Wang Huiyao spoke with Mahbubani, Kerry Brown and Kent Kyrd: The 21st century has witnessed the rise of Asia and provided new opportunities for in-depth cooperation around the world
Source: China and Globalization Think Tank
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
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【English】
Wang Huiyao
The global pandemic may also be an opportunity to push the world to cooperate. The United States proposed the "Rebuild a Better Future" initiative, the European Union announced a 300 billion euro "Global Gateway" plan, and China has long proposed the "Belt and Road" initiative, which can be seen that infrastructure construction is a common demand of the world.
Mahbubani
There are 7.8 billion people in the world, and in the past we lived in 193 different countries, just as there were 193 different ships, each with a captain and crew. But now the world has shrunk, with 7.8 billion people living in 193 separate rooms on the same ship. If the ship sank due to climate change, epidemics, etc., there would be no need to think about the fate of small rooms alone. It can be seen that the need for global cooperation has been greatly enhanced.
Kerry Brown
Over the past 500 years, the Western narrative of China has been intertwined with idealization and demonization. We need to create a clearer narrative for today's more challenging times, and that's what we need to work together on.
Kent Kelder
The interests of various countries are actually tied together, there is a lot of potential for cooperation, we have seen the threat of the Omicron and Delta variants to the whole world, and countries need to cooperate more fully in the fight against the epidemic and health care.
The past few decades have witnessed the rise of Asian countries, and the degree of regional integration in Asia has been deepening. Today's world is constantly developing in the direction of multipolarization, and the international situation is becoming increasingly complex and changeable. How will the direction of U.S.-U.S. relations and Anglo-American relations affect the development of China and even Asia? Can China, the United States, and Europe find common ground to reinvigorate multilateralism and meet common challenges? On 18 January 2022, the Globalization Think Tank (CCG) invited Kishore Mahbubani, former Ambassador of Singapore to the United Nations and author of the latest book in the CCG's "China and Globalization" series, Kishore Mahbubani, Associate Dean of the School of Advanced International Relations (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Raishore Centre for East Asian Studies, and Kent Calder, Dean of the China Studies Institute at King's College London. Kerry Brown and Professor Wang Huiyao, Chairman of the Globalization Think Tank, held a dialogue on the rise of Asia in the 21st century and the changing trend of the international landscape
The Asian 21stCentury
Author: Mahbubani
Series of books Edited by: Wang Huiyao Miao Lu
Publisher: Springer Nature Publishing Group
Wang Huiyao: Hello everyone, I am Wang Huiyao, chairman of the Globalization Think Tank (CCG). Welcome to the live broadcast of the Global Masters Dialogue Series from the Global Think Tank (CCG) headquarters in Beijing. Tonight I will discuss with Professors Mahbubani, Kerry Brown and Kent Kelder about the rise of Asia and its impact on an increasingly multipolar world. First of all, I would like to introduce one of the series of books "China and Globalization" published by Springer Nature Group, with Dr. Miao Lu as the editor-in-chief, and Professor Mahbubani's new book "Asia in the 21st Century". The book was just released two weeks ago and has been downloaded more than 110,000 times worldwide in 10 days. So this book is also an opportunity for our discussion, and today we will delve further into how the rise of Asia will affect an increasingly multipolar world. Let's take a quick look at the book in a short video.
In early January, the CCG and Springer Nature organized a launch of the book, and today we are discussing how the rise of Asia will affect an increasingly multipolar world. At the same time, I am also looking forward to a multi-perspective exchange with scholars from Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom, including me from China.
First of all, I would like to introduce Professor Mahbubani, Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. Professor Mahbubani is also the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the former Permanent Ambassador of Singapore to the United Nations. Professor Mahbubani is a frequent voice in the areas of Asian issues, U.S.-China relations, and global governance. I would also like to take this opportunity to invite Professor Mahbubani to speak personally about this new book and to talk in depth about how the return of Asia will affect China, the United States, the European Union and other regions of the world.
Asia's 21st century is a triumph for both Western and Eastern civilizations
Mahbubani: Thank you very much chairman Wang Huiyao for organizing this event, and I am very pleased that this seminar also invited two very outstanding scholars, Professor Kerry Brown and Professor Kent Keld, to exchange views, which fully reflects the strong appeal of Professor Wang Huiyao, and I believe that such a wonderful dialogue will surely impress everyone. Let me briefly introduce the book "Asia's 21st Century", and I will summarize three points to help you have a general understanding of the content of this book. The first point I would like to make may sound a bit contradictory, which is that all Asian countries should express their gratitude to the West for creating Asia's 21st century. I say this very sincerely, because it is hard to imagine what Asia would be like today without the West's pioneering success, the creation of the great technological revolution, the launching of the Industrial Revolution, and the introduction of breakthrough theories such as Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and free market economics to change society. All of these intellectual civilizations that have propelled the West over the past 200 years and made them the dominant powers in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries are driving Asia today. Asians are very frank, and we would admit that without these great intellectual achievements in the West, we might still be in a feudal agrarian society today. The West has changed the world, and it has changed Asia. As I said earlier, we should also thank Japan for becoming the first country in Asia to modernize and transform. Japan's transformation has inspired the transformation of many other countries, including the Asian Tigers, ASEAN, India and others. Thus, one can see that the West has made a tremendous contribution to the formation of Asia in the 21st century.
And this brings me to the second point that I would like to make, when Asia begins to take off under the inspiration of Western ideas, Western countries should celebrate the success of Western ideas in Asia. Unfortunately, however, the West has acted in the opposite direction, ideologically and politically rejecting the fact that the 21st century will be the Asian century. At the same time, I would also like to point out that from a historical perspective, the return of Asia will be a natural development. Between the first year of the new century and 1820 A.D., the world's two largest economies were China and India, as I mentioned in my book 21st Century in Asia. Asia's return is inevitable, and the West should accept this fact with openness. But this is not the case, and many people do not accept this view. I'm amazed at how many Americans still think that the 21st century is still the American century ideologically. On the political front, the West is naturally reluctant to give up its dominant position in the existing world order. To this day, the United States insists that the president of the World Bank must be An American, and that Europe insists that the IMF's leaders must be European, even though they do not say so on the surface. At the G20 conference in 2009, during the financial crisis, voices from the West said: "The leaders of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should be selected on the basis of individual ability, not on the basis of their background." "But nothing has actually changed, and for the past 12 years, the leaders of the IMF and the World Bank have still come mainly from Europe and the United States." This is just one example of the reluctance of The West to accept that the world has changed.
The third point I would like to make is that the West can have a wiser choice in the 21st century, which is why I explored multilateralism in the last few chapters of the book. I served as Singapore's Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations for over 10 years and remain an ardent supporter of the United Nations. However, it should be pointed out that the ideas and charters of the United Nations were basically put forward by Western thinkers, and these thinkers were deeply influenced by Western ideas. But at the same time, the United Nations is seen as the parliament of all, representing the perspective of the whole world. We do not need to reshape the entire world to create a more balanced world order that reflects the new world, but only to build on the rule order created by the West in 1945.
Of the world's 7.8 billion people, 12% live in the West and 88% live elsewhere. If you want to know what those 88 percent are thinking, you just have to go to the UN General Assembly. The United Nations is like a parliament for all, listening to what the world thinks. The exciting news is that most of the world's countries, especially in Asia, want to build a rules-based international system with the West and want to create a more stable world order. China was the biggest beneficiary of the unruly order of 1945, so it is in China's national interest to maintain the UN order rather than undermine it. In fact, if we want to create a peaceful and stable Asian century, we don't need to go too far, so let's go back to the rules-based world order of 1945, which is the point I made in my book Asia's 21st Century. Thank you very much and I look forward to the conversation that follows.
Wang Huiyao: Thank you. The 21st century in which we live now confirms what you call Asian development. In the 76 years after World War II, we had the Bretton Woods system, which China accepted. Of course, this system also needs to be upgraded, and China has grown from an economically backward country to the world's second largest economy. The speech delivered by the Chinese leader at the World Economic Forum in Davos once again emphasized the importance of multilateralism, expressed its support for globalization and hoped that China would play a more active role in it. So I think this book will spark a lot of discussion and inspire us to think again. As you said, we don't need to overhaul the world system, we just need to implement improvements and work together on the same system that the West leads, designs and builds, and China can play a bigger role. But what do we do in practice?
Next I would like to introduce my old friend Professor Kent Kelder. Although we didn't see each other again during the pandemic, I still remember coming to CCG for a conference and inviting me to visit your Washington office. Professor Kelder is The Associate Dean for Education and Academic Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and director of the Edwin Reischor Center for East Asian Studies. Professor Kelder has also served as Special Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Japan and Head of Japan at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and is also a professor at Princeton University. Professor Kent Kelder, you have a lot of achievements in the field of Asian studies, and you have lived in Asia for a long time, writing many books about Eurasia. What are your thoughts on Asia's return to the global political and economic scene? From an American perspective, what would you say? The current international system is still largely dominated by the United States, but as President Xi has said, the earth is large enough for China and the United States to develop separately and together. Can nations coexist peacefully in this world? How will connectivity between countries contribute to the development of the world economy?
Kent Kyrd: I agree with what Professor Mahbubani just made. I have read this book and recommend it to a wide range of readers. Over the years, I've strongly agreed that we're doing a global transformation. In 1982, Professor Roy Hofheinz and I wrote a book called The Eastasia Edge at Harvard University. In it we talk about global transformation and world rejuvenation, where, as Professor Mahbubani mentioned, Asia has always been at the center of history, and after the industrial revolution, an important and creative historical episode, the whole world has gone through all kinds of hardships and hardships, and then it will repeat an earlier era. Of course, I believe the United States will still play a key role, and it is a key force in global development now, and in the future. The United States has some fundamental advantages, such as technology, food supply chains, energy supply, and creative societies, and the United States will continue to use these advantages. At the same time, Professor Mahbubani also mentions in his book many of the characteristics of the era in which we live. I remember when I went to Shenzhen in 1978, it was still deserted. But before the outbreak, I went to Shenzhen again, and it has become an international metropolis full of high-tech companies and skyscrapers. I could hardly believe this shift. When I move to other cities in Asia, I see this again and again. When I look back at Hong Kong now, it is very different from what I saw when I was 8 years old. Of course, you haven't mentioned Singapore in more detail, but to be sure, Singapore is also an amazing place, and I've written a few articles on this.
I was pleased to see professor Mahbubani mentioning the rise of Asia in his speech, of course China, but also Japan. Japan played a huge and constructive role in the rise of Asia during the Meiji Restoration, and of course there are many parts that Japan and the world deeply regret, such as imperialist expansion. We have always engaged in a binary confrontation between Asia and the West, and Professor Mahbubani also mentioned that the vast majority of the world's population actually lives in non-Western areas. For me, China's rise is truly an amazing thing, showing that it is at the heart of a global transformation. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s also amplified this. The end of the Cold War created a new Europe, including the continued eastward expansion of the European Union and other NATO-like organizations. Relations across Eurasia have deepened, and relations between China and Germany in particular have deepened, and the overall situation is certainly more complex. In addition to many parts of Asia, which are also undergoing transformation, this is naturally related to the context of global transformation. The world of the future is certainly not unipolar, and if the world moves toward a polarized dimension, the United States and China will play an important role in it. As we've seen recently, there's a huge instability in this dynamic. I hope that The Relationship between China and the United States will be more stable and constructive. That is exactly what Professor Mahbubani mentioned, namely the recognition of multilateralism that encompasses more great power power. At the international level, entities that transcend the nation-state are very constructive, and countries like Singapore are well placed to understand a world as a whole with a systematic lens, rather than from a hegemonic perspective. The topics I have just mentioned may all be crucial for future developments, and I look forward to our discussion today.
The West needs to look at the rise of Asia objectively and rationally and reshape the new narrative system
Wang Huiyao: Thank you Kent, you have observed and outlined a lot of what is happening in Asia, China, Singapore and Japan. You're an expert on Asia in the United States, and you've witnessed all of this happening. How should the world view Asia's development over the past few decades? How can we combine world development with China's development and achieve mutual acceptance? This is a challenge, but it is not without solutions, china and the United States have established a very stable trade relationship in the past few years, but also have to admit that the world has a trend towards polarization. Next, I will give the floor to Professor Kerry Brown, who specializes in Chinese studies and is the Director of the Institute of Chinese Studies at King's College London, who has also been a diplomat who has worked at the British Embassy in China and has lived in Inner Mongolia for 2 years and has a very rich book. I look forward to your new book, European Eyes on China, which will be published in May. Kerry, what are your thoughts on what Mahbubaa and Kent just said? In the context of Asia's rapid development, how should China get along with other countries?
Kerry Brown: I have two main points I want to say. The first is what exactly is the future trend? The second is how did we get to where we are now? The Asian century that Professor Mahbubani spoke of was in a sense a bit like the "Nash equilibrium". If only this were a "century of humanity" that made everyone feel like a winner. In his new book Cliffs: Survival Risks and the Future of Humanity, Oxford's futurist Toby Ord recently explores many of the challenges that could jeopardize human survival, he doesn't mention China once. The book mentions climate change, nuclear proliferation, artificial intelligence, infectious diseases, and risks that are unlikely to occur as meteors hitting Earth, but does not mention China. However, China has now brought a lot of trouble to the European and American elites, especially the American elite. It seems strange that even dialogue between East and West sometimes becomes difficult, as Professor Kelder said. China did not rise overnight, but has developed step by step over the past few decades. Economic indicators and a variety of different signs suggest that China is becoming more and more important, but it is puzzling why there has suddenly been a wave of panic in the West about Its rise.
For example, the absurd incident in which MI5 accused Chinese lawyers of "secret interference" is difficult to understand. Ordinary people trying to influence politicians? Sometimes politicians just want to be influenced by others, especially in British political parties, because political parties also need to seek economic resources for themselves. Sometimes influencing a political party is more important than influencing a particular person, so this accusation of "clandestine interference" is very absurd. A large number of Chinese investments entered London in 2013 when Europe experienced a financial crisis, which sparked a lot of discussion at the time, some expressed concern about whether China was going to buy the whole world, but many Britons expressed confidence that the UK had strong enough market rules to restrain Chinese capital, and now that confidence seems to have disappeared, especially in the UK, the US and Australia. A cliché is that many people believe that China poses a very great threat to the values and institutions of Europe and the United States, although there is no evidence to prove this.
What really confuses me is that for Europeans, neither China nor Asia is a new topic. China and Europe have a history of exchanges for hundreds of years. Hui Yao just mentioned a book that I'm going to publish this year, which is not actually my book, it collects the discourses of major European figures on China over the past 500 years. These people are not so-called experts in China studies, but mainly intellectuals like Leibniz, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Marx, Hegel, Max Weber, Russell. I think Leibniz and Voltaire represented idealization, arguing that China's Confucian elite could be an "alternative" to European society at the time. Scholars like Montesquieu, on the other hand, describe China as an Eastern authoritarian state, arguing that Europe should not follow suit. The latter view is now gaining prominence, at least in Europe, as does the United States and Australia. I don't see any fundamental change in the West's view of China, which is either idealized as a huge trade and economic opportunity or as a huge geopolitical threat. There are two questions to sum up here. First, how do we build a global system to meet the challenges of humanity's existence that I talked about earlier? In this regard, I think we should think across national borders. Second, in the face of extreme narratives about China, our media, politics, public discourse, and debate systems do not clearly and effectively recognize the complexity of the situation. It's like trying to deal with the problems of the quantum age with pre-Newtonian physics, which is undoubtedly a disaster. What we are going to do with geopolitics now is like introducing quantum physics into modern physics. I don't understand why we're still haunted by these narratives that existed 500 years ago, and we need to create a clearer narrative system for today's more challenging times, and I think that's what we need to work together on. Thank you.
Wang Huiyao: Thank you for systematically discussing the evolution of views on China in history and sharing your personal observations and insights. China is on the rise, but on the other hand, many Western countries do not accept this, and there are many contradictory parts of this. For half a century, the Asian economy, including China, has been taking off, but China has not really been accepted, and Asia's economy is developing well now, and it will be the same in the future, and in the next half century we are likely to become the economic center of the world. So how can we build a better narrative system politically and ideologically? How to reconcile the contradictions between the East and the West? How do the East and the West accept each other? This is a key question, Mahbubani, do you have any thoughts on this?
In the midst of a global crisis, countries around the world need to work together, and international cooperation is imperative
MAHBU: I think it's a central issue that we have to deal with, we live in a challenging world, and I'm glad Professor Brown mentioned that Professor Oxford didn't put China on the list of challenges that could harm the world. The challenge we face in the 21st century is the collision of two "rules." First, the world is shrinking. There are 7.8 billion people in the world, and in the past we lived in 193 different countries, just as there were 193 different ships, each with a captain and crew. But now the world has shrunk, with 7.8 billion people living in 193 separate rooms on the same ship. If the ship sank due to climate change, epidemics, etc., there would be no need to think about the fate of small rooms alone. It can be seen that the need for global cooperation has been greatly enhanced.
Unfortunately, there is another "playbook" that is playing out in the 21st century, that is, the geopolitical game that has remained unchanged for the past two thousand years, and whenever a new power emerges, the shoucheng power will go downhill. Today's China is about to surpass the former number one power, the United States, and the old powers are bound to hit the emerging powers. The conflict caused by these two has a profound impact on the development of human society. On the one hand, the global crisis inspires all humanity to cooperate, while on the other hand, the two countries are at risk of facing serious conflict and competition. In my book, I devote a chapter to what I call the "6 billion people," of which 1.4 billion people live in China, 330 million live in the United States, and 6 billion people remain, and these 6 billion people are trying to persuade China and the United States to press the stop button of the political race and turn the direction to jointly address global challenges. As the Oxford futurist professor Brown just mentioned put it, "There are more pressing challenges for all of humanity"! If you have the opportunity to have a private conversation with ASEAN representatives, they will say that they hope that China and the United States will quickly stop the political competition and help them jointly address more pressing challenges, including COVID-19, climate change, poverty, and economic development. So I wish they would have more voices, saying out loud, "Let's press the stop button of competition, let's focus on global cooperation"!
Wang Huiyao: You made a very good generalization. In the past 70 years, the Western countries have been at the forefront, and now the Eastern countries are also catching up. But as you mentioned earlier, now the two have come to a crossroads and may collide with each other. China and the United States are experiencing a cloud of trade wars and "decoupling" to some extent, Professor Kent, you have witnessed all this, how do we solve this? This year marks the 50th anniversary of Nixon's visit to China, but now that Sino-US relations are at a crossroads, tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the United States putting more than 600 Chinese companies on the sanctions list, China has also fought back. As Professor Mahbubani just mentioned, the United States, as an established power, is suppressing the emerging powers. But the global pandemic may also be an opportunity to push the world to cooperate. In addition, the United States proposed the "Rebuild a Better Future" initiative, the European Union announced a 300 billion euro "Global Gateway" plan, and China has long proposed the "Belt and Road" initiative, which can be seen that infrastructure construction is a common demand of the world. So, can the nations of the world put aside their strife and differences and instead work together in this area?
Kent Kyrd: You made a very important point. The first thing I would say is that we need to be realistic. The contradictions between China and the United States in the fields of electronic technology, artificial intelligence, and 5G technology are deepening. Many political contradictions arise naturally with technical confrontations, which means that we need to negotiate and deal with these particular areas through dialogue. But there are also potential dangers in the transition and transformation of power between the different powers, as the United States has previously challenged the position of the British Empire. Professor Mahbubani mentions in his book that we will usher in a century of transformation, and I think we need more dialogue or negotiation in the process, just as the United States and the Soviet Union had a strategic dialogue in the early days, and now China and the United States need more strategic dialogue. As Professor Brown put it, this should be a "century for mankind" and, as Professor Mahbubani has said, it should be an era of globalization, an idea that Chinese leaders also mentioned at davos. This is an era of globalization, and we have reason to think and look to the present and long-term future. We also mentioned changes in the global population, with the Western world gradually entering an ageing era over time, and the non-Western, wider world, especially in Africa and South Asia, with a larger young population. In 20 or 15 years, China's demographics will also change, including Japan and South Korea, and the role of older people in society will become more important. As a fellow at Johns Hopkins University, I've done a lot of research in health care. It's natural for me to think about how important the healthcare system plays in our lives, underscored by the current COVID-19 pandemic. In the next few decades, the importance of the health care system to Western countries and developing countries such as China is self-evident, and we have gained a lot of experience from Japan. So I think Western countries, China and other countries need to work together on building health care systems. Unfortunately, there are still large numbers of people in the world who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. China has undoubtedly played an important role in promoting the field of vaccination, and the United States and Europe have also made outstanding contributions in developing vaccines, but there is much more that we can do. The interests of all countries are actually tied together, we have potential room for cooperation, and we have seen the threat that the Olmikeron and Delta variants pose to the entire world. We need to cooperate more fully in the fight against the pandemic and in health care.
I also agree with Professor Wang Huiyao's point about infrastructure construction, and in my upcoming book in China, Super Continent, I discuss in detail what kind of infrastructure construction is needed across the continent, and China certainly plays a pioneering role in it. For China, the Belt and Road Initiative is undoubtedly a shrewd grand strategy with broad global implications, and I think it is very positive overall. I offer a global distributivist view that instead of thinking about zero-sum games, consider distribution. Of course, this view doesn't apply to every situation, and I believe that in some areas we have to be realistic, but infrastructure is not a zero-sum game, and win-win is achievable. Therefore, China's "Belt and Road" initiative, the United States' "Rebuild a Better World" initiative, and the European Union's "Global Gateway" plan have been proposed successively. And, of course, Singapore has also played a very important role in this area. Even if we already have investment banks such as the AIIB, we can still consider building a global infrastructure fund or similar institutions. We need to think outside the box to think about some of the new collaborations that can be made in healthcare and infrastructure.
Wang Huiyao: Thank you, Kent. I think your view of global distributivism is also a very interesting idea, and now the world really needs to push forward further infrastructure together. Some time ago I also had a conversation with David Lampton, another professor at Johns Hopkins University, who wrote the book "The Iron River: Railways and the Power of China in Southeast Asia", in which he mentioned the newly opened China-Laos Railway, which now connects the ASEAN countries with the railway. We must look for topics that we can work together with greater hope, or we will lose confidence in building deeper connections. I believe we have a lot of room for cooperation in more pressing areas such as climate change, infrastructure development, and epidemics. Now I want to move on to Brown about two different "narratives" that we discussed at a previous seminar on China. For example, the United States emphasizes American-style democracy, but China has its own model. For the West, the rise of Asia, the rise of China, and economic development are all good things, but in terms of ideology and values, China and the United States have encountered many problems. Western democracy also faces some challenges and problems, such as comparing the events that took place on Capitol Hill at the beginning of last year, you will realize that China's elite system, deliberative democracy and other forms are also effective. At the same time, China's political system has shown a more coherence, from one five-year plan to another, which is a more modern decision-making system. We can see that Chinese democracy is as effective as Western democracy, and even better KPIs. So how can we really allow the two narratives of China and the United States to coexist peacefully, or accept each other?
Ideological struggle is not conducive to cooperation, and the great powers should find common points of strength
Kerry Brown: That's a hard question to answer. Just kidding, I really want to leave this problem to future generations. As Deng Xiaoping said when discussing certain political issues in Taiwan, leave this issue to the next generation or the next generation. If a Martian comes to the planet, he may not know anything, but as long as he has the ability to communicate with humans, I think they will quickly come to the following conclusion: the first view is that these groups around the United States are the most powerful, and the other view is that there are some of the largest economic groups around China, but they are not necessarily politically allied with China. These groups are difficult to get along with and agree on, and they don't need to pretend to be successful in getting along with each other.
I think it's important to stop "pretending". Issues such as climate change and COVID-19 have nothing to do with values, and whether in democracies or non-democracies, government attitudes toward COVID-19 are not very different. No matter what the system, everyone is struggling. Of course, the route they took was different, but the Chinese line was successful, and the European line was also successful. In this process, challenges and victories coexist. For example, it's very important that countries have developed different vaccines one after another, and it's not a race, and there's no such thing as losing or winning, and I think it's very important to recognize that. We should shelve the debate about which values are the best, but a lot of time is currently being wasted on the debate about those values. There is growing evidence of the urgency of climate change, such as the massive losses and casualties caused by last year's floods in Germany, as well as multiple severe floods in China.
I think the CO26 climate conference held last October is an example, because apart from the debate about who to attend or not to participate, all pressing climate issues have not been resolved in a final solution, but it is undeniable that COP26 still provides a good basis for further consultations. The COP26 conference did not come to a perfect result, but this exchange was at least more effective than our simple arguments, because it gave us the direction in which we needed to work together. There is a lot of international discussion about how to really achieve energy conservation and emission reduction, and China has begun to take action in this area. Although a widely binding international agreement has not yet been signed, countries including China, European countries and the United States are aware that reducing emissions and low carbon is in the common interest, so countries will also make more rational judgments and actions.
I think the world should pause for a moment and spend a week without social media distractions thinking about what's really important. I think whether it's China, the United States or Europe, people want very similar things, such as a good climate, clean air and water, and a prosperous economy. The challenge facing the UK is social inequality and how to raise people's living standards more broadly, and the US is also tackling tougher social inequalities in the context of the pandemic. As far as I know, the common prosperity that China is pushing for is also related to improving people's living standards. It can be seen that countries actually have a lot of similarities.
We need to recognize that the economic challenges posed by COVID-19 and other factors are in front of everyone, and no one can easily jump out of this matter. So I'm curious how European politicians can firmly refuse to deal with those who disagree with them, believing that they are in an absolutely dominant position and can completely ignore the broader economic implications. In fact, there is an urgent need to develop new partners and find new sources of economic growth, especially in the context of Brexit. The UK is a very cosmopolitan country and China is the world's second largest economy, and there is a very close connection between the two. Obviously, we all know that stronger trade links between China and the UK are needed, but at the moment China is not the UK's main investor or the most important trading partner.
In addition, at the political level, I think both sides can think about a larger topic. But the problem is that politicians don't have the knowledge to solve them, and it may take two or three decades for them to solve certain problems. Therefore, I think politicians must be honest and stop creating political illusions and wasting time on things beyond our control. We can only understand what we are facing now and how to do better. The idea of trying to change other people's values is too ambitious, and it turns out not to work. That's my idea, thanks.
Wang Huiyao: Yes, it is true. The reason why China has been suppressed by the West on issues such as human rights and democracy is because the West is trying to get China to completely change its position. As Professor Mahbubani mentions in his book, from the first year of the Common Era to the 18th century, China dominated Asian civilizations, and its GDP volume was also the largest in the world. But in the last 200 years or so it has lagged behind. Now we talk about Asia and the rise and return of China. Is the world acceptable? How do I accept it? What do both parties need to do? I would like to ask Professor Mahbubani to talk about what we can do about the rise of Asia and China. Although different Asian countries have their own different values, Asia as a pluralistic whole does not have a unified value orientation, but it is at least economically highly integrated. The RCEP, which came into effect on January 1 this year, is currently the world's largest free trade agreement. There is also the CPTPP, in which most Asian countries are involved. China is committed to building economic alliances, but it also faces the challenge of strategic alliances in new areas of security, such as the U.S.-Uk-Australia Trilateral Security Initiative (AUKUS) or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD).
Professor Kerry also referred to climate change, which is not a matter of values. China has actually developed the most advanced clean energy equipment, the largest solar power plant, the largest wind power plant, the largest hydroelectric power plant and so on. If we truly recognize each other's right to exist, these technologies will benefit the whole world. So how can we do that?
Mahbubani: Thank you. When I was in this workshop I was thinking what would we be talking about? We have scholars from the UK, the US, China. We could have ended this discussion with a far cry from another. But I've found that a lot of our views are consistent so far. For example, Professor Kent Kelder says that infrastructure is not a zero-sum game, but a positive-sum game. Building roads in the United States will increase economic productivity, while road construction in China will also increase economic productivity. This is a positive-sum game, so both sides should further develop infrastructure construction, rather than seeing it as a zero-sum game.
Similarly, What Professor Kerry Brown has emphasized is that we need to face global challenges together. So if someone hears the discussion between us, they may feel a little more optimistic about the future of the world. Of course, some of these voices are discordant, and I am very much looking forward to seeing Kerry Brown's book that collates the different views of Europe on China in history, or idealizes or demonizes China. The United States today is largely demonizing China. This is a bipartisan consensus within Washington, and the same is true in the media world. Although it was the West that created reasoning and scientific analysis, reasoning and scientific analysis are left behind when trying to understand China in today's political context. There is really no reason for us to clash, even on the issue of values, because China has not exported its values to the West. The West can maintain its own values, it can maintain democracy, it can uphold human rights, and China has not tried to change any Western society at all. Just as in Southeast Asia, where China has effectively stopped exporting ideology, Deng Xiaoping came to Southeast Asia to meet with Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and agreed that Southeast Asian countries should choose their own political systems. The best thing Western society can do is say, "Well, let history decide which is the best political system." "Time will tell.
As I write in the book, if this is really a black-and-white competition between the so-called American democracy and the Chinese "authoritarian" system, then the West does not have to worry, it will win. But if you look at American society in terms of efficiency, American democracy has become a kind of plutocratic rule. That's why unfortunate stories are rife with the bottom 50 percent of americans. Chinese society is to some extent elite politics, and the Chinese Communist Party absorbs the best talents in society, so it can formulate very wise public policies, including policies to deal with climate change.
How this debate is defined is also very important. Frankly, the best thing we can do is press the pause button on these controversies and focus on what really matters at the moment. I think that's what Professor Kent Kelder and Professor Kerry Brown emphasized. We are all aware of the climate change problems we face, that every year we waste is very dangerous, that we should focus on the common challenges facing humanity, and that I am happy to call our time the human century, if everyone agrees. We are all human beings, forget our American, European or Asian identity. Remember, we are all just an endangered species on Earth.
Wang Huiyao: Thank you Professor Mahbubani. When the tycoons from Tesla or the Amazon, when they fly over the earth in outer space, they will realize that everyone is a person in the global village, and there is no difference. Of course, you talked about the rule of the rich in America, which reminds me of people who make up 1% of the American population. As you argue in your book, there hasn't been any substantial increase in middle-class incomes over the past 30 years, and China has been very cautious about this issue. After 8 years of continuous struggle, China's 100 million poorest people have been lifted out of poverty in the past 10 years, and now they are vigorously promoting common prosperity. But in the U.S., as you said, nearly 50 percent of people at the bottom of society don't really get a boost. I have noticed a significant increase in wealth assets in the top 10 on Wall Street during the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. multinationals operate globally, but they may not benefit people in the Midwest, the Rust Belt, and elsewhere. As Martin Wolf talks about, business is becoming globalized, politics is becoming localized, and people are constantly sending anti-globalization politicians to Congress, thereby hitting China, and using China as a scapegoat is the only strategy that can survive politically. So how can we really turn this around?
China is trying to help. China has supplied more than 1.8 billion doses of vaccines to more than 120 countries, regions and international organizations, but Western countries often blame China. There is a group of people who are demonizing China. How can we change this? Professor Kelder, you live in the United States now, what do you think we both do? Of course, China may also have to do a better job in narrative and better interpretation. Economic globalization has indeed brought great challenges to the world, and China is now assuming more responsibility for this.
Kent Kyrd: I think we have to realize that in some ways, the forces of technology are pushing us towards bigger conflicts. We have to have a certain degree of realism, and the next 10 years will be a delicate period of transition. We need a broader and more effective plan for the specific things that can be done. This involves a broader understanding of the West, including those in the United States that have not benefited from the development of a globalized economy.
I'm glad you spoke to Nobel laureate Angus Dieton, a colleague I've worked with for many years at Princeton. He has written extensively about the American working class. I think some of the "tense" moments in the U.S.-China relationship are largely caused by factors such as security issues and technology. Political tensions are somewhat irrational and caused by the deepening frustration of the working class in the American Midwest and the "Rust Belt." Some of these issues need to be addressed through indirect international capital or global initiatives that go beyond U.S.-China relations. That said, it takes more power from organizations like your global think tank, and you've had very impressive conversations with many international opinion leaders. I think your role is somehow a reflection of some of the things that China has been doing, such as planting trees, developing electric vehicles, allowing foreign investment, and so on. If I remember correctly, Shanghai has Tesla's largest factory in the world.
So I think it's important to understand our shared vision of the world. Some focus on dialogue with the middle class, and an increased understanding of the current state of the working class in the United States is crucial to American politics, even though their direct conflict with China is far less severe than one might think. Therefore, improving relationships is a complex issue. I believe that multilateral relations, environmental issues, infrastructure and health, and shared economic prosperity are all very critical areas.
Wang Huiyao: Thank you Kent, you mentioned Angus Dieton, a Nobel laureate at Princeton University. A few months ago, I had an in-depth conversation with him, and I was impressed by his very solid research skills, he actually studied American society, he mentioned that the average life expectancy of Americans has dropped by 1 to 2 years in recent years, while the life expectancy in China is only two years compared to the United States. Professor Kerry, you live in the UK, and now that the UK has left the EU and started talking about a "global Britain", do you think the UK still plays an increasingly important role? We would like to see the UK play a role in the CPTPP, not in AUKUS. Maybe Britain should talk to China so that together we can play an active role in reviving Asia. As Mahbubani said, we can accommodate different values and institutions. Economically, everyone can benefit equally. Britain and the United States have influence in the Western world, establishing organizations such as the "Five Eyes Alliance", and now the British prime minister is talking about establishing good relations with China. So how can the UK play a unique role in balancing the various "differentities"?
Kerry Brown: The UK prepared an Integrated Review last April as a foreign policy document. I tried to understand all of Britain's foreign policy issues and to shed light on how britain's globalisation story is told. I think it's a good document that sheds some light on the structure of our relationship with China, that is, cooperation, competition, and then confrontation, and the United States has proposed a similar structure, and Anthony Blinken used the same concept in his speech last year, and the same is true in the EU document. The question is, when are we going to work with China? When to compete? When to confront? And when did the consensus reach? I think for the UK, we should be oriented towards economic development. The logic of Brexit is to get rid of an established set of relationships that would make the UK a different trade, investment and economic entity. We have free trade agreements with Australia and Japan, but we have not reached a very broad agreement. In our relations with China, we should be able to sign such agreements freely.
On the political front, Britain and China are in a difficult period because Britain needs to show its alliance with the United States. I don't think this issue will be resolved until we clearly see the impact of the pandemic and Brexit on the economy. As I said before, the UK economy is bound to be severely damaged and negatively affected by these two events.
I think the UK is going to be very pragmatic, there's a saying in the UK that "business is business, nothing else." "There are currently tensions between China and the UK, and there is a part of the UK government who want to uphold our values and our place in the world, but I think it's ambitious and unrealistic. But there are also those who strongly advocate pragmatism and advocate more work on investment and economics. As I said earlier, Chinese investment in the UK only accounts for about 7% of UK foreign investment, which is a very small proportion. In addition, China's exports to the UK far exceed those of the UK to China and have grown over the past two years, so we have more to do. If we don't, the reasons for Brexit will become more and more ambiguous, and we have said we want to improve trade and investment relations with partners like China. But if we put it on hold for other reasons now, we are going against our previous ideas. My personal view is that politicians change their rhetoric when Britain's economic position is severely affected. It may not matter what they say now, no one knows what the future holds. If the economic situation improves, the UK is likely to maintain the status quo. But I don't think that's very likely.
Wang Huiyao: Thank you, economic exchanges and cooperation are always very important, of course, the differences will continue. Our discussion was about 6 minutes away. I think we had a very interesting and inspiring discussion. We talked about Asia in the 21st century, including the return and rise of Asia and China. Now I want to ask you one last question, Kent just said that the next 10 years will be very challenging, when do you think the world powers will reach a new equilibrium? When will we be able to live in peace and stop attacking each other, and when will the West truly treat China as an equal as an "adult"? I spoke to Joseph Nye and he said that maybe by 2035 we'll see a new world where both sides can accept each other. What do you think of Professor Mahbubani? We talked about the return of Asia and the rise of China, will the world accept this reality?
Mahbubani: First of all, I completely agree with Kent Kelder that we need to be realistic. In my book China's Choice, I mentioned that the relationship between China and the United States will be very difficult in the next 10 years. But at the same time, as we emerge from this storm, people will recognize that China's rise is unstoppable and Asia's return is unstoppable. If you ask me what determines everything? is the data. If the IMF says that China's GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT is the first and the US's GDP is the second, it will dramatically change the whole situation. The profound changes taking place in the world in terms of economic influence and power power can be reflected in two statistics. In 2009, China's retail goods market size was $1.8 trillion, compared with $4 trillion in the United States, more than double that of China. By 2019, China had grown to $6 trillion, compared to $5.5 trillion in the United States, smaller than China. This will affect the domestic market and, by extension, the world. In 2000, Japan's economy was eight times the size of ASEAN's, and today Japan's economy is only 1.5 times the size of ASEAN. By 2030, ASEAN's economy will surpass Japan's.
It can be seen how the world has been changed by the shift in economic power. By 2030, the data will show very clearly that economic power will shift to Asia, and I think then people will say, "Okay, let's start making pragmatic adjustments." "I want to emphasize that neither China nor Asia wants to dominate the world, they want to work with the rest of the world.
Kent Kelder: I find the research of Professor Macmay Schuerbau, an insightful critic who observes the transformation that the world is going through. I love his new book and his research, and I rarely disagree with him, but I think it's worth reminding me here that demographics is playing a role. I'm an expert on Japan, so I'm probably particularly sensitive to that. I have no doubt that we are entering a new era in which the non-Western world will once again move towards excellence, as has happened in history. The non-Western world will have a different equilibrium, and demographics will play an important role in it, and demographics will play a role in the equilibrium. Japan's economy has declined, Europe's economy has slowed, and economic growth in the United States has also slowed. In the non-Western world, China is the largest and most important, but China's growth will also slow. I believe that this will help to fulfil our expectations for the next decade and thus make international relations more stable.
Asia will be the most prominent, but there will be a different balance within Asia than in the past. I think this is going to be a positive thing in the end because it's going to push a lot of our collaboration in infrastructure and health. In the difficult period that China and the United States are currently in, I think we should strengthen communication so that the two sides can better understand each other.
Kerry Brown: Professor Mahbubani, I think your current research is very important. In Europe and the United States, many people are unaware of this world shift that has been happening for a long time. Perhaps people don't need to be too nervous when they find themselves facing a new force, because it doesn't have to be a threat. There are still so many challenges in our world that what we are worried about may not be the most important at all. We live in a complex world, and complexity is the problem itself. So, Professor Mahbubani, I think your book has a very important message to many people in Europe and the United States. We need to think carefully and listen carefully to these voices. So I am very grateful for the various points you have expressed in today's dialogue, which are very important. Thank you!
Wang Huiyao: Thank you very much to the three guests. We are almost at the end of our conversation today, and it was a very meaningful discussion. We talked about Professor Mahbubani's new book, Asia's 21st Century, Asia's Return, and Its Impact on the World of the Future.
Two weeks later, Beijing will host the Winter Olympics, and 14 years after Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, Beijing is the only city that has hosted both the Winter and Summer Olympics. In 2008, China began to embrace globalization. China has taken to the world stage and embraced globalization, and the Olympics have actually demonstrated the international community's welcome to China. In 2008, the world withstood the challenge of the financial crisis, and in the past 14 years, the world has witnessed the rise of China and Asia, and the Winter Olympics is another opportunity for China to go global. Therefore, we hope that this Winter Olympics will continue to be a great unity of the world, and even during the epidemic, many athletes and national representatives have come to China. I really like the new motto of this year's Olympics and the slogan used for the first time at the Tokyo Olympics: faster, higher, stronger, more united. Unity is really important for the whole world.
Thank you so much for participating in today's discussion, the staff told me that there are nearly 150,000 people watching our conversation online. The CCG will continue its dialogue activities to help bridge differences and achieve unity. Hopefully, the next 10 years or more will be a period of peace, and let's work together. Many thanks to all the spectators and our staff. Good bye!
(This article is based on the transcription of the CCG Global Dialogue Series "Wang Huiyao Dialogue Dialogue Mahbubani, Kerry Brown and Kent Kyrd", without my review, please indicate the source)
*Disclaimer: This article only represents the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of this official account
Think tank of the digital economy
Political Science and International Relations Forum
In order to better serve the construction of digital China, serve the construction of the "Belt and Road", and strengthen theoretical exchanges and practical exchanges in the process of digital economy construction. Experts and scholars from China's digital economy and the "Belt and Road" construction have established a digital economy think tank to contribute to the construction of digital China. Wei Jianguo, former vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, served as honorary president, and well-known young scholars Huang Rihan and Chu Yin led the way. The Political Science and International Relations Forum is a dedicated platform under the umbrella of the Digital Economy Think Tank.