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Kishore Mahbubani’s ebook, The Asian 21st Century, is downloadable for free here.
This is the 200th episode of the podcast Economics and Beyond with Rob Johnson.
Transcript
Rob Johnson:
I’m delighted as we approach the second anniversary on April 22nd of the Economics and Beyond podcast to also express my gratitude and my enthusiasm for the 200 episodes that we have made, with the 200th being with my friend and very inspiring thinker, Mr. Kishore Mahbubani, who is based in Singapore, has worked extensively with the United Nations.
Since the time of the pandemic, my ability to get on airplanes and run around the world and keep discovering things has been obviously thwarted to a great degree, but the advent of electronic technology and working with my team, I’ve been able to reach out and stay in touch with lots and lots of very, very interesting thinkers, both within the economics profession and around its boundaries.
As we look at collectively the anxiety and individually, the anxiety associated with the world that has in many ways come unglued, or at least doesn’t show us a comfortable north star or focal point for the future, it is fascinating to explore with this constellation of fascinating minds about a whole myriad of issues from every corner, the earth.
So I want to thank all who’ve been my guests. I want to thank my team led by, Sharmini Peries and the extraordinary Greg Wilpert, who is the producer of this series, Matt Kulvecki, Nick Alpha, working on the video editing, and hopefully this constitutes what you might call a bank of stimulus for all of you that you can explore whatever your curiosity is, and look back on some of the things that we’ve excavated for all of our audience. I want to encourage you to send us your recommendations for people in the future, who you’d like to see me have conversation with. But now let’s turn to episode number 200 and celebrate with Kishore Mahbubani. Thank you.
Rob Johnson:
Welcome to Economics and Beyond. I’m Rob Johnson, president of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
I’m here today with an extraordinary gentleman, Kishore Mahbubani, who’s currently the head of the Asian Peace Program. He’s written many, many books. He served with the United Nations and with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Singapore. He has, how would I say? He inspired me to read Ajay Chhibber’s book, who we made a chapter with, because he had such monitory comments on the book jacket. I’ve learned a great deal from him over time and I wanted to share his perspective on the 21st century Asia with you all.
This is a book which I was alerted to by Singapore Straits Times. The Asian 21st century, in my mind, is at the center of very, very important geopolitics, and what I would call challenges for humankind. And whether we’re talking about climate, or monetary systems, or trade, or intellectual property, it’s all going to be embedded in the context that he explores brilliantly in this book. Kishore, thanks for joining me here today.
Kishore Mahbubani:
My pleasure to join you, Rob.
Rob Johnson:
You’ve written a number of books, Has China Won, many things, many articles. I followed your work for a long time. But, this compilation seems to be saying something which you might call bigger and bolder. What inspired you to write this book at this time?
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, let me just show the book, The Asian 21st Century. The reason why I wanted to have this book out, at this point in time, is that we are often preoccupied with what’s happening this month, this year, maybe even this decade, but we are not taking a longer look at the arch of human history and asking how the 21st century will be different from the previous two centuries. And it’s very clear that the 21st century will be, as I say, The Asian 21st Century. And this is a natural return of Asia, which I also emphasize because from the year one to the year 1820 or 1800 after the last 2000 years, the two largest economies of the world were always those of China and India. And it’s only in the last 200 years that Europe has taken off, followed by North America taking off.
But the past 200 years of world history, when you put it against the backdrop of the past 2000 years of world history have been a major historical aberration. All aberrations come to a natural end. So what we’re going see in the 21st century, the biggest theme will be the return of Asia. And as you can know, from the Western media pays very little attention to it. But I’m very happy to learn, Rob that the rest of the world is very interested in this story because this book, it’s a free book. It’s an open access book. You can download it for free. It was released in January and after two months, there had been one million downloads of the book in 90 countries. One million downloads of the book in two months in 90 countries.
And that made me aware that actually, there is a deep hunger in the whole world to understand, “Hey, we know an Asian century is coming, well, why isn’t anybody talking about it?” So which is why I hope my book and serve as a guide into how Asians view the world very differently. And if it’s going to be The Asian 21st Century and I’m certain it’s going to be The Asian 21st Century, then let’s try and step into Asian perspectives and understand them. And I hope that’s what my book will contribute towards in terms of developing a better understanding of our contemporary world.
Rob Johnson:
My experience through various coincidences, became friendly years ago with the gentleman Chalmers Johnson, who was at the time at Berkeley. And he had a person that he turned me onto, who sometimes goes by the name, Patrick Smith, others, Patrick Lawrence. And about 2011, he wrote a book called Somebody Else’s Century. And he was alluding to where you’re filling in the gap, but he was seeing that changing of the guard as a very, very powerful thing. And I know Chalmers was very enthusiastic about Patrick’s vision and his work.
In the first part of your book, you spend a lot of time on something that I think is very important. The United States has been a world leader since World War II. And as we approach The Asian 21st Century, the question is, what is it about America that you would expect people to want to emulate or not? And I thought that your perspective from the vantage point of Asia, to put it in a silly way, is this the better mouse trap that we should try to become or given the deep philosophical history that somewhat, how do I say it? Intention with Cartesian enlightenment. It’s a broader sense of, I guess we, and a little bit less of me. But when I look at that first part of your book, before we go into Asia, what is it that you see about the United States that would either attract or push away emulation by people everywhere, but particularly Asia?
Kishore Mahbubani:
I would say the United States of America is still a great society and it is still a greatly admired society around the world because there are many aspects of American society that make it incredibly admirable. I mean, you have the world’s greatest university, whether it’s Harvard or Yale, Stanford, or Princeton, Columbia, you have so many great universities. And you also have a remarkably entrepreneurial society. I mean, you produce giant world beating corporations every decade. And you are also the society that is best at bringing in migrants and integrating them into your society. So you can have two of the largest corporations in America, Microsoft being run by Satya Nadella, an immigrant from India or Google being run by Sundar Pichai, an immigrant from India.
Now, that openness, you will not find in China or India or Japan as you know. So all these aspects of American society are truly amazing. And that’s why the world continues to admire the United States of America. That’s why many young people around the world is to aspire to go and live and work in the United States of America. But at the same time, there’s also a growing awareness in the rest of the world that the United States is now developing some structural weaknesses, and I’ll mention a few. One is of course the United States is clearly becoming a plutocracy. It’s a government of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%. And I have an essay on that in my book.
And in the plutocracy, basically all the public policy decisions that are made, benefit the 1% and the rest are not benefiting at all. And that’s why this is second aspect of United States, which I highlight in the book. The bottom 50% in America have seen a stagnation in their incomes and standard of living for three decades or so. And that’s created what the Nobel laureate Angus Deaton calls the deaths of despair. And it’s very sad.
So you have on the one hand, some aspects of United States that are amazing that the rest of the world continues to admire and some aspects of it that shock the rest of the world. And I think if John Rawls, the great American philosopher were alive today, he would be actually quite shocked to see how far the United States has deviated from his vision, which was to create a socially just society where even people at the very bottom could aspire to reach at the very top, and that’s not happening in the way that it used to happen in American society.
Rob Johnson:
In the context of this, what I’ll call plutocratic structure. How did the, how do I say, experience of COVID 19 affect that? Did it seem to be that America is starting to shift gears or did it seem to highlight the concentration of wealth and power and the suffering therefore for many was exacerbated from your perspective?
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, I would say that the record of the United States and America on COVID is mixed. On the one hand, when the word came out, that there had been a new virus in China, and after The Lancet magazine published an article in January, 2020 warning that a new virus was emerging, that we should start preparing for it. And the rational response by the United States, which is after all still, a modern, rational, well managed society should have been to say, “Hey, what can we do to prepare for this and deal with it?”
But as you know, President Trump, who was your president then was in the state of complete denial about COVID 19, and what shocked the rest of the world is that the United States has always been a leader in the field of science and to have a president who refused to listen to scientific evidence on COVID-19, like for example, that wearing masks would save lives, something very simple as that, is something that he resisted or that stay at home or isolation would help again, he resisted that for a long time.
And that’s why, as a result of that, the number of deaths that United States had from COVID-19 was amazingly high because as you know, it had over 800,000 deaths or so, when China had less than 5,000 deaths from COVID 19, so that’s the negative side of the ledger. But on the positive side, of course, the United States showed that it’s still a scientific superpower because it came out with vaccines in record time. And indeed, I myself got three Pfizer shots, and I actually believe that it was American technology that saved my life personally. I’m very grateful that the United States of America produce the modern vaccines and these vaccines have made a huge difference to save a lot of lives around the world.
And now actually, as you know, finally, after the stumbles and all that, United States is emerging out of COVID-19, and then surprisingly China is still struggling to get out of COVID. So it’s funny, there are some parts of United States and COVID-19 where it did badly and other parts where it has done very well. So it’s a mixed record.
Rob Johnson:
Yeah. Well, and I agree with you about the onset and Donald Trump. And I think the dread of acknowledgement of a challenge of that scope when you were up for reelection was probably very daunting, but it’s not a basis or an excuse for avoiding the responsibility.
Kishore Mahbubani:
Yeah. And certainly he was more focused on his reelection, rather than being focused on the lives of the Americans and saving their lives.
Rob Johnson:
Yes. Let’s talk a little bit about Trump. In the latter part of the first section of the book, you talk about how Trump affected China. And I’ll just start with a touch of background from my own experience. I was watching after the China 2025 vision came out, which you might call just, fall in line in a position of subordinate, comparative advantage to American companies or European companies and multinationals.
I saw the China 2025 as a vision of creating knowledge intensive industry and building on their own and moving to which we might call the front row of high value added. But I saw at the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States, people like Blackwell and Campbell and so forth, even before Trump’s campaign, writing what I will call nationalistic concerns. And obviously the lack of penetration, perhaps for cybersecurity reasons of the internet platforms, companies from the United States into China was another facet.
But I saw a great deal of resistance even on Wall Street because they weren’t getting enough access to the development of the Chinese internal financial markets. So There was a tension, what I’ll call the changing of the guard in the role that China wanted to play relative to the role America wanted them to play. And it was evident even in 2014 and early 2015. But it seems like when Trump became president, there was something that… There’s an economist, Dean Baker, here in the United States who emphasizes. He turned on the suffering that white blue collar workers in the Midwest had experienced and energized that and blamed it on China and Mexico, rather than on the lack of adjustment assistance within the United States to the transformation related to globalization. So we have this context in where Trump seemed to motivate the people with the despair that Angus Deaton and Anne Case wrote about, but how did he affect US-China relations? And what’s the residual impact of his, what you might call, accelerating or amplifying the discord between those two major powers?
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, I would say, history is very strange. We often focus on individuals and individuals do matter, but I’ve written a book as you know, Has China Won on US-China relations. And in the very first paragraph, I say that this US-China contest has been started by Donald Trump, especially when he launched a trade war in China in 2017, 2018. But I said, “It will outlast him.” And sure enough, Trump lost the election. Biden won. He’s reversed, many of Trump’s policies, but he’s actually reversed almost none of Trump’s policies on China.
And so therefore the fundamentally, to understand the US-China contest, it’s important to understand the structural forces that are driving it. And clearly, it’s been driven by the fact that the United States having been the number one economic power for 130 years plus since about 1890s, cannot accept the fact that it’s going to become the number two economic power, sometimes the next decade or two.
And so it is quite natural for the United States to try and stop China’s rise, because that’s what all great powers have done for thousands of years. It’s logical, great power behavior to retain its number one position. And I have no doubt that if Hilary Clinton had won, her administration wouldn’t have been as rude and as insulting towards China as Mike Pence was, or Mike Pompeo was, but nonetheless, I think the US-China contest would’ve continued to gain momentum. And we see this in the fact that Joe Biden is one of the nicest guys you can possibly have as president, but his hands are tied and he cannot reverse many of Trump’s policies. You are a very distinguished economist, Rob, you know better than I do that tariffs don’t hurt Chinese producers, tariffs hurt American consumers.
And it’s bizarre that this trade war was launched against any sensible economic advice. So that’s something that Donald Trump did. And of course he did it only for domestic political reasons. And also because he doesn’t understand economics, I think Donald Trump and doesn’t understand the danger of tariffs. And I actually heard a podcast with one of his economic advisors, Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs. And I’ve actually met Garry. And Gary said, he tried so hard to explain to Donald Trump why tariffs didn’t work, why they were hurting American consumers and why it wasn’t good for the American economy. And he said he just couldn’t change his mind. And so one day he finally asked Donald Trump, “So why, why, why are you insisting on tariffs?” And Donald Trump replied, “I like tariffs.”
Rob Johnson:
Yeah. The-
Kishore Mahbubani:
I mean, it is actually quite shocking that the president of the world’s most advanced society, the world’s most educated society and as I mentioned earlier, the world’s best universities just didn’t understand economics 101 on tariffs. And I think that’s the damage. And of course the really sad part is that now Trump is gone, right? A year and three months have gone by, and none of these tariffs have been removed.
And in fact, it would serve America’s national interest to remove them. And right now, when the United States as you know, is worrying about the threat of inflation, which is real, one of the few policy measures actually the United States government can take to fight inflation actually is to remove the tariffs on Chinese products and the tariffs, by the way, have not worked to reduce the trade deficit within US and China. In fact, the trade deficit within US and China has gone up since the tariffs were introduced. So it is very, very strange to the rest of the world that, for the United States, it has one more Nobel prizes in economics than any other society has. And the fact that you have the most number of Nobel prize winning economists, seems to have no impact at all on your public policies.
Rob Johnson:
I think Donald Trump, as you suggest may not be a master of economics, but he is a master of political theater. And I do think the, how would I see, this is a man who came to America with a message, “I’m running against essentially both parties and the system is rigged.” That’s the plutocracy that you’re referring to. People can feel that. They don’t themselves. Perhaps this is a lack of our education system, not our Nobel laureates, but the breadth of understanding our population wants to alleviate that despair, but the techniques of doing so, as you say, probably don’t include much in the way of tariffs.
So as I could see it, Joe Biden comes to town and he doesn’t have other ways of reassuring people that he’s going to alleviate their despair. So they can’t rescind the tariffs because the political theater of distress is what’s dominant context. And he’s got, how would I say, as a matter of patients, he’s got to find a way out and perhaps as you’re suggesting rescinding those tariffs along the way is, well, I think it is overdue
Kishore Mahbubani:
His hands are tied by the fact that a very strong consensus has built up in the American body politic, that the time has come for the United States to stand up to China and to stop China’s rise. And what I find sad about the United States today is that even though in private, many of your more thoughtful American policy makers, many of your more thoughtful American opinion makers realize that this zero sum contest approach to China is not a wise one. And that if you need China’s help on things like climate change and earlier on, on fighting COVID, and now dealing with a possible global economic recession and in that case, you need to work out a more balanced approach towards China, which is what I advocate in my book, where you compete with China in areas where you have to… Where you cooperate with China, areas where it should benefit ordinary Americans.
Rob Johnson:
Yes.
Kishore Mahbubani:
I mean, ordinary Americans would be better off with a combination of competition and cooperation. But as you can tell, that doesn’t get votes at all in the United States. And so it’s almost impossible to find a politician that can make a reasonable speech on China today. And this is why quite often, as you know, that’s why economics alone is not enough. You need good economics and you need good politics if you’re going to have good public policies.
Rob Johnson:
Yes. That’s one of the premises of this organization, INET, which is politics and economics are inseparable. They cannot be-
Kishore Mahbubani:
Exactly.
Rob Johnson:
… looked at separately.
Kishore Mahbubani:
The world needs you.
Rob Johnson:
Well, we’ll keep putting our shoulder to the wheel. The next phase, we’ve talked quite a bit now about the challenges in the United States. Paint the picture for us of the Asian Renaissance, the next phase of your book, the dawn of the Asian century, what’s happening with ASEAN, the role of India, and then we’ll come back to China.
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, I think I was born and bought up in Singapore and when I was born, Singapore’s poor capital income was about the same as Ghana, was about $500. And Singapore was a poor third world country. And I lived in a poor family in a poor third world country. So at the age of six, I was put in a special feeding program because I was technically undernourish. And I can tell you that I always say in my life, the biggest turning point came when we got the flush toilet at the age of 13, because the sense of dignity in your life improve dramatically when you could just flush it away instead of having to watch this mound grow in the course of a day in a can that never moved. So that’s the escape from poverty that I have personally experienced in my life.
And that’s what hundreds of millions of Asians are experiencing. And since I actually experienced real third world poverty, I understand how emancipating it is to be liberated from poverty. And the fact that China has saved 800 million people, more than double the population of United States from poverty, is a remarkable achievement. I think when future historians write about our era, that’s what they will write about. And so in my lifetime, I’ve seen remarkable changes in Asia, especially in Singapore, which has gone from a poor third world developing country to having a per capita income, which I think may even be higher than that of the United States. So you can see what a remarkable journey Singapore has done, but Singapore is like what they call the tip of the iceberg. So what Singapore has accomplished the rest of Asia is now accomplishing.
And of course, as in what we have seen through all of human history, first, you have a economic rejuvenation of societies and then that’s followed by a cultural Renaissance, a sense of discovering their identity, a sense of rediscovering their roots. And that’s, what’s also happening throughout Asia. And one of the biggest facts about Asia that many in the west are not aware of, is how diverse Asia is. You have China and of course the related Confucian societies like South Korea, to some extent, Japan, to some extent, but then you have Southeast Asia, which is the most diverse out of planet earth because among 618 million people, you have 215 million Muslims, 115 million Christians, 115 million Buddhist, Mahayana Buddhist, Hinayana Buddhists, we have Hinduists, Taoists, Confucianist and even communist in Southeast Asia.
So it’s a very diverse region and all these regions are doing well. And let me just give you one statistic to illustrate this. In the year, everyone knows that Japan is a major global economic power. It’s a really significant global economy. In the year 2000, Japan’s economy was eight times the size of the 10 ASEAN countries in Southeast Asia, in the year 2000. By 2020, it was only 1.5 times larger. By 2030, ASEAN will become larger than Japan and in 30 years, right? Isn’t that amazing?
Rob Johnson:
That is extraordinary.
Kishore Mahbubani:
And nobody knows about it. Nobody knows
Rob Johnson:
That’s right. No, I’ve never heard that comparison before.
Kishore Mahbubani:
Yeah. At the same time, the middle classes, new middle classes are being built and there is a tremendous sense of optimism for the future, among many young people all through this region, you’ll find this optimism in China, you’ll find this optimism among the 1.4 billion people in China, among the 680 million people in Southeast Asia. And among the 1.3 billion people in India. And you just add those three figures I mentioned, you come to almost half the world’s population.
And almost half the world’s population is now enjoying a new kind of optimism, which they haven’t experienced in centuries. And that again is a massive change in world history. And unfortunately because Western societies do a lot of Naval gazing, they feel their own pessimism, and they don’t understand that a population that is 3 or four times the size of the west combined has now suddenly begun to feel optimistic. And they don’t understand that, they don’t see it. They’re not aware of it. That’s why I think this book is so critical because it opens windows into big developments that are happening that many in the west are not aware of.
Rob Johnson:
Yes. Mike Spence and Montek Singh Ahluwalia and I did a talk one day about the ramifications of the lessons. These really extraordinary experiences in Asia for African development, because there’s so much concern. You were talking about population growth, international office and migration is projecting an enormous increase in African population between now and 2075. A good portion of the continent is what you might call an equatorial region. Global warming threatens subsistence farming. So social stability migration, even the, what you might say, east Asian development model, infant industry protection learning by doing is threatened by global supply chains and automation.
But Mike and Montek had some very, very insightful perspective on, there are other ways to develop in Africa now and we can learn from Asia. And I think that’s a very important contribution to another large portion of mankind is the example that you’ve set and the things you’ve underscored here in the last few minutes.
Kishore Mahbubani:
That’s why I was very happy when I saw that among the over one million downloads of my book in two months, there were quite a few downloads in Africa too. And the Africans, I think are particularly appreciative of the fact that China is coming to them with concrete projects on how to improve their societies. So the Chinese are building roads, bridges, railways, and at the end of the day, all these things make a huge difference. And your sense of self esteem improves a lot when you see your infrastructure improving in your society.
And China is the only country going around building this new infrastructure all over Africa. And that’s why you notice that whenever China hosts China-African leaders summit, virtually all the African leaders turn up, because they understand that they can now cooperate with China in a positive sum game and to be fair, it gives the Africans alternatives because when the west was dominant, the west either colonized and trampled on Africa, but even after they were decolonized, the African states were bullied. I think you must know that Joe Stiglitz has a story in one of his books about how the Ethiopian government was penalized by the World Bank because it repaid a loan early to American banks.
Rob Johnson:
Yeah. I remember when [crosstalk 00:37:17].
Kishore Mahbubani:
[crosstalk 00:37:17] that when a poor country pays a high interest rate loan early to an American bank, it gets punished by the World Bank. Now that’s the kind of thing that Africans know about. So when China comes along and provides an alternative it’s positive for Africa, but it’s by the way, also very positive for Europe because one statistic I gave the Europeans is that in the year 1950, Europe’s population was more than double that of Africa’s.
Today, Africa’s population is more than double that of Europe, much more than double. And by 2100, Africa’s population will be 10 times the size of Europe. And if the Europeans really thought long term about what is the number one challenge to European societies in the long run, the number one challenge to Europe in the long run is that if Europe doesn’t export jobs to Africa, Africa will export Africans to Europe. I mean, it is inevitable. You can’t stop it.
So therefore when China invests in Africa, it is actually doing the Europeans a major favor because it is creating jobs in Africa that will keep Africans in Africa. And I’m glad actually, in some ways there’s a new competition among the Asian states within China and India and Japan and South Korea to invest more in Africa. And I think that’s very positive for the Africans and actually the biggest beneficiaries of this paradoxically will be the Europeans. And if the Europeans were wise, they will partner with the Asian countries in investing in Africa.
Rob Johnson:
I’m reminded of the feature film in China, Wolf Warrior 2, which talked a great deal about that broodish colonialism and metaphorically, the role of the Chinese in lifting up the spirits of the Africans. And at one point, people told me, they thought that film, partly because of the scale of the Chinese population, that, that film would be seen more than Star Wars or ET cumulatively. It would hit the all time, top five list. And I know it got off to a very good start in the spirit that you’re describing. Let’s talk a little bit about India. You had some very interesting sections in your Asian rise chapter. India may be the best bet for moral leadership. Let’s discuss where does that vision derive from? What do you see?
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, when we talk about Asia, as you know, and then to some extent, we are guilty of it. We have talked a lot about China, but there are two big stories in Asia. I would say three big stories. I would say China, India, and ASEAN, and I would call it the new CIA, China, India, ASEAN. So in the Indian story, I think is equally important. And India is also undergoing a major transformation. Now, the Indian economy, clearly hasn’t grown as fast as the Chinese economy because in the year 1980, the Indian economy and Chinese economy was about the same size. 1980 India may have been slightly bigger too, but today China’s economy is five times the size of India. And that on the one hand can be a source of despair. On the other hand, it can be a sign of hope because then what China’s accomplished today, India can accomplish tomorrow because by any sense… And I say this, I’m not a Chinese, I’m actually ethnically Indian.
So as an Indian, I know that Indians are capable of being as productive in economic terms as the Chinese are. And so I’m an also equally broodish about the prospects of the Indian economy. Of course, if the right economic policies are put in place. And my only criticism of India is that it refuses to plunge into the ocean of globalization in the same way that China has done so, because if India did so, India would do as well as China.
And I think one of the saddest things that’s happened is India’s refusal to join the regional, comprehensive economic partnership, the world’s largest free trade agreement, which actually just took off in January, 2022, two months ago. I think if India could make that switch, India would have tremendous potential too. But despite that, I think India’s economy will still do well. And of course, India today has the advantage of having a new political stability, because as you know, India has had lots of changes in government and political instability of various kinds.
Now you have a leader, Narendra Modi, who commands a tremendous amount of popularity in India. And just recently he won the elections spectacularly in Uttar Pradesh, the most popular state in India. So it’s likely that, Modi will remain the prime minister of India for the next five to 10 years. And as you know, what’s interesting about prime minister Modi is that on the one hand, it relates well with the Western world. But on the other hand, he never wears a Western suit, never wears Western gown. And he’s very keen to revive traditional Indian culture. And that’s also part of the Renaissance that is happening.
And the thing about India is that if you’re looking for a country that can be a bridge between the east and the west, that country is probably India because obviously it’s got very deep Asian roots. It’s linked to its fellow Asian countries, and yet it has a Westminister style, parliamentary democracy, a large part of its population speaks English, Indian migrants have done very well in advanced Western societies like United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and so on and so forth. The treasurer of the United Kingdom is an Indian Rishi Sunak. So you can see how Indians have done very well in the west too. So if there’s one society that can build bridges between the east and the west in the 21st century, it’s India. And I think that’s what the west should, that’s why that’s another reason why the west should be working very closely with India in the 21st century.
Rob Johnson:
And how do you see the role of India in the challenge of climate change? Obviously given the size and scale, they’re a very important dimension, but how would I say, asking people to stop burning carbon and perhaps stop the pace of development while of others are burning a lot more carbon from having like the United States already been there? What is the role of India in this challenge?
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, I think clearly, if India is not part of the solution, India is clearly part of the problem. But what I notice this is that many Western analyst point to the fact that all the new flows of greenhouse gas emissions are coming from China and India, which is true. But as you know, climate change is happening, not just because of the new flows of greenhouse gas emissions, but because of the stock of greenhouse gas emissions that have been put up in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.
And if you look at the overall stock, my figures may be wrong, but they’re roughly right. I think United States has contributed about 25% of the stock. I mean, the European countries, probably another 20 to 25%. I think China is still about 11 or 13% and India is only about two or 3%. So I think it’s a bit unfair to penalize India and ask India to do more in climate change because many Indians still don’t have electricity.
And you notice that many countries are happy to fight climate change as long as they don’t have to make any sacrifices. I mean, if you look at the two of the richest countries in the world like Canada and Australia on a per capita basis, they contribute tremendous amount to climate change but Canada as one of the richest countries in the world will not give up it’s [Parsons 00:47:17] project in Alberta.
But that’s not fair. I mean, why are you asking a poor country like India, whose per capita income is still very, very low to make sacrifices when rich countries like Canada and Australia with very high per capita contributions to greenhouse gas emission are not willing to make economic sacrifices? And that’s why you notice that on the issue of climate change actually, there have been lots of political differences within China and India and many areas around climate change, they both have been cooperating with each other to try and persuade the west to be more reasonable in what it expects. But the good news is that the Indians accept the fact that they have to do something about climate change. And they’re going to try and make a contribution.
Rob Johnson:
We as the United States, as you described the plutocracy, we have a rich and poor country at the same time. And what many are seeing here, Robert Pollin or John Paul or Manuel Pastor is that the fear of transition is a really, really big, how would I say, obstacle to transformation of the US energy structure. In West Virginia, coal miners have said to people like Robert Pollin, “Well, look what they did with globalization and so forth to Detroit and Cleveland, we going to sit by and say, oh, we’re going to join the team for climate change and watch them trample us?” In other words, the transformational assistance, so that we’re all on the team, is missing in the United States. And I think that some of these scholars who I just mentioned are really at the Vanguard of talking about removing the obstacles through greater social justice.
Kishore Mahbubani:
Yeah. This is where frankly, you’re absolutely right. I mean, if you objectively analyze why the jobs have been lost in the United States, and it’s very sad that jobs are lost in United States, and it’s partly because of globalization, but it’s also because of technology. And the most importantly, public policies in the United States do not provide support to employees who have to retrain themselves.
And Singapore is the other extreme. Singapore understands that if you want to compete in the global world, some industries will succeed. Some industries will fail. And for the ones that fail, don’t try and support them by subsidizing them, have to let them die because they cannot compete but what you do is you provide support for the workers so that they can retrain themselves and join new industries. And that’s something that is very, very difficult for the United States to do. And it’s a bit sad, but that’s a result of plutocracy where you provide funding for example, to very rich American farmers. You provide huge subsidies to them because they have a lot of political cloud, but you provide very few subsidies to poor workers in Detroit and Michigan who need to be retrained to try take on new jobs.
Rob Johnson:
Yes. I think that’s a formidable part of our challenge, not to mention we’ve turned what used to be called tax evasion into tax avoidance, meaning people can keep their money offshore and then they can complain, “We don’t have the means to improve the public school programs.” So the younger generations, many of the diseases that despair are the older talking about their children, do not have the rungs in the latter to move out of this rut. And so there’s a great deal of, which you might call structural challenge.
I remember years ago, and I won’t mention the person by name, but a very high level Chinese leader and I met. And he said to me, “You know what’s really, really troublesome to me?” I say, “Yes sir, what?” He said, “It’s that we don’t have the power to create the adjustment assistance that American needs to deal with, as you said, technology and globalization and we’re being demonized. And what really should be demonized is the American political system for not taking care of its people. We have no power over that.” And that was a fascinating observation. It wasn’t anger. It was humble when he was saying.
Kishore Mahbubani:
And I think the American workers can still compete with the rest of the world if they’re given the right training and assistance to do so.
Rob Johnson:
Well, as you come to the last part of this book. And by the way, I do want to put alongside this podcast on our website, I’m advertising a link so that many thousand more people hopefully will continue to add to the numbers of downloads.
Kishore Mahbubani:
Yeah. And it’s a free book.
Rob Johnson:
It’s a free book. And that’s right. I’m not just doing commerce here. This is public good. And thank you for contributing in that way. Let me turn to this last portion of the book. The peaceful rise of China. Where is China now? And how are they operating in this context? We see Hong Kong. We see the Ukraine, which… But we see the aftermath of Trump. We’ve alluded to some of these things through this conversation, but what’s the picture of China at this juncture in your mind?
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, I think 2022 is proving to be a very difficult year for China. And it is got two major challenges this year, the first major challenge is that it is struggling to get out of the zero COVID policy. I mean, the zero COVID policy in many ways, work well for China because it’s saved frankly, millions of lives. Because if China had, had the same number of deaths per million people as the United States, instead of having 5,000 deaths, it would’ve probably had 5 million deaths, at least because it’s population is more than four times that of United States. So clearly, a zero COVID policy of China has saved a lot of lives, but right now, they have to come out of it because there’s no way you can keep an economy closed for so long. And so that’s going to be number one challenge for China in 2022.
And then the second challenge, it faces is a result of Ukraine because in many ways, Ukraine has been a major setback for China on several counts. Number one, it’s strategic partners, it’s number one strategic partner to balance in a sense, United States and Europe was Russia. Now, clearly Russia has been weakened, is bleeding in Ukraine. So that is a setback for China.
Secondly, the Ukraine war has also destabilized the global economy. And as you know, growth prospects for countries around the world are going to come down because of the aftershocks of the Ukraine war and the sanctions that have been put on Russia. And so at a time when China is already struggling to achieve 5.5% growth, the Ukraine war is going to make it even harder to achieve that goal of 5.5% growth.
And then thirdly, China has been trying very hard to deal with United States and Europe as two independent polls in a multipolar world. And it’s easier for China to deal with United States and Europe separately rather than as a combined force. But one of the results of the Ukraine war, has been a tremendous re-galvanization of Western solidarity and United States and Europe have come together very, very forcefully. And of course the Europeans are very grateful for American assistance, but at the same time, the United States will say, “Hey, we saved your bacon on Ukraine, please join our side on China.” And that’s pretty clearly another setback for China.
And then fourthly, the United States itself, was feeling a sense of uncertainty about the future, about where it’s heading and so on so forth. But the fact that it has succeeded in crippling Russia so effectively, has enhanced the self-confidence of American policy makers also.
And here, this brings me to one of the other important things, the fifth point, which is that, I think what’s through really shocked the Chinese more than anything else, it’s not the military assistance that the west has been given to Ukraine because that is obviously damage to the Russians, clearly. But the fact that the United States and Europe could seize half the assets of the Russian central bank and over $320 billion was just, boom, gone, just like that. Now, if Russia has got $640 billion in reserve, China has got $3.2 trillion in reserves.
So suddenly, all those US treasury bills that China bought thinking this provided China leverage against the United States of America, that these US Treasury bills can now become hostages to fortune. And that’s a major reversal and setback for China. So I think this huge weaponization of the us dollar has on the one hand revealed a major asset for the United States.
But on the other hand, it’s going to lead to the Chinese and many other countries thinking, “How do we reduce our reliance on the US dollar?” And that’s going to become the next big thing. And this is why I thought it’s very unwise of the US to weaponize its US dollar because if ever the day comes, may not be in my lifetime, that the US dollar is no longer the global reserve currency, then as you know, United States will lose an exorbitant privilege because it can no longer print money to buy Chinese goods.
Rob Johnson:
In my imagination, I envision bringing you to Washington, and we walk into the White House and you sit down with President Biden. You may have already done this, but in my imagination, what would you tell him, given your understanding of what’s happening in Asia? I don’t mean like you and I talked about earlier with Trump, the political theater, though that’s a dimension of it, but deep down inside, how does the United States make a better American and a better world in light of what you understand about Asia?
Kishore Mahbubani:
Well, I mean, it’ll be a great privilege to be back at the White House to speak to the president, but the big message I would convey is that the world wants to see a strong United States and not a weak United States. So the world wants to see him succeed in his mission of strengthening and rejuvenating the United States. But the best way to do it, is not to engage in a trade war with China, not to engage in a zero sum contest with China, but actually to work with China and the rest of the east Asia to boost the global economy because by doing that, then he’ll be creating jobs in the United States and he’ll be creating a stronger United States of America. And the real tragedy here is that the reason why many Asian countries now believe in free trade, is because they learned the virtues of free trade from the great American universities.
These are American ideas that are propelling the rise and return of Asia and the United States should believe in its own ideas of free trade and come back and rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But all this, of course, you need to explain to the American people that they shouldn’t be afraid of the return of China. They shouldn’t be afraid of the return of the rest of Asia because in The Asian 21st Century, the Asians will send a big thank you note to the United States of America and say, “Thank you very much. It was your ideas that have enabled us to succeed and do so well.” And many of the countries in east Asia and south Asia want to partner United States and work with the United States, but more in the economic realm. And that’s where United States should focus on.
Rob Johnson:
Well, I’ll give a little backward looking congratulations to our friends in Great Britain as well because people like Adam Smith and David Ricardo got these things moving, but-
Kishore Mahbubani:
Of course. We must thank Adam Smith.
Rob Johnson:
But what I really like, I’m thinking in the analogy to the current health situation, I see this book, 21st Century Asia, that you’ve written and distributed freely as a vaccination for the minds of world against the disease of the breakdown of trade and the nationalistic brutality that might emerge. And so I think everybody should receive this mental vaccine and read your book. It’s an extraordinary achievement. It really relates to the depth and the breadth of your experience and your wisdom. And in particular, I’d really like you to come back and at some point, do a big lecture with my young scholars initiative, because that’s who we’re passing the baton to in the next chapter and getting vaccinated in the mind, I think would be very good for the health of this world.
Kishore Mahbubani:
Thank you. I’ll be very, very happy to do so. I remember very fondly my visit to your institution when we did our first dialogue together. And I’m very happy to have the second up with you. And I’m very much looking forward to have third dialogue in New York again.
Rob Johnson:
Yeah. Well thank you for making this additional chapter with me today. We’ll keep an eye on your writing and elevate that as I think like I said, it’s extraordinary, but thanks for giving me an hour of your time today to continue to nourish our audience.
Kishore Mahbubani:
Thank you.
Rob Johnson:
We’ll meet again. How I say, when the situation arises, I’m going to call out, but thank you. Another chapter is already in my mind.
And check out more from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at ineteconomics.org. (Singing)
