we'll be focusing more on China in this conversation given our remit or with a wide view lens so Kish I enjoyed your opening sentence of this Memoir blame it all on the damn British uh as a damn Brit myself I can't resist by asking about this before we get into more contemporary questions uh you were talking about The Botch partition of India which affected your parents in sind Province um but the same argument could also be made about the British mandate in Palestine and its own partition which to the creation of Israel and a lot of troubles in that part of the world also talk about Britain in Africa and in China with treaty ports and gunboat diplomacy and of course in Singapore with sir Stanford Raffles uh but historians also point of the benefits of colonial Legacy so how tongue and cheek are you being uh or do you really think that we can trace a lot of contemporary political ills to the mistakes of the British Empire well um I would say the British went all bad thank you but certainly uh sadly I mean they had uh I guess in some cases happy transitions uh to postc Colonial rule I think Singapore is the most glaring example of that uh I think it's one of the few maybe the only British col
former British colony well maybe if you include the G Gulf States which has a higher per capita income than the United Kingdom Singapore Singapore is much more wealthy than the uks you know on a per capita income basis and uh but by and large the way it manage its departure from the Indian uh subcontinent was very unfortunate I think the British were acutely aware of the divisions in India within the Indians and Muslims and probably could have done a better job of managing their departure from the Indian subcontinent by the end of the day you cannot change history uh the fact is that my parents suffered a great deal uh because of the tremendous anger within the Hindus and Muslims at the point of uh the end of colonial rule and there's you know millions of Hindus and Muslims killed each other in 1947 and my as I explained in my book my mother could have been one of that statistic but she had a very close shave uh she managed to escape and fortunately landed up in Singapore and I was born in Singapore in 1948 so I guess us making a semi flipping uh opening remark that if if the British had organized a uh very harmonious end of their colonial rule in in India I would probably be still living in India H well feel free to be
What is China
fully flippant um let's move on to talk more about China and and that's really my first question what we mean by this term your Memoir is of course chiefly about Singapore but Chinese culture is a large presence in the book uh you you talk about firecrackers every Luna new year in the Chinese Bakery next door to your childhood home uh as it is a large presence in Singapore where 75% of the population is ethnically Chinese now China is such a broad term it's often used as short end for the People's Republic of China Jong um but it also could include greater China jonga um the Chinese diaspora Hong Kong Taiwan Chinese and Malaysia and Singapore so my my question is what what does this word China mean to you and how much of that is visible in Singapore as much as on the mainland well the the most important point to emphasize here is that Singapore is not part of China of course uh certainly politically not part of China because it's an independent city state and it is a multiethnic city state with 75% Chinese 15% Malay Muslim uh 8% Indian uh so it's very multiethnic but when you have uh 75% of the population being Chinese certainly Chinese civilization uh is alive and well uh in uh Singapore in Singapore society and if you look at uh all the major festivals that the Chinese celebrate the Luna New Year which of course in the old days led to lots of firecrackers uh being set off to celebrate Chinese New Year but of course Singapore has banned them because they were fire hazard uh and then you have the mid aumn festival and other such festivals regularly in Singapore but none of the this makes Singapore in any way politically part of China but culturally affiliated with China and and this is why I ask the question because sometimes I feel these two are confused one could make the argument that China itself the political entity is a multi-ethnic state it certainly has been historically but it's also talked of as a civilization state which has spread beyond that original geographical base so this is why the idea of Chinese culture and
Chinese civilization abroad is such a sort of contentious one because you're talking within the spaces of different political entities well I think yeah it's very important uh to make a distinction between the political entity which is the People's Republic of China and the very large Chinese diaspora that exists uh outside China and many of the Chinese who live overseas are citizens of their own uh countries you know in Singapore in Malaysia in Indonesia in Thailand and certainly in Southeast Asia the most of the Chinese in Southeast Asia make it a point to emphasize that they are culturally Chinese uh but politically citizens uh of their own countries and uh quite strong about that and I think it's in the the China also realizes that it is in its National interest not to be seen to be interfering in the internal affairs of the countries of Southeast Asia by uh using the Chinese diaspora in anyway as sort of Agents uh of China although it has sought to do that uh well it could I mean if it was unwise he could try to do that uh but I they realize he would be unwise uh to do so and and that's why overall you notice that China has a reasonably happy relationship with its Saudi Asian neighbors today because they very clear understandings of uh what are the dos and don'ts of their relationship if if I may and we don't need to answer this if you don't want to but I think it is a valid question to Foreign Agents talk about these sort of influence outside of China's boundaries you said that China would be unwise to use those of Chinese descent as foreign agents but it ostensibly has I mean even in the your own School the lein public policy school there was an accusation that hongping who was a Chinese born um Resident was a foreign agent well uh Hong Jing was an American citizen not a Chinese citizen and the Singapore government never said which country he that's true I think was supposed to have represented and and the Singapore government made it very very clear that he would not uh declare which country he was representing and at the end of the day uh as you know uh he left Singapore and um so I think it's in the Singapore government has made it very very clear that it is in the nature of great powers to always try to interfere uh in the Affairs of uh small states so as you know in my Memoir I describe how in the 1980s Singapore expelled an American Diplomat Hank Hendrickson for having tried to interfere in Singapore's internal political Affairs so uh we've had uh instances of such interference going back a long time so it's this is this is normal behavior and we believe that the answer to that is to keep your own country strong and secure so that there's no danger of uh foreign Powers being able to influence your politics let's talk more about China okay given the the remit of our podcast and
China in the Asian Century
publication one of the arguments in your 2020 book has China W is that it's normal for a predominant power namely the us to try and keep down an emerging superpower like China uh but in effect that this won't stop history and and while you engage with the question has China won it it does feel like you think that China will be the dominant Force to me in this uh Asian Century um
and the relative decline of Western powers to China's rise is of remarked but it's also easy to challenge especially now with China's economic troubles um as internal descent so can I draw you out on this more um is the Asian century is it really the Chinese century and if so how do you see that happening and and on what time frame as you know I begin my book as China won uh with a fictional memo to president xiin ping saying president CH uh We've it's a fictional fictional memo we we've begun this contest we have a contest with United States of course China will win this contest of United States but but but China must never underestimate the United States of America now the United States of America is a formidable Society it'd be a huge mistake to right off the United States in any way uh in fact with all the chaos that is happening I think there not many countries that can survive four years of trump United States can and emerge uh after that too so I would say it is not a given uh in by any sense that China is going to win this contest betweenin the United States and China we will find out I think in uh 10 to 20 years from now but the main reason why I wrote the book uh has China One was to send a mistake that it was to send a message uh that it was a mistake for the United States to launch this enormous je political contest against China without first working out a comprehensive long-term strategy and I emphasize in the book that that Insight did not come from me that Insight came from Henry Kissinger uh after a one-on-one conversation that I had with him and he he allowed me to share his Insight with his fellow Americans uh in that book so I think United States is a country with tremendous challenges but also extraordinary abilities and China is also a country that has tremendous challenges and also has extraordinary strengths too so this that's why this contest within us and China will grip us for the next decade or two because it's the largest geopolitical contest ever seen in human
Asian Century vs Multipolar World
history this idea of the Asian Century or Chinese Century as some people put it
how do you square that um with another catchphrase you've used for for
multi-polar World um without a single hegemonic Center how how can both be true well if
there's no contradiction within the Asian century and uh a multi-polar world if many of
the independent polls in the multi-polar world are Asian uh as you know and and this I must
emphasize is not going to be the Chinese Century by any means uh one important
statistic that every American should know is uh there are 1.4 billion people
in living in China but there are 4.5 billion people living in Asia by and
large if you include where West Asia central Asia South Asia southeast Asia
so we have 55% of the world's population and what and to understand
what I uh what I mean when when I say that we moving through Asian Century
what is actually quite shocking is that there 52 member states Asian member states in the UN in the year
2000 quite amazingly the US economy
alone was bigger MH than the combined 52 member states of Asia which included at
that time Japan China India amazing and that showed why the 20th century was the
American Century such an amazing economy but today the combined Asian economies
are 1.5 times bigger than the United States and by 2050 they'll be three
times bigger than the United States and that's what I mean mean by the Asian Century that the economic weight of Asia
will become so much larger than that of United States by by by a huge measure
and so that's why the economic power of the United States perhaps but
how about inating the EU let me let me give you an interesting statistic on Europe uh the European Union uh used to
be in 1980 I think forget now 10 8 to 10 times bigger than China European Union 1980
today they're both about the same size by 2050 the European Union combined will
be half the size of China so you know that massive shifts of power taking place in the world and I
and I want to emphasize that we to today we who are living today are actually
living in one of the most exciting moments of world history ever M uh
because we seeing the rebirth of strong Asian civilizations not
civilization and and and you know I I I believe personally that we are on the cusp of a
great Asian Renaissance now because of the once you lift up people below a
certain level of you know having to meet their basic needs every day right and
Asia has seen this remarkable explosion of a middle class population now let me give you another statistic so you
understand what I mean by that you know the combined population of the three the
three growth poles in Asia today I would say are the new CIA countries CIA is not
Central Intelligence Agency but China India asan okay so you add up the 1.4
billion people in China 1.4 billion people in India 700 million people in
asan Southeast Asia comes to 3.5 billion people now out of these 3.5 billion
people in the year 2000 only 150 million out of 3.5 billion people
enjoyed middleclass living standards by World Bank standards middle class and
that number exploded from 150 million to
1.5 billion M an increase of 10 times in 20 years and by 2030 which is 6 years
away that number could hit 2.5 to3 billion now the largest middle class
population in the world is going to be in Asia and by the way if you add up the
population of United States and European Union combined it's less than a billion
and even if they were all enjoying middle class living standards but they don't the figure is much smaller so I
think it's important therefore to emphasize that we are seeing phenomenal changes in our time and we have to
psychologically get ready for the Asian Century now I'm going to challenge you
Chinas intentions
directly on this sure and I know you enjoy a challenge uh so I'm sure you'll take it just in the spirit of do free
debate and uh exchange of ideas um the the essence of the
challenges that I don't think China sees it this way I think China wants it to be the Chinese Century not
the Asian Century your remarks on us living through a time of
unprecedented change is certainly something that XI Jin Bing agrees with in fact he and Vladimir Putin um said
the same remarks to each other in a private conversation um I think what it boils down to here is a question of intentions
and whether China's intentions are peaceful and uh whether it's an whether
its actions are beneficial um To The World At Large uh there's a lot of talk
from China about it being peaceful there always has been some of its actions are uh beneficial such as Investments to
other parts of the world much like arguments about the British Empire to bring this full full circle um but just
as the Brits were fundamentally motivated by manist self-interest uh I
would argue that China's interests abroad have been and remain self-interested uh and I think it's
clear that those interests CI Ping's interests could be of great harm to International Peace not least across the
Taiwan Straits um so what would your response be to this idea that you want it to be
the Asian Century China wants it to be the Chinese Century um and your response to those who I suppose would essentially
call your optimism naive about those intentions well I'm I'm very happy to be
called naive by anybody except that unfortunately I've been writing about the rise of Asia for over
30 years and so far unfortunately all my predictions have come true so uh the the
reason why even the economists I think call me the the Muse of the rising Asia
MH uh so I think the uh your your larger question was about China's intentions I
think and I I think it's very important um to make a distinction
between two separate questions one is whether or not China will be peaceful M
and the next question is whether China will be benevolent mhm right these are two completely separate questions now I
believe that the phrase benevolent great power is an oxymoron mhm there's no such
thing as a benevolent great power all great powers and this has only been true for 2,000 years
will put their own interest first and everybody else's interest second and so
when any small country deals with the great power the a small country be very
naive if it believe that the great power was sacrific it interests for the small
but the question as to whether or not China will be peaceful is a completely different question and here the answer
is actually given in the opening pages of Henry kissing's book on China mhm and
as you know he begins the book with a long discussion of sun and Sun the great
Chinese strategist uh believed that the worst way uh to win a
war is to Win It by fighting and the best way to win a war
is to win it without fighting so there's no question that China will seek to
expand its influence and its you know know uh impact uh on the region and the
world but the Chinese can also believe that the stupidest thing they could do is to emulate the United States and
start fighting a new war every few years and and from the in this is Kissinger's
book I must emphasize uh Kissinger says the Chinese believe that it's a height of stupidity to keep fighting Wars when
if you can achieve what you want to achieve uh without having to fight Wars and the ch chines
certainly have emerged as a great power and and and by the way out of the 193
countries in the world uh the vast majority of the countries in the global South now accept
China as more or less an equal power to the United States and the and and the
Chinese have achieved this without fighting a single war and so that's
that's the remarkable thing uh about the the Chinese so I have no doubt that China will try to expand its reach and
influence because that's what all great powers do but they believe it would be stupid to do so by starting or fighting
Wars and you don't see this as a potential problem if China seeks to expand its influence in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
claiming more of the South China Seas um influence across the Taiwan Straits you
don't see as that as an effort to make the asian Century the Chinese Century
well I mean I'm glad you mentioned uh southeast Asia because southeast Asia actually has lived with China for 2000
years and uh out of the nine states in soueast out of the 10 states in
southeast Asia nine have an indic base Indian culture has had a far greater
impact on southeast Asia than China has there so southeast Asia has is used to
live living with many uh Powers uh uh as its
neighbors uh so uh Chinese influence will grow in soueast Asia there's
absolutely no question I mean I mean again I give you a simple example uh in the year 2000 trade between asan and
China uh was only $40 billion in the year 2000 by
2022 it had hit $ 975 billion almost a trillion dollars was the
world's largest trading relationship surely with so much trade Chinese influence is going to grow obviously but
at the same time southeast Asia is also very good at hedging its bets and so the
United States for example has now invested more in Southeast Asia than it
has in China Japan South Korea India
combin mhm now that shows a geopolitical shrewdness of the Saudi Asians that is
completely underestimated by simple-minded westerners we see the world in black and white terms and don't
understand that in Asia the name of the game is nuance and don't try to put people into
categories you're either pro-chinese or anti-chinese or pro-american or anti-American no we will the Saudi
Asians will protect their interests and and are very have developed wisdom over
the ages of how to handle their interest I give you one example MH the one country that understands China better
than any other country I believe is Vietnam now they've had a relationship for 2,000 years and Vietnam by the way
was occupied by China only for 1,000 years and the Vietnamese have saying
that to become the leader uh of um 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 mhm so that's what the Saudi Asians are doing
they will get along with China but from time to time they'll quietly stand up to China if they believe that their
interests are being affected so but of course we don't have to do this publicly we don't have to necessarily make a big
song and dance about it but at the end of the day you look at how much progress
uh southeast Asia has made and to give you another shocking statistic in the
decade 2010 to 2020 the 10 Assan countries the combined G&P is 1 fifth
that of the European Union but Asian added more to global economic growth in
the decade 2010 to 2020 than the European Union did mhm I mean there's some remarkable things that are
happening in Asia that go unrecognized in the west so uh as as a simple-minded
questioner allow me to um present to you the second half of you know what
um a challenge to your position in the interested Lively conversation um and
this would relate to China's policies internally um which again some likened to internal colonialism um you said in
has China 1 that China has never really been expansionist um which is news to the
people of Tibet and shinjang and Mongolia over its history uh in this new
Memoir you say that the statement China has carried out a genocide in Shin Jang is uh quote factually incorrect which
you could certainly argue semantically um but you you deflect immediately to a
sort of whataboutism argument with America's role in leading to the Cambodian
genocide and I as as a reader I sort of felt that you weren't really engaging with uh the human rights accusations the
human rights criticisms of China which is so common in the west um crimes
against humanity is the un's OWN term for what's happening in shinjang of a high level of
against the CCP whether in Hong Kong or on the mainland so how how can we take your arguments in good faith if you
sometimes I feel dismissed these facts as a sort of Western not getting China well I mean um you know when you
mentioned the case of Tibet uh as you know the boundaries of all contemporary
States today uh are set by the realities of the 20th century right and these
boundaries you know what accepted by the United Nations uh when uh the PRC became a
member uh of the un uh no one challenged those boundaries uh in fact even when he
was represented by the Nationalist government for many years uh even though they only
physically control all of Taiwan the the maps of China showed Tibet and uh and I
think you know so if you if you want to say well Tibet should be written to the Tibetans do you want to go back and say
that taxes in California should be written to uh the Mexicans I mean so you
know the question talking about sovereignty we're talking we're not talking about issues of sovereignty no one is questioning that Hong Kong is
part of China many many people question it there are there are people as you know in the
west my question is about internal policies and human rights abuses those criticisms yes yes well I would say that
at the end of the day the China has got to decide what kind of political system
MH uh is going to have and it's got to find his own balance and
clearly the Chinese Bel uh that they are better off with strong uh central
control and the history of China shows that when China becomes when the central
government becomes weak the country becomes divided chaos emerges and many
Chinese people die and there are far greater deprivations of human rights
that take place when the center is weak and you know Chinese as you know experienced that very recently in their
Century of humiliation from 1842 to 1949 and the Chinese also and this I
hope you will acknowledge this effect found that when they were weak they were trampled on by the Western powers and
and you know it's at the end of the 20th century the British and French looted
and B bited the Summer Palace like the Taliban you know so I mean these These
are historical facts you cannot take away so when a Westerner comes to to
China and says he why don't you lose enough and you know it's okay allow
descent allow these things you know it's okay if you have a bit of chaos don't worry we won't take advantage of you the
Chinese will be very stupid to trust the West absolutely stupid after what
happened to them from 1842 to 1949 how would them loosening up their internal
policies allow them to be taken advantage on well I mean the if you if you do have chaos in China if once again
uh the center becomes weak and there and you know great powers do take
advantage uh of Divisions and so I think you know the the point at the end of the
day you know the most important statistic that ever every Westerner should know is that the West makes up
12% of the world's population in a small Global Village that we live in the rest
makes up 88% the rest have been quite passive for the last 200 years of Western domination
of world history but the rest are waking up now and the these countries will find
their own ways and means of adjusting uh to the modern world their own systems
and so on so forth and I think we in Southeast Asia believe that we cannot advise the Chinese on
what is the best form of government for them it's for them to decide but it's also not up to the Chinese to tell us
what our system of government should be we choose our own form of government you choose your own form of government and
we'll live with each other and the same is true of India too by the way you know I mean India also is going to choose uh
its own balance uh of uh freedom and Authority uh in in in many of these
areas and all societies are struggling to find uh the right balance and and I
think even in the west there will be I believe a move away from emphasizing too
much individual freedoms towards emphasizing some degree of Need for
National cohesion uh in addition to having uh individual freedoms but again every society has got to make their
decision uh for themselves and and and certainly uh apart from the West you
notice that most countries in the global South don't go around lecturing other countries on what is good or what is bad
lecturing
for them lecturing certainly is bad but surely we uh all have the right to talk
about it openly and criticize just as we criticize our own our own government uh well certainly I mean as individuals you
can criticize but I think it is unwise for European governments for
example to go and lecture the Chinese government on what is good or what is bad for them
it shows that the Europeans have not woken up to realize that the era in which European
governments could pass judgments on other countries is over you know we are
we are making a fundamental turn in history now fundamental turn and it is
the the European governments don't seem to realize that the world will no longer
accept uh lectures from European governments at a time when the Europeans
have shown their absolute geopolitical incompetence in failing to prevent a war
from taking place at their borders you know at the end of the day I believe you
should make this an exium peace like in peace in Asia reflects geopolitical
competence we find ways and means of dealing with problems in such a way that
we avoid Wars wars reflect geopolitical
incompetence and the Europeans created all these wonderful institutions like occe and all that but couldn't prevent a
war so so I think here this is a time when it' be good for Western Minds to
show a certain degree of humility in talking to the rest of the world instead
of telling the rest of the world well we know better than you what is good for you please don't do that anymore so this
antiChina bias
is a great segue to my last question um we we get a lot of China books on our
desk at China books review um many if not most of them in the English language are critical about the prc's current and
past policies um one of the reasons I took this opportunity we got to have you
on the podcast is that yours as a more counternarrative um one might say even contrarian voice in this English
language space so do you think there is an anti-china bias in anglophone or Western works on China what what do you
think of the many other books that also offer a big picture view of China's
vision for the future but that all comes to such a different conclusion to you
about it well I you know I would say that most anglophone or
Anglo-Saxon uh commentaries on China tend to be jaist
uh and don't provide a fair and balanced View and I've for example I I do believe
for example the economists a lot of the time only writes negative stories about
China and although sometime to be fair the recent cover story for the economist
shocked me when it said that China has arrived as a scientific superpower I said wow even The Economist technologes
this that was quite a shock uh but um The New York Times the Wall Street know no you don't get fair
and balance commentaries on China and uh I would say that they unfortunately
because as you know the book publishing industry is dominated by the west and most of my 10 books by the way were
published uh in the west uh in fact this book is published by public affairs which has published five of my books uh
from New York so I would say you have to move away from anglophone commentary and
you know there there there are historian in in Asia which give a different
perspective uh on on China there's one uh who's a good friend of mine uh he's I
think Asia's greatest historian uh Professor Wang Gang Wu he's 94 years old
and if you look at some of his writings he tries to describe uh how uh the role
of Chinese history and his impact on how China is emerging and what influence it
has uh on China today so I think it's important uh for the anglophone
commentaries to make a deeper effort to understand Chinese history and why and
why the Chinese for example believe very very strongly that you got to have a
very strong central government if China is going to succeed and and to thrive but I'm sure even within Chinese
literature there are all kinds of hints that show that if you have too much central control it's bad for China uh
and that's why even Ronald Reagan used to quote uh ler when he said if you're
ruling a country is like cooking a fish better to do it lightly and I think
there is Chinese wisdom that also Advocates that every Chinese government should rule China lightly uh so you got
to see these things within Chinese tradition uh and culture and I at the
same time also I say and I'm not Chinese uh I'm ethnically Indian as you know uh
it's up to the Chinese people uh to decide their their form of government and you know that you and you do know
surely that that there was something that every Chinese ruler does that you
can lose the Mandate of Heaven and if the Chinese people Rise Against the Chinese government
nothing can prevent it well that certainly giving it a good crack uh at
preventing that thank you so much kabani let 100 FS Bloom um we want to hear all
voices here at China books review yours is a very articulate one I appreciate your time thank you thank you very much
英语 (自动生成)
