Transcription
Now, the easiest way for any leader in the world, whether it's the Chinese leadership or the American leadership, the easiest way to unify a people who are disaffected and divided is the threat of something outside, right? It's to say the Chinese are going, you know, are our threat, so we should come together as Americans. Or it's for China to say the Americans are threatening us, we need to come together as Chinese. That's that's always there.
And you'll recall, you know, somewhat more positively, that the American-Soviet arms talks began when Reagan asked Gorbachev in his famous walk in the forest in Rekuik, "Um, Mr. President, if Martians attacked us tomorrow, would you come to our assistance?" And, uh, Gorbachev said, "Yes, we would." And, "If Martians attacked us here in the Soviet Union, would you, the United States, come and help us?" And Reagan said, "Yes, we would." And so you saw this, this, this unification in the face of an outside force.
Fore girl. Ronnie proposed that we talk tonight about what's happening to the global rule-based order. And I wanted to start just by saying that the fact that I am from New Zealand affects my view of the global order in the following way. A lot of the attention is on the United States and on China, and what it is that the world order might look like from their perspective. For me, my lens is really, what does it mean for all the other countries in the world?
And so when I began building the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford, I used to say to people, "I want it to be the N minus one school," where one, in that, at that time, was the United States, because the United States is a fantastic powerhouse of thinking about public policy. It's got 50 different schools of public policy, and I felt that the world needed a school which would really focus on what the choices are for all the other countries in the system. So, it's really just to start my remarks by saying that's where my, my, my focus is.
And I'd like, so, I'd like to start straight in on, on, on Ronnie's, um, opening question about what's happening to, um, globalization. What's happening to a global rules-based order? And I guess, just by way of opening, I would say that the global rules-based order has depended upon both the United States and China putting their need for open global markets ahead of most other values. And that has created a system of not unbreakable rules, but of fairly grounded rules that other countries in the world have been able to act upon. And that, that commitment by those superpowers is now, in my view, being trumped by five different other priorities. And so I'm just going to lay out what those five priorities are that are leading the superpowers to start, uh, breaking trade rules and turning away from a rules-based order.
So, the first is this, the argument that jobs and social cohesion will be, um, will fall by the wayside if we continue with open trade. And that argument, we saw at its loudest with President Trump imposing tariffs, including on his own neighbors and closest allies, on Mexico, on Canada, and on the European Union, in the name of protecting jobs and protecting, you know, America, putting America first. And although he made the argument with a particularly loud, um, in a particularly loud way, that argument is now reverberating across most industrialized countries who are still struggling with the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis and the policies that came after that crisis, which have hugely increased inequality in those countries, with a, with an accelerating the fact that the share that the, of, of, um, countries' GDP that now flows back to workers has been diminishing and continues to diminish, and it's created a huge social and political problem in those countries. So that's the first, that's the first kind of priority that's trumping free trade, that's, that, with, with America leading on that.
A second is what we might call the technology race and the need to win the technology race, where we've seen again, if we look at the United States, what, um, Bateman has called American technonism, where technationalism is about using a raft of trade protections, of sanctions, of, um, financial sanctions, restrictions, visa bans, import controls, investment restrictions, export and import controls, and most recently, the semiconductor restrictions, in order to preserve, as the authors of these measures see it, in order to preserve the possibility of America staying out in front of the technology race. So, it's not that China, as the US, in the US-China technology rivalry, it's not that China can't continue to produce some pretty high-quality semiconductors. It's at the very highest end, which are necessary for quantum computing and the highest end of AI research, are being turned off in the hope that this will give the United States an advantage in that technology race. So that's the second kind of dent in free global trade.
The third is security of supply. And that's, think about COVID and the race for PPE, protective equipment, for vaccines, and the willingness of countries to start putting their own security of supply first. And then think about the way that's now ricocheted into the debate about critical minerals and metals, with the US government coming up with its list of 50 critical minerals and with the G7 putting this at the very top of their agenda. So we've seen in economics terms like "friend-shoring" have, um, made their appearance center stage. Um, so security of supply, I'm saying to you, is trumping the previous set of rules about free trade and free investment.
So we've, so, just to remind you, the three we've gone through: jobs and social cohesion, winning the technology race, and security of supply. And then a fourth is effective action on climate. And here we've seen the Europeans lead with their, um, carbon border adjustment mechanism, where what they're saying is, "We all need to do something on climate, and we need to level the playing field for European companies that are making moves on this," and that requires us to make border adjustments. And China taking the EU to the WTO and saying, "This is a violation of existing trade rules." Um, but perhaps the more headline-newsworthy has been America's Inflation Reduction Act, and which is, in order to, to create a political coalition in support of financing green energy, the Biden administration have paired it with an America First jobs policy. And the result is a set of measures that sub, that give subsidies not just to producers, but also to consumers, providing the products, uh, contain mostly American-made components. And that's had a pretty dramatic immediate effect of attracting investment back to the United States, and to the chagrin of Europeans, attracting investment from the likes of BMW and Volkswagen, and in this region, Toyota, to actually start channeling investments to the United States to take full advantage of those subsidies. So effective action on climate has became a, become a fourth trump card on the previous global trade order.
And then finally, and, um, fifth and finally, is responding to wars of aggression. And here, the rules on trade and investment have been cast aside to apply a set of sanctions to Russia for its illegal invasion of Ukraine. And the politics of that, you all know well. The G7 countries have romped ahead and begun to craft rules of economic warcraft, um, to signal, um, their, um, outrage at this illegal invasion, but with almost no consultation with other countries in the world, and with little regard to what kind of costs they're expected to shoulder themselves if they take part in the sanctions regime. For many African countries that have come to rely on Russia for security assistance, and rely, you know, it's a costly decision for a country like Brazil that doesn't just export 80% of its soybeans to China, but exports 75% of the fertilizer to grow those beans from Russia. So, for, for these other countries, the decision on whether to join the sanctions regime is an extremely costly one. And at the very minimum, they would expect to be consulted. So what it's highlighted is a huge hole in the multilateral system and multilateral process for taking, um, action of the kind that the G7 are taking.
So these five, what's significant about these five areas? And I've focused mainly on US actions in these areas, but we can talk in discussion about China's concerns and actions, which are different, but also show a concern in these five areas, and in some instances, Europe. But these five priorities are trumping, not, they're not just trumping a global set of trade and investment agreements, but they're being trumped unilaterally. And so, let me finish by just saying, I think it leaves other countries in the world three choices, or three, sort of, four choices, three of which are more optimal than the first.
So, the first choice is to decide that the world is actually splitting into two blocks, and they're better to put their lot in with one side or the other side. That we're, what we're seeing is the emergence of a balance of power. If you're a small country, bandwagon, jump, jump in and hitch your wagon to one side or the other. That's certainly what both superpowers would like, because if you've got the unconditional support of countries, it boosts your power, your ability to threaten, your ability also to, to make deterrence work. But that's not optimal for all those other countries. And it's not optimal because the five forces that I've outlined are being applied unilaterally and in a way which maximizes uncertainty for all other countries in the system.
And so what my money would be on, Ronnie, is three strategies. A first is to really think about what non-alignment means. When non-alignment doesn't mean not making choices. It means making choices, but in an issue-by-issue way. And I think if other countries can use a fairly robust form of non-alignment, they can collectively hold both the United States and China to account to deliver a more multilateral process and more certainty around these changes in existing rules. And a second thing is the regional agreements, which like the continental free trade agreement that African countries are coming up with, like deepening the arrangements in ASEAN, like some of the deepening of arrangements we're seeing in Latin America, which are going to be a really important counterweight again to the somewhat more unilateral processes that the superpowers are, are using.
So, by way of introduction, that's, that's my starting point. Five forces that are, that are breaking the order as we know it, not breaking it, but eroding it and making it far less certain for other countries in the world. And then a pathway forward, which is a combination of non-alignment as a starting point, regional arrangements which don't involve the superpowers, and an enforcement and a creation of new multilateral processes so that for all other countries in the system, the new sets of rules can be more certain, and therefore they can navigate them, um, more easily and more carefully.
>> Excellent. It's a very good beginning. Thank you, Nar. Um, yeah, I, I, I almost forgot you did invite me to Oxford one time, and just to show you how powerful Oxford is, uh, I bumped into three friends, uh, that day at your event, and that's Kevin Rudd, who was getting his PhD at that time, uh, and, uh, right, and then, uh, Nazir Razak, former, uh, CEO of CIMB, uh, who was with us last weekend here in Hong Kong, and then, and then also, um, uh, the Khazanah, former chair, uh, Muhammad, what's his name? Janet? Huh?
>> Louder.
>> Asan.
>> Aman. That's right. Asan, of course, right? That's right. All three of them were there. It's truly amazing.
>> Anyway, uh, let me challenge you on one point, if I may. Uh, you mentioned about, um, uh, the bifurcated world where the two superpowers will, you know, be one on the two camps, and you made a comment that both countries would probably prefer that. I, are you sure that China wants it? Can China afford it? Or are they, I think they may not be as foolish as other people think they are, and they are not as strong as maybe they themselves think they are, or other people think they are, that they need the world far more than the United States. US can is one of two major countries in the world that can close the doors and live ever after happily, more or less. China cannot. So, are you sure China wants the bifurcation?
>> So, great question. Thanks. So, so let me clarify. My point was not that the superpowers want a two-block world. Both stand to lose a lot from a world that is completely decoupled. And I don't think a complete decoupling is going to happen. I think, you know, even as the world talks about decoupling, the 2022 figures on trade show US-China trade, um, of a higher value than it's ever been. Um, yes, we're seeing changes in investment patterns. Yes, we're seeing certainly decoupling on the technology front, but I don't, I, I'm not, I, I don't think we're going to see a world that completely decouples into two blocks, and I don't think either country, uh, wants that, and, and actually can afford it. What I do think is that what they do want is countries' allegiance, other countries' allegiance, because even as they don't decouple, then in their negotiations with each other, each side is stronger if they have behind them the largest number of countries.
>> So, if you're China, you do want the unconditional allegiance of as many countries in the world. And if you're the United States, you want the same. And that was my point. The, the problem with, that I can see from China's perspective is America's friends are all wealthy, such as Europeans, such as Australia, such as New Zealand, such as Canada. All of China's friends are pretty poor: Africa, Latin America, Central Asia. Uh, so in number, perhaps it will help in the votes of the, when America accuses China of human rights violations, it helps in that regard. You have more votes in the United Nations. But really, from an economic perspective, uh, China is really put in a very disadvantaged position, isn't it? That none of those countries, for example, has the technology like the Western countries, not besides the United States, you have Germany, you have Great Britain, you know, all have France, pretty decent technology, but China can rely on no one except perhaps Russia, and Russia's technology is very limited to slivers of excellence. So, if that's the case, isn't it stacked against China?
>> So, well, I'm not so sure. Um, I was, um, in Singapore for the meeting of German business with Asian governments and business leaders, um, a couple of, a few months ago. And if we look behind the curtain, the German economy is incredibly dependent on China.
>> Correct.
>> And it's going to take some time and a huge amount of effort for the German economy to diversify and be less reliant on China. So it's not clear to me that that, um, you know, so, so, so I, I think that the interdependence that China has with other countries is more complex,
>> than, than, than perhaps you're characterizing. Um, and the interdependence even between China and the United States is still very strongly there, not just in financial services, but even in the tech sector, it's still there, even as they begin to try to decouple. Mhm.
I'm trying to be provocative, so I state my case perhaps sometimes to the extreme, just so to let you drag me back to the center, if indeed that is the case. You mentioned Germany.
>> Uh, you're right. Germany relied tremendously on the Chinese economy, and it's mutual. Uh, and for energy, it relies tremendously in Russia, and now both are being torn apart, and it seems that America is the cause of that tearing apart. We don't know who did Nord Stream 2, but whatever it is, if you were a German leader, you must be hopping mad. You have to pay four times as much. You have to build the, the, the natural gas terminal and all that stuff. Uh, and then the, the China-German trade is a little bit disrupted, not whole, not too much yet. So it seems that if you were to take Germany as a proxy for the rest of Europe, and I believe it is basically the same with France, for Italy, and maybe less so in the UK, uh, it seems to me that there is a rift, uh, in the middle of the Atlantic that is quite a long time in the making. You know, you read 10 years ago about, you know, tapping, America tapping, uh, leaders' phones in European capitals. I said, "Hey, come on." You know, you expect that. Uh, if anybody is surprised, you, you, you act surprised, but you're not surprised. You're surprised. You're really naive, right? Uh, and then more recently, you mentioned IRA. I mean, that is when Europe is in, in the doghouse, you take away the last plate of food. Uh, and then with energy, with the, the nuclear sub with France, and so forth, you know, capitals all over Europe must be really inwardly upset. So, how do you see the transatlantic relationship developing? Is there, and given that Europe will necessarily go with the United States?
>> So, well, let me start where you started with Germany. Um, what the last couple of years has shone a spotlight on is the, the perhaps the single most serious failure of the German government of the last decade to begin to plan a German, a serious German energy transition. You know, we forget that over the last decade, we've seen Germany both simultaneously talk about leading on climate and burn lignite. You know, that makes no sense at all. And what, what there hasn't been is a serious strategy that says a German economy that is based so heavily on, um, greenhouse gas emitting energy and building cars, petrol vehicles and diesel vehicles, is one that's going to have to change. And I think, so, I think the German question is not just about dependence on Russian gas, it's more generally the failure to have an energy strategy that both makes it less dependent on, uh, Russian gas and that, that, that meets its climate requirements. The dependence on Russian gas, far before, uh, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has been a, a debating point for 20 years, with, um, arguments against a dependence and a, and permitting Russia to kind of vertically integrate through the European markets, and treating Russia as though it's a kind of, um, a commercial market actor, like, you know, any other small, you know, British energy company. That's been, you'll recall, Ronnie, the long debates about when Europe tried to get Russia to sign an energy charter that would drag an, you know, an unwilling Russia into a set of rules that, that matched the way Europe saw a kind of free single energy market. So, that's a long-standing problem that, that I think we're seeing a failure on the part of Germany to resolve. Now, lots of other European countries have also got, you know, holes in their energy strategies, including Britain, with its incredibly short-termist cancelling of plans over the last decade to build proper gas LNG storage facilities, which some of my colleagues like Dee Helm have been complaining about for 15 years. So, that, that's one part, one part demonstrates that these governments need a serious energy strategy. Um, and
>> And what's the alternative? So, does it mean that Germany has to go toward nuclear, like, like France? What other, I mean, the alternative energy, in as much as you can up the percentage, it's not going to solve the problem. So, so after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, um, Chancellor Merkel took the very popular, but perhaps in hindsight, very unstrategic measure of closing down their nuclear plants, um, with a plan to shut them all down without a plan on what to replace them with. So, yeah, I think it's going to have to be a mixture. It's going to have to be a mixture.
Um, moving now to the EU-US rift. The EU and US, because I think it's got real consequences for the way in which the world has responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Because the one thing that is easy for the United States and the European Union to come together on is moral outrage about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And we saw that in spades at the Munich Security Conference, where at the most general kind of morally, um, outraged level, they can come together and pat each other on the back for all being outraged in the same way. But underneath that, there are some serious rifts that began with President Donald Trump's tariffs, unilaterally applied, um, and a sense in the European Union that they needed not to simply assume that the United States would be an ally that would consult and move in lockstep with the European Union, but rather that domestic politics in the United States were bringing to bear a set of forces that created more chaos and, and more uncertainty for their own. Now, what's interesting to me is the minute Donald Trump lost the last election and President Biden came to power, lots of Europeans kind of forgot that threat and now have almost reverted back to an assumption that the United States from now forever will be the more predictable kind of government that's internationally facing. So, so
>> Has it been, has it been?
>> So, the Inflation Reduction Act took them by surprise, right? Again, unilateral, non-consultative, you know, action that dramatically affects, um, the investment decisions of even European companies. So, yes, there's, there's a lot, um, there's a lot of uncertainty, and it's an uncertainty that is, um, that's, that's deep because of the political coalitions domestically, both in each European country and in the United States. And we can't dismiss that the rise of, um, in some cases, heavily conspiracy theory-driven political movements that are operating like a tail wagging a publicly disaffected dog in these countries. And in Europe, quite a few of those parties are of course very Russia-sympathetic. So, it's, so, and, and in the United States, you've got, you know, a growing voice on, in, um, the Republican party against the United States taking supportive action to uphold the sovereignty of Ukraine. So, these, these rifts have serious roots, and, and we, we do have to take it seriously.
Can we, can I digress just a bit to Germany?
>> Being the leader, undisputed economically and otherwise, uh, in Europe, uh, Germany, the infrastructure is falling apart. I was talking to some students, uh, I spent an hour and a half, uh, to a group of mainland Chinese students who are studying for masters and PhD in Europe, and they were so shocked, so surprised that a group of students from France who went to Germany told me that every time they take a train in Germany, the train breaks down every time. I mean, could it be imaginable 10 years ago? Germany is the most on-time, super, you know, reliable, uh, infrastructure. And if the infrastructure is falling apart now, they have energy problems, and then they have the China market, uh, well, more or less, you know, America trying to yank it away. Uh, so what, and this is the most important country in Europe economically speaking. So, what will happen to Germany? Because that will affect the rest of Europe as well, in as much as France may not like what to hear what I'm saying.
>> So, so Germany, I'm going to give a more optimistic account of Germany, because I think what's, what happened in the last election is a very interesting sign, um, that should give us some optimism that in a Germany where, um, you know, kind of alt-right forces have, have taken off and rather, in a rather sinister way, being seen rearing their head across the security services, police, and military. So, there is, um, there is a set of forces that any German government is going to have to respond to, and people worried in the last election about what kind of government that would bring to power. And if you've been following politics in Austria this last week, you can get a taste of, you know, a different scenario unfolding in Austria. What happened in Germany is the traffic light coalition, which is a really interesting coalition, which I would argue, Ronnie, is exactly the coalition government that Germany needs at this time, because it's a combination. Think about the five forces that I started tonight's conversation with. This is a coalition where you've got the Social Democrats in, in, in government, responding to that jobs and social cohesion agenda that I mentioned. You've got the Greens in government, bringing the climate agenda and bringing that part of German society to the table. And then you've got the third party, which is the business-friendly party, bringing the need for Germany to have a serious strategy that creates an ecosystem for the private sector to reshape itself, reshape the energy sector, reshape the car sector. So, it's a really interesting coalition. They're not obvious, you know, bedmates, those three. And yet they are, in quite an adult way, speaking from having watched British government in the last year, this, this is a German coalition working together in quite an adult way. It's not easy. They're coming from very different places, but I think they're forging a strategy on exactly the issues that I've mentioned, which is going to be really important for Germany, and they're doing it in consultation with other European countries, which is going to be really important.
>> So, what do you think the future of, uh, Europe-China relationship is going to be like? Uh, obviously, as you mentioned, Germany, and not just Germany, but France and Italy, and so forth, they do need, uh, the China market. But then the, the America is really forcing them to, um, decouple from the Chinese market. So, where do you think the whole thing will fall? Will five years later, will the US, sorry, will the Europe-China trade be still going strong, or would you think that will succumb to pressure from America?
>> So, I, I think, I think that the relationship between Europe and China will be a much more nuanced one than the United States' relationship with China. And I think there will be some diversification. I think German companies are going all out not to leave China. They're going to stay in China, but to diversify also to the growing markets in Vietnam, in Indonesia, and in other parts of Southeast Asia. So, I think we will see more of that. But let's not forget China's relations with all those countries in the region, which mean it's not either/or for European countries, it's and and. So, it's a diversification strategy, which is, and, and my own, um, and, you know, I'm pathologically optimistic, according to some of my colleagues, but, but I see a relationship which, right, which, um,
>> which, you know, look, the easiest thing for countries to do at the moment is, every country, including China, including every European country, including the United States, is more divided inside itself than we've seen for some time in every single country. The scars of COVID include a shaken confidence in government, in, in other countries. And we're seeing almost every government in the world play the nationalist card. And that's going to be, that's too easy, right? Just to play the nationalist card and to begin every international relationship with what you hate about another country. Um, the hard work is that in a world of very different countries, we actually don't have an option. War cannot be the solution to every, every problem we might face. The only sensible option is to talk and to cooperate where we need to, to compete where we can, because competition brings out the best in human beings. And occasionally, yes, to confront, but not to start, as some would do, with confrontation at every turn. We cannot solve climate unless we cooperate together. We cannot solve the emerging desperate humanitarian and economic crisis across most developing countries of the world unless we cooperate. Unless Europe, the United States, and China come together, because they are the major debtors, markets, and investors in those countries. They need to solve these problems cooperatively. None of the three can afford to solve them on their own. We can't solve nuclear proliferation to North Korea and elsewhere unless we do it with some modicum of international cooperation. The consequences are costly for the superpowers, but they're far more costly for other countries in the world. So, I think that Europe, because it's got a rich array of different relationships. Italy is a member of the Belt and Road Initiative countries. Um, some European countries, in fact, a number are members of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, you know, whose meeting I'm just on route to in Beijing.
>> Were you on that board, or am I advisory?
>> I'm on the international advisory panel. So, so, and, and that's because I truly believe that we have to create and nurture institutions in which countries can cooperate where they can. That does not mean agreeing on all things. It does not mean that you approve all things that each other does. It means you cooperate wherever you can for mutual advantage and for the advantage of other countries and the possibilities of other countries in the world. And we're living in a world of, in my view, a world in which lazy politicians who want to play the nationalist card at every turn are finding it all too easy to use that for electoral advantage. When what we actually need are serious governments and serious companies who are willing to do the hard, much less glamorous work of making those international relationships work. And that's what we have to be nurturing. And certainly in the Blavatnik School of Government, that's what we're trying to do, to help senior officials from all of those countries who love to scream at each other, learn to actually work together to make it possible for communities to flourish.
>> I cannot agree with you more. However, let me tell you one worry of mine. Uh, it's fine. You know, uh, Europe should, should rely not just on China as a manufacturing base. Diversify it. Vietnam, or Thailand, or Indonesia, or wherever. What, but whatever you do, it is going to be so inflationary, because to build the supply chain anywhere else, or partially, it's going to be less efficient because of the smaller economies, because of the perhaps less educated, uh, workforce, and many other reasons. It's going to be so inflationary. Can the world afford it? Can America afford it? America is hugely indebted, public debt-wise. And so, can they afford it? Uh, Europe, can they afford it? Of course, the, the damage to China, we all understand, right? If you're in Southeast Asia, you're probably pretty happy. But for the whole world, how do you deal with the inflation problem? And, and inflation historically has brought down governments, often.
>> So, I think this is, this is why I start with those points about jobs and social cohesion and security of supply, because I think that the politically salient arguments, both in the United States and in Europe, but also across Latin America, um, are arguments which say, "We might have to pay more to produce things, but we're going to have to start producing them in a way that creates jobs at home." You can see this across the Gulf countries, across Saudi Arabia, across Oman, across the Emirates, a sense of, "We've got to start creating jobs," and we can combine the notion of security of supply with, with a need to create jobs at home, and that might mean that things are more expensive, and we're going to have to tackle inflation in a different way.
>> Now, let me turn to America. Mhm.
>> Uh, America accounts for something like, what, five, less than 5% of the world's population, but it is by far the wealthiest country, by far the most advanced technologically, by far the most powerful economically and politically. Yet, whatever happened in America affects everywhere else in the world. I, people say America is the strongest nation on earth today. I said, "No, I disagree." America is the strongest nation ever in mankind's history. So, so, so the whole world is held hostage to domestic politics in America. The thing to watch, in a sense, doesn't matter what happened in many capitals, including a lot of the big European countries, sorry, including the UK, perhaps especially nowadays, after the last couple of years. So, it, what, what should the, how should the, should the rest of the world look at America's domestic policy, domestic politics, and should we just say, "Too bad, there's nothing we can do about it, we cannot control it, uh, so live with it, and then the whole world suffers?"
>> So, I think you're completely right about the strength of America, and the proof of that is that in 2008, as Lehman Brothers sparked, um, a crisis in America's financial system, where did the rest of the money put, where did the rest of the world put their money?
>> In the United States, right? The so-called flight to quality. What? That makes no sense. This is the country whose financial system seems to be collapsing, and you send your dollars there. Why? Why? Because what has given the United States this extraordinary strength is a belief in a rule of law in the United States and a system which is going to uphold that rule of law, visa v capital, right? That's essentially it. So, when you say, is there anything that would dent that strength in the United States? It would be a president and a government that threatens to mess with that. We're seeing this happen in Israel right at the moment, where the Israeli government is threatening to mess with the independence of the judiciary. And what are we seeing? We're seeing investors, business, the tech sector take flight. Even those who have been incredibly supportive of their government take fright and take flight, right? Because the one thing they want is an independent judiciary that's going to uphold the rule of law in a way that protects their investments and protects their capital. So, I think that's, that's what I would look for. You know, we, we've seen, you can have some pretty crazy stuff happen in American politics. The essence will be whether the next election produces a president that's going to mess with the rule of law system.
>> Well, Donald Trump came very, very close, if not beyond. Uh, and then, uh, so, so
>> I actually, I actually think the rule of law held up pretty well, even under, um, the onslaught of a communicator chief that was, um, disdaining it. It, it actually held up. Um, but yes, it, it, if, imagine he'd had a second term, um, you know, then, then after the January 6th events, um, you know, yes, it could have gone sliding down. So, I'm not saying we can take it for granted, but I'm saying that's what I would, that, so that's what I would look for.
>> Well, uh, but then it is not just, um, well, anyway, I, I want to push on that, but it's okay, uh, because of time, I better go on. Um, there was a book in 1952, I believe it is, Richard, uh, uh, Hopster, I think it's Richard Hopstead, I forgot the first name, uh, that talks about collective hysteria, and how American politics for the last 150, 200 years, uh, subjected to collective hysteria. And I say that every country is subjected to that. The Cultural Revolution, that's collective hysteria. The Nazism of 1938, that's collective, uh, hysteria. And America is perhaps prone, like everybody else, or even more so. Uh, so now the whole America is moving, uh, in one direction, and, and such as, you know, McCarthyism used to be Joseph McCarthyism, perhaps now we have Kevin McCarthyism, I don't know, but anyway, it's still McCarthyism. And when that happens, there's nothing that can withstand it. It's a tsunami that will wipe, uh, the whole world, carry the whole world along with. Can the world do something about it?
>> The big difference between McCarthyism in the 50s and, um, what the United States Congress is proposing, um, in respect of China, is that McCarthyism in the 50s was about dividing America internally and creating a bulwark against the Soviet Union ideologically internally. So, there, the fear was, and we forget this today, that the great fear in Western Europe and in the United States after the Second World War was not that the Soviet Union would come and invade our countries, as it were, but that people inside our countries would vote for communist parties. So, the communist threat was a threat from within that had to be fought through the Un-American Activities Committee. Today, we're seeing something very different in the United States, which, which is a United States that's, I, I hate it when people say things like, "more divided than ever before." Um, and of course, America had a civil war, but America does feel extraordinarily divided. I mean, just anecdotally, um, at the Munich Security Conference, one-third of the Senate this year were at the Munich Security Conference, which was fascinating. But what was fascinating to me, I had rather optimistically imagined that all these senators took a plane together, and I thought, "That's fantastic. You know, they can sit next to each other, Republicans and Democrats, and chat and get to know each other." No such thing. There was a Democratic delegation, there was a conservative delegation, and, uh, there were, there were only a couple of instances where you saw the sort of cross-party thing. It's almost grounds for being voted out of office, being seen to talk to somebody from the opposite party. And that's that division at the top. Um, we're starting to see throughout. We're seeing the polling evidence of the, the percentage of Americans that wouldn't, that say that they wouldn't permit their children to marry somebody from the opposite party. Not that parents ever have a choice over these things, but, but, but that's, you know, we're seeing a really divided America. And I do think in every country, as I said earlier, COVID increased divisions, because COVID, one of the things we know from social psychology is that something that reduces human anxiety about people that seem different is day-to-day contact with them. That the day-to-day contact helps human beings understand that they're not actually the others are not monsters. They're normal parents, you know, with screaming children, you know, outside the school. They're normal citizens trying to get a seat on the bus. And that normalizes relations. And what we saw in almost every country under COVID lockdown is that people's anxiety about the other increased. And so there's a lot of recovery to do. Now, the easiest way for any leader in the world, whether it's the Chinese leadership or the American leadership, the easiest way to unify a people who are disaffected and divided is the threat of something outside. Right? It's to say the Chinese are going, you know, are our threat, so we should come together as Americans. Or it's for China to say the Americans are threatening us, we need to come together as Chinese. That's that's always there. And you'll recall, you know, somewhat more positively, that the American-Soviet arms talks began when Reagan asked Gorbachev in his famous walk in the forest in Rekuik, um, "Mr. President, if Martians attacked us tomorrow, would you come to our assistance?" And, uh, Gorbachev said, "Yes, we would." And, "If Martians attacked us here in the Soviet Union, would you, the United States, come and help us?" And Reagan said, "Yes, we would." And so you saw this, this, this unification in the face of an outside force. But that's what we're going to have to manage. We're going to, that's why in setting out these five forces that are eroding global rules, I'm pointing to the forces that we absolutely have to manage inside each of our countries in order that we can manage our international relations. Because if we use international relations to manage our domestic politics, we're going to live in quite a nasty world.
>> Unfortunately, that may, it's not easy to accomplish. I have one last question. I'm open to the Republic. Uh, but first, a confession. 28 years ago, I did a dumb, dumb thing. 20 years ago, I joined the, the foundation board of the World Economic Forum in Geneva in Davos. And apparently, I was the first Asian on the board. And, uh, and Klaus Schwab came to me and said, "You know, we don't have no, no, I went to him, I said, you know, how come we don't have too many Americans, especially senators and congressmen?" And Klaus said to me, the founder of the World Economic Program, he said, "Well, Ronnie, you go to Washington D.C. a lot. Why don't you invite some of them to come?" I said, "Sure, I'll do that." So, I, I brought a group of senators and congressmen from the United States to Davos. And then in 1996, uh, Bill Clinton came.
>> Uh, and I thought it was quite an accomplishment on my part. And now you're telling me one-third of the Senate, US Senate are in Munich, Canary Conference. I begin to worry, maybe I started a bad, bad thing when these guys are beginning to meddle in other people's business. Uh, uh, but of course, perhaps I am not that big of a sinner, because if they are domestically oriented only, maybe it will be worse. I don't know. But anyway, my last question is this, um, globalization is a thing that can only happen in relatively peaceful times. And if the world is not going to be peaceful, it's inevitable that there will be some deglobalization, some decoupling. And now the number one country wants to make the number two biggest economy in the world into an enemy, and so the number two has no choice but to respond and react. And that's pretty bad when you're the number one and number two. And so the whole world will, will only be divided. So, what's the chance of any serious kinetic war somewhere? Um, and, and, and even short of it, the division in the world, economic, and otherwise, will cause decoupling. So, is that something inevitable? Um, uh, is it just like, you know, everything goes undulates, you know, they like an accordion? And so, we're just entering into a phase that may last, God knows how long, of, uh, deglobalization. That, my next generation, my sons and grandsons should not be in international business, for example, cross-border trade, all those kind of things, rather be domestic, that's perhaps a safer place to be. You agree? And then get ready for your questions.
>> Um, so, well, let me start where you started. So, by the way, I, I think, um, on Ronnie's point about bringing congressmen and senators, um, to the WEF or to Munich, particularly after COVID, the more we can get human beings interacting with each other in the same space, the better. I see my former Oxford colleague, Nick Rollins, in the room, and I think neuroscientists can tell us interesting things about what happens even in our brains when we share the same physical space with others, and why that's important to building trust.
>> It's good to see you again here.
>> So, I think that's important. Um, it might be true that you can accelerate globalization in times of peace, but I just want to point, um, with some optimism, to the fact that even at the height of the Cold War, we didn't see direct war. That even at the height of the Cold War, we saw three things operating that helped the world, um, prevent major war and helped the superpowers step back from conflict with each other. And the first is that we did build international, well, the world built international institutions which gave them a forum in which loudly they could disagree with one another in the United Nations Security Council, in other, um, international organizations in which we saw both sides represented. Those institutions are important. They're really easy to criticize. Ah, they're hot air shops. They're not solving the world's problems, etc. They're really important for that simple reason of creating a place where you can actually talk, vital for containing, uh, war.
>> Imagine without them.
>> Yeah, exactly. Second, the superpowers, even at the height of the Cold War, managed to use international law to come up with some rudimentary agreements like the treaty of neutrality on Austria, so that they could have a place to talk, um, like the arms control treaties that they signed. This is important to remember that countries can be decoupled and can be hostile rivals to each other, and yet they can use institutions and rules to contain what can otherwise too quickly become violence. And then thirdly, even if you think about the alliances on either side of the Cold War, the fact that the Warsaw Pact countries cooperated within the Warsaw Pact to create one side of the balance of power, that NATO countries cooperated on the other side. Something interesting that people overlook is that it's really good for the superpower at the center to learn to cooperate in those mechanisms. It wasn't easy. NATO relations were not easy. In 1967, they broke right down with the French walking out of NATO exercises. The United States was required, if you like, to practice cooperation within NATO. And the Soviet Union was required to practice cooperation in the Warsaw Pact. And those habits of cooperation spill over into cooperation between the two sides. So, I don't want to leave you all with a foreboding sense that conflict is necessary or inevitable. It is absolutely not. We can look at the last 100 years of history and see very active ways in which, even at the height of ideological, economic, and political conflict, institutions, treaties, neutral spaces, non-aligned countries can help avert conflict. I cannot help but, uh, raise the last point, Nari. You know, the last time during the Cold War, it was basically a bilateral world. Today, I'm afraid that it's going to be a multilateral world.
Where, uh, it's not just the two superpowers, but everybody else. Uh, they don't necessarily gang up together as one group, but on issue by issue, they may, as you alluded to, may, you know, have regional, uh, coop operations. But precisely that, that means the whole world is going, is going to be very, very, uh, fragmented. Uh, and when you have two powers, you have, it's easier, at least the two guys sit together, Reagan and Gorbachev, or whoever else, uh, and and agree on something. But if it is splintered, fragmented, then nobody can control anyone. And and and and so America is certainly losing its, uh, influence, uh, its moral leadership. I think that too is the biggest sad thing, is America losing its moral leadership. And then, uh, China doesn't have much of anything. Uh, and so China is just basically a, a, a company, a corporation that is doing business everywhere. Uh, including the Middle East and Africa and so forth, with not a whole lot of political involvement, although I assume that over time, it'll be forced into more political involvement outside of its own borders. So, what happened when the world is so fragmented? Uh, that is that 1914? Is it, uh, pre-1950, 48, or whatever? Uh, is that, is that what we are staring down the road?
So, so firstly, let's not overstate, um, the Cold War order. There was lots of fragmentation within the Cold War. There were wars, proxy wars across, you know, every developing region of the world. Um, there were all kinds of splinter groups, terrorist groups in every decade, um, emerging. So, it wasn't an, it's, it wasn't a global order that meant order was everywhere. Um, but there was restraint in the relationship between the superpowers. So, that's my first thing would be, let's not overstate that order. But the second point would be, you're right that it's a world of many countries, but what singles out China and the United States is their absolute domination of the technologies which are driving not just growth, but social, human, political, economic interactions, and the determination on each side to maintain control. Make no mistake, both China and the United States are determined, individually, each of these countries, to maintain complete control and technological dominance, not just vis-à-vis the rest of the world. And that will make them actually the dominant parties for the next decades to come.
Wow. I'm trying to be a Kiwi and optimistic. I am. You're not doing a good, that good of a job. Uh, Larry, you have given us a lot of good intellectual thoughts. Uh, but I'm, I don't know if I'm getting more optimistic or pessimistic. So, let's, uh, uh, we're supposed to have drinks between 6:00 and 7:00. Uh, I'm going to cut into your drink time. If you want to go have a drink, go right outside. Uh, we're going to have some questions. I think the intellectual discussion here is very, very meaningful. Brian, uh, a student of yours, by the way. Uh,
>> An Oxford student.
>> Indeed.
>> You can tell us how bad he was.
>> Oh, no. I never had the, I never had the, uh, I never talked Brian, but,
thank you very much for that wonderful conversation. I've just got two very quick questions. Um, the first concern is India, essentially, because I feel that, you know, essentially, when we look at how India's responded to the war in Ukraine, on one hand, it's, as part of Quad, seemingly aligned with the West in many respects, and there's talk of deepening Indo-British relations and collaboration. But also, more generally speaking, Jaishankar, the Foreign Minister, or External Affairs Minister, said, you know, India's firmly aligned with liberal and also progressive values in speeches he gave. But also, at the same time, he emphasized that India is an independent nation with its own foreign policy. And that's also why, I suppose, when it comes to Russia, it has not condemned Russia. It has not taken an active oppositional stance, and in fact, is importing more oil than ever from Russia by a number of multiples. So, I guess the first question, um, here, Na, is just how are we to make sense of India in the typology that you proposed just then? Is it non-aligned? Is it creating its own regional alliance? Is it developing new multilateral alliances? Or is it just a fourth type of power, so to speak? And the second question is on Hong Kong. Uh, what advice would you give to Hong Kong youth? Hong Kong? Yes, it's,
>> Oh, I think I've heard of it.
>> Yes, it's, it's, I think it's still a city. So, uh, I was wondering what advice you'd give to youth in Hong Kong who have aspirations and would love to contribute towards Hong Kong's international positioning and status, as part of China, of course, but nevertheless, still, um, in a world at large. Thank you so much.
>> As a professor, you have to answer your own students.
>> So, um, thanks, Brian. Um, India is really important, um, in this. So, just two quick comments on India. Um, the breathtaking, um, misstep of the G7 in describing the coalition applying sanctions to Russia as democracies versus autocracies, um, is, is astonishing to me. I mean, it's, it's foolish in a couple of ways. It's utterly insulting to India, South Africa, and Brazil, just to name three of the world's largest democracies, world, world democracies, um, and countries, all three who have fought so hard to be democracies. If you think about Brazil overcoming the military dictatorship, if you think about South Africa overcoming apartheid, and you think about India overcoming British colonialism and colonial rule, these are countries that have fought hard for their democracies. So, this is not democracies versus autocracies. You might disagree with the position of those three countries on Russia. You might wish that they were part of the sanctions regime. They would say, if you'd wanted us to be part of it, you might have consulted us first about what the sanctions regime was. So, I think there's a, there's a, there's a lively debate which is ongoing about those countries. And I, I just, for me, we should just learn as much as we can about what the consultation should look like. How quickly the language, unfortunately, moved from talking about upholding the sovereignty of Ukraine, which every country, including China, would sign up to, to weakening Russia, which is, if you're India, South Africa, Brazil, you think, well, if they're going to weaken Russia, are they going to come and weaken us next? So, it's, it, it, that's a threatening, um, posture in international relations. But let me say something else about India. I think the really interesting thing for all other countries, and I say this very much with my Dean of Blavatnik School of Government hat on, because a big part of our job is to teach countries to learn from each other and to learn from each other at speed. And if there's one thing we should be learning from India as a large democracy, it's how they un, how they're rolling out public digital infrastructure, because they've done it very differently to the way that other countries have done it. India's rolled out digital identity in a way that links it to the delivery and social and political aspects of statehood, but not to the military surveillance and policing aspects of statehood. And for democracies, that's actually a really important distinction. Second, India's done it in a way with a, with a real eye to building inclusive economies. That's to say, they've said the reason why the government needs to provide an open digital infrastructure is so that different kinds of companies, farmers, um, female entrepreneurs can use that digital platform for free to build even the smallest businesses in the digital space. Or, put simply, why should the t-shirt printer in Bangalore be paying fees to Amazon to sell to sell t-shirts to the Bangalore local football team? Right? It's basically as simple as that. Why, why, why should the town square of today's world, the digital public square, the town square be privatized and foreign-owned? And I think that's a really interesting model for, for other countries, not just developing and emerging economies, but for all other countries to learn from.
The gentleman who was responsible for that digital national digital program, I invited to speak here. He hasn't come yet. His wife came and spoke for me, but he himself, Nandan, uh, has yet to come. Uh, he's one of the co-founders of, uh, Infosys, as we all know. Uh, and he left in order to do that national digitization program. Uh, and recently sent me a photograph of the tree that I planted on the Infosys campus, that his co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who spoke for us several times, asked me to plant, uh, a decade or two ago. So, I'm very, very happy. Watch out for your announcement for Nandan, hopefully, he will come and speak for us very soon. He's a great guy. El Reyes from Hong Kong U, a former journalist. Where's the microphone?
Thank you very much. Um, I actually had two questions, but I'm going to turn the first question into a comment just so, for the interest of time. Uh, in, in this whole competition for allegiance, I think the framework you, you, you outline is quite, quite interesting. I, I think it gets very complicated, and as someone who's involved in, uh, policy planning for a G7 country, for Canada, particularly during, uh, what was the two Michaels, the, I call it the 3M case, uh, you, you could tell in interaction with other countries that, yes, it was not always, you know, if they had to decide between the United States and China, it was rather difficult sometimes. Some were very clearly alongside the United States, and others not so much. For Canada, of course, it, it becomes more clear-cut because geographically, we were right there. So for us, next being right next to the United States, often the decisions tend to be rather more simple or simplistic at, at, at times. Um, I'm interested in countries and the shadings that, that, that, that you get then from different countries. So, for example, Australia, New Zealand, and the different attitudes they've had towards China, even though they're pretty much in the same part of the world. And within ASEAN itself, I think it's interesting to look at the complexities in which different members of ASEAN react to the United States and China. I mean, Singapore does a good job in some ways. I mean, they actually have American military facilities on the island, but yet they maintain a balance. So, I think it's interesting that going forward that in many ways is multipolarity for you. I think the, the multipolar world. My actual question from comment is, in 2016, in Dubai, you said globalization needs to mean global responsibilities. I was quite struck by that comment because it recalled for me, globalization needs to mean global responsibilities.
>> And go.
>> I was really struck by that comment because it reminded me of the comment of Kofi Annan when he redefined sovereignty to bring out the responsibility to protect doctrine. Um, and so I actually articulated in an article, based on what you said, what I, something I called the responsibility to connect, the idea that globalization is there, and there is a certain responsibility that leaders have to connect their people and not disconnect them, not decouple them. So, I'm wondering if you could maybe flesh out further your comment because it still sticks in my mind, that particular comment from, uh, 2016 in Dubai, and thank you for it.
You have a very good memory. Um,
>> You are very influential.
My my point about globalization was that globalization opened up, it it permitted, um, it opened up huge opportunities for companies across the world, but it didn't open up, it didn't, um, require them to travel with their responsibilities. So, the very same company, and and that when you open opportunity, it needs to come with coral responsibilities. So, when you say to American banks, you now can lend to any sovereigns around the world, that needs to come with the responsibility to make sure you've got the reserves to cover those loans. Very simple principle. Not done. So, that in the 1980s, we discovered that the dozen or so largest American banks were some 400% plus overexposed to sovereign, um, lenders because they had not had to carry any responsibility in their overseas actions, right? So, at home, they're hugely regulated, they must keep, you know, deposits, etc., but abroad, not. And we saw the same with multinational companies who are regulated at home on labor, environment, you can't poison the water, etc., and then given the opportunities to to move abroad, but not required to take the responsibilities with them. And that was my point, that that the failings of globalization come from that failing, because globalization came to mean for people all over the world something that was eroding their way of life, not enhancing their way of life. And it didn't need to mean that. Yeah. And who's next at the back?
Hi, thank you for your talk. It was very illuminating. Edith Terry, Edith. Good.
Hi, Ronnie. Um, so, uh, I have two, two questions. One is, uh, comes out of a conversation this morning by, um, a gentleman who had recently made a tour through Europe looking to tap into corporate kind of, uh, responses to EU-US relations and the sort of triangle with China. And what he heard was that, um, basically everyone said, this is Iraq all over again. Why is the US demonizing China? Um, but at the same time, it wasn't enough to split, uh, the Europeans from the Chinese. So, I'll just leave it there. Why, why is it that this, that this doesn't seem to come to a head? The US is still more important to the EU than China is, despite the, the market. Oh, second question. Um, in the 2010s, uh, and earlier, there was a proliferation of, uh, trade agreements, uh, bilateral, regional, multilateral, but none of them have seemed to, uh, count for very much. So, why is that? It doesn't really fit into your, your characterization of, of a third force emerging in the Global South, counterbalancing, uh, the, the big, um, you know, and opposing markets.
So, so the, let me start with the proliferation of trade agreements has not always facilitated, um, regions of countries to strengthen their ties with one another. Let me just give one quick example. Europe's partnership agreements with African countries actually individualize each country. So, that's because the country of origin has to be the individual country. What it did was stop countries building ties with one another. So, what ideally you would want is an agreement which ensures that the countries of Southern Africa create production chains across Southern Africa, and that you start clearing customs borders between those countries and creating really, um, excellent kind of production chains. They can't do that if they're act, if the access to markets in Europe is predicated upon them having individual countries of origin. So, so trade agreements don't, you know, trade agreements can do a number of different things, and the devil is definitely in the detail of these bilateral, um, arrangements. On on Europe and, um, China and the United States, there is a very genuine fear in Europe of, um, Russian, um, of Russia, about Russia's intentions and about where they will stop. And there's a very genuine different reading of Russia's intentions in China. And, you know, you can, you can, it's a complicated history between Russia and Ukraine. And there's been, you know, decades of efforts to Russify Ukraine, which means that a large proportion of the Ukrainian population are of Russian origin. But Ukraine was recognized by every member of the United Nations as a sovereign state. And therefore, Russia's, when I describe Russia's invasion of Ukraine as illegal, I'm referring directly to the United Nations Charter, which proscribes exactly that action, just as it proscribed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. And the United States repelling Iraq from Kuwait and stopping at the Kuwaiti border, in my view, was what was required by international law. The United States invasion of Iraq, in my view, was internationally illegal, and it was illegal from the point of view of, of many Europeans as well. So, these, these, there are some genuinely different and sincerely held views on, on, um, what the international position should be. Now, my cut-through of all this is that the reason why the United Nations Charter is powerful is because it's a set of commitments that all governments after the Second World War were prepared to sign up to. And when we stray from th, those commitments, we stray further and further away from something that countries will agree upon. And that in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we should, right from the beginning, have voiced international efforts in terms of upholding the sovereignty of Ukraine and not permitted a kind of indiscipline about what other aims might have been involved.
One last question. The young lady in front. Of course, the difference between China's, uh, view of Russia and Europeans' view of, uh, Russia is perhaps this, China already lost 650,000 square kilometers in 1857, or thereabouts, to Russia. Russia already took a lot of land from China, whereas, uh, Europe, it is Germany, and that it was Napoleon that invaded Russia rather than Russia invading Europe. So, his history seemed to dictate that the different view of Russia today, perhaps.
Yes.
Uh, yes. Um, thank you very much, Professor Woods, for your sharing. And what you said earlier about teaching countries to learn from each other and learn each other in speed really resonated well with me. Um, I'm still trying to form my question more, um, structurally, but the key question is that if we look at Russia, China, and the US, we have Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We have the US forcing their divided conflict, not conflict, but divided view into the rest of the world, started from Trump. And also, we have China since October last year, of the 20th plenary, of a highly centrally controlled power, and there are also a lot of domestic issues China is trying to solve through with all the international events. Historically, have we seen more of human cultural evolution that all these conflicts or divided, um, divisions may potentially trigger more democratic movements? Um, I earlier, Dr. Ronnie Chan also mentioned about the risk of inflationary environment to that of society. Um, I'm not sure if my question makes sense, but would there be more of, uh, grassroots, bottom-up democratic movements that may occur? We do have the 2024 US election upcoming, etc., etc.
So, what's really changed? So, quite a lot hasn't changed. There's something Shakespearean watching Putin, you know, and it's really difficult to, you know, I was willing to see, um, Russian, and prior to that, Soviet, and prior to that, Russian concerns about security, which are very long-standing for Russia. But it's something on which my view has changed the more I've read and then watched Putin's actions. You know, he's fired what, more than 77 generals? He's, he's, he's now, it, it seems to me that there's something Shakespearean about him in the sense that he's now on a crusade to do one thing, which is to stay in power, because he knows the minute he loses power, he'll be dead. You know, he'll be staying in power is his only survival option, and that makes him an extremely dangerous, um, leader who's willing to gamble his entire country, um, to, to, to stay in power. It also makes him slightly more fragile than, than some would, would, would, would think. But what's, you, you've asked me. So, so on the one hand, that hasn't changed, right? There's a, that sort of Shakespearean sense of power. You can go right back to the ancient world and look at what happens when you get leaders that, that, that get to there. What has changed? So, I think the world is full of people that are just at the moment saying, the whole world is going to the dogs. Extremist movements are going to take over everywhere. We are catapulting ourselves towards war. Inside, you know, there's going to be a civil war in the United States. There's going to be a civil war in China. There's going to be a war between China and the United, you know, um, pretty depressing stuff to hear. And I would look instead at the fact that, um, in 2016, a lot of people looked at the election outturns, um, in the United States and across Europe and said, we're all heading to the dogs to these extremist parties. And yet, in election after election, we've seen the opposite. So, your point about people, about voters, even in a period where social media is running rampant, where we've had COVID lockdowns, conspiracy theories running like crazy, we've seen, we've seen people elect governments that alternate power. We've seen people elect governments that agree to be restrained by institutions. And so, I sort of feel you've got to have a bit of faith in people, and, um, and that, and that we can see that being, we, we can see that working in countries where people are actually allowed to use their voice.
30 years ago, when the Asia Society Hong Kong Center was founded, I became a member, so did Alice. And the reason I joined was because, to me, it was a place of continuing education. I don't know how much it cost to go to Oxford. I never asked because I'm not smart enough anyway. So, forget about the money. Uh, but I can very reasonably. Oh, Nick. Uh, you are, you are biased. You're from Oxford.
>> Anyway, by now, you've become an honorary.
>> Thank you. But I think that, uh, I'm still learning, and I get to go to Oxford, uh, for, for this opportunity. So, thank you very much. I hope that you can all earn your drink, by the way, outside. So, uh, if Nandan, you can stay a bit, uh, interact with some of our members, uh, so that they can learn further from you. Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for our speaker, Professor Nate Woods.