's Asia power index published in May 2018 it's a remarkably comprehensive and rigorous ranking of the overall power of 25 Asian countries including the US and Russia we don't have time to go into the specifics of their approach but the short of it is they measured all the variables that matter in the states of to a mass and deploy power and they somebody up into a single metric that you see up there and according to their measures the u.s. is the most powerful country in Asia eighty five out of hundred followed closely by China with a score of seventy five point five Japan is third with a score of forty two point one but which is a considerable gap between Japan and the top two and followed by India Russia Australia South Korea Singapore Malaysia and Indonesia now if you accept this issue today is by polar and not multi polar as many observers in the region think the United States remains the region's hegemon however China's overall powers the length behind that of the US but it's closing in and according to those who study the rise and fall of great powers things start to get interesting when the rising powers overall strength approximates 80% of the established power you don't wait until you 100% right so this is an approximate threshold of course and that is when the politics of power transition is triggered according to the lowest daddy then this threshold has been reached now this helps explain the intensification of the us-china rivalry that we have seen in the last many years it's a situation where the rising power conscious of its new clout demands changes to existing arrangements and entitlements so that they better reflect its interests the established power will have to decide whether to concede or the resist now what is this us-china rivalry about Graham Allison offered acidities trap fame suspected it was about the struggle for hegemony or being the leader the predominant power and leader of the region and he sought out and posed the question to one of Asia's most transient observers of China the Lee Kuan Yew all right Ellison asked mr. Lee point-blank does China aim to displace the US as the number one power in Asia or the world and here is mr. Lee's answer I caught him of course why not they have transformed the poor society by an economic miracle to become now the second largest economy in the world the Chinese will want to share this sanctuary as co-equals with the u.s. it is China's intention to be the greatest power in the world the policies of all government to a China especially neighboring countries have already taken this into account and there was a 2011 interview I basically agree any state with China's capabilities scale and achievements would aspire to be the hegemon Beijing's own frequent protestations against her shamanism notwithstanding so the competition is about being number one because number one if you are number one you get to call the shots make the rules of the game and you have more room to ship the external environment to suit your political and economic interests for now however China wants coal equality China believes that the time has come forward to be recognized as America's equal China's interest in Co equality can be seen in fishing pings call for the new model of great power relations which is basically a g2 approach to managing the wall starting with the asia-pacific because China knows that it is in no position to displace the US yet for now it should aim to a man the existing hierarchy of power and prestige and you do that by seeking Co equality now the US and most of these allies are not ready or prepared to grant China the Co equality it desires for a host of reasons the most important of which to my mind is that china is not democracy from the US perspective you're by definition think that politically and therefore cannot be the USS equal if you're not a democracy this refusal or inability by the u.s. to grant that Co equality will help fuel the china-us competition China is likely to create facts on the ground such that at some point in the medium future the US would have no choice but to recognize China as an equal some of these facts on the grounds include the ADIZ the air defense identification zone building military structures in the South China Sea the a IIb the belt and road initiative and the forthcoming RCEP now for all these reasons the us-china competition in my view is likely to get more vicious and dangerous in the years ahead and perhaps even more intense than the u.s. Soviet rivalry during the Cold War unlike the Soviet Union which was an economic basket case China is a much more formidable competitor along all the relevant dimensions of power despite China's recent economic slowdown few are predicting that this growth will peter out and militarily we are familiar with China's adoption of asymmetrical strategies to increase the vulnerability of US assets in Asia the technological dimension cyber capabilities 5g AI robotics they are being increasingly seen as a critical element in this competition not to mention the flash points aplenty by one North Korea South China Sea and so on they all seem to fit you know the notion that the rise of China's power and the fear that it created in the u.s. poses you know one of the main challenges for us in this century what then are the implications for the states of the region as this rivalry gets serious and this brings me to my last and third point each great power will want to get as many countries on this side as it because a big part of international politics is about winning friends and influencing people by having them on your site are broadly aligned with your wishes and interests you have a better chance of calling the shots but most in Asia if they have not chosen would prefer not to choose you probably would have heard this many times over yet I think juice they probably will have to the role of Asian countries in choosing whether to align with China or the u.s. in the decades ahead I think will be critical in shipping the Power Balance in the region if push comes to shove I believe Japan Australia and New Zealand will align themselves with the u.s. South Korea is harder to predict Southeast Asia is where the political diplomatic alignments are probably up for grabs because of this maintaining ASEAN solidarity will be challenging in the years to come a science mantra that it doesn't want to choose between the two that position would be increasingly difficult to maintain in my in my view we have already seen signs of this with the famous incident of 2012 in the ASEAN meeting in Phnom Penh when Cambodia a Chinese behest blocked the inclusion of a paragraph on the South China Sea resulting in a science inability to issue a post meeting communique for the first time in 45 years as this example indicates for now the choice is not pitch in cosmic ideological terms of are you for me or against me it tends to be over concrete issues which the two contenders would like to have your support on think a IIb all right where the Obama administration tried to persuade Britain not to join think the South China Sea where China would prefer us and not to mention that in ASEAN meetings I think the belt and road initiative where Italy just signed the MOU supporting the scheme write the rest of are still thinking think our free and open indo-pacific which the u.s. is saying please support if you are not a true ally and think of Huawei all right if you choose it as your telco for 5g the US will find it hard to share sensitive intelligence with you right in my view three factors will shape the choices of the Southeast Asian countries in the years ahead domestic politics economic opportunities and calculations of us staying power I can get into some of these factors if you wish during our discussion so that's my take on how things are issue is bipolar expect increasingly fierce competition between the two great powers and navigating between the two will become increasingly challenging thank you great thank you you know I think this gives you a lot of opportunity here thank you note to self when invited to these panels make sure I'm the first experts speaker not the third so thank you for the fascinating presentations and I'll try to still have something new to say I was reminded of how is the how historically recurrent the rise of China is when I arrived here this week with a small set of Yale faculty who are here to teach courses and one of my colleagues was a curator of Asian art ask me what are you teaching and I said the rise of China and she said Oh Ming period and I said so it's a it seems to be recurrent factor I'm gonna try to make four points the first one is very connected to the slide that was up there just a little bit I think the difference between the United States and China is declining so there's less and less difference between the two but I think the differences are different depending on which dimension you look at and that's a very important feature of the competition so China has been catching up with the United States economically if you look at the last 20 years I would say that the region has changed East Asia the western Pacific Southeast Asia has changed from a region in which the United States was the dominant economic power and today you have perhaps two great economic powers China in the United States so we've reached the certain parity and I cannot in terms of economic influence between the two I would say however that on military terms that's not the case yet and the United States is still the dominant power and in my view the United States will continue to be the dominant power in East Asia and the western Pacific in military terms for decades to come I can talk a little more about that in Q&A if people want mostly because military power in the 21st century depends on a combination of technology and training that's very difficult to mimic and the military forces of the people republics of China are far behind what we see in military terms is on the part of China an attempt to decrease disadvantage the United States has and to decrease what we call control the Commons the ability of the United States has to deny other countries including China access to for example the South China Sea I think we are far from seeing parity we're really far from seeing a Chinese ability to deny to others access to the South China Sea I think this introduces a very interesting and interesting is a positive spin very complicated a strategic landscape against which Southeast Asian countries have to make their strategic choices which is a situation of sort of dual hegemony a growing economic hegemony of China in the region but the maintenance of a military hegemony of the United States in the region and so the security incentives in instead of the purely security incentives don't align with the incentives for economic growth which of course also determines security long term so it's really difficult for these countries in the region for example for Singapore to make its choices because it's short term securities better protected by the United States you could argue it's long term securities also better protected by aligning with the United States if the u.s. stays in the region so I fully agree with what you said it depends on expectations about the staying power of the United States the second point I want to make is that as a result of these perceived perceived being the key word rise of China here we have today a perceive again crisis of the liberal international order I do not think the liberal international order is in crisis because I do not think there exists a liberal international order I think with a current moment is a very interesting moment of clarity in which these strategic bets the United States and its Western Western broadly conceived including Australia in many countries in this region the bets the strategic bets of the United States and its allies have made since the 1990s since the Clinton administration then the Cold War visibly China and visa vie Russia have now clearly failed that is the United States visa vie China made the bet that if we integrate the China in a globalized economy two things would follow China would become a democracy and China would become in the parlance of u.s. foreign policy a responsible stakeholder in a us-led liberal international order that did not pan out neither of the two and that's now clear it's also clear even it was clear even before since 2008 at least his book said that Russia is also not interested in becoming a responsible stakeholder in the liberal international order Russia in fact like China haves interests that are antithetical to the liberal international order so we're coming to a moment in international politics I agree that will in transition between orders but in its perception that is I think the order that regulates relations among the great powers China the US Russia has always been a balance of power order and for the last two decades the United States has deluded itself that the liberal international order which was the regional order that regulated the West during the Cold War had become global and now we realize no it has not become global it continues to be a regional order for which perhaps we are willing to fight and I certainly like the values of that order but it's not an order that regulates relations among the great powers nor it will will it be because China and Russia Russia is less of a problem Russia is basically a giant gas station with a military attache it's not really a state anymore gee I have a slide in my lectures comparing the GDP of Russia with other countries I have to change the country every year because because it used to be Italy last year this year it's Spain so it's going down in the ranks fast so it's long term it won't be a problem China is in the opposite situation and so to become an increasing problem and it's clear now to United States foreign policy elites that China is not interested in integrating disorder and this has generated much soul-searching because the language of the liberal international order is not the language that was deployed cynically by the United States in its own interests it's a language that elites believe deeply in the United States and so reconciling this belief with the need to deal with other countries on a balance of power basis is not easy doesn't come naturally okay the third point I want to make is that the strategy of the regional middle powers and minor powers in Asia so all the Southeast Asian countries Australia Japan Korea Taiwan will be increasingly difficult to the extent that China acquires more economic Germany but the u.s. maintains military hegemony so the choices will be increasingly difficult because you will you will continue to rely or rely perhaps even more on the United States militarily but the cost of doing so economically will be greater and greater so the cost that China can impose on your economy for not getting along with them or not doing what they expect you to do will become greater and greater and so I see a deep tension there and and and a situation that creates the worst possible conditions for formulating strategy which are two sets of incentives in contradiction with each other and I'll finish with with with my last point which tries to wrap all this up by saying I think I'm fairly confident although I prefer not to be that the competition between China and and the United States will be certainly more prolonged and perhaps more intense than the competition between United States and the Soviets because the Soviets could never get their act together economically right for example the Soviets never during the Cold War had the GDP that was more than two-thirds of American GDP right they could never compete economically with the United States China has a potential that's far greater than that and an economic system that that's more efficient than that so there will be a prolonged competition and that competition I think will ultimately be very similar to the competition of the Cold War in one fundamental respect which is the Cold War when we back let me put my historical hat on for a moment when we look back how did the u.s. won the Cold War the u.s. won the Cold War by having a package a system an economic social political system that was perceived by everybody including by the middle eighties the leadership of the Soviet Union as outperforming the Soviet system and so what won the Cold War was this ability to outperform to produce better outcomes health outcomes income outcomes life expectancy outcomes all of the above for your civilization better than the Soviet Union this will be the competition that we'll see and so I have as much concern about the decline the internal decline of the West the internal decline of the United States its political gridlock in ability to generate social mobility inside the country to renew its infrastructures all of that I have as much concerned about that as I have about the potential of China to grow more economically because that's where the action will be the action will be when China and the United States present options to third countries side with us this is the package we have on offer it's important that the West continue to have if you believe that the West is is the the the better force in this competition it's important that it continue to have the best package the most appealing package if the United States and the West are placed in a position which when we go and talk to Zimbabwe the Chinese government can offer that an economic social political model that generates greater GDP growth greater life expectancy greater social mobility greater political control all of the above then the competition is likely to be lost by the West and so it's in in keeping these packages attractive as a whole that I think both states have to concentrate most of their energy thank you you know when you are the fifth speaker on the panel it's like Elizabeth Taylor was married five times you draw the first husband what new can you can you bring to the table right so I'll try I I'll try in a different way so rather than echoing the great valid points my my fellow speakers have mentioned let me just I want to share with you of some of the conversations I have had with people over the last few years and and then draw you to maybe two or three words that I think what chime the rise of China or return of China is really really about right let me start with is probably four or five years ago when this belt road initiative was first mentioned right as you all of you really call it was first called one belt one road a very awkward naming I think I think Westerners were all very confused what it's about so I remember I was at I believe as well the summer Davos five years ago I was sitting into a good friend of mine who who was at that point the prime minister of a small Asian country which shall remain unnamed he was very confused he said look I was looking at this whole I heard about my my staff briefed me about one belt one road is about the Silk Road and some some Samaritan Road and and my country wasn't really on it you know my country was not very far from China but it's not technically on the road I'm very worried that my country has no relevance you know I need to find a way I just talked to my historians to prove we actually part of this spelled thing so we had interesting discussion what this is really about today it's relatively clear what at that point wasn't clear right so in the end we had a conversation we said look I think my view is it has absolutely nothing to do with whether a country was part of the belt on the road or anything else right what China was saying is very simple something very simple that connectivity is a good thing right connectivity has benefits to China connectivity has benefits to the other countries and the reason I speculated that the user why don't we just why don't they just come out to say that but they would use belt and Road I think that's very small the biskits said our ancient ancestors hundreds hundreds of years ago have figured that out right that's why we have Silk Road that's why we have all those very easy that today we should recognize that right so so that that is my first key word is connectivity I think I think then you can talk about several different things right this is a different conversation which actually just happened today Luke and I were at our at our investor conference today yesterday actually we we we heard a very good speech from Deputy Prime Minister tournament was closed doors I couldn't repeat it but looking you to recall that that the Prime Minister term and use the word balkanization several times right talk about again I wouldn't go into exactly what he talked about was close though but the word was used so look at I was sitting together there was a Japanese a client of ours and I think his English is probably been limited and so he turned around and asked fook what does balkanization mean right you probably all know that will be used to be the Prime Minister a foreign minister of Serbia as part of the original to ask that question right so we said ok tokenization means you know when image the Japanese client English is not very good it has to be simple right he said it's sort of a win since get disconnected right when since I supposed to be together it gets divided get disconnected and and he wasn't it didn't ring any alarm and with him we added that you know that when that happened it could could cause conflicts huh I think he's doing here it was it no it could cause wars actually and it could cause great world war actually both World War happens that way you know in that particular region right so the point here is that the opposite of connectivity is polarization I don't think that's a good vision for the world so I actually think the rise of China the the way that China is advocating to use connectivity as the main theme timmy is a very positive thing it's something that people should embrace whether your country was part of the Silk Road Road is absolutely irrelevant right maybe further on that point I think we already talked about the u.s. role as a superpower China could potentially then you think where does that power come from what what does the leadership mean right what does the global leadership actually mean you could argue one part of that is your economic fundamentals if you are big we have a big economy money you have a lot of manufacturing capability that could bring leadership but then you say why is a country like Singapore seems to be you know certainly a leader in the world in many ways right so that leads to the conclusion that my conclusion certainly the other way to lead is your ability to inter mediate right if you have ability to inter mediate whether its capital flows whether its conflicts then that give you leadership right that's if you think about the US where that the leadership come from it has a currency that everybody uses when you trade that's the ability to inter mediate it has Wall Street when people want capital you know even if infrastructure projects in Asia and the the saving is also in Asia somehow we decided to raise the bound in Wall Street the intermediate through through that that's where the leadership come from and I would argue that part of that ability a u.s. ability to lead and to inter mediate is something we covered it's it's military power and the ability to provide a security blanket to the rest of the countries right I was reading an article the other day about how many military bases the US has versus any other country it's just a massive different order of magnitudes right so here if you think about China's rise of China right how does China want lead does China has the economic fundamentals to lead yes right the population the frankly as in imperialism when the way China naturally did does China want to intermediate yes that's why you see the push of RMB as a reserve currency right but that's a very long journey a u.s. also lead by intermediate cultures right so that's very hard for China to do it's a different language I don't I don't I don't I will never predict when a Chinese movie would be as popular or some of the Hollywood movie right but the last point out here is though I believe on the military side I personally believe China has zero intention to lead and to intermediate based on providing security blanket it's a very expensive proposition u.s. happened to be that way I don't think China ever wants to do that I think instead what China wants to lead and to play that the road to intermediate is to use connectivity which is why you have Bell Road initiative they try to connect China to many other countries even more that's why you have a AIB because that's how you embrace this country financially that's why you have BRICS Bank the new Development Bank so for me the word connectivity and the ability to inter mediate are absolutely essential to understand the rise of China and my final point these are all you know philosophical points and help may be to bring to the business a little bit thinking in the spirit of sharing conversations I was actually two hours ago at the in the office of what maybe three hours going in the office of one of the large sovereign wealth fund the head of a certain Lorentz office we were talking about how you know we this conversation naturally came to China right the growth of China and more important portent of China the rise of China and at the investor so I work for parts group which is a Swiss private equity firm we manage about 80 billion dollars we help the investors to invest into into project we talk about this whole topic of you have Asia China a lot of growth of rights what do you do at the investor what do they do what do we do then then we come to a very clear conclusion that there are two ways you could you could you could benefit from the right of China of the investor one is you actually invest into China right a lot of people do that you you try to you try to put the money by a Chinese company buy a share but there's an entirely different way which is actually partners group actually does a lot more is when we invest in European companies American companies Southeast Asian companies we bear China in mind right when we buy a large company in Europe you know you could benefit from China because you can manufacture better you can sell more you can you can connect your research ability to the Chinese thing so the investors I would say that that a rise of China creates a lot of opportunities far beyond just putting capital into China and you could you could you could play that China the rise of China caught in in multiple ways for me the writer China means connectivity the right of China means China's ability to intermediate but not necessarily through providing security plan key to the world it means the opposite of balkanization I think our Japanese friend finally understood that it's not good to have a balkanized the world when those world will happen from that region and and finally as the investor there are many ways to benefit from rise of China than many opportunities you can see from there fantastic um thank you all for this I know that you are all eager to respond to things that each of you has said I could see it in the body language in some comments so one of the things that I want to ask you to go a little bit deeper on relates both this idea of leadership but also a couple of you brought up the staying power of the u.s. in terms of leadership and belt road I like you to talk a little bit about Chinese soft power when to the extent that you see belton Road as part of that but I know fook wants to to say something and I think this is incredibly important say something about what belton Road means to Eastern Europe because I think this will help us get a sense of what this connectivity that Kevin's talking about means Thank You Tricia and it was really a great introduction by Kevin we haven't agreed on this but he really did raise the Balkans and in connectivity in his opening remarks so Belton Road I'm not gonna start from first principles I believe that you in Asia most of you do know about a Belton Road my opinion is that it's it's definitely going to have the transformative effect on both politics and economics of globalization in the 21st century now for better or for worse but it's going to have a transformational effects it's arguably the grandest connectivity project in human history but I'll tell you from the perspective of part of Europe its Eastern Europe actually South East Europe the Balkans and this this is a part of Europe that has maybe a surplus of history and Kevin was mentioning world wars that were triggered up in that part of the world but for those of you who are not familiar with its geography it was always important for anybody in history of Europe who had an ambition to project force people or goods from the north to the south of the continent or vice versa so it was crucial for the Romans who wanted to go to reach the grains of Egypt and it was crucial for the Crusaders who were besieging Constantinople it was crucial for the Ottomans who were besieging Vienna it was crucial for Germany and both first and the Second World War and so on and so forth and it always served as I dare a point of connectivity between the Middle East and Europe or it served as a wall for Europe to defend itself from the dangers emanating out of the Middle East and Balkans Only Knows - I would say aggregate geopolitical states one of a transit in the other of a wall and because of history and geography it was always captured it actually has been captured between the three centers of gravity three centers of power I'm deliberately using this term because history in the in in different historic those centers of powers were referred to differently but it was between the the Christian West in the Christian East and the Muslim South East Russia Turkey in the West and it is for the first time in history that there is a fourth a significant element in this equation and this is China it has not existed in the Balkan equation until 21st century now it does exist China is on its way to become the largest investor in Southeast Europe and China is making Balkans like a centerpiece of the belt and road strategy for for the terminal part of it the one that connects with Europe so for those of us in the Balkans who have been dreaming about joining Europe because you I don't know sort of if you know Serbia is a is a European country but it's not a member of the European Union and maybe until a few years ago it was like a collective dream of all the Balkan nations to join the European Union's and some we're successful and some were not successful I come from a country that in my opinion unfortunately wasn't successful and joining the European Union it's now a very paradoxical situation choosing between the wall and the transit if you want to side politically with the West you are likely to end up as a wall against danger is emanating out of the Middle East in the past those were the Ottoman troops today these are migrants and refugees that Germany and Austria and the others don't want to have reaching their capitals now if you work closely with China the vision is opposite they come and say Oh we're gonna build your build your rail network by the way in Serbia we have a rail work railway network from Tito from the 60s century there is no easy economic project emanating out of Europe including the EBRD or the European Investment Bank that would rebuild the network rail network and road network in Serbia and other bloc countries and the Chinese are coming and they're saying what surprised no not an issue and when are we gonna pay back I don't worry about it so and we are a like parliamentary democracy in which there's a four-year term and governments tend to think and for your cycles now I'm not a huge supporter of the Serbian government I'm as a matter of fact leader of the Opposition in Serbia so I'm not I'm not but but to be honest but to be honest it is difficult to criticize a government that would say no to such an offer especially when there is no alternative proposal you were mentioning like what are the alternative proposals were there very few alternative proposals in the Balkans and we are talking not about Asia where the competition is probably going to be even more fierce we're talking about far end of the belt and Road which is in Europe that's our experience new northern Kevin so I wanted to build on the last two interventions to say that one belt one road is with us to stay in it can only grow and when you look at what the American one belt one road was it was the most transformative force of the 20th century it was called the colonisation the Americans have their own one belt one road it have an idea of values base which was self-determination of people's and it had an interest base markets open to American capital we don't want imperial market so close to him American capital and that was the most transformative force European empires in Europe ended with the World War one with the American victory in World War one empires around the world ended with American victory in World War two in the next couple of decades so we can expect the rising power like China to have a deeply transformative connectivity effort such as this one I would say on whether whether China will begrudgingly perhaps have to also offer security guarantees to other countries I would go back to the American example perhaps the most transformative sentence in American foreign policy is Woodrow Wilson's sentence in the speech he makes to Congress in 1917 when the United States enters World War one and Wilson says we were entering the war to make the world safe for democracy that's the whole basis of American foreign policy since then and what making the world safe for democracy means largely is making other countries into democracies because rid political regimes tend not to survive surrounded by different political regimes and that will be the main issue for China will will one belt one road be sufficient without military influence I don't mean war I mean the ability to say and we can also defend you militarily will it be sufficient to lead regimes in the neighborhood to become more like China or not or will these regimes with support of the u.s. maintain you know democratic Japan democratic South Korea etcetera etcetera I don't think it's in China's interest to maintain those regimes like that long term China's best interest the interest of the regime is to make the other countries in their in the region at their own image yeah maybe I will build on both of your points let me start with this first I would I would I personally would slightly disagree I think I think the Chinese collective consciousness on the issue of military strength occupation invasion I think is the following right is one is China has been on the receiving end of this thing for many many decades so I think China understands two things I think Chinese are smart enough on that too it sings one is that it's it's it's more the wrong to be on the aggressor side right but that's the less important point I think Chinese being pragmatic people the more important point I think for the Chinese is that you cannot really sustain that right you could attack a country you win then what how much money that does it does it take you to actually sustain that so I think both from a moral angle but more importantly from a practicality angle my guess is that Chinese are going to try very very hard not having to go the American Way but they find a different way which is which is a more economic sort of type of connectivity rather than ideological minuted connectivity which brings me maybe to to what Luke was talking about you know I think you asked about the implication of beltro to to the it's about Oakland countries I move a little bit east I was in the spirit of just sharing conversations right is that I was I was in Abidjan September month ago I was having a good friend I was good film of having a dinner in this Caravan you know in those Asian Tash is very nice restaurant that is the Asian Caravan station you know in the middle it's a flat courtyard a bunch of rooms around the right this is the Asian time the Silk Road that's where the traders stop that they're there like their horses all sleep in the middle and the people go when sleeping in the rooms ready to turn that into a restaurant so I was asking him this is a very important person in that country I said what do you bid economic for portfolio I said you know what do you what do you think what's its China belt Rose didn't do for you he told me something that was very very simple he said look it's very simple we're in this Caravan it was Asian Hotel basically right he said Baku you know all we want is when this connectivity from China comes you know today we're like this two-star Hotel you know we want to upgrade ourselves to a four-star hotel right so the more people stay here they spend more money we strike will be more value from from this connectivity movement and then and he said what who will never be Tehran rye or Istanbul those are five-star hotels we cannot be we just want upgrade from to start of - Fausta so so I I do the takeaway for me was was you know it's which is why the belt road initiative I think the Americans still didn't understand it why it's powerful because it's really not a Chinese strategy to say hey here's how we want you to be all like me here's how you do it what China basically shows idea is then you got the interpreting in whatever way you want if evoke thing that means building a port that can you know let Belgrade serve a row that's great if my friend in Baku says we just want to upgrade ourselves from a two-star to four-star hotel that's perfectly fine as so many different interpretations other countries could take to benefit themselves and to be part of this belt road I think that's the power and I think that's exactly the difference from the American model which is was to go everywhere to say you have to be like us you have to have elections only in elections create accountability only elected legitimacy is legitimacy right so I think there are different ways you have accountability without elections now I think the Chinese bureaucratic system has enormous amount of accountability if you're if you're a mayor or party secretary in China you this is not easy job you don't sit there just enjoy your live you you have kpi of hundreds of KPIs the central government committee there's accountability if you don't do well you you won't have your job and and and so there are different wait I think the American Way is to is never to be overly simplistic is to replicate themselves but I think the Chinese we are a little bit more flexible that's how I take it can pick up a point in your question Tricia about Chinese soft power and the belton Road initiative in BRE Belton Road initiative I suspect that the Chinese have found or stumbled upon the soft power attribute they have been seeking since 2007 when who Jintao expressed his desire to increase China's soft power I don't think China's soft power lies in Confucius Institutes or you know the Chinese movies are making important inroads into the what is normal has been dominated by Korean movies for those of you who follow these things so the Chinese movies are coming up very very nicely but belton brought is attractive because it is about building or heading to infrastructure where none existed it offers a connection through key markets through Central Asia the Middle East Africa ending in Europe and it is based on the narrative and invitation that leverages on China's post 1978 achievements in economic development and a future plan that is based on an ancient script that harks back to China's illustrious past the Silk Road the ancient Silk Road that came to fruition right so that's this anticipation that it you know will come into fruition now I have some doubts about whether in the end it will materialize because a lot of these things are happening in the backyard of Russia India and true Muslim lands now you know places where China hasn't been particularly adept in dealing with in his own backyard but having said that in terms of soft power belton Rose seems to be you know one of the main things they have yes what we're going to do right now after VOC response to that is open the floor to questions and you'll see that down here we have two mics on either side so since we're recording the session we'd appreciate it if you would go to the mics to ask a question and I'll just just remind you a couple of the rules of the house in terms of questions please identify yourself I'm I know that there are a lot of questions so please be brief and remember that a question ends with a question mark okay so well people are going to the to the mics do you wanna respond it was such a Harvard thing to say the question very very brief intervention I would agree to to what as a matter of fact both Nuno and and Kevin said although they seem to have contradicted each other there's an even more powerful it correct me if I'm wrong Kevin but there was an even more powerful collective memory in China yes of course the last 150 to 200 years of being wronged by the west and by the way when China says the West they come Russia also in the West usually in Europe when we speak about the West we don't tend to put Russia and this in this fault but in China I mean Russia is also West but even more from what I read and from what I discussed with with the Chinese colors.this this prior notion of everybody coming to China and paying tribute to China respecting the court respecting the Emperor so I think part of the soft power strategy lies in showing great generosity showing a great respect but then also expecting people to have deep understanding and even support of China's ways and China's specialities and that applies for the UN for example I was a foreign minister of a very very small country Serbia is a very small country 7 million people when I traveled to China I was given the same protocol as Secretary of the state of the United States of America that kind of makes you feel warm about what your hosts have to say to you I mean perhaps it's it's just a human weakness but I can tell you this really works and and also further away you are the easier it gets the concentrate and the positives of the rail of the bilateral relationship and let's put China aside for a second but Russia's a very good example especially for Serbia Russia is very popular in Serbia because of historical background and cultural commonalities and so on and so forth but I talked to a good friend of mine from Georgia once and he told me Russia has not your neighbor so it's easy for you to be deaf that's warm and positive feelings about Russia now same thing applies for China China is far away and it's seen from a different perspective when it comes to China's soft power if you are just the pure beneficiary of a road building of investments and so on and so forth if you live in in East Asia or or Southeast Asia like I can understand that the situation becomes slightly more complex ok we'll start over here geez hi yeah my name is cheesy I'm a year for undergraduate majoring history here in u.s. so the question I have is regards to the question as to whether countries really have to choose between China and the US so across the speakers you have all seem to assume that eventually Asian states or at least non great power state so eventually to choose which side to go to but I recall during the Cold War even the height of very strong by polarity that is the oldest afro-asian States are able to make a non-aligned movement and claim that look we do not want to ally completely with either one of the powers we are going to maintain our independence so in the context of this new bipolarity do you see the possibility perhaps of a resurgence in this idea of non-alignment again let perhaps by a middle power such as India which has this commitment to not enlightenment in this of enlightened self-interest that the only way is going to be able to decide it's own destiny and to maintain so independence if it's if it brought forms this broad coalition of states to allow them to selectively bargain the great powers thank you should I take that I think non-alignment will work great for Brazil because they're really far away I think non-alignment for Southeast Asian Nations is problematic right someone if you don't want to be entirely aligned with China you have to be I think aligned with someone else to back you up so I think that your your your serve the equivalent situation of Eastern Europe in the Cold War so the geography doesn't work in your favor the the example of the non-alignment movement and Nam tends to be someone who will usually bring it up in you know when we make a point about needing to choose and it is true that none tried to steer between the you know the competition between the two great powers during the Cold War but if you look at some of the leaders of Nam and you ask were they really non-aligned India India was basically an you know political diplomatic ally of the Soviets right Indonesia right after sukarno Indonesia was basically with the u.s. Malaysia basically with the US and UK so they're non-aligned I think in rhetoric but in terms of the political you know and even military alignment I mean you see who they buy their arms from they were pretty aligned seems to me I feel very subjective about this because I come from former Yugoslavia Yugoslavia was one of the founders of the non-aligned movement I was even as a foreign minister of Serbia I was hosting a non-aligned ministerial meeting in Belgrade on the 50th anniversary of the first summit that took place in 1961 I totally agreed that the non-alignment was first and foremost rethorical but in realities and things were slightly different but there were also different aspects of this reality I'll take Yugoslavia as an example Yugoslavia was economically very closely allied with the West taking big loans from the West and so on and so forth but most of our military equipment were purchased in the Soviet Union so now fast forwarding to the idea of potential like non-alignment 2.0 in Southeast Asia for example in the context of the US China increasing rivalry siding with the US on military and sometimes diplomatic issues in the UN or otherwise and siding with China and economic issues in the context of for example the belton road projects or otherwise I mean that kind of duality if one wants to draw a comparison with the non-aligned time I I can see versions of it happening my name is Frank young make a comment first and our last question President Wilson so one of the things he wanted to do was export democracy and has had a success in large countries like India Indonesia and even recently in Malaysia the benefit one of the key benefits of democracy is you if you if the rulers screw up you can get rid of them without bloodshed and violence okay now we'll go to China China is a great success in enriching their country a country very profitable sorry boss and last 20 years it made 600 million of 700 million people middle-class but the question here is is that system in China exportable against the democracies which is now in you know many successful IRS earlier earlier examples is China's system political system and economic system exportable to other countries I say yes the question is whether it will prove to be more successful than the United States system and most people are skeptical of the ability of that political and economic system to out produce in in sort of social and economic terms the results of the u.s. system but I want to throw a cautionary note out there which is we tend to naturalize our own success to think of it as natural right so we tend to think of market driven economies and democracies as being the most successful system because that's what we've seen in the last 60 years or certainly during the Cold War right I would recall that for example in the Latin the first two decades of the Cold War everyone in the West was terrified because self-evidently the Soviet command economy was gonna be more effective our perception was that we were going to lose the Cold War when you read the economic histories at the time leaders in the West thought this is gonna be really hard to beat because clearly a command economy will be more effective turns out that that wasn't the case right but it also turns out the Soviets weren't particularly good at managing one maybe the Chinese will prove better at managing one right so the jury is out on which of the two that's what I was trying to call your attention to when I said it's a dispute between two packages broadly conceived is I don't think it's for ordains that the society is we in our lifetimes the oldest in the room have seen as more successful will continue to be the more successful and we should be we should make sure that's the case if we want that side to prevail by renewing by renovating the energies in those societies maybe very quickly but because I want to get more questions sir seconds my view is the following I think I think the jury's out in terms of whether that you can replicate that but it's very clear that I think the China model whatever you call that is an intuitive way to govern which could be effective during a period of time so the question key for me is whether the electoral democracy as we know it in the West is the only way that's sustainable or can you create accountability in other ways and I also mentioned earlier that in the way I see it is that if you are in the electorate a democracy system the only way you are legitimate is through winning election so but once you win the election you can do whatever you want because the process makes you legitimate right but in China you have to perform it's a performance legitimacy if you're a politician actually life is not hot much harder I would rather be a Western politician I just I just get elected raised found and I look good on TV and then once I get in the job back at the order whatever want a Chinese politician every day after a why am i legitimate why I have to perform it's it's a motive course I think there's a I think it is the alternative way to do it but but no one knows whether what you're saying works in China but the question is is it explosive I don't know I don't have an answer credible enough to be looked at at least great thank you yeah hi my name is Adair I'm a second year student here at Yale and US College haven't decided my major yet I've been reading this philip k dick novel and it concerns the possibility that the axis won World War two so what happens is Japan and Germany essentially split the world in two and then they rule over it and it's very peaceful now history is quite clear on what happens when two teams are tied for first place even Sparta and Athens fought but do you think there's a possibility that with nuclear weapons and economic interdependence that there is a future in which China and America kind of get out of each other's backyards and split the world in half and it's very peaceful or is that a little bit too utopian so yeah I don't believe in economic interdependence by which I mean it cuts both ways it can be a force for peace or a force for destabilization because you depend on the other side and therefore if you'd concur then we'd be better off I do believe in if the weapons quite a bit and so I think you know the the prospect of wilfully going to war with another nuclear state is remote right so neither China nor the United States will willfully take the actions that would provoke a war but as we saw during the Cold War particularly the first half of the Cold War it took us a bit of time to understand the risks of nuclear bargaining and we came very close to nuclear wars between the Soviets and the Americans until 62 the Cuban Missile Crisis and so there's a lot of scope for misunderstanding of each other's limits in the bargaining the negotiation process and for taking steps that can risk escalating into war and so if you ask the US military what's the easiest way to get the nuclear war it's a series of scenarios with China visibly Taiwan and Korea etc in which things get out of control very fast so it's not intentional major war but it's accidental war I think your points about the unlike you know I have greater faith in economic independence I think it can help in the sense defang the worst aspects of a pure balance of power competition and especially now the whenever you say economic independence may moderate you know competitive relations between the great powers people will raise the example of World War one in which there was great economic interdependence between Britain and Germany but yet they led to war right but I think the economic independence of today is qualitatively different with supply chains you know and all that so it becomes much more difficult in fact people who say that if the US wants to confront China it has to be linked economically first that tells us something and but we're I agree with Nuno is also that nuclear weapons have played a great restraining role and if you add to that the norm against war which over you know since world war ii has some percolated up to become in the sense part of the normative sort of atmosphere of our you know of our existence it's also very important so despite my rather pessimistic scenario about the fierce competition that is likely to ensue between the US and China I'm I don't think war is inevitable now Graham Allison in his work destined for war basically says that you know in the last 16 cases over the last four or five centuries twelve of them ended up in war when you have a rising power challenging the established power to have for cases where you do not have war actually is better than what we political scientists used to think you know and what is interesting is that two of the last cases in the nuclear era so that I think is now so if there's no war your your suggestion of the solution of a sphere of influence it may work out that way or one could concede to the other the peaceful overtake of Britain you know by the u.s. at the turn of the twentieth century for example but if you think about its fear of influence it will probably be China will probably say is interested in Asia right if the u.s. consists a sure the Chinese say of influence in a sense the first part of the game is over right if I can say and reply to this economic interdependence is definitely there and when you see the broadly when when there is a when there is a threat of a sanctions that would stop the flow of say of like import of chips microchips into China then all of a sudden ZTE and your way I'll start having problems and so on and so forth it's it's far more interdependent the world economy than it used to be in the past admittedly first world war is a terrific example of how it doesn't have to prevent a global conflict but I think we are we are soon going to be facing a situation in which there'll be a great test I mean this whole thing started between US and China and it's like glaciares it's something that there's not easily stopped or changed but what is coming in the next I don't know six months year two years a few years Kevin probably knows this better than I he's the next global economic crisis because it usually comes at this 10 to 15 years interval the last one was in 2008 in 2008 everybody worked much more closely together it was before the outbreak of this geopolitical climate change it was before Syria and so on and so forth and the g20 and our friend Gordon Brown was great critical player key player in that that year as a chairman of the g20 g20 played a very very decisive and constructive role in coming to an end of this global crisis in recovering of the global economy now in the next couple of years there's going to be another economic crisis but the world situation in the general atmospherics in the world is much worse than in 2008 and you are going to have number one and number two world economy China and America choosing whether or not or to which extent to cooperate in ameliorating the effects of the global economic crisis I think that this is going to be an important moment of choice the real inflection point is going to be at the moment of the next economic crisis it's not in a too far future but we'll see and your answer is probably going to be better answered like most and like most questions with with the 20/20 hindsight so right now we're gonna do a lightning round of questions we've got three students who've got questions and so Harrison and all of you quickly and then people on the panel can answer what they choose to answer okay sure so my question is about feasibility or like how the success of the Belton Road initiative would be measured so lots of you talked about how romantic it is for certain countries but it's definitely not so romantic for others especially in light of how China sometimes treat certain countries when it doesn't want to give it such a rosy deal as Serbia so I don't know maybe I read the New York Times too much but I see lots of headlines about how China screws over some country with really bad loans or they build some infrastructure project that totally falls apart and it really sucks and it seems like if I'm the leader of some country I'm not gonna trust it China so much if I'm not so essential well I guess maybe I'm answering my own question but what will happen what will happen if like pieces of the belton Roche initiative fall off like if certain countries that are along some like rail line decide they don't want that railroad there or if a certain port wants to keep charging duties even though and that kind of like along the maritime road or whatever its called okay great thanks so my question has to do with the point that's come up recurring we have the role of these smaller powers in the balance between the US and China and sort of what role they'll have in shaping that balance and I'm wondering what you would say to u.s. foreign policy leaders and how they need to maybe rethink their relations with countries in Southeast Asia that they formerly engaged with as the unipolar power thank you um so I'm wondering if you think that the you and Western refusal of China as an equal partner could cause tensions to boil over and sort of create a conflict prematurely okay okay so we've got how are some countries treated on the Belton Road smaller powers and the last question maybe I'll start fully on the first question III do think you probably read New York Times too often I I really - but but but if you if you read those very traditional Western liberal media that's why you're gonna get right so my suggestion sted it's great to read New York Times again but but in addition on this question two points one is that I think the best way for any one of us to get a better feel of what the impact is to talk to the recipients of the other side right so book country is one of them you go to Africa I have a lot of African friends you know when you talk to them you get a very very different feel from what you get I used to work for the World Bank I was with the World Bank for many years in DC right and that and we were scared by when when China for the first time there alone surpassed us in Africa right there were like oh my god what are they doing are you following the rules and whatever but in the end when you talk to that's why I travel to Africa quite a bit I thought it in the end you have a very overwhelmingly positive response and the second points related to that is creativity is a very complicated topic but if you just focus on the very simple infrastructure connectivity right and if you go to China take a high-speed train ride and compare that with another train ride let's say you know I don't know in the somewhere else you will feel the difference right so even just a small subset of connectivity which is infrastructure the benefit is is tremendous I think right maybe the loans can be perfected when we are the other and but but but I think this it to me it's very clear where the benefit is and I think the best way to gauge that is to talk to the countries who actually are connected in addition to read the wonderful articles on New York Times great okay a question about smaller powers and you relations with the rest of Asia that's the hardest question of them all because these are you get to answer that well let me say something about the previous one to the question of what the US should do in its relation with smaller powers the temptation might be to say well you have to relax your own values in when addressing these other countries and try to make them less in your image so that you become a more appealing a more appealing sponsor if you or patron of those countries visited China the problem is if you sort of if you give up on your own values you kind of lose the reason to sort of have a strategy into value and and and to fight for things right so those values are intrinsic to US foreign policy goals because if they're intrinsic to to the UI the u.s. is image of itself so I think that would be difficult I would say on how you evaluate whether whether it's a good deal one bet won't one roll you can't just look at whether the infrastructure is crumbling edge but if you are say a non democratically elected leader of an African country or in a country in any other region and you have two options one is the US will bring you a better railroad but they ask about human rights and they ask about the elections and they ask about this in the asker and China provided you a perfectly workable railroad perhaps less long-lasting but doesn't ask you about elections or human rights records and doesn't you know doesn't doesn't have the same technologies that China can supply you to monitor your own population maybe the quality of the railroad is not that important I just wink one side comments to contradict if you have taken Amtrak between New York and Washington compare that with the Shanghai Beijing high-speed way I'm pretty sure which one I mean about renovating the u.s. I mean I live in New Haven train transportation between New Haven and New York is slower than in 1900 okay it's slower than in 1900 it's remarkable speaking about a small country and if America comes and asks you but democracy so and you know what like it's no longer happening America doesn't come and ask you about a mocker C anymore maybe this used to be the case in the past so you have a choice between like a guy who doesn't ask you about democracy and gives you money and then a guy who doesn't ask you about democracy in doesn't give you money [Laughter] smaller powers and what the smaller powers here might you know suggest to US policymakers I think one thing that comes to mind is don't underestimate the importance of US economic influence and US economic centrality in the region so the policy implication of that is please come back to the TPP all right when the time you know allows because TPP was meant for the u.s. to know consolidate is economic leadership and centrality in the region right Obama said that you know is to prevent the other side from making the rules of the economic game and I think the u.s. shoots itself in the foot by not participating in the TPP and on the question about if the u.s. seems to be reluctant to recognize the Co equality of China would that necessarily lead to premature conflict I do not think that it will necessarily lead to them because if you were China you basically might want to continue to build your strength and bite your time right in a sense doing all the things that China seems to be doing today because if you take a very long term perspective in the end the facts on the ground may make you know a US have no other choice but to recognize that Co equality and that may be something that the u.s. might be willing to do if you get someone like more kissing during your no frame of mind because Kissinger believes that you should deal with countries as they are not worried too much about the political complexion just one very very brief and we're 10 n about the court quality the first time that the term g2 appeared it was actually something that Obama administration proposed to the Chinese and then Chinese were the ones who said no no no no no we believe in multilateralism it was a very diplomatic way of saying no no no no you keep fighting your Wars and be distracted whilst we a lot of things recently I heard when diplomats selling and telling me well in the past America has been fighting without winning and China has been winning without fighting well this era is coming to an end it's gonna be a little bit more difficult for China and that's that's the next decade and it really helped me better understand this this whole thing I hope I have brought at least as much clarity as confusion into this conversation well and in terms of that conversation we have come to the end of a fascinating conversation and I hope in 10 years when there's a little more clarity we come back on stage and and review you know what the decade has meant I will turn it over to my colleague Dean Jeanette a kovitch for the final word those are hard words to follow up on but I just wanted to express my gratitude Tricia to you for you're setting the stage and as and to all of our speakers to Luke Jerram ik and Dean Kong and Nuno Montero and especially to Kevin Liu he and I came up with this idea of our glass of wine one night a few months ago and it's really exciting to to see it come to fruition and I hope actually we come back and far less than 10 years because we've barely scratched the surface and I think there's no question that over really the next you know frankly days weeks months and and years that we are bound to see lots of change and and flux in the in the global political order I last thanks also is to the tension toin Chinese culture and civilization program who has sponsored this event and and really supported the college so readily and thanks to all of you for being here I wish you a good night and invite you to stay a few minutes longer for for a few more questions thanks again and best wishes [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: yalenuscollege

Views: 10,106

Rating: 4.448276 out of 5

Keywords: Yale-NUS

Id: 78GqbmJY7Rk

Length: 96min 29sec (5789 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2019