Read the full transcript of Professor Kishore Mahbubani’s interview titled “Can ASEAN Rewrite The Rules of Global Peace?” at TEDxSingapore on Aug 8, 2024.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Current Geopolitical Landscape
INTERVIEWER: As you know, in the state of things, we do need the world to talk about all these difficult conversations. As we look at the headlines every single day, I don’t think we can be in a bubble anymore. So can you share with us how did we even get here? How did all these polarities play out?
KISHORE MAHBUBANI: The next ten years will be possibly the most exciting ten years since human history began in the field of geopolitics.
I guarantee you this, over the next ten years, the number one power in the world, the United States, will do its utmost to stop the number two power in the world, namely China, from becoming number one. And I say this with great confidence because Washington, D.C. as a city is deeply divided, even dysfunctional. But despite all those divisions, the geopolitical contest will continue.
And you see behind you the spaces between. I guarantee you the space between United States and China will get further and further apart. And you have to understand that geopolitics is a very dirty, nasty game.
So it’s important for us to know, therefore, the larger, bigger geopolitical picture of what’s happening in the world. And what makes our time both so interesting and so confusing is that massive structural changes are happening exactly at the same time. You’re seeing the end of the era of Western domination of world history, which was the subject of my TED Talk, and you’re seeing the return of Asia.
And then at the same time, you’re seeing the largest geopolitical contest ever in human history. So my only suggestion to you is please fasten your seat belts.
Structural Reforms and Future Outlook
INTERVIEWER: I’m not sure if there was more doom and gloom or positive excitement. But thank you for painting that picture of the greatest challenge that we face in geopolitics right now. Kishore, you mentioned structural reforms. I want to at least get to the exciting parts of what’s your vision when it comes to structural reforms, opportunities for new solutions perhaps? Or how do you see things evolving? You mentioned end of the Western domination. So what’s next?
KISHORE MAHBUBANI: Well, I think having hopefully, sadly depressed you, I also believe that in the TED spirit, which is don’t give up. Don’t assume that you can do nothing. You can do lots of things to stop wars.
And certainly one of the fortunately still surviving global institutions, which is frankly not functioning as well as it should, but it’s not dead, is the United Nations. And having served as ambassador to the UN for over ten years, I left it with still a deep sense of respect for that institution and what it can do. And I actually believe that we should use the United Nations more.
And by the way, I must confess to you that the idea is not mine. The idea is that of President Bill Clinton. He gave a speech at Yale in 2003 in which he said, if the United States is going to be number one forever, then fine, we can keep on doing what we are doing. But Bill Clinton added a but. He said, but if we can conceive of a world where United States is no longer the number one military, political, economic, cultural superpower, then he said it’s in America’s national interest to strengthen multilateral institutions, multilateral norms, multilateral processes and that’s the answer.
And unfortunately, the United States didn’t listen to him. And I wish they had listened to him because if the United States and to some extent also the rest of the West switch from a policy of weakening the United Nations, which has been Western policy to do so. Sadly, they never admit it, but that’s a part of what I call the dirty geopolitics. The Western institutions have been quietly undermining multilateral institutions while pretending that we love them. And incidentally, if you’re not aware of this, hypocrisy is one of the oldest human traits and it will be there forever.
And you see this on a massive scale when it comes to the West and multilateralism.
Singapore’s Role in the Geopolitical Landscape
INTERVIEWER: We have fewer hits within our community that definitely would rise above the noise of all the self-interests and chaos. In coming back to Singapore, as we see this contest between all the next world leaders, what can we do then?
KISHORE MAHBUBANI: I think, Singapore, you’re right, it’s a little red dot. And I see that we have a little red dot.
INTERVIEWER: Yes. Exactly. And our speech right here. So coming back to Singapore.
KISHORE MAHBUBANI: Yes. I actually believe that Singapore can do a lot. But the reason why we can do a lot is because the founding leaders left behind many precious assets to young Singaporeans. But the most precious asset that they left behind is one that almost no young Singaporean knows about in any real way. I mean, they may have heard the word but they don’t understand what it means and that word is ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
And I can tell you ASEAN is a massive gift to Singapore, massive. Because the only reason Singapore is the country in the world that does more trade than any other country in the world—I mean three and a half times the size of our GNP goes into trade. Now how do you trade? You trade because ships and aircraft can fly around the region and come to Singapore.
Why can ships and aircraft fly safely? Because there’s peace in Southeast Asia. And how did we achieve peace in Southeast Asia? In a region we saw massive wars for so long? Because of ASEAN.
And the most important thing for young Singaporeans to do is please go and study and understand ASEAN because it is a real miracle.
It has brought peace to the most diverse region of planet Earth. There’s no region on planet Earth anywhere—Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Europe—that is as diverse as Southeast Asia, right?
We know with 650 million people, we have 250 million Muslims, 150 million Christians, 150 million Buddhists, Mahayana Buddhist, Hinayana Buddhist, Taoists, Confucianists, Hindus, and we have a lot of communists also. So it’s amazing, right?
And this region is at peace because of ASEAN. So we in Singapore must wake up every morning and say, thank God we have ASEAN.
Maintaining Peace in a Diverse Region
INTERVIEWER: I think a way to look at it, you know, you’re saying that the solution to fight this polarity is to build peace within ASEAN, which is, as you said, one of the most diverse and people would think it’s the most polarized community compared to, of course, Europe, America. How do you think we can continue that? ASEAN, indeed, was a legacy by our founding fathers. But with this diversity and, of course, as conflicts escalate, how do we maintain this diversity and ensure that this peace is well kept within the region?
KISHORE MAHBUBANI: I think, one way of doing so, you know, if you want to prevent failures like, you know, in engineering, you study failures, why bridges collapse and then you make sure that when you build the next bridge, you have learned the lessons and corrected them. In the same way, we must study failures in geopolitics. And fortunately or unfortunately, we have a living example, right? Ukraine.
Now what is stunning about Ukraine is that that war could have been completely avoided. That war wasn’t necessary at all and many people warned of this war. No, we just noted the passing of Henry Kissinger, whom I actually met one on one a few times. In 2014, he gave a formula. And the formula is Ukraine has full total independence, Ukraine can join the European Union, but Ukraine would not join NATO.
And trust me, if Kissinger’s formula had been followed, there would have been no war in Ukraine. And by the way, there is a very famous video by American professor John Mearsheimer, which has had thirty million views, which you should watch to understand how that war could have been avoided. And that war, therefore, reflected the geopolitical incompetence of the European Union in not finding a way of including all the powers in the neighborhood in cooperative arrangements. Instead of including Russia, they excluded Russia and that created war.
ASEAN’s real genius is that it is the most inclusive organization in the world. That’s why at the annual ASEAN Summit meetings, the leaders of United States and China come even though, as you know, they are at loggerheads with each other, the leaders of Japan, South Korea come even though they have uncomfortable relations, the leaders of Russia and India and others come. So we try to include all the great powers.
And if we can in the new multipolar world that is emerging, we need to create much more inclusive geopolitical structures and that’s what ASEAN has been doing. So we in Singapore must be aware of what has kept the peace and therefore we ensure that we keep it up.
Singapore’s Quiet Contribution to the Region
But I can tell you that quietly, without anyone noticing it, Singapore has made a very important contribution to the transformation of Southeast Asia. I’ll just tell you one story. Many years ago, he was a very good friend of mine, his name is Ali Alatas. He’s a former foreign minister of Indonesia and I got to know him because when I was ambassador to the UN, he was the Indonesian ambassador to the UN, became good friends.
And one day when we were chatting privately one on one, he said, “You know, Kishore, Singapore has helped Indonesia in many ways.” I said, “How?”
He said, “You know, we used to have urban planners in Jakarta. And the urban planners would go to Amsterdam, to Paris, to London, to Rome to study how to manage cities. And they said they were writing beautiful reports. And at the end of the report, they say, ‘But Amsterdam is in Europe. We are in Asia. We in Asia cannot do what Europe does.’ Report, file. Nothing happens.”
So one day they said by mistake they came to Singapore. They wrote a report. By mistake they came to Singapore. They wrote a brilliant report on how good Singapore is in urban planning. And by the way, to give credit where it’s due, Singapore’s urban planning is absolutely amazing, when you see all the walkways, pathways and all being developed, for example.
So the Indonesians wrote a report on how well Singapore does its planning and they came to the last paragraph and they were going to write “But, Singapore is in Europe.” They said, “Hey, Singapore is in Asia.”
And he said, “Suddenly, why not? Why don’t we try?” And you see that’s just by making by being an example of how you can generate good governance in different areas. And that’s actually why I accepted the mission to become the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy because that’s one place where we could share openly, frankly, what Singapore has done. And we are very happy when people quietly adopt what we do and Singapore doesn’t want any thanks, Singapore doesn’t want any gratitude.
We’re just happy that people are also benefiting from what we have learned in Singapore. So being a philanthropic hub, therefore, will just add to what Singapore has been quietly doing for many decades.
The Future of Peace
INTERVIEWER: That’s a lot more hopeful in our role as a little red dot, hopefully. And we can also support our neighbors as well in this way. We don’t have much time left on the clock. And I think to close it off, we know that your work, a lot of it is in the Asian Peace Programme. And in this, as you mentioned, multifaceted, multipolarized world that we have now, how would peace then look like for you? So as we all strap on, right, we still want to look at peace and how would that look like for you in the next couple of years?
KISHORE MAHBUBANI: Well, if I can give a secret away, I turned 75 this year and I hope I have another ten years to go. And on the one hand, I have no doubt that geopolitically, the next ten years will be the most exciting ten years of my life.
So what do I do? Sit back and do nothing? Or do something about it? So that’s why I launched the Asian Peace Programme at the Asian Research Institute of the National University of Singapore. And our approach, which is very, very modest and some of the people supporting us are here like Jimmy Koo and all.
What we hope is that we perform like an acupuncture needle, okay, find the right spot, put the acupuncture needle, maybe make a difference. And there’s no way we can make large scale contributions, but we can come up with ideas that can help to at least ameliorate difficult situations, then hopefully you can help to generate peace.
So for example, there was a very sad skirmish between India and China, the two most important countries in Asia. And the skirmish happened because of something that was going on at the border, disputed border and that’s about some tension. So they went and checked what happened. People had to go and see with their own eyes what’s happening.
So we said, why do you need that? With modern technology today, you can put sensors in at the border. Both sides can see what’s happening. You don’t have people going up to look face to face. And when they don’t meet face to face, you cannot have a skirmish. Simple idea, right?
So that’s the kind of ideas that we hope to put across small, small things. And at the end of the day, if it helps to contribute to peace, then it’s a better world.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you so much, Kishore. Thank you. And for all your time, for effort as well. Everybody, just let’s give another round of applause to Kishore Mahbubani. Thank you. Thank you so much.
