Transcription
But his advisers told Bill Clinton, "Hey, be careful. It's political suicide in America for any American president to talk about America not being number one." And that's a tragedy because it is inevitable that countries like China and India with much larger populations will have larger GMPPS.
Today America may well be an open society, but it may be an open society with a closed mind. And that's dangerous.
Many of these global multilateral institutions including United Nations, IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, all Western creations. But sadly, even though they are western creations, one of the dirty little secrets I give away in the book is that many of these institutions have been kept weak by design by western powers because they actually believe that weaker multilateral institutions served western interests.
But the surprising thing is that human beings only change or begin to change when you have a major crisis or catastrophe.
You come with an interesting background having been a diplomat but now you're an academic and and as you just said a dean. So so I'm wondering uh the what the interplay is between these two worlds as you sit down and write and reflect on the world.
Well, I think the good thing about having been a diplomat is that you lose all illusions about the world very quickly, especially when you represent Singapore and the UN Security Council, which is a fairly brutal place uh where the five permanent members exercise their power in a fairly unashamed manner. And so you discover that whatever the rhetoric of countries uh whatever they may say or we we believe in principles and so on so forth I've discovered that when it comes to defending national interests power always trumps principle especially in the UN security council.
And an important point that arises in your your three recent books is in a way the disappointment in the US response to the world as it has changed especially after the fall of the Berlin wall. So so you are a person who in your earlier career really looked to America and admired its role in the world. Uh, and but in recent time uh has come to be somewhat disappointed. Is that fair?
Well, I I must emphasize that I still continue to admire uh the United States of America. As I mentioned in the book, uh my three children studied in American universities. two my children went to Yale, one went to Carnegie Melon and indeed I got congratulations from my friends all over the world when my children got admitted into very good um American universities. So there's a lot about America uh that the world continues to admire. But what I try to share uh with my American friends is a new sense of disappointment with America. And the disappointment comes from measuring America not by any uh abstract or global standards. Uh the disappointment comes from measuring America against its own standards. And you know my favorite example which is a sad example I must say is that when America was for a long time the beacon of human rights for the world and when it switched from being a beacon of human rights to becoming the first modern developed advanced country to reintroduce torture. Uh the impact on minds over all over the world was shattering. The question was how can the beacon of human rights reintroduce torture?
One of your your major points in your uh critique, loving critique of uh the United States is that uh although it's set in motion many of the changes that the world is now experiencing through globalization that it it's not uh reflecting in its policies an understanding of the implications of that change in the world. Uh your book begins with a a beautiful description of global society and and the elements that have fallen into place. Talk a little about that uh because this for you is a is a world that's been transformed.
Yes. Uh in fact the the great paradox uh about our time uh is that America has done more than any other country in the world to unleash the forces of globalization whether is through technology the ideas of uh business the ideas of trade or free trade all these ideas are American ideas. So American ideas have transformed the world and unleashed globalization. But paradoxically having unleashed globalization uh America is one of the states that is now least prepared to deal with the consequences of globalization to deal with a different world uh that has emerged uh out there and we have actually created a much better world. In fact, the uh if you look at it in terms of human history, uh it's a better world in terms of wars becoming a sunset industry. It's a better world in terms of global poverty disappearing. And it's a better world in term of global middle classes exploding. So here here's the moment in time for America to stand up and say, "Hey, we should be celebrating. We've helped to create this better world." And yet, as you know, Americans today feel more and more insecure as they view the rest of the world. And that's a tragedy.
And and you talk about a convergence of values. And many of these values uh reflect what America society was over time and and now they they've really been embraced by the world. the the the scientific thinking, the market economics, uh uh and and others. Uh, so it's a it's a >> it's kind of surprising in a way and you must be surprised by by this.
Oh, I'm very very surprised because I'm glad you refer to uh the word convergence uh because you know for a long time especially last 200 years it was only like 12% of the world's population who who lived in the west who enjoyed this advanced living standards and and access to various norms you know but today the rest of the world the remaining 88% uh is now converging on these norms. Unfortunately, I use a very inelegant phrase in my book called consensual cluster of norms. And you know this this concentric cluster of norms include things like modern science um um free market economics uh rationality and logic uh multilateralism and these are many many of these things came from the United States came from the west and now the rest of the world saying okay we're going to copy you and be like you and that's why you notice throughout the world uh people are behaving more rationally and logically when it comes to solving problems and they're behaving like Americans uh uh used to behave and so I thought gee this is a time for America to celebrate all this and why are so few Americans celebrating this.
Uh you you compare uh America after World War II >> with the America that that you were just talking about and and how do you account for the different role it it's playing with regard to embracing the world and laying down a set of values, a set of economic principles in the earlier period and then somehow rebelling against the world that it's been a major actor in putting in place.
>> Yeah. I mean this that's that's what that's one of the greatest tragedies of our times because the whole world as a whole is adopting many of the ideas that America used to push very strongly uh especially after World War II. Let me just mention two. One is free trade and you know I remember the days when American leaders would come knocking on the doors of every country and says hey you know if you want to progress and move ahead you what you really have to do is to open up your economy and have free trade and join WTO and have free trade agreements you know and it's sort of very puzzling that United States has gone from being one of the greatest champions of free trade to becoming a country where it's becoming politically toxic in America to use the word free trade and even President Obama as you know from time to time would talk about fair trade rather than free trade and this is this is quite shocking uh to the rest of the world that's why as you know that's one of the reasons why the Doha round is dying and then another idea which of course America was at the forefront of pushing was international law and America said hey the rule of law works domestically it can work equally well globally and Eleanor Roseell for example pushed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and said this is where we want the world uh to go and then suddenly the United States of America from went from being the greatest promoter of international law to becoming in some ways one of the chief violators of international law when as Kofanan said uh conducted a war which was illegal in Iraq when it went against the international criminal court when he reintroduced torture. So the rest of the world was judging America on the basis of American values and saying hey America is falling short in terms of conforming to American values and that was a big shock to the rest of the world.
At the beginning of your book, you quote uh President Clinton uh after he left office >> and and uh and and what is very revealing is in office leaders such as Clinton uh don't do what they clearly see once they leave office. Uh, and Clinton, I mean, the suggestion is that he probably saw it before he left off it. He just wasn't going to articulate that. Talk a little about that because this is this is not just Clinton's problem uh and America's problem, but in a way it's can be the world's problem.
>> Yeah. No, I I agree. See the reason why I quoted the remarks that President Bill Clinton gave in a speech in Yale in 2003 because he actually was trying in a very gentle way to wake up Americans to a new reality and he said in his remarks I don't have the text verbatim something along the lines like if we in America believe that we'll be the number one power forever then fine let us carry on doing whatever we want to do but If we can conceive of the possibility that someday we may no longer be the number one power in the world, then surely it is in America's natural interest to create a rulesbased order that will protect America's interests and also constrain the next number one implicitly. And as you also know I I also quote in the book uh from a book written by Stro Talbbert who was Bill Clinton's deputy secretary of state and and actually amazingly strobe Talbert reveals in his book that Bill Clinton wanted to say all this while he was president. He wanted to actually wake up the Americans to the reality that America may no longer be number one. But his advisers told Bill Clinton, "Hey, be careful. It's political suicide in America >> for any American president to talk about America not being number one. And that's a tragedy because it is inevitable that countries like China and India with much larger populations will have larger GMPPS than America just by simple laws of arithmetic because if the Chinese perform 25% as well as any average American, they'll have a bigger GMP. So why not prepare for this new world now? And I in a sense what I try to do with this book, The Great Convergence, is to take the wisdom that Bill Clinton tried to share with Americans and develop it into a longer longer argument.
As a diplomat, you must have uh developed skills for uh looking at a society, looking at a country that you are a diplomat to and getting a fix on what's going on. So on on the one hand in this problem you're identifying public education is really important and you're saying but the leaders of the US don't want to articulate >> uh what they probably know and can articulate after they leave office. So so what help us help an American audience understand what you think is at work here. Is it interest groups that are being threatened by this transition and hence our leaders are afraid to articulate the problem? Or is it our political culture where we believe we've always been number one and will always be number one?
>> Well, the simple answer, Harry, is political culture. And as you know another story I tell in the book uh is about the time in January 2012 when I was asked in Davos the World Economic Forum meeting to chair a forum on the future of American power and I on my right I had two senators uh Republican senators Cocker and Chamblas and on my left uh two Democrats Nita Loi a new New York congresswoman and Michael Frman the deputy national security adviser. So the first question I asked was a very simple one. What do you see as the future of American power? And of course they said, "Oh, we'll be number one. We'll be number one. We'll be number one." I said, "Fine, great." My second question was, "Well, you know, I've seen some statistics which suggest that sometime maybe in the next 5 to 10 years, America may no longer have the largest economy in the world. How do you think America will react to that?" And I can genuinely say to you that their answers completely shocked me because it became very clear that no senior American public figure can have any words coming out of his or her mouth saying if America becomes number two or when America becomes number two because if they say that is political suicide and in fact Senator Cocker I must say was by far the most astute in his response. and he said to me, "Mr. Chairman, I can do the maths. I can see where you're taking us. I'm not going there." So, it's a very nice way of saying, "I'm not going to discuss America's number two publicly." And and that is actually very dangerous because the paradox about America is that on the one hand, it is the world's most open society by any standards. But as you know, one of the most provocative things I say in this book that today America may well be an open society, but it may be an open society with a closed mind. And that's dangerous.
And and uh what is the way around this? In a minute, we'll talk about the problem with these global institutions and and the way you see America responding incorrectly. What what uh uh what does your experience tell you about what makes for a change in this attitude? Is it when that day comes they America cannot suppress the headlines basically?
Well, um I am actually quite worried >> that when the day comes and the American public wakes up one day and reads reads the headline that says IMF declares that in PPP terms or even in nominal terms eventually America is now the second largest economy in the world. So if the American population has not been psychologically prepared for this, this will be a big shock and that you might have a huge divisive debate beginning in America saying who lost America's number one position and let's say if it happens in 2017 uh I can well imagine in the 2016 political campaign the Republicans will say you see that was all Obama's fault. eight years of Obama and America lost its number one position and then you become a divisive political debate in America when it shouldn't be a divisive political debate because it is driven by larger uh correlational forces which you cannot change in the rest of the world and so when you have when you remember that America only provides 5% of the world's population it is unnatural for 5% of the world's population to have a 25% share of the global G&P. It just had to naturally shrink in relative terms, not in absolute terms, as the rest of the world began to perform better. And so, America should actually in some ways celebrate the moment and say, you see, our ideas are being accepted by the rest of the world. America is responsible for raising living standards rest of the world. Let's celebrate the moment. That would be a much healthier response than one that begins to becomes a very divisive debate that says who lost America's number one position.
Now, on the one hand, you're you're pointing out very effectively that there's a failure of the public discourse in the United States. Uh but but how does this work in the world? You you do a a a great job of uh looking at global institutions. Mhm.
And uh uh the way they have been structured in the past when the west had dominance >> and the extent to which they haven't changed basically and so the the global institutions and and let let's talk about some of them uh have a configuration of power that reflects the old order. And as long as they continue to do that, then this uh uh blindness on the part of the United States to these changes is actually reflected in the power structure of many of these global institutions.
>> Yes. Uh I think one of the key reasons why I wrote the book at this stage is to actually tell remind the west that many of these global multilateral institutions including United Nations, IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization, all Western creations. But sadly, even though they are western creations, one of the dirty little secrets I give away in the book is that many of these institutions have been kept weak by design by western powers because they actually believe that weaker multilateral institutions served western interests. Now actually in a world where west the western share of global power is diminishing one of the things I try to tell my western friends is that it is now in your national interest to switch from a policy of weakening multilateral institutions to strengthening them because these in many way will protect your uh long-term interests. But one of the things that's actually shocking to me is how few western voices are aware that has been western policy to keep these multilateral organizations weak. I mean I hear I read New York Times, Washington Post, uh Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine attacking the United Nations as a weak organization. But they never told the American people the simple truth that they are weak because it's American policy to keep them weak. And that may have made sense when America was so overwhelmingly powerful. But as you move towards a world where America may become number two, as Bill Clinton said, then you have an interest now in strengthening them rather than weakening them. And as you know in the book, I make various suggestions on how you can strengthen them.
And and let's take the security example. Security Council as an example. This is an institution that came into being after World War II. There was a clear balance of power in favor of the west. And now uh we we have a situation where India is not a for example a permanent um member with veto power and so on. But but somehow everybody knows this that the institution this particular institution >> is not uh working now to manage this new world that's that's coming into being or be being a part of the management. Explain that to us because it's it's and and and the Europeans are a very good example here uh in having over representation while others are not representing >>
>> well you know actually on when it comes to the UN security council uh there are two schools of thought on how to reform the UN security council the one you might call the progressive liberal school of thought is the veto is wrong. It gives the great powers a chance to misbehave and we should destroy the veto. Then there's a reality school of thought that says hey actually the veto is useful because the veto entrenches the great powers within the UN and that's why the re the fundamental reason why the United States even though it's been very critical of the United Nations has not left the United Nations as it did when it left the League of Nations is because in the United Nations it's got veto power and the United States has learned that its veto power has helped it enormously to secure American interest. So it's actually in America's interest to preserve the veto and I actually as a reality say yes the great power should have the veto. But the key point I make is that for the security council to be legitimate it should represent the great powers of today and not the great powers of yesterday. And the fundamental problem of the UN Security Council today is that the five permanent members are there only because they won World War II in 1945. It's almost 70 years have passed since World War II. It doesn't make sense to have the victors of World War II. So this is why I've suggested a new formula where you combine a nations where you combine the a nation share of the global economy and a nation share of the global population to figure out which are the most powerful nations in the world. And then I come out with a list of seven permanent members, seven semi-permanent members and seven elected members to create a new security council 21 which I argue will now serve the interests of United States, serve the interests of China, serve the interests of Russia and serve the interests of great powers of today.
And and why do you think that uh uh the array of proposals, one you're saying, a more radical one, one a more conservative one, why is it that they don't get an audience, >> they don't get political mobilization among the the key actors and you don't get uh implementation of of one or the other.
Well, there there's actually a simple structural reason why UN Security Council reform has gone nowhere after 20 years. And the reason is that for every new country that is trying to become a permanent member, it has a neighbor that says, "Why not me?" So every Brazil that wants to come in, there's Argentina that says, "Why not me?" For every Nigeria that wants to come in, there's a South Africa that says, "Why not me?" For every India that wants to come in, there's a Pakistan that says, "Why not me?" But the most ingenious claim was made by the Italian ambassador to the UN. Because when I was ambassador there, they were pushing very hard. Germany and Japan were pushing very hard to join the UN Security Council. And Italian ambassador got very upset. He said, "Excuse me, why are you all supporting Germany and Japan? We Italy. We lost World War II also. So you can imagine the absurd lengths that countries went to to block other countries. So that's why what's unique about my formula of 777 is that all the near losers become semi-permanent members of the UN security council and get automatically a seat in the security council at every fourth turn. So Argentina, Pakistan, South Korea, Italy all get a seat, semi-permanent seat. So they also become winners in a security council reform. So that that's the reason why my proposal is actually the most realistic proposal because it it sort of uh takes away the countries who were blocking security council reform because they were going to become the biggest losers to making them also winners in security council reform now.
>> And and the veto remains with >>
>> the veto definitely remains and I would actually argue that it should remain because as I explained in the book the last thing you want in the in the world is a confrontation between the United Nations and the United States of America or between United Nations and China because in any such confrontation the United Nations will lose. So it's better to give the United States veto power, China veto power. So the United Nations try to do something that that Americans or Chinese believe is against their fundamental national interest, they can veto it.
Uh the I think it was John Maynard Kanes who said that that we live uh uh under the the dictates of uh dead philosophers basically in their ideas and in in justice we must say that's true of the state system also isn't it that that in other words the way the state system is organized uh leads these political actors everyone from uh uh Bill Clinton to Vladimir Putin to pursue national interests and at the heart of what you're arguing is this global society has emerged and it's going to not stop growing and growing. It's doing all of these wonderful things in in terms of creating new middle classes, lifting up people from poverty and so on. But in in the end there's no idea >> to represent these global interests or to show us the way toward implementation.
Yeah, I know I completely agree with you and in fact the um I'm glad you referred to John Maynard Kes uh because one of the ideas that is actually a defunct political ideology that is unfortunately uh crippling the world is this notion of national sovereignty and this notion of national sovereignty as you know came from the treaty of West failure 1648 almost 350 years ago. So it's really an idea that should have been discarded at least 100 years or 50 years ago. But it still continues to drive policy makers. So in an effort to explain to policy makers how the world has changed and why our mindsets should change. I use a very simple metaphor at the beginning of the book. I say that before when 7 billion people lived in 193 separate countries, it was like they were living on 193 separate boats with captains and crews to take care of each boat and rules to make sure the boats didn't collide. That was the 1945 rulesbased order. But today, as a result of the world having shrunk, the 7 billion people in the world no longer live in 193 separate boats. They live in 103 separate cabins on the same boat, but you have captains and crews taking care of each cabin and nobody's taking care of the boat as a whole. And that explains all the major global problems that we are facing. So we have in a sense to in one way or another to gradually discard this concept of sovereignty and begin to understand that while you must of course protect your cabin on the boat, you must also protect the global boat. And that requires a new kind of thinking that my book tries to provide.
And and interestingly enough, you know, th this book is a is a one way to awaken public opinion in the especially in the important states to these changes that have been set in motion >> uh sometimes by their policy or their or their uh initiatives. Uh, but I in the course of your presentation you're you're identifying a number of global problems and and in the end unfortunately we may have to lie rely on catastrophe >> to to essentially be uh a more powerful >> wakeup call. That would be unfortunate but you know so as long as no one's listening that may be the case. So, so let's let's talk let's look at that because if we look at the international economy uh we have the 2008 collapse which you know affected really everybody in some way >> and so what happens and and why don't uh there's a short-term solution >> and a long-term solution. >> Yeah. >> Play that out for us because we don't get the result we would have hoped for.
>> Yeah. And uh and this is actually quite puzzling. You know, we claim as human beings that we are of course superior to the other uh animal species because we think rationally, logically, we use modern science and so we should be looking rationally of problems in the world and devising rational solutions which by the way is what my book tries to do. But the surprising thing is that human beings only change or begin to change when you have a major crisis or catastrophe. And you saw this in the 20209 financial crisis, you know. And at the height of the crisis when the United States realized that even though it was so powerful, it could not save the global economy from going off a cliff. You had this remarkable scene where the most unilateral American president of recent times, George W. Bush became the first American leader to convene the G20 leaders meeting. Not even the G7 leaders meeting. He realized that Europe and America can fix this problem. It was so big. And that's why as you know it was a subsequent G20 leaders meeting in London that pulled the global economy back from the cliff that he was about to go to. And and so when that moment happened, essentially what the leaders of the world did was that they came out of the cabins on the boat and they went up to the bridge and said, "Okay, we now have to work together to save the global economy, the global boat as a whole." So that in fact that actually demonstrated very powerfully and very vividly that we are in the same boat and I quote Gordon Brown saying several times over we are now in the same uh global boat in terms of the global economy. But the the tragedy is that as soon as the crisis was over, the G20 leaders went back into their cabins and stopped taking care of the global economy and unfortunately began in to some extent what I call baggard naval policies. United States started QE1, QE2, QE3. uh Europe was focused on its own internal problems and now Japan is also unleashing argonomics and printing money and so on so forth and that's very dangerous for the world because if you live in a single global economy it's very dangerous when leaders just focus on their own cabin and not look at the whole global economy as a as a whole so I hope that uh I know that by the way I should emphasize one thing I know that my ideas are ahead of their time they will not be accepted in the next 5 to 10 years. But the way globalization is working, the way the world is shrinking, it is inevitable that at some point in time you're going to wake up and say, "Hey, we live in one world and we have to manage it as one world and we have to come together, come out of our cabins and manage this global boat.