Singapore PM Warns of U.S.-China Miscalculation Over Taiwan

I think we might begin with the international scene and come on to Covid in Singapore precisely just to begin with China and the US earlier this year or late last year you called for a truce. And I wondered does the past week where we've seen the deal about cop the deal about climate change and we've now seen G and Biden talk. Does that amount to the truce that you asked for. I think it's a necessary beginning. The differences between the two countries are many and deep. And it goes beyond individual issues two basic mindsets. They're not going to be resolved or reconciled in one meeting or one deal. But it's good that the U.S. and China could make some understanding at cops. And it was crucial for the two leaders to be able to have this virtual meeting and speak frankly to one another. How would you describe this to two different mindsets. What is the fundamental difference as you see it. Well I think each that to see the world in very different ways and see each other in very different ways. For the Americans it's become a bipartisan and really strong consensus that China is not just a potential threat but a challenge and a serious problem for them. An opponent almost I'm not saying the administration things like this but I think it's a broad view in American society. At least I think tankers. And at the same time that that relationship with the with China is not just contesting strategic balance which needs to be worked out. But has a moral dimension to it right and wrong. I am democracy. You are not. I am for human rights. You are not. And if you would define issues like this. It becomes very difficult to transition from that. They're saying I have to coexist we both live in the same globe. On the Chinese side I think there is a very settled view now amongst many of their. Journalists population I imagine some of the leaders to. That America wants to slow them down and stop the emergence. And that America regrets having helped them. Given them permanent empty and permanent multilateral IMF in and allowed them into the WTO facilitated investment growth and made them now where they are. And that's one. And secondly I think there is a sense that. China's time has come. And we shall take our rightful place in the world. Which is quite understandable. But then how do you take your rightful place in the world in such a way that a very big player leaves space for many not quite so big players. And that's the sensitivity and an art which. Does and naturally doesn't automatically come into that mindset you describe this sort of this problematic mindset. Does it also involve China's time has come and America's going. Yes there's that part as well. I mean there is a strong sense that the east is rising and America and the West is declining. And in particular Latin America is a declining power. I think it's wrong. I can see what makes them think like that. Other people sometimes things like that. But if you take a long view you really have to bet on America recovering from whatever things have it does to itself. We can we can we can we look at one of those things it's it's doing to itself at the moment. We heard from Gina Raimondo earlier in the conference where she is out here selling very eloquently the US Indo-Pacific economic framework. But you know what that is. It's it's a trade deal without a trade deal. It doesn't have a trade deal on the back of it. And I suspect that people like Singapore would much rather that the TPP now called the TPP was back. Well America's mark is trying to sell something that is hard for you to naturally leverage gravitate towards. These are the realities of politics. The TPP would have been the ideal approach. It took America some time to come to that to decide that this was the way it wanted to engage the region and to push for this flagship substantial project which would not only show but actually be a deepening of America's engagement and relationship with Asia. And Mr. Obama personally adopted it. He. He's put a lot of time pushing the leaders and making the negotiations make progress. But I think what he did not do well or dodge that it was not possible to do was to push it enough domestically and in Congress. And in the end he ran out of time. And it was not possible to smuggle it through a lame duck Congress. And anyway Hillary also disavowed it. And when Mr. Trump won that that was the end of the matter. And you are now in a position where that's dead. I'm not saying it can't be resurrected but resurrection doesn't happen after three days not three years either or three years. So therefore what does America do. If you can do that well you still need to be able to engage with a substantive agenda. And if I can't do that I can talk about digital cooperation. I can talk about green cooperation. I can talk about human resource cooperation. One piece is missing. But at least I'm not missing from the. Field of the engagement. You're you're very compassionately talking about it from the perspective of the seller but you're actually the buyer. You are the person who has to decide whether this is a good or bad thing. Do you still think it's something that's useful. I think it can be useful. I mean we are pitching the idea of digital engage a digital economy agreement with the US with some grouping of the APEC countries and we hope the US will participate in this. It's not so easy for a Democrat administration to do because the administration has come in promising to look after the middle class in the US and everything needs to link back to that. What. Actually everything will ultimately linked back to that. But if you insist on a direct and immediate connection you may miss out on many indirect but valuable projects such as this one. What about the China is now applying to join the CPA TPP. So is Taiwan for us worth. Yes. How do you assess the chances of either of those or both of those joining it. Well the way the CPA TPP was constructed was that it would welcome anybody who would come along and meet its quite high standards. And the spirit of. And I think when China expressed an interest it was with the TPP. The idea was we have this grouping. One day it's conceivable China would be interested. And it's more likely that you can have a deal between the U.S. and China in the TPP framework. Then the U.S. and China bilaterally make an FTA. And I think both sides were coming around to considering that even the Chinese who initially pooh poohed this and this is meant to fix us. Then they decided to study it. And eventually they think these buy these things for a long time. Eventually they said well perhaps we should take an interest in it. Unfortunately the Americans are not there. No. So from the point of view of economics I think it can make sense from the point of view of the process. The decisions are made by consensus by all the TPP members. And when they look at it it's not just economics which they look at but they will also consider the political considerations the strategic and the security factors and also any bilateral issues and concerns which they may have been discussing and the South China Sea could become part of. Well the South China Sea is not a trade issue but they also trade issues between the three countries or the TPP CPA TPP countries and China. So I hope they can work it out. I think in the long term it's good to have more trade rather than less trade. I still believe that although it's not quite so fashionable now and I hope that these things can be worked out in a way which enhances stability and integration in the Asia-Pacific. Singapore has always been the great sort of benefactor or beneficiary of multilateralism. What was interesting this morning is we had Wang Qishan giving an address. Yes. And he probably mentioned the word multilateral or multilateralism 20 times. Yes. This new China coming towards you bearing gifts promising that its multilateralist. Do you believe in that. No I think it is the right thing for them to say and the right thing for them to try to do. I mean if China came along and said I'm a unilateralist you would take it amiss. But to be clear you may claim to be a multilateralist maybe you to be a multilateralist. They do want to join all these organizations. In fact they would like to avoid some of their people to lead these organizations. I mean there have been some U.N. organizations where yes fierce contests have taken place and they'd like to influence the rules in these organizations all of which is legitimate because they have considerable power and they want to have. Commensurate influence in the world. Question is how do you make it truly multilateral. After a very major power has joined the group. And in principle the five principles of coexistence as big or small. We are all equal. But in practice in the UN everybody knows that some countries are more equal than others. So it could be a kind of an elephant in the room so to speak it could be much bigger than all the other parties. Yes. And you have to have. You have to engage the power. And the power also has to have some self awareness that this is the way I operate which will ensure my acceptance and therefore a continuation of my influence without resorting to brute force. And there's China yet to reach that point of thinking in that way in a way that you could imagine them sitting beside you and treating everyone as somewhat equal. Well no big power treats everyone as somewhat equal. But some do so. Some do so better than others. They do it more politely. We just came by. No I wouldn't say more politely. Look at the Americans. They've been in Asia Pacific since the war. At least I mean they were the Pacific the Philippines even before that. But to be after 70 or 80 years. Still welcome in a region and not just be seen as an ugly American. It tells you there's something about this. What would it say about America's role in the region if China joins S.P. TPP and they they do not. Well if China joins CPI TPP America still has a role in the region. You have investments here. You have trade here. You have interest here. You have friends here. You have allies. And we hope that you amongst your many far flung preoccupations all around the world. You have time to cultivate a part of the world which may not squeak so loudly but which is valuable and profitable relations. If you were Joe Biden what would you do to change that balance. I mean it sounds from everything you've said that America needs to do slightly more in this region that it is doing so far. I think. First I would try to move on trade. You can do it. An FDA but you you do want to move forward on trade. Even despite the Democratic Party rules. Secondly to develop the relationship with China. Because if that relationship is sour it's much harder for every other country in the region. Thirdly don't stop with China. Also cultivate your other friends in the region and allies. And I think a lot. The second part Biden is trying to do. It's a long journey but he's starting the friends and allies. His approach is quite clear. And I think people do believe that the last thing you can do is to ensure the president after 2020 for whichever party of like minded. And that is sadly not in his nose not within his giving. But that is something which is very important you must be able to look beyond because America's interests extend well beyond 2020 for one. One last question on NASA's time on how how much should we worry about what is going to happen. I think we should be concerned. I don't think it's going to war overnight. But this isn't a situation where you can have a mishap or miscalculation and be in a very delicate situation. The leaders the countries all see the right things in this virtual summit this morning to Biden said well the US will uphold its one China policy. And he also talked about the Taiwan Relations Act which is longstanding. Xi Jinping said. We are not in a hurry to solve the cross streets problem. It's a code word but everybody knows what it means. And in Taiwan dot typing one says we ask everybody to maintain the status quo. So everybody says the right thing. But if you look at what is happening it is not a static situation. The US has significantly increased the visibility the level and the intensity of engagement diplomatic engagements even military engagements with Taiwan. China has been testing Taiwan's air defenses. It flies aeroplanes into Taiwan's air defense identification zone almost daily doesn't go into the intrude into its sovereign airspace or as its immediate airspace. But it's testing Taiwan's defenses and. Tightening up on international space which was prepared to concede Taiwan even five or seven years ago. And on the part of Taiwan. This DPP administration has disavowed. There are 92 consensus which was. To each his own interpretation and it says no that's not an acceptable formulation. And taking other steps for example printing on their passports in English Taiwan passport. So all these moves raise suspicions and tensions. And anxieties and make it more likely that a mishap or miscalculation can happen. And really if you want. You want to step back some. And deep de-escalate is too strong a word but chill a little bit and. Think how. How how much you would regret losing this if you tried the alternatives which came. Do you really think China feels that way. Do you think it would. Surely if the alternative is it controlling Taiwan. No I think. I think that if they were quite clear that the situation was stable and things would not gradually drift against them they would be more relaxed about taking time to see how things evolve about the difficulties if they fear that things may be drifting away from them. And not away from them economically because economically I think they're going to become more and more a big factor in Tijuana's economy. But in terms of the attitudes of people in Taiwan in terms of the. International environment. Well then they may decide that perhaps. ISE later may become more complicated. So I don't think that it's a matter where you want to solve it straight away. But how do I deal with a very difficult problem. I mean they've got Hong Kong is already a very difficult problem. Hong Kong just seeing you mentioned it just quickly on that. Do you see Hong Kong as something that will. China will increase its authority over has been a tightening of restrictions. Well I think I think what was happening in Hong Kong before last year. Was it was very hard to imagine that it could continue until 2047. Footfall for 50 years. It's not possible you can't govern a place like that. You can't pass the laws. You can't. There are elements. It doesn't run. And there's the risk of contagion across the one country two systems border. So they are now in a situation where that problem has been. Very firmly put down. I think that there is a price which has been paid internationally and even internally in Hong Kong. And I think they will see how things evolve from there. I don't think they need it if they wish to or want to make it. The same as any other Chinese city that makes it valuable to them because they've got many other prosperous Chinese cities. Hong Kong is different. That's why it was valuable. But how different can it be without posing an intolerable problem. On the other side of one country two systems that was difficult. How much is Hong Kong's law Singapore's gain. I suppose some people may decide they prefer to be in one place than the other. But over all I have no doubt that Singapore is much better off if Hong Kong is prospering and we do business with them and compete with them. It sounds a bit like Paris talking about London at the moment but it certainly doesn't sound like London talking about Paris. How does the hit. There are there are similarities to slavery. Can we look turn a little bit towards Singapore and Covid because you've been we've all lived through this. We've all lived through the past couple of days. You said in October that you would relax or think about relaxing restrictions in three to six months roughly. So that on that timescale the earliest would be January. And it's worth remembering the audience reminding the audience here in Singapore generally people are living under tighter restrictions and we have very generously from youth for this conference. People are only allowed to meet two at a time and things like that. But it is January still a sort of. We'll have to see how how things evolve. It's possible. The thing is this. We are trying to reach the end point. Without paying the high price which many other societies have paid which got infected before they got vaccinated. We kept Covid very low in Singapore until we had everybody vaccinated. We had hoped that after nearly everybody got vaccinated. Then you have herd immunity and theoretically well life goes back to normal. But with a Delta variant you and me have everybody vaccinated and you still have quite a lot of people getting infected. Which for most people who are young is fine. But for a significant proportion of the old who are not vaccinated have that you have these sort of 60 thousand beats that seem to have 61000 people who are 60 and above who are not yet jammed. Refused to take it. No I don't think that they're refusing that coming every day. A couple of hundred still come. Some of them are very infirm perhaps bedridden. We go and jab them if they are willing and their families are willing. Some of them their families may have reservations about whether their constitution can take it. But we tell them I'm not sure the constitution can take Covid. But they're anxious so we we understand that some of them say MRI and is it safe. I'm so old. Well all right. So now we have got some non MRI any vaccines on the menu and we can do that if we want to. So gradually we will cover them. But what because of our strategy we have not had the very big outbreaks and that the British and many of the European countries or the Americans have had and I'm now at a point where I've had most of the population vaccinated but most of the population is Covid naive. And it turns out that's not enough. But. And we are having Covid spread in our population every day there. But today there are about 3000 cases of property. Times three councils says she didn't see. And over a period of months. Those numbers will build up. And if you've been vaccinated and then infected after that mildly. I think your chances of being sick again are much less and Corbett will I hope spread much less vigilantly and we can progressively ease up. What I'm trying to do is to ease up a little bit make sure things stabilize ease up a bit more make sure things stabilize again and ease up a little bit more. And eventually eventually you probably will not be back to status quo ante but close enough and without having had to make unsettling new terms. If I have Freedom Day and after three weeks cases out and I have to tighten up it's very upsetting to the population. It's confusing. They will be frustrated. Disappointed. And you may well pay a price along the way. Human price. So I think it's better we take it step by step. I'm not absolutely certain that I can do this without any misstep. I may have to step on the brakes again from time to time but. That's my game plan. Isn't this the problem of governments all the way around the world. I mean you are by most measures a very trusted government but basically you face this problem between sending a clear message and then the fact that the message has to change on the on the basis of yes that is a problem. Because with Covid the science changes the virus changes the situation changes. You hope you keep on finding ourselves in a new situation. And each time we we think you are at the end of the road another who appears ahead of you. And you've got to keep people energized and motivated and believing that yes it's worth making this journey. We will get there. So what does it mean. I think first it means you should do. Your duty. Do what is right. Do what you judge necessary. Consult the public health of public doctors can start the public health people. Judge the political and the social outcome you want in terms of the balance. Health care economy social cohesion. Make the decision. And the opinion polls go hang. And it's your job to see the country through. Secondly when things change you have to change along with it because they can't change along with it. You would be out of step and that's very hard because we started off with Covid 0 practically meaning I see a case I will stamp on it. And if I need to trace 200 or 500 people to do that I will try and do that. Not quite like in China where one case means one city locked down but quite stringently. Now I am not doing that now. I'm saying that let the cases go but let's keep the vulnerable people safe. You don't worry those 61000 people that are driving the whole policy that Singapore could open up more well. But those 61000 people have more than 61000 relatives and friends and near and dear ones. And if you just write them off. I don't think you can make those who did the utilitarian calculations. It's the human cost. I mean you just look at look at what's happened in Britain or in Italy or in America. Sometimes it's by policy sometimes it is by accident. But the the terrible trauma the society goes through when you have people who are sick whom you can't treat who die waiting for oxygen or waiting for bed. I would much rather not to have to do that but rather see you mentioned China. China is almost the outlier now. You had a group of countries you had Singapore you had Australia and New Zealand who took a very strong and as you pointed out very successful approach to stamping out. But we had no choice in the long term. Right from the beginning I told our people we can't keep borders closed indefinitely because we make a living from doing business with the world. And if people can travel to Singapore goods can't ship through Singapore we are dead. But China is now the interesting thing about China. China is now very much saying we're going to keep things like China's one point four billion people a half million and they can make domestic tourism forever not exhaust the destinations. They don't have to have cruises. You have a rather wonderfully cruise. I can cruise to nowhere. These are not easy for the uninitiated. The remarkable thing where you get on a cruise ship and you go off look at a few tankers and then come back much much less. Well in the old days they didn't look at the fuel tankers. They went down to the casino and have a good time for all that. But therefore to come back to this chain China is actually being quite rude implicitly about you of Australia New Zealand saying you're opening up too quickly. You know we're in different situations. I mean in the long term I do not know how it will turn out for China because they can maintain this for some time. But this virus is very contagious one and very difficult to manage. As we've all found out. But for now it's working for them. It's their judgment. But for us we've had to change course and we've had to carry the population along and persuade people that it is necessary for us now to accept the few thousand cases a day. And that is we will try our best but there will be casualties and there will be mainly old people who will not make it through. And it's just like it's just the way life is. And it's the way influenza and pneumonia and other diseases carry you off all folks by the thousands every year. But it's we accept that and we have to manage this going forward without letting it go out of control. And that's why I say trust is critical because finally is not my logic which persuades people but then they watch you. They listen to you. They either have confidence in you and faith in you or they decide what he sounds good. But I'm not following him. They go off on a cruise to nowhere. Can I can I ask you about a sort of personal question on the end about you. You've said that you will stay on until Covid is under control. You'll stay on as prime minister. Some journalists have noted that you have however cleverly put two of your potential successors onto the Covid Task Force to see how they do. It looks a little like a squid game. Do you. Do you have any. Do you have any idea how. How are they performing. Are they are you thinking of eliminating them or continuing. I think our approach is not to have. And not to write off any participants because I don't have spare. I'm not looking for a winner. I'm trying to build a team. And the team needs many different skills and many different people to carry a very heavy responsibility of taking Singapore into the next generation. Beyond me in my age group leaders. And I think they each make a contribution and I put them there not not as a beauty contest but because I think they can make a contribution. And it's a very important job which needs to be done. And if I don't put the best people available on the Covid team what am I doing with them. I will take that as a sign that they're still in the competition. Can it can we move on to that part of the inheritance which is the economy. And I wondered how you were you were here. You you're facing rising prices. It's the big debate. Everywhere I look I see heads of investment banks also worrying about this inflation. What does that mean for Singapore and how worried are you about it. So far it's been close to zero for quite a number of years now sometimes plus one sometimes zero some years even negative occasionally. It looks like it's catching up now that the central bankers tell us not to worry. It is transient and that they are tapering off very gradually. And then things would be all right again. But meanwhile they want to push inflation up to something which is good for them. Like 2 percent and push inflation expectations up to 2 percent because then they've got room to do conventional monetary policy again. And the economy would work better. I hope they are right but it's very difficult to tell about these things in Singapore. Up to now we have not seen a very high spike like in America. I think the last number they had 5 or 6 percent very sharp eye out. Our most recent forecasts for the year maybe we have one and a half maybe 2 percent this year not negligible. But is the trend which needs watching. Can I talk about to ask you about two forms of taxation that you are either thinking about or started that many other countries around the world are looking at. And the first is a carbon tax. If you asked most economists most business people I would argue most people with a brain about the best way to deal with global warming they would say that you should tax carbon in the same way as you tax cigarettes and alcohol and other things you want to discourage. The politicians in most countries have wimped out of that. Certainly in America you have tried a carbon tax. You've got one around five dollars. It's not not a lot. Most people would say it should be higher. But what would you what would you say to other people who are too timid to try this. Well I've seen other people try this and we pay the price for trying. So I don't go around advising people but all the same. Tell us tell us about it. I think. We decided that it is the sensible way in which to incentivize people to cut back on things which cause carbon emissions to apply a carbon tax. And we wanted to apply it across the board to all major emissions. And that means if you are mostly manufacturing factory if you are a big plant producing a lot of carbon well we will calculate what you owe and also importantly electricity generating electricity plants because that generate gen course running on natural gas. Nearly all of them. And that January CO2. And so we apply a carbon tax on them and it feeds through into our electricity tariffs when it comes to petrol and diesel. We took the view that we already had an excise duty which is substantial particularly for petrol. And so we did an add on an additional carbon tax. We just treated that as part of it. I think it's important to get started if we want to incentivize change of behavior and usage or even industry structure in the long term. It has to be significantly higher than that in order for us to reach the carbon targets which we have set for ourselves which is to peak at 20 30 and then to go down by a 0 by half or something by 2050. And. Once I've set a cap to my carbon emissions I must decide whom to give these emissions to. And either I charge you for them and you buy them from me or I must make the decision to allocate. And this industry you have so much and that industry therefore you have so much less. And this consumer. Therefore if all industries have more consumers that will have. Even lesser I think these choices cannot be avoided. There's only how best you can do it. I think the carbon pricing is one element. And at five dollars it's a token but it can't stay at five dollars. And we've said we're reviewing it. An interesting thing you do here is you. The money you raised from the carbon tax you give back to consumers directly so they can see we haven't done yet them a carbon tax. We have said that we would take the money and use that and more if necessary to incentivize carbon mitigation. Yes. Reduce carbon emissions improve your you know your standards. And that we have been willing to do. But in other areas we do that. For example we charge a lot of money for water in Singapore because it's a scarce and strategic resource and people pay the full price for water. Now about two dollars 50 cents per cubic meter. And it's affordable but nevertheless it was there's a lot more than it used to be before we made this system. So what we do rather than subsidizing water subsidizing consumption we actually give people what we call you save vulture. In other words it's uh it's practically cash. I put it into your into your utilities bills statement. So it offsets your water consumption or your electricity consumption. But if you don't use that water or electricity. What the cash is basically yours. And it's not so easy to explain. But I think it's the right thing to do and it has worked. Do you worry about a backlash against greenery in the same way as one against globalization. There are people people thought the globalization was something that the elites liked. People now think that mitigating climate change is something that the elite support for most people. It means more money on their utility bill more money on that. Yes I think that's entirely possible. Look at the yellow vest. And in France you look at what happened when the Australians tried a carbon tax several governments ago. People will react. They want to save the planet. But when you tell them that means you have to pay more for electricity or that means you can buy an SUV. You have to buy a compact. That's a very personal implication. The other tanks that you and if you lose your job as a result because the industry is restructured and your petrochemical plant has to disappear. I don't think they'd be very comfortable if we tell them next year. Global warming would be less. You know the tanks that you're looking at is a wealth tax. And as I understand it you don't see this as a kind of temporary thing to deal with. Covid you see this as something structural that you want to look at taxing wealth in at least some way. I think it's an element in the comprehensive revenue system. Your tax consumption your tax income your tax sins and you should tax wealth whether wealth in the form of property ideally was in other forms of property taxes. We know how to do it because we have them. We have refined them over the years. We've made them more progressive and they make a valuable contribution to our exchequer. Taxing wealth in other forms is very hard to do. You know in principle you want to do it. People have tried capital gains taxes. That has some downsides. People have tried other forms of direct wealth taxation. I assess how rich you are and then knock off a certain percentage. It's not so easy to implement. So we will study this but we need to find a system of taxation which is progressive and which people will accept as fair and fair means everybody needs to pay some. But if you are able to pay more well you should bear a larger burden of the tax. And if you are if you are less well-off you should enjoy a greater but greater amount of the government's support schemes and and and benefits the few. The underlying problem this is in Singapore. You have been very good at dealing with income inequality. Well income inequality is somewhat easier to see compare and measure compared to wealth inequality because I can track your income in our Inland Revenue Authority has become very good at studying these things. But wealth is much much more difficult. It's a more first is. You can squeeze it here and it pops up in different forms elsewhere. Nowadays you may have a non-functional token. Yes. How do you know all bitcoin so it's not as easy to manage but it is something which we do want to be worried about because we do. We would like to make sure that each generation starts off from as equal. A starting point as possible is not possible to make it exactly the same. But. Within the limits of my ability I will try to equalize. If your parents can't provide everything which you would which which they need to for you. You don't worry that a wealth tax stat will scare away the wealthy. That wealth and the whole wealth tax is tend to wealthy. The wealthy tend to be fairly good at avoiding them. Well that is one of the worries and that is one of the reasons why you have to think about this very carefully because you've had you have a agreement on a global minimum effective tax for companies. I'm sure your clients have a view on that. And the idea is to equalize the playing field for all governments so that you don't have companies paying. Shell games. I moved my income here. Then sometimes you see. Then suddenly you don't. But I have no illusions that a 15 percent or 20 or 25 percent minimum effective tax rate is going to stop governments from competing with one another to get projects which they want. And competition will pop up in some other form is unavoidable. And I think if you do wealth taxes you may well come up with the same problem. You can eat. We can examine the example of France which has had one or two problems when it hiked up its taxes very very high. Well then there's an. The French have forgotten the name. The French have a girl who is the icon of the country liberty. No no. It starts with a mass. That mass is neither is Marianne Marianne Marianne. And the faith changes because from generation to generation or update that the peasant was a model. But Marianne is the symbol of France and this is about 20 years old. Marianne decided to live in London because our taxes were lower. Let's move in the same position. Can I. I'm in the blissful position of all interviews of having very few ideas exactly what the time is. I'm going to finish by asking you one. So we'll finish in one particular theme. You look forward at Singapore as we go. Go forward. Imagine somebody wins the squared game. Whatever it is you are somebody looking at Singapore in ten years time. How different is it. What did it just ask you about two bits. One is that geopolitical sense. Do you see Singapore is stuck in a world with two economies or one where there's still a big global economy. I think there'll be a global economy but there will be tall gates and all kinds of customs checks along the way. Even swap tests. Because I don't see the rivalries disappearing. They could get worse but neither is it possible for the Siamese twins to be separate. You are too interdependent on one another. And it is not possible to say I make my own system and you make yours. You may be 1500 million people but you don't make everything in the world. And you may be the big the most powerful superpower on earth. But you need friends and partners and you need to do business. If not on trade on many other issues with somebody whom you might consider not fully offering that's unavoidable. So there will be tensions but I hope that there will have been there will still be peace. May I ask you is on a sort of personal level do you think the way in which people work this is a famous sort of entrepreneur. Many people have huge offices here. Do you think in the way that people work remote working all those things that being a long term legacy of Covid there would be some of that. I know people who work in Singapore. For American companies. Head Call The Boss is in San Francisco. The people reporting to them all over Europe and they also have members of the team on the East Coast in the US and in Canada. And while they have to get used to either European time zones or American time zones so it's not that comfortable. But it is workable and I think that will grow. But. I don't believe it is possible for you to build an organization without ever meeting face to face and pressing flesh. You have to have a feel of the person I am meet you are sensible. The federal loans have to be there. Then you know if he's fearful and confident. What sort of person is he or she. And you need to build a sense of camaraderie and teamwork and those companies which operate in high in skyscrapers will tell you that when you have different floors the different floors form different cultures and sometimes they make staircases to break through the floors in order to prevent these tribes from forming. Yes. So to not have a tribe by being all dispersed and spectral presence in cyberspace I think in principle it is possible. But in practice it's not quite one team. One last thing and that's in the 10 year vision. What do you see yourself doing. I hope I shall not be doing this job still. It seems a very appropriate place in which to St.. Thank you. Thank you very much for having us. Thank you very much. A Senior Sergeant Lerma.

Channel: Bloomberg New Economy

Views: 58,307

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Id: CqVphgnmFJ4

Length: 45min 32sec (2732 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021