Transcript of The United States, China, and the Future of the Global Order – A Discussion

Read the full transcript of a discussion on The United States, China, and the Future of the Global Order at Asia Society Policy Institute. [March 21, 2024]

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TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction

[RORRY DANIELS:] Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I’m so delighted to be here tonight to moderate what we are sure will be a lively discussion on US-China rivalry and the future of the global order. As Tameen noted, I’m Rorry Daniels. I’m the Managing Director of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Before I turn the conversation over to both Kishore and Orville for some initial thoughts on U.S.-China competition, I do want to talk a little bit about where we are right now. So over the last, let’s say, twenty-five years, there have been so many changes in this US-China relationship, in part because these countries have changed so much over twenty-five years.

With China’s entry into the WTO, with the process of globalization kind of churning forward much more speedily from that engine, there’s really been a shift in the balance of power in Asia. And there have also been numerous new opportunities and challenges created by that process of economic integration, but also the technological revolution that we’re all experiencing that really changed the way these two countries see each other and see their place in the world.

We’re in a period now where the US-China relationship has gone from being on relatively cooperative footing under the George Bush administration, under the Obama administration’s process of diplomacy, the strategic and economic dialogue, to really facing a new set of irritants and challenges in the bilateral relationship.

Some of those challenges have to do with China’s shifting system as China kind of goes up the economic value chains and starts to prioritize things above wholesale economic growth. Some of those shifts have to do with U.S. reactions to globalization and the blame that has been put on China, rightly or wrongly, for its role in, you know, perhaps eroding US competitiveness, economic competitiveness in the world.

But either way, however you look at the situation, there’s no doubt that the relationship is now seen as one not of cooperative coexistence or diplomacy first, but really a strategic competition and, in some cases, strategic rivalry.

So with that backdrop in mind, I want to start with Kishore and then turn to Orville for some opening remarks. What, from your perspective, are the US and China competing over and why? What kind of end state do you think that these two countries hope to achieve in terms of their role in the world, but also their relationship with each other? Over to you.

Understanding the Global Context

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] Thank you, Rorry. First, let me begin by thanking Hamed and you for welcoming me back to the Asia Society. I do feel like this is almost my second home because I first came to the Asia Society in 1984, forty years ago, when I was first appointed Singapore’s ambassador to the UN, and I used to come here all the time. So to come back here is like coming back home. I’m also very happy to be a Perry World House fellow representing UPenn here also at this discussion.

To answer your question, Rorry, I think before you can answer the specific question about the direction of U.S.-China relations, it’s important to emphasize that we are dealing with it within a very, very different global context. And we have to understand this different global context if you’re going to understand the dynamics that are also driving the U.S.-China relationship.

And there are at least three fundamental ways in which the world has changed now:

Firstly, to put it very bluntly, the twenty-first century where most of the U.S.-China competition will take place will be the Asian century. Now what do I mean when I say it’s going to be the Asian century? It means that the shift of economic power is going to move to Asia. The largest economies will be in Asia. And just to illustrate that point, in the 1960s, not so long ago, out of the top five economies, zero were Asian, zero. Today, three of the top five are Asian. And future growth, as you know, is going to come from Asia. So that’s one big shift that is happening.

Secondly, on the geopolitical front, clearly, we are moving from a unipolar world to at least a bipolar world. And I like to say that it’s actually a bipolar world in a multipolar sea because lots of new other powers are emerging, becoming more assertive. And so the unipolar moment that the United States enjoyed at the end of the Cold War is gone. But many people haven’t adjusted to the fact that it is gone and that you now have to live in a world where you have to contend with peer powers and other significant powers who are not necessarily going to bend to the wishes of the great powers so easily. So it’s a much more complex world that we have to deal with.

And thirdly, an equally important point, in the cultural dimension too, we are seeing some fundamental shifts that are happening where we’ve had a world in a sense that has been dominated by one civilization, Western civilization for the past two hundred years and Western states as you know colonized the whole world. A hundred years ago if you were sitting here in 1924, the West ran the whole world effortlessly. Right? Now you have a multi-civilizational world where civilizations that have been dormant are reemerging and coming back in strength. So even on the cultural front, it’s a different world.

So within this larger global context, we are also seeing the U.S.-China contest. So why is it happening? The reason quite simply is that the United States is doing what exactly any number one power would do when it sees the emergence of a competitor, it makes sure that the competitors don’t overtake it.

So it is pushing it down. That’s what all great powers have done. So what the US is doing is not surprising. It’s predictable.

And if you put X or Y, that’s exactly what will happen because the US has been used to being number one. It doesn’t want to see its place go to another power. But at the same time, while this is predictable and expected, what is not clear to the rest of the world that is obviously watching this contest and is very worried about this contest, what exactly are the main strategic goals of the United States in this contest? And this, frankly, as I say in my book, “Has China Won?” That insight I got from Henry Kissinger in a one-on-one conversation when I was writing my book “Has China Won?”

And Hamid, to some extent, you alluded to it in your remarks too. So for example, is it the goal of the United States to stop the economic growth of China? Maybe that’s why you have trade tariffs, chips, and so on and so forth. Is that the goal? Can’t be done.

Or is it the goal to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party? Again, I’ll explain later, it can’t be done.

Or is it the goal to do what the United States did with the Soviet Union, contain it effectively, leave it confined to a small universe and have it disengaged from the rest of the world? Again, as I’ll explain later, it can’t be done.

So then at the end of the day, what the world is asking is what exactly does the United States want to accomplish in this contest and what will be the end game?

[RORRY DANIELS:] Fantastic. Well, you’ve already put a lot on the table for us to come back and discuss, including fundamental changes, the rise of a multipolar system, the economic power and dynamism of Asia, new cultures, which I think is a really interesting point we should circle back to, but also raised a lot of questions about U.S. strategic goals.

So Orville, could you give us your perspective? What are the U.S. and China competing over and why? What does the U.S. hope to achieve with this? And what is the end state that we’re looking for?

Questioning China’s Strategy

[ORVILLE SCHELL:] Well, it’s always a great pleasure to talk with Kishore because it immediately makes me think in ways that I don’t normally have to. The first thought that occurs to me after hearing your remarks is this. You ask what’s the United States’ new strategy post-1972, I guess we could call an engagement.

I would like to ask you, what do you think China’s strategy is? What are they after? Because, actually, this is a dance between two partners. It isn’t just up to the United States as I’m sure you would agree. So what do you think China is after?

And if I may ask you a question, what power with great power pretensions adopts wolf warrior diplomacy, antagonizes—I mean, who antagonizes Canada? Sweden, Norway, Australia, India. I mean, I could go on. And why? What’s going on here? How is that in the advantage of anybody, much less China?

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] I was looking forward to the opening remarks of yours. Forgive me. Thought you would have some seven minutes of prepared remarks. Don’t want to give you any to think. But I’m very happy, Orville, to answer your question.

And if you don’t mind, again, forgive me for doing this. When you talk about our world and how the world sees especially what China’s goals and strategies, I want you to bear in mind a very important statistic, which is that twelve percent of the world’s population lives in the West and eighty-eight percent of the world’s population lives outside the West. And let me make one point very clearly and very boldly at the very beginning, how the twelve percent views China is not how the eighty-eight percent views China.

And so for example, when you ask about what is China trying to accomplish and if you want to sort of try and understand what I pick up from my conversations with my fellow Asians, with Africans, with Latin Americans, they see that China is trying to come back once again as a strong civilization which it once used to be. And China—he knows better than I do. He’s the China expert. By the way, I’m not a China expert. Let me emphasize that one time immediately. I’m a China observer.

And of course, we have to be China observers because in Southeast Asia, as you all know, geographically, the power that is going to have the greatest impact on us clearly is China, just sheer proximity. Just as Latin America will live in the shadow of the United States of America, Southeast Asia has to live in the shadow actually of China and India, I must also emphasize.

So our perspective and that of other Africans is that we’ve seen this civilization for four thousand years go up, go down, go up, go down. And so the return of China is just part of a long four thousand year history of dynastic cycles. And when the Chinese civilization goes down, it can go down very, very badly. And I think Orville better than any of us knows that China went through one of the worst centuries, the century of humiliation from 1842 to 1949.

But it’s not normal for the Chinese civilization to underperform for so long. It’s much more normal for them to come back after a while. So what we see therefore from, let’s say, Southeast Asia is the return of a civilization that we have seen for centuries go up and down. So this is a natural return.

Now so when China tries to claim a place in the world as one of the great powers, it’s a perfectly natural development. Now you mentioned things, you use words like wolf warrior diplomacy. And what’s interesting is that while the term wolf warrior diplomacy is so frequently used in the Anglo-Saxon media, and as you know, the Anglo-Saxon media, let’s be very blunt about this, has a very jaundiced view of China. And the rest of the world discounts what the Anglo-Saxon media says about China. What the rest of the world does is to look at what China does and then deal with it.

And at the end of the day, you will notice that countries have a choice. Do they want to trade with China or do they not want to trade with China? And if you look at the deeds, China today does far more trade with the rest of the world than the United States does. By the way, we do want to have trade with United States too. But trade, as you know, is a voluntary activity, but it benefits the countries that do it.

So you take a country like Brazil, which is much, much closer to United States than it is to China. Twenty years ago, it took Brazil one year to export one billion dollars to China. Today, it takes Brazil sixty hours to export one billion dollars to China. So why shouldn’t Brazil have a normal trading relationship with China?

So you can see therefore, the point I’m trying to suggest to you is that if you look at many of the countries in the global south, not all, at many of the countries in the global south, they’re very happy to have normal relations with China and they have no difficulties. The difficulties have come, as I said, primarily between the United States and China for understandable reasons. This is not—this is what would happen when you have a great power shift. And I actually think that’s in some ways, just as what the United States did towards China was predictable, China’s responses towards the United States are also predictable.

[RORRY DANIELS:] Of course, we live in a really interconnected world now. Correct? Where the kind of this narrative about the rise and fall of great powers ends up reverberating in different ways. Countries are very happy to trade with China, and I will turn to Orville in a minute for his thoughts on, you know, how the US sees China’s behavior. But I, from my perspective, do not think that the US wants to hurt, hamper, harm China’s legitimate trade with the world. But at the same time, the countries are trading more with China. They’re also seeking greater and greater security assistance from the US.

China’s Behavior and Global Concerns

[RORRY DANIELS:] Orville, could you break this down a little bit? What are some of the concerns about China’s behavior as it rises that are causing this kind of demand signal for more U.S.-Western attention, perhaps including some of the economic coercion activities you mentioned with Canada? And how do you see that in terms of China’s rise in this system and its potential effects on global development moving forward?

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[ORVILLE SCHELL:] I think, Kishore, I agree with you that, yes, China has every right to be a great power. And, actually, they’ve accomplished an amazing developmental success story. And I understand great powers never like to be deposed and replaced by others.

But I think in your argument, and what I’d like to ask you about is China is not just another great power. It is a Marxist Leninist regime that under Xi Jinping has become very, very different than we experienced in the eighties, even in the nineties after the 1989 Beijing massacre and demonstrations. And I think that without factoring that element into the equation, we can’t just blithely say China wants to be a great power, wants to trade with everybody.

Everybody wants to trade with it. Because there is another element in the equation, namely what China is after as a new kind of techno autocracy in the world and whether other countries feel comfortable with that.

Now we were talking upstairs a bit about the Philippines. I watched the Philippines extremely carefully because I see that as a kind of a Richter scale. I mean, Southeast Asia, fair enough. Singapore, caught in the middle, doesn’t want to have to choose. Malaysia, I get it. But I think we may be approaching a point where it’s going to be at least more difficult, if not impossible, to stand in the middle. And I think we see in the Philippines flickers of that recognition. Now, admittedly, the world is always in flux.

So I’m curious to know how you view the internal political shift in China where it is returning to a much more sort of Maoist mode, not completely so, and how other countries, the comfort levels they feel about accepting China’s hegemony in Asia, if not in the world. Are you comfortable with this? I mean, Singapore is a small little country. How do you feel about that? Yes. You want to keep trading, but there are other factors here I think you have to take into consideration.

Global Attitudes Toward the US and China

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] Well, first of all, let me, if you don’t mind, quickly comment on the point you raised, Rorry, when you mentioned that countries are also moving closer to the United States. You’re absolutely right. I want to emphasize also to avoid any misunderstanding that there are huge reservoirs of goodwill globally towards the United States. And the world is actually quite happy to see a strong United States and a strong China. And to some extent, if they balance each other, that’s not too bad for the world at large.

So it’s not as though the world is rushing to embrace China and saying goodbye America. That’s not the world. The world actually, most countries in the world, as you yourself said, Orville, want to have good ties with both United States and China.

Now on point about the internal political makeup of China and isn’t China becoming more Marxist Leninist or communist and are we worried about that? And I think here, I want to emphasize that there is only one country in the world judgments on the internal political systems of other country. It’s a very exceptional country. And I think you all know of American exceptionalism.

I can tell you that, you know, the UN is not too far away from here. It’s a mile or two away. If you walk into the United Nations, you will find that one of the most sacred principles of the UN Charter, which is actually held to very strongly by Member States of the UN is that we will not interfere in each other’s internal affairs. That’s enshrined in the UN Charter, and that principle is used by most states when they deal with each other.

So the attitude of most states in the world is you choose your form of government. No matter what you choose, we will deal with a government in power. And so whether China is more Marxist or less Marxist or democratic or undemocratic, we can cannot get to choose. It’s up to the Chinese, at the end of the day, choose what kind of government that they have.

But I do think also, if I can push a little bit back at you. You know, when United States first fell in love with China in 1971, can I ask you who was the leader of China at that point? Was it Mao Zedong? Would you call Mao Zedong a great defender of human rights? Would you say that he’s this is a man with a liberal mind, a liberal spirit, someone you can, you know, develop a kinship with? You know what I’m getting at. Right?

So when it comes to geopolitics, it’s a very cruel business. Ideology can be put aside when necessary, can be brought to the fore when necessary. And even today, if you say that the United States will stand up and stand up the Communist Party’s regimes, why are you cultivating Vietnam? What’s the difference? I mean, doesn’t Vietnam also have a Communist Party in power?

So I’m only saying this because the rest of the world, when I say that the rest of the world has changed, they’ve become much more sophisticated. They see through all this. They see that, yes, there’s a serious geopolitical contest going on between United States and China. They are very worried about it. They want to maintain good ties with both, and they want pass judgment. And it’s not just to be fair, Orville. It’s not just Singapore. Singapore. I can give you if you want a list of hundred countries, I can give you a list of hundred countries that are in that position.

The Challenge of Not Choosing Sides

[RORRY DANIELS:] Can we talk a little bit about how countries are approaching this desire not to make a choice? Like, what are the factors, Orville, from your perspective that are narrowing countries’ options down into making a choice between the US and China when it’s clear that most countries don’t want to choose or want to be able to maybe choose both, but also that it benefits both the US, China, and the world for there to be that type of cooperative tissue? What are some of the major irritants?

[ORVILLE SCHELL:] Well, before I get to the irritants, let me just say, Kishore, that nine US presidential administrations wholeheartedly supported engagement. And I take your point that, you know, we pick and choose who we oppose. And but I think the difference is that Vietnam is not has no sort of hegemonic pretenses in the South China Sea, is not in conflict over the Senkakus, is not competing with the Philippines for Second Thomas Shoal, is not threatening to have some sort of a forced reunion with Taiwan.

And, of course, I remind you that we’ve had a little dust up in India of late, and the entire Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast territories is claimed by China. They have maps with Chinese names on places. That shoe is going to drop.

So it isn’t that just China’s a nice little authoritarian country wanting to trade with the rest of the world. It seems to me that what is agitating the situation and making it very difficult, not just for the United States, but is China’s pretensions to rejuvenate in a way that has global aspirations first in Asia and possibly elsewhere. We don’t know. So I think that, you know, this is a very much more complicated thing than just China rejuvenating and restoring itself to a place of greatness. It is reaching out in ways, which I think are very unsettling for Southeast Asia.

And when I’m in Singapore, the thing that stuns me is I understand Singapore’s situation. But, actually, I mean, I think you Singaporeans, and I use you as a kind of a metaphor for many people in Southeast Asia, do feel rather profoundly comfortable with Americans. And, actually, many people feel rather uncomfortable with China, but it is the you don’t want to express it too loudly because you don’t want to rock the boat. Fair enough. I get it.

But I would love to hear you address what I think some would call China’s hegemonic pretensions in Asia and the destabilizing effect of that throughout the entire region. Do you think China is making the same mistakes that other industrialized countries are making that they expand too far too fast, that they try to wield the power that they’ve just received too quickly? And how does that uncomfortableness in Southeast Asia with some of China’s behavior play out from your perspective?

The Reality of Great Power Politics

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] Well, I can assure you that one lesson I learned after studying geopolitics for about fifty years is the concept of a benevolent great power is an oxymoron. There’s no such thing as the benevolent great power. All great powers without exception, and this has only been true for four thousand years, will pursue their own interests.

And we take it in geopolitics, are price makers and price takers. So United States and China today are price makers. We are price takers. And if we have any kind of illusion that there’s a nice, benevolent, cuddly, great power that will look after you and sacrifice his own interest, then you’re in trouble.

So you in geopolitics, which is a very cruel game. And the countries that don’t understand geopolitics are the one that gets sucked into conflict and get sucked into problems. And here, I want to add a very important point because I think to some extent, although you’re being unfair to the Southeast Asian states, there are, at the end of the day, 660 million people living in Southeast Asia. That’s about double the population of United States of America.

And this region of the world, I want to emphasize, is the most diverse region of planet Earth. Out of 660 million people, 250 million are Muslims, 150 million are Christian, 150 million are Buddhist, Mahayana Buddhist, Hinayana Buddhist, Taoist, Confucianists, Hindus and as I told you, we have lots of communists also in Southeast Asia. If there was one region on planet Earth that should be destined for war and conflict and the British described it as the Balkans of Asia, that was Southeast Asia.

Now can you please ask yourself a simple question? Why have there been no major wars in Southeast Asia since ’79? That’s forty-four, forty-five years. There is a hidden genius in Southeast Asia, in ASEAN. We know how to manage geopolitics. We know how to adjust, adapt, be flexible. We know how to maintain good ties with United States, and we do.

When President Biden invites the ten ASEAN leaders, they come. Right? And when President Xi invites the ten ASEAN leaders, they go. And when Prime Minister Albanese of Australia invites ten ASEAN leaders, they go. So if you want to learn, if you want to enter a world in which different cultures and civilizations want to learn how to live in peace with each other and can live in peace with each other, come to ASEAN, come to Southeast Asia.

Please don’t be condescending towards this region. This region has accomplished some remarkable things that the whole world can take lessons from. And lesson number one, learn from us how to avoid wars.

Addressing China’s Regional Ambitions

[ORVILLE SCHELL:] First of all, I would say that I agree with you. Condescension towards anyone is not a helpful policy. And I don’t want to think that we are condescending towards Southeast Asia. I think, actually, quite the contrary that we try to recognize that Southeast Asian countries are, as I said, stuck in the middle. And I think we understand that. And it’s not, I think, the goal of the United States government to push people.

But that still doesn’t answer my question of China’s pretensions both within China and outside of China and how you read those and what you think the answer is as the middle ground shrinks. And ask the Koreans after what happened with the THAAD missile crisis, and they got punished. Ask the Japanese. Ask the Indians. I mean, you’ve seen this. You know this.

So what is how should we respond to this? China is not just another normal quasi democracy trying to find its way in the world and to rejuvenate and reattain great power status. It is a particular kind of a political structure with a particular kind of world view.

And I wonder, you know, what you think the proper response to China is. Just let it alone? Pull back the Seventh Fleet? Forget Taiwan? Forget the South China Sea? Forget the Senkaku Islands? Forget Philippines? Stop AUKUS? Stop the Quad? Do you think that’s the proper response, or what’s your remedy?

[RORRY DANIELS:] This is getting very interesting.

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] I promise a lot. I’m very happy to answer the questions. I’m going to give away a big secret. China is like any other country, an imperfect country. It makes mistakes. And I know, as far I know, all countries make mistakes. And it is true that China has had bilateral problems with several countries. There’s actually no question whatsoever. And you’re right, you have the That’s a list of five or six countries, I think.

Remember, at the end of the day, there are 193 countries in the world, right? And most countries have problems with some other countries. United States has problems with some countries, whether it’s Russia, whether it’s Iran, whether it’s North Korea, China. So this is normal. And for every country you give me a list you mention, I can tell you bilateral difficulties that country has. Greece and Turkey, if you want India and Pakistan, if you want.

So having difficulties, having bilateral difficulties is by the way a normal state of the world. Right? So it is not surprising that China has bilateral difficulties. Sometimes it manages them well, sometimes it manages them badly.

[ORVILLE SCHELL:] Where would you say that’s managed them well?

South China Sea Disputes and Regional Perspectives

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] I think certainly in the case of South China Sea, it has made mistakes. It has been far too assertive. And I think the biggest mistake the Chinese have made is in creating this nine dash line. And the nine dash line, I don’t know if you all know this, there’s a sort of a hypothetical line in the South China Sea that’s been created by China has no basis in international law, right? Now if it is true that China claims all the waters within the nine dash line territorial waters as some people claim that China is doing, then China shouldn’t allow any international shipping through South China Sea.

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But I can assure you yesterday, today and tomorrow, ships are going through the South China Sea regularly without seeking permission of China, even though they’re going through the nine dash line waters. So the nine dash line clearly is a huge mistake that China has made. But when you talk about the South China Sea, it’s important to emphasize that the dispute that China has is with four ASEAN states. It’s not a dispute, as you know, with the United States. And if you look at the four ASEAN states, in one way or another, they’ve been trying to manage it, whether it’s Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Philippines.

Now right now, you are all focused on the current difficulties that Philippines is having with United States. But you know, Orville, that Philippines elects one President, Gloria Marco Pagawa Arroyo that moves towards China. Then he elects another President, Aquino, who moves to United States. And then elect Duterte who moves towards China. And then elects Marcos who moves towards United States.

Can you anticipate what’s coming next? Okay. So it’s important to emphasize that don’t take a snapshot. It’s important to see the long term picture. And at the end of the day, if South China Sea really is that dangerous, you should be seeing wars or gun battles and so on and so forth.

But, you know, so far, everybody has been very restrained. But I can tell you this, Southeast Asia knows very well that when China comes back as a great power, as it has and it is going to be, we have to make strategic adjustments. You know, it’s one thing to live next door to a mouse. Fine. But when the mouse becomes an elephant, you worry about the elephant rolling over.

And how do you manage that? And I can tell you that the Southeast Asian countries have had very long wisdom in how to manage China. And the one country, Orville, as you know, that knows China very well is Vietnam. Vietnam has been a neighbor of China for two thousand years. It was occupied by China only one thousand years.

And you know what the Vietnamese say? The Vietnamese say that to become a leader of Vietnam, you must be able to stand up to China, and you must be able to get along with China. If you cannot do both, you cannot be a leader of Vietnam. That’s old wisdom. So I can assure you that we’re not just going to become suckers and rollover and say, okay, do whatever you want, China.

No, no, we’re not that stupid. Okay? That we have our own ways and means. And frankly, if you look at a large country like Indonesia, also with 260 million people. Right?

How does Indonesia get along with China? Indonesia, by the way, is a good friend of United States, wants to be a good friend of United States, and is also managing China. And if you want to watch subtlety and complexity, watch carefully what the Indonesians do. Then you understand that the Asians have a level of sophistication and subtlety that you will never see, but it’s real. And it works, and it prevents wars.

America’s Approach to China

[RORRY DANIELS:] Orville, I want to turn back to you to try to get an answer to my original question. This has been a fascinating back and forth. I’ve really appreciated your views. Let me ask it in a slightly different way to try to elicit your response. What kind of China does America want and need in the world in order to stand up to China and get along with China?

[ORVILLE SCHELL:] Well, of course, America is also a very fickle country and unpredictable country, and it’s easy for us to think that it should act rationally and maybe does act rationally sometimes, but it doesn’t. I think, you know, the ideal world was paradoxically and quite tragically the world we had, which was engagement. It was a I think Henry Kissinger was absolutely right. He threw the switch, and he didn’t call it engagement then. We didn’t know about engagement yet, but it became that.

And the conceit of engagement was, let’s accept each other more or less. Let’s trade. Let’s exchange. Let’s try to get along and slowly see if we can’t get on a more convergent pathway. And I think you all know that America actually, this was, I think, a really good example of American leadership.

And I will remind you, after the Beijing massacre, what did president Bush do? Who was at the initial, you know, before we had an embassy, he was in Beijing representing the United States. He sent Brent Scowcroft to see Deng Xiaoping secretly. Didn’t even tell ambassador Jim Lilley that they were going. The transcript of that meeting is very telling because what it shows us was Scowcroft really got berated by Deng Xiaoping, who I actually, I think is quite a hero.

I don’t want to malign him, but only to say that Deng saw the demonstrations as caused by the United States and was very abusive to Scowcroft, who was saying, please remember president Bush thinks of China. The China relationship is important. Wants to continue it. I raise that only to say that I think the United States has gone the distance to try to find a way to do exactly what you propose, Kishore, which is to accept, maybe not completely, but to get along, work it out, see if the future can hold a better future, a more congruent future. And I think what we see, if I may just quickly jump to the end here and then stop, is that in a certain sense, if I read this correctly, I think Xi Jinping has brought engagement to an end, sadly and tragically, both for us, for you, and for China.

And I ask you why. How do you explain it? And that changes the game completely. So what are you going to do about it? What am I going to do about it?

What are we going to do about it? What’s the right response now that we don’t have an operating system for any kind of a as Hamid said, we’re compasses. What’s the answer? You tell me.

Strategic Mistrust

[RORRY DANIELS:] Could you actually talk to us a little bit about where you think the US China relationship could more productively go?

I mean, I think, Orville, a lot of the points that you’ve made and also, Kishore, the points that you’ve made have really pointed to a very deep strategic mistrust between the US and China. We don’t trust each other’s political systems. China thinks the US is fomenting color revolutions inside the PRC because of American democracy. You know, the US thinks that Chinese techno authoritarianism could spread throughout the world. We don’t have agreement on what we are doing with regard to our Taiwan policy.

We’re definitely interpreting each other’s actions as aggressive when we see our own as defensive. So how do we manage the strategic mistrust? And maybe if we can throw in Orville’s layer, how do we do it in the Xi Jinping era?

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] Yeah. Great questions.

Strategic mistrust, you’re absolutely right. And I can tell you that this strategic mistrust between United States and China worries the whole world a great deal. Because at the end of the day, no matter what you do, the reality is that China, frankly, has already emerged as a great power. I don’t buy the conventional wisdom in the Anglo Saxon media, which is, by the way, always wrong on China. In 1990, when the Economists first predicted the coming collapse of the Chinese economy, in 1990, the Chinese GNP was 360 billion dollars. A few months ago, The Economist again came out with a story saying Chinese economy is going the Chinese economic growth is over.

But then it had grown to eighteen trillion dollars. It had grown 50x after thirty years of predictions of the coming collapse of China. Why do I emphasize that? China’s rise is unstoppable and is not driven by you or by me. It’s driven by one point four billion Chinese people. And I’m sure you read the column by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times last week in which he said, if one point four billion Chinese people decide to become prosperous, nothing can stop them.

And the Chinese people have this great desire to do as well as the rest of the world. And so they have China by the way, China’s economy has serious, serious, serious problems, demographic challenges, lack of investor confidence, these are all real issues. But at the end of the day, what we have learned is that if there is one set of policymakers that seem to know how to fix their problems gradually, it is China. Now if you want me to answer your question directly, Orville, about President Xi Jinping, I want you to know that, again, I want to go back to my point of one hundred and ninety three countries in the world. Almost no other country in the world passes judgment on the quality of the leader that they are dealing with.

They accept the fact that he is the leader, and we have to deal with him, good, bad, friendly, unfriendly. Frankly, I want to tell you this, if you don’t mind, very directly. If you did a poll of 193 leaders and asked them in 2017, 2018, Would you rather deal with president Xi Jinping, or would you rather deal with president Donald Trump? I tell you, a hundred and ninety three countries will vote in favor of Xi Jinping. I’m serious.

So when you emphasize that, oh, it’s a leader that’s the problem, it’s not the problem. You have to deal with country. And I can tell you this, you know, since I’ve spoken to many people, especially in third world countries who have dealt with president Xi, they don’t share your vision of president Xi. They see him as a sane, sober, rational, predictable leader who is advancing China’s interest quite effectively. I mean, at the end of the day, you look at where China was when it took power 2014, where China is 2024, it has come a long way.

So we whatever we do, we don’t underestimate him or China. By the way, we also don’t underestimate United States. I want to assure you that the respect for United States is deep and profound and very strong. But in the same way, there’s also the same deep, profound respect for China. And we know we have to deal with these two great powers.

And actually, we believe that the United States will be better off. Now don’t call it engagement, don’t call it containment, just deal with the reality. The reality is that there is a strong great power like China and you have to live with it. And then figure out what’s the best way of living with it in a way that enhances America’s national interest. And I would say for America to defend its national interest is perfectly legitimate, perfectly legitimate.

But in many ways, the world would be happier that if given the all the extraordinary challenges you are facing, for example, in climate change, you know, you’re the expert on climate change. Sensible thing humanity could do is to tell the United States and China, please, we have a bigger problem coming. If we burn up planet earth, we have nothing left to live on. We’re destroying the only ship we have. Why don’t you press the pause button on this geopolitical contest?

Frankly, it’s less important than the global challenges we face. So if you ask me what the rest of the world thinks, they actually hope that the United States and China could find ways and means of dealing with their differences in such a way that it doesn’t destabilize the rest of the world and allows us to focus on what’s really important that’s coming in the future.

[RORRY DANIELS:] We need to turn to our audience and get them involved in the questions. But from my perspective, I think that is what reasonable people in the US government are trying to do with the strategy of strategic competition. The question, I think, that Hamid raised at the beginning is instructive.

Do we have the strategic vision to carry forward our national interests in a rational way that does not make the problem worse? Please, the audience, throw us your questions. You can raise your hand. I see one hand right here. A mic will come to you shortly, and we’ll take your questions.

Audience Q&A

[AUDIENCE QUESTION:] Thank you so much for the great talk, and good to see you again, Professor Mahbubani. I have two questions actually. The first one is a little bit more specific. I remember Ambassador Mahbubani criticized China’s reactions in the South China Sea decades ago, including the nine-dash line. So how would you assess its recent approach to the Taiwan Strait, including what happened a couple of days ago, the new faceboat incident?

And it’s being in the country criticized as being not aggressive. So do you think they learned a lesson from the past and become more moderate these days? But they also exert more military controlling areas that used to be co-patrolled. And the second question is you talk about different leaders. So, forget about a long standing regime possible in China.

What if Trump comes back this year? Couple of years ago, you criticized you had an article saying that Trump helped China to gain international reputation during his presidency. So what if he comes back in the end of this year? How do you think this is going to affect the bilateral relationship?

[RORRY DANIELS:] I’d like to give you both a chance to answer those two questions.

The United States, China, and the Future of the Global Order

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] So we’ll start with you, Kishore. Okay. The first question was on Taiwan. Second question, what happens if Trump comes back?

Now by the way, I think we all know, I think all of you would agree that by far the most dangerous issue in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship is Taiwan. If there’s one thing that could cause a war between United States and China, it is Taiwan. And I think you all know that from the Chinese point of view, Taiwan is the last living symbol of the century of humiliation because Taiwan, as you know, was first separated from China after China lost the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. So not bringing Taiwan back is seen like a sort of a continuing wound in Chinese civilization that has to be fixed.

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But at the same time, to prevent war, the best thing we can do is to keep the status quo as it is and not change it in any way. And so those who want to preserve peace in Taiwan Straits keep the status quo. And some of it is fictional, of course. The fiction is that Republic of China represents all of China. But that’s a fiction that’s actually very important for peace.

The minute you drop that, you create war. Now at the same time, I think we must all understand and respect the desire of the people of Taiwan to keep their lifestyles as it is. They don’t want to change. They don’t want to join Mainland China. That’s understandable.

But if you want to find a solution that accommodates both the desire of the Taiwanese people to keep the way of life they’re used to without any change whatsoever, without any fear, without any different and to also prevent a war, it can be done. But the question is, do you want to see peace across Taiwan Straits or do you want to see a war? So I’m hoping and I must say, to be fair, many US administrations have understood that very, very well. So when President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan emerged, as you know, in around 2003, 2004, he was President George W. Bush that made it very clear to President Chen Shui-bian, I will not allow you to have a referendum.

That was a very wise decision made by the President of United States. So the U.S. Government understands the sensitivity of this issue. So that’s got to be very carefully managed.

Now in the case of what happens when Trump comes back, I think… If Trump comes back…

By the way, let me be very blunt and very direct. I would say most countries in the world will be happier if President Joe Biden is elected. Let me be very clear about that. I mean President Joe Biden is a very predictable, careful, sensitive president who, as you know, made many friends around the world.

But President Donald Trump version two, if he comes back, will, I think, be a much bigger challenge for the world, much, much bigger challenge for the world. And that’s why, actually, in some ways, if the United States could focus a bit more on its own internal challenges, as I say in chapter seven of my book, As China Won, if the United States could become less of plutocracy and create a society where the bottom fifty percent who have seen a stagnation in their standard of living for thirty years, if you can improve their standard of living, give them a sense of hope, then they won’t vote for Donald Trump. So from the point of view of rest of the world, we want to see a strong, vibrant United States where the people are happy and they elect a happy president.

[ORVILLE SCHELL:] Well, I have nothing to say on Trump. I have no idea what he’d do if he’s president. It’s catch as catch can. And I agree with you, Kishore. The best thing we can do is straighten our own mess out and be better leaders in the world and preserve our democracy.

As to Taiwan, I think my remedy for Taiwan is exactly Mao Zedong’s and Deng Xiaoping’s. As Mao Zedong told Winston who’s here and Kissinger and Nixon, let it be for a hundred years. Don’t worry about it. When Deng Xiaoping stopped in Tokyo on his way to Washington to meet with Jimmy Carter and reestablish diplomatic relations, he said he was asked about this. And he said, leave it for future generations, smarter generations to deal with. That’s the smart way, but that’s not Xi Jinping’s way.

So I think, you know, we know what happened to Hong Kong. It’s pretty obvious that there will be some movement towards Taiwan, maybe not an amphibious assault or something like that. But I wager there’ll be some pecking away at the edges, which will be really challenging.

I would say finally, Kishore, this. You say, let’s just live and let live and get along with China and accept them. Good. But sometimes, I think you’d have to agree with me, history provides a lot of examples where that does not work, and I raised the question of Ukraine here. I mean, sometimes, countries, irredental with pretensions of irredentism, they act as Russia did in Ukraine. I fear that could happen in some way in the Taiwan Straits or in the South China Sea or with the Senkakus. And I think that’s a very foolish pretension that China has that this wound, as you describe it, is so deep that they have to go up possibly blowing up the whole Asian economic miracle. And they take down Singapore with them.

[RORRY DANIELS:] Let’s take a few more questions grouped altogether if we can. I’m going to say one, two, three. We’ll take all three questions while we’re bringing the mic to the first person.

On the Taiwan Strait, I think it’s really instructive to remember that though there was this fishing boat incident, it did not escalate into a crisis. And there’s probably very clever, smart diplomacy between officials or with officials in Taipei, Beijing, and Washington that made sure that that incident was relatively well contained. So a bright spot in an otherwise messy neighborhood.

Right up here.

[AUDIENCE QUESTION:] Thank you so much. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on China’s increasing military presence in West Africa, Equatorial Guinea and now potentially Djibouti as well.

[RORRY DANIELS:] Could you repeat that?

[AUDIENCE QUESTION:] China’s increasing military presence in Africa.

[RORRY DANIELS:] China’s increasing military presence in Africa. Thank you. Next question.

[AUDIENCE QUESTION:] Hi. So thank you both for this really interesting talk. But it seems like on the side of China, we’re spending a lot of time talking about what feels like the China of 2009 when they were at their peak in terms of influence, when comparatively their system of state-backed capitalism looked much better than the rest of the West. And while I don’t fully agree that the United States is the only country in the world that judges the leadership of other countries, China was also very judgment free. This was the time of a lot of infrastructure investments.

But I think that’s not the China of today. And especially after the pandemic, I think there’s a lot more radical leadership and a lot less of this kind of rule by counsel, first among equals, that you saw before when China was more stable. And so I think that fundamental question of did China today with Xi Jinping with a much more personalized leadership seem more unstable. Does that not worry more of these countries than that list of who would choose between United States and China? I don’t think that’s in operation anymore.

[RORRY DANIELS:] Is that the question? What are other countries in the world thinking about the stability of Xi Jinping’s leadership today?

[AUDIENCE QUESTION:] This much different leadership in China than it was before the pandemic and since the financial crisis.

[RORRY DANIELS:] Okay. We have time for one more question. I apologize. I know a lot of you have the hands in the air.

[AUDIENCE QUESTION:] Thank you. I’m deeply impacted by Orville’s brother’s book, The Gift of Time, in which he highlights Albert Einstein’s admonition that the nuclear bomb changed everything except our thinking, and we drift toward catastrophe. And what he was talking about was the Westphalian model of nation states playing with these devices and putting the whole world at risk every day.

And I’m also deeply informed by facts, realism. We’re destroying species at over 1000x the evolutionary base rate. Sixty percent of our oxygen comes from the health of the pH of the oceans because phytoplankton gives us our oxygen. We’re destroying rainforests faster than they’re being replenished. And the list goes on of problems that cannot be solved in the Westphalian model of competition among states. How do we bring realism, planetary realism, back to the discussion, as you highlighted, in the whole range of problems that are not about identity, not about civilization, but about the reality that we’re facing today. Thank you.

[RORRY DANIELS:] Okay. I’m going to turn to Orville first on these three questions.

[ORVILLE SCHELL:] Let me answer that first. Yes. The great tragedy for me of the end of engagement is the planet is at risk because the United States and China cannot cooperate, and we absolutely must learn how to.

But, I also call your attention to the fact that John Kerry has been working on this for decades and not gotten very far. So it takes reciprocity to bring about resolution of questions like climate change, nuclear weapons, pandemics, and that’s exactly what’s missing. Now if I read the Biden administration correctly, the door is open. But I’m not sure it’s very open in Beijing to these questions. And if it isn’t open in both sides, you don’t have a partnership. You don’t have a dialogue. You don’t have effective action. So I would say that about that.

About Xi Jinping’s stability. You know, we may just disagree here, Kishore. I think Xi Jinping is a leader who’s very different from any of the prime ministers, any of the premiers or party general secretaries I’ve watched from Hu Yaobang on down. And I think it’s a problem.

He is deeply embodied victim culture. He deeply believes in that sort of old Maoist trope of hostile foreign forces are out to overturn, you know, regime change, all of these things. Not entirely untrue, I might add, but it is a problem that makes it very difficult for China to be soluble in the world that the liberal democratic states live in even though they’re in a fallen state of grace often. And I think this is a huge danger. And in this sense, leadership matters.

[RORRY DANIELS:] Kishore, last word to you on any of these questions or a response to Orville.

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] Three quick questions. Firstly, on the military Chinese military in Africa, I want to say this as respectfully as I can. I would say I respect the Africans. If the Africans decide for their own security, they want to have closer military ties with the United States, that’s a good choice, a defendable choice.

If they want to have good ties with China, let them choose. You know? So please allow the Africans to decide for themselves. I can tell you in private, many Africans complain to me about the condescension they get when they make their own decisions. So I think it’s very, very important to take the view that Africans can judge for themselves what is good for them.

Now on the question of Xi Jinping, I actually believe that I think this is what you expressed is a conventional view of the Anglo-Saxon media. The first point I’m going to make is that the conventional view of the Anglo-Saxon media on Xi Jinping is not shared by most countries in the world. And I can tell you this that many of the world leaders who have dealt with President Xi face to face, deal with him, discuss issues, find him a sober and reasonable interlocutor.

And the one point on which I would say where I have the maximum amount of disagreement with Orville is that Orville portrays a man whose dream is to revive Marxism-Leninism, to revive communism. That’s not how most Asians see Xi. We see Xi as someone who believes that China has been a great civilization. It has had hundred bad years. It’s time for Chinese civilization to come back. So if he has a dream, the dream has nothing to do with communism, Marxism, Leninism. Even though China’s run by the Chinese Communist Party, it is an instrument. The Chinese Communist Party is an instrument that is being used to revive what Xi Jinping believes to be a great civilization. So that’s his end goal.

But I think the most important question was the last question, and I completely agree with you that our planet is endangered in many different ways, and you spelled them out. And frankly, that’s why in my book, The Great Convergence, I say that the world has changed fundamentally. And to explain how it’s changed fundamentally, I use a very simple boat analogy.

And I hope you’ll reflect on this boat analogy. In the past, when we live in one hundred and ninety-three separate countries, it was as though we were living in one hundred ninety-three separate boats. Right? So we could decide what to do on our boat. So if one boat got COVID, the other boats wouldn’t get it.

Closing Remarks

[KISHORE MAHBUBANI:] They’re in different boats. But the world has shrunk, and I really mean that literally. We no longer live in one hundred ninety-three separate boats. We live in one hundred ninety-three separate cabins on the same boat. Now if you’re on a boat together and the boat begins to sink, the stupidest thing to do is to lock up your cabin and say, “I’ll protect my cabin.”

And that’s exactly what we are doing, which is bizarre. We’re supposed to represent the most intelligent species on planet Earth, but we are doing something completely stupid in response to these great planetary challenges. And that’s why I say the wisest thing you can do about this geopolitical contest between US and China, at least just press the pause button for a while. Look at what’s happening in the world, focus on the real global challenges. Maybe after we fix them, then we can go back to the squabbles.

Thank you.

[RORRY DANIELS:] All right. We have reached—thank you guys all so much. We’ve reached time. I think that we have not resolved the U.S.-China rivalry, but hopefully, you were entertained. And also, we can keep having conversations like this, including bringing prominent Asian experts to this New York audience at the Asia Society. We have a much better chance of being enlightened, wise captains of this boat that we are all in.