'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

IISS: Asian powers and the world order

Sunday morning, we had two very interesting plenary sessions at the annual conference of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).  In the first, M.K.Narayanan, the National Security Advisor to the prime minister of India and Harry Harding, a longtime China-affairs specialist who until recently was Dean of the International Affairs School at George Washington University in Washington, DC, talked about China and India: The Asian rising powers debate.  In the second, Kishore Mahbubani, the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, and Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, the Secretary-General of OSCE, talked about Competing world views and the bases of international order in the 21st century.

Though the presentations were all of a high standard, what I want to write about here are primarily those made by Mahbubani, Narayanan, and Harding because they had more thematic linkages with each other than the presentation given by Perrin. [Note: I think those links above should work if you're already in the archived version of this post.]

Mahbubani:

Mahbubani, a well-groomed, energetic man in probably his late fifties, was until recently a high-ranking Singaporean diplomat.  (At the beginning of his presentation, he made a little joke about not wanting to be called "Ambassador Mahbubani" any more, and said he was "still practicing acting undiplomatically.")

He started by quoting Marc Antony when he said, "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him," saying he was coming to praise the way the US had exercized its hegemony over the world order since 1945 and not to bury it-- though he said he feared the effect of his words might seem to be to bury it.

There are, he said, five factors that have been leading to the decline of the UN-based world order:

1. US negligence of, or hostility to, it;
2. the failure of its secondary guardians (primarily, the European powers) to protect it;
3. the rise of new non-western powers and the question of whether the western powers want to preserve their own position in the world or the rules that they themselves had promulgated for it;
4. the demands of economic globalization; and
5. the demands of the globalization of culture.

"Right now, we have more well-educated people around the world than ever before," he said.  "They demand a voice in the way the world is run, whereas previously, discussions of world order issues could be held among a few elites in Europe and America.  Nowadays, political legitimacy comes from the 6.3 billion people around the world."

(Oh that it were so simple, eh?)

Mahbubani said that the present era is marked by a competition among what he described as four different views of what the world order should be:

1. the world order put in place by Harry Truman in 1945;
2. the Jiang Zemin world order;
3. the world order favored by the US neoconservatives, and
4. the world order favored by Osama Bin Laden.

Regarding the first of those, he said the assumption of those who drafted the U.N. Charter, etc., was that the US "would naturally lead the world through the rules that it promulgated and the institutions it created.

Regarding the second, he noted that since 1978, China has had an annual growth of its GDP averaging 9.4%, while the volume of its international trade rose from $20 billion to $851 billion.  "It was not a given that China would seek to emerge as a rising power on the basis of the 1945 rules," he said.  "China's achievement has been remarkable, and we can't see why people in the west should see China as a 'not so good' player.  From the perspective of Southeast Asia, China's present rise has been a great exporter of wellbeing to our whole region.

(In the subsequent discussion period, Harry Harding asked whether, by these lights, what Mahbubani described as the "Jiang Zemin world order" should actually classify as distinct from the "Truman world order".  He suggested that the while both visions prescribed a rules-based international order, the Truman version had prescribed that this should --or would--be under American leadersip.  "So the Truman version is that you have a rules-based order with American leadership.  The Chinese version is that you have the rules-based order and do away with American leadership, while the neocons argue that you keep the American leadership and do away with the rules-based order.")

Regarding the third (neo-con) vision, Mahbubani said, "The neocons believe that American power is intrinsically good and should be exported; and that as the world's greatest democracy, America's actions are naturally legitimate."

On Osama Bin Laden's vision, he said this holds that the US is the inheritor of European colonialism; and attacks Muslims; but America is spiritually weak, while the Muslim world is spiritually strong and unafraid to confront the west. "It would be a mistake to dismiss OBL as a single deranged individual since he's stirred up such a lot of things," he said.

He warned:

He advocated some urgent "repair work" and laid out principles on which this should be conducted:

1. A principle of equality: that there should be one set of laws for all nations.  If we call on Iran to abide by views of UNSC, so too should the US, Britain, and everyone else.
   
2. A principle of inequality: that the UN power structure should reflect the power balance of 2045, not 1945
3. A principle of equity: the need to create and maintain an international safety net for the world's poorest and most vulnerable people..
4. A principle of evenhandedness: that all peoples in conflicts should feel that the UN treats them with fairness and equality; and
5. The principles of free-market economics.

In the discussion period, Mahbubani noted that, "There's an American-European dialogue going on in the world, and we see it here in this room. "  I forget whether it was he or MK Narayanan who remarked on the dominance of European and American representatives in the leadership of institutions like the Security Council (4 out of 5 permanent members), the G-8 (7 out of 8 members),  the headships of the World Bank, and the IMF, etc.  It's a point I've made several times over the years.  I can't imagine why Americans and Europeans seem simply to assume that they have some God-given right to run the world...  That is, of course, one of the consequences of the (American version of) the 1945 rules.

Anyway, Mahbubani went on to say,

He warned that he did see a possibility of the 1945 order collapsing completely, and suggested that the consquences could be dire.  "The non-interference rule in the 1945 rules was very important," he stressed.

Narayanan:

Narayanan is a soft-spoken, careful speaker  verging on elder-statesmanhood. He stressed the significance of the fact that both China and India-- which between them account for more than one-third of the world's 6.3 billion people-- both "rising" as global powers at the same time, and in the same part of world.  He noted the massive numbers of people in the two countries whose lives and life prospects have been significantly improved within just the past two generations.

The rise of India and China is different from the rise of previous world powers because it has not been driven my military power or military conquests, he said.  "It represents the rise of 'soft' power in the world order."

He continued,

He stressed India's non-competitive attitude toward China a number of times.  At one point he made reference to one version of the "complementarity" he saw between the two-- that "China would be the world's factory and we would be its office"-- but he back-tracked fairly fast from that view.  (There were not, sadly, any Chinese speakers on the rostrum.  Perhaps there were one or two in the audience?  I don't know.  If there were, they certainly stayed very silent.)

Narayanan described India's particular strengths in the following terms:

1. We've always been a market economy
2. We have good managers and a good administrative framework that support that; we have a good education system with a network of good-quality educational institutions; we have a high level of creativity and rising numbers of knowledge workers: India can lead the world information-technology industry.
3. Our demographics will keep India strong: India produces more engineers than EU...
4. Our philosophy is that "the world is one community"  India has assimilated many other peoples and cultures.  We have great multiculturalism
5. Our consistency in econ policy thru changes in govt and our management capability w/in democratic structure.  Our respect for rule of law.
6. Our record of managing natural disasters [interesting if this has become a key marker of national competence or strength, I thought ~HC] and health problems...  Also, in responding to terrorism...

He said India had  entered into cooperative strategic relations with allits main neighbors: China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and even Myanmar.  Regarding Bangladesh and Nepal,  he said, "We've had problems, but we're working to resolve them."

Narayanan added:

At the end of his presentation, Narayanan graciously allowed as to how, "We in India are prepared to take on greater responsibilities within the UN and elsewhere."

In the discussion period, Narayanan stressed yet again that India intended never to be drawn into any global coalition against China. "India will never be drawen into that-- and neither has any outside power including the US and the UK during recent high-level visits-- ever raised this issue with us."

He noted that India was going to have joint military exercises in the near future in Rajasthan with China and some other militaries. "I think such exercizes-- that we also have with the US Navy and other powers-- do more to de-escalate tensions than to raise them," he claimed.  [H'mmm.  I wonder what Mahatma Gandhi would be feeling about that?]

He talked a little about the global reach of Bollywood as representing a distinctive component of India's "soft power", and he spoke of India's rich experience of dealing with Islamic extremists.  "We have a dialogue of civilizations in India, not a clash of civilizns.  We wish US wd come to India and learn from what we've done, not tell us what to do!"

He spoke of India's many links with Iran, and stated firmly, ""I don't think the world can afford to marginalize or ostracize Iran in any manner."

Harding

Harry Harding is an old friend.  He's also extremely well-informed, thoughtful, smart, and articulate.  I guess he must be in his late fifties, but he looks much more youthful than that.  He launched his presentation by talking about post-Mao China's development of the distinctive concept "Comprehensive National Power"-- a very multi-dimensional concept that includes military, economic, and many other soft-power components.  "It has been a very intentional effort on their behalf to build up all these components of national power-- with some known results.  The US has not had to deal beforehand with such a multi-dimensional challenge to its power-- neither from either Russia, or Japan."

He noted that one of Deng Xiaoping's cardinal rules, articulated clearly during his time in power in Beijing, had been to "hide our capabilities".  But, Harding said, China has more recently been shifting from a policy of self-effacement to one of reassurance, as summed up in their rhetoric about China's "peaceful rise" onto the world scene.

"Peaceful rise" he said, is based on three assurances:

1. that China's rise will indeed be peaceful because it's preoccupied with its internal issues; and because it recognizes the power of the US.  So it will seek to rise as a partner and a friend, rather than through conquest or hegemony.
2. that China is deeply invested in economic globalizn... Also, that it will be 'a society of thrift', especially in its use of energy and scarce resources. [H'mmm. Someone should tell this to the builders and the millions of users of the highway systems n the country's east-coast cities??]
   
3. its commitment to multilateralism and the promotion of democratic international institutions.
   

Chinese reassurance, he concluded, is based on its presenting itself "as a liberal power", and taking a number of lessons from the rise of US power after World War 2.

But, he said, China remains insecure and reveals this in a number of ways:

1. The country has many internal problems and contradictions as we know-- including ethnic problems, corruption, and so on. So this makes a contradiction betw its promotion of democracy abroad [I think by that he meant within the international system, rather than within individual countries abroad. ~HC] and its practice at home. 
2. China has no stable ideology right now-- not Maoism, and not democracy... the result is often a fairly strongly expressed form of Chinese nationalism.
3.  The lack of resolution of the Taiwan issue.  This has led tointensive military preparations, and clouds the view of China's rise as 'peaceful.'
4.  The way that China tries to assure its access to international energy markets by buying equity stakes in 'rogue' states breeds doubt
5.  Because the US is not seen as accepting China's rise, China then adopts a hedge strategy that is seen in US as a threat to US interests...

Harding, it has to be noted, did not make much (or any) mention of India "rising" alongside China into the world system, at all.  He is probably like most other China specialists in this regard.  Is there indeed a sort of hanging-on-China's coat-tails factor at work when someone like MK Narayanan talkes about both Asian powers "rising" simultaneously?, Well, imho, both yes and no...

Harding turned to the issue of where the "balance" in China-US relations now stands.  "The optimists point to the inevitable meshing of economic and other interests between the two countries, while  the pessimists argue that there's an inevitable competition betweern them that may well take on mil.itary dimensions," he said.

[If this olatter is truly one of Washiongton's "conditions" for accepting China taking a greater role in the international system, then I would say it would be ironic-- not to mention hypocritical?-- in the extreme?]

In the discussion period, there was a question-- from the session's chairperson, French citizen Francois Heisbourg-- as to whether Harding actually thought the Bush administration's role in the international system was that of a "status-quo power".  "Though the US may be a status-quo power inside East Asia, still, at a global level, if you take george W. Bush's speeches seriously it seeks significant changes in  international system," heisbourg pointed out..

Harding replied that he had mis-spoken, "The US isn't actually a status-quo power, but it is an established power."  He also said that though Bush's policy toward China is not too bad right now, he is what Americans call "a lame duck"-- i.e. coming nearer and nearer to the end of his own domestic political powers-- "and there's already a huge battle brewing  inside the Republican Party over China, with many conseravtives being very vitriolic against China indeed."

Actually, I should also note that in addition to the very low or non-existent presence of Chinese participants in the conference, there was also a notable absence of any people of any rank a all from the Bush administration.  This in strong contrast to past years, when a keynote speech by Donald Rumsfeld or Condi Rice would routinely form part of the program.

In the lead-up to this year's conference, there was some talk that our Charlottesville neighbor Phil Zelikow, the Under-Secretary for Policy in Condi's State Department-- had been "invited" to give the keynote speech.  But he never showed, and no keynote speech ended being provided at all.  All fairly mysterious.

There were many non-administration US participants.  But the absence of any meaningful, officially connected participation from Washington was notable.  Does the Bush administration no longer care about sustaining  high-level dialogue about strategic issues with interlocutors and analysts from around the world, or are they simply too comsumed with dealing with the two very different challenges in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico to be able to devote much attention to such a staid old forum as the IISS conference?

The absence of the Bushies, in addition, had a clear effect on other high-level strategic-affairs peoiple from around the world, who also stayed away in droves.  M.K. Naryanan was probably the highest-ranking individual there, and should probably have been invited to give a keynote address-- Why not?

Anyway, my intention in writing this fairly lengthy JWN post has been mainly to pull together my own notes from yesterday's two very interesting plenary sessions.  I think next year, I'll get in touch with the conference organizers before the session, to see about getting access to the speakers' own written versions of their remarks.  There did not seem to be any special provisions made for press people this year.