PM Lee Hsien Loong at a Dialogue with the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (Apr 2022)
Transcript of PM Lee Hsien Loong's dialogue with the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board on Friday, 1 April 2022. PM Lee was on a working visit to the US from 26 March to 2 April 2022.
PM Lee Hsien Loong: You wanted to talk about three things, so I will cover them briefly and then open it to you. I sent you what I said at the Council on Foreign Relations a few days ago. You may have scanned it. So, I will not cover the same ground, but just to say on Ukraine, for us it is an existential issue. Sovereignty and territorial integrity is not just one of the principles in the UN Charter, but for a small country like us, it is absolutely fundamental. We have stood up for this principle every time the subject has come up in the UN, which it does regularly. Because from time to time, things happen, and the issue has to be addressed.
We
have done that going all the way back to Grenada in 1983 when the US
invaded, and Cambodia when it was invaded by Vietnam in 1978, and now in
the case of Ukraine. Mostly, we have not acted independently of the
UN’s decisions, and we follow whatever sanctions or decisions that UNSC
comes up with. But from time to time, the UNSC is paralysed, like here.
And in this case, it is such a big and egregious violation of
international norms that we decided we had to act on our own, UNSC or
not. And so, we imposed some sanctions – export controls on materials
which can help the Russians in Ukraine, and also restrictions on
financial institutions; some of them are proscribed because funds flow
is part of the problem.
Ukraine
has implications for the way events develop in Asia. Some rash people
have talked about a NATO-type situation developing in Asia, but Asia is
different. How do we handle it so that in Asia we have the right
institutions in the long term, that we are able to develop mutual
interest and interdependence across potentially hostile lines and
prevent a fracture? It is something which exercises us. In addition,
individual countries are calculating their own responses and what
Ukraine means for them, in terms of defence capability, nuclear even. In
terms of who will come to their help, and what the prospects are of
something hotting up, on Taiwan, for example. My own take is that
Ukraine does not influence Taiwan’s prospects greatly one way or the
other, that has its own dynamics and historical frame, but we can talk
about that.
Secondly,
on US-China, it is one of the things which will be complicated by
Ukraine. America asks why China does not stand with it. You have to be
very careful not to define the problem with Ukraine in such a way that
automatically, China is already on the wrong side, for example, by
making this a battle of democracies against autocracies.
We
all have a problem in Ukraine. I think if we talk about sovereignty,
independence and territorial integrity, a lot of countries can come
along. Even China would not object to that, and would actually privately
strongly support that. But if you say it is democracies versus Putin’s
autocracy, I think that already is difficult. If you say democracies
versus autocracies – plural – that already defines China into the wrong
camp, and makes things even more difficult.
And
already, things are difficult enough. There is very little trust on
both sides. It is not so easy to find the right level empowered to
engage so that you can tee up to reach rapprochement to reduce the
tensions, gradually to build up trust, and to work towards
accommodations which are necessary, if you are going to coexist with
them. In a situation where 80 per cent of the relationship is
adversarial or conflictual, you cannot really segregate the remaining 20
per cent and say “Here, I would like to win-win, cooperate on pandemics
and climate change”, or for that matter, trade.
How
to do that is something which should preoccupy the US administration,
and I think it does. They know that beyond Ukraine, which is taking up
their bandwidth now, Asia is where they have to get their strategy and
game plan right.
Thirdly,
you asked about US credibility. There are two aspects to this – one is
whether people are able to do business with the US, and to rely on the
commitments made. And it is at least a complication that arrangements
made at one administration may or may not endure into the next.
Sometimes, the way to entrench a commitment is to settle it in Congress
and have a treaty that is ratified, but if you cannot get it ratified,
and the President makes an order, the next President may make a
different order, which is what happened on climate change.
It
is not a prescription to not do business, but it does make things more
complicated. There is some stability and consistency to US positions –
sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad. One stable aspect which I
think is unfortunately not helpful is in the bipartisan mood on US-China
relations. Whether it is Democrats or Republicans, whether it is on the
Hill, in the think tanks or even in the media, a very deep sense has
settled in that this is a challenger that is different. And if I do not
challenge him now, when do I challenge him? The Biden administration
handles foreign policy very differently from the Trump administration,
but in terms of this fundamental attitude, I think the shift has not
been so great. So, you do have credibility on that count, but I would
have much preferred credibility in being able to make a commitment that
even if we cannot co-habit, to at least co-exist in this world. It is a
co-existence for a very long time, and we do have to work together to
make sure that we do not end up causing harm to one another continually.
The
other aspect of US credibility is your standing in the world – to be
seen to be confident, to be on top of your problems, to be abreast of
developments and able to play an active role as a very significant
power. You may no longer be the hyper-power, but you will still be close
to the biggest economy and one of the most advanced, vibrant and
dynamic economies and societies in the world; able to attract talent,
able to generate new entrepreneurship, growth, ideas and reinvent
yourself. It may be a very painful process, but you can do that.
But
that is not a universal perception. There is strong perception in some
parts of the world, including in China, quite explicitly – that the East
is rising, and the West is declining; that you do not have a bright
future because the world is changing too fast for a system like the
United States, a democracy with checks and balances.
I
do not believe this at all. I know you have a lot of problems and you
are very preoccupied with them and you do not see a ready solution to
them, but to conclude that this a country with no future is a very, very
rash assumption to make. It is a bet which if proven wrong – which is
very likely – is going to cost; cost in overly ambitious plans, cost in
overly complacent assumptions, cost in being aggressive in ways which
are going to cause a problem, not just to the US but with the rest of
the world.
But there is not much the US can do about that
perception by arguing about it. You can only solve that problem by
progressively being seen to overcome your problems. And to be looking
outwards and to be playing the part which so many countries in the
Asia-Pacific would like you to play. And I hope that you will be able to
do that, mid-terms, and Presidential elections notwithstanding. I will
stop there so that you can ask questions.
Wall Street Journal: Thank you. That was very helpful and frank. I will just start it off with everybody getting to it. You are a very close watcher of China. And I wondered if you can give us your perspective about where you think the leadership of China, with their attitudes are towards the United States – you suggested there is at least part of the view is that America is in decline but that Xi Jinping is going to consolidate his power for another term, presumably later this year – what do you think his overall strategy is in the Pacific and more broadly?
PM Lee: I
think they treat the Pacific, in a way, like a near abroad. It is their
region; they have intense interactions with it, and not only in terms
of trade. Most countries in the region have China as their biggest
trading partner. A lot of the countries invest in China – Singapore
certainly does. And increasingly China is investing in these countries
too, outbound. And they want friends, and they want influence.
President
Xi Jinping has said, although it is several years old, he said it when
Obama was President – that the Pacific is big enough for both the US and
China. But the question is whether it is big enough for countries to be
friends with both, or whether it is big enough to be a split down the
middle? China has said they are quite happy to have countries being
friends with both, and that they do not approve of closed, exclusive
groupings. But at the same time, they say that regional affairs should
be resolved by regional countries. But there are some regional issues in
which countries which are not within the region have a legitimate
interest, for example, freedom of navigation and the stability and
security of the region, because these can have global implications. And
in that case, in fact other countries will be present and will want to
participate. And I think many countries in the Asia-Pacific would like
to see that happen as well.
So,
if you ask what China would like, I think they would like friends and
they would like to make friends and influence people. And they have the
resources and the focus, and they do so in many ways. Every country in
the region has a broad relationship with China, and would like to take
advantage of the opportunities in China to do business with it, but at
the same time, they would also like to retain freedom of manoeuvre and
agency in a multi-polar world.
WSJ: Two things I am particularly interested in the Pacific, we have been able to have the chance to see in these few years. One, in a broad sense, the COVID-19 experience – how the Chinese view the Americans’ handling of COVID-19 and how we view their handling of COVID-19 are very different kinds of narratives – but from the US perspective, the disease comes from China, the lock-downs were not most successful as we are seeing now, the Sinovac was not the best vaccine. There are very conflicting areas. What is the regional view of China’s handling and response to COVID from the beginning and has that had any lasting effects? That is the first question.
PM Lee: I would say the region is a lot more respectful of what the Chinese did than the Americans are. The US blames it heavily on them that right at the beginning they did not promptly detect, declare and wipe out COVID-19. But within a month they did bring it out in the open and countries scrambled to react. Some responded quickly, while others like the United States regret not reacting faster. But you put a lot of emphasis on that possible mis-handling and non-transparency, and specifically questioning whether the virus escaped from a laboratory.
I
am sure that the Chinese could have been more transparent at the
beginning and could be more transparent now about what happened at the
beginning. But to demand proof that the virus did not come out from a
lab, when there is not a lot of basis to suspect that the virus did come
out from a lab, if I were a Chinese, I would ask: why should I open my
lab just to dispel this unreasonable demand and suspicion? Many other
things may go on in the lab which the Chinese legitimately do not want
to reveal.
I think in the region, Australia would take the US
perspective. Most of the other countries in the region would say well,
this has happened, let us deal with the problem where it is now.
As
for the course of the pandemic, countries in the region have had our
challenges dealing with the virus, but for most of the last two years
one place where we could receive visitors from without having to test,
quarantine and isolate them stringently has been China. Now it is not
clear that that will still be the case, but it has been.
WSJ: Thank you for that. My other one is a bit regional, but as the economic relationship between the US and China changes, as supply chains retreat or as the US pursues more manufacturing. Can you talk a little bit about how you think the changing nature of the trade manufacturing relationship between the US and China might play out across the region for the other countries?
I
am specifically also interested in one piece of that, for our
perspective, how has the changing climate in Hong Kong affected
Singapore, in particular, in terms of western companies. Are you really
seeing dramatic movement and people shifting to Singapore, but I would
say, the whole footprint in general, in the region as it changes?
PM Lee: I think it is two separate problems. On decoupling, the impact on us depends on how deep it goes. My analogy is that we started off with what was more or less a flat world as Thomas Friedman said. Now, there is a chasm which has opened, a crack, and the crack is propagating. We do not quite know how far the crack will extend and whether it is possible to stop it – all right, this part we agree to stay at arm’s length but in other parts we do business together. I hope it will be possible and we at least still have if not a whole cloth, at least one connected world, and that means you have investments in China, technology in China, production in China and exports and interdependence. And more or less, life can still go on.
Hopefully
it is so, although we cannot be absolutely sure about that. If it is
so, then I can imagine that we will be talking about partly reshoring,
partly making more secure supply chains. Then Southeast Asia can be part
of the strategy, which is something we have been promoting for many
years. Telling people not to put all their eggs in one basket. That
while China is very good for MNCs, we in Southeast Asia are not so bad
and perhaps you should put something in this part of the world to hedge
your bets.
Some MNCs were starting to do that even before the
latest troubles. Partly because as China developed, their wages have
gone up, and their competitive position has changed. Vietnam has done it
quite well. Indonesia has good potential but they have not gone quite
as far. Even Bangladesh was growing its textiles and garments
industries.
So,
if we preserve one international system, we can still make a living. We
will try to enhance our trust indicators and develop our networks. That
way, our supply chains can connect and operate, and we will be part of a
trusted network, part of the world strategic resilience.
If
the crack propagates further than that, and we all decide that we each
must have our own national resilience, and everything must come home and
iPhones instead of having components from forty different countries
must now be 80 per cent made onshore in America, then we are in a
completely different world.
Countries
accuse China of state intervention, subventions, and distortions. But
if you decide that for strategic reasons, you must put a lot of things
onshore, then you will in effect be taking similar actions. And then
what are the rules?
Up
till now, the basic rule is that countries are allowed to deviate from
strict free trade and no subsidies, but can do so only within legal
limits. The WTO establishes a set of fair trading rules and arbitrates
them. But now you are going to go quite a lot further. If it is not
going to be the law of the jungle – do or die I must have everything in
my country, and I am willing to pay a lot of money to bring the
activities here – then we do need new rules as to what is a reasonable
and acceptable, what are the limits and how do we agree on them. So that
is something we have to work on. Everybody is saying that we must have
national resilience but if we all push that without limits then we will
end up with law of the jungle again.
Hong
Kong is a different problem. Their first and immediate issue, which I
think is a short term one, is that the expats there are tired of the
COVID-19 restrictions. They cannot travel, they cannot do their business
very easily – so what is the point of being there, if you cannot go
into China or go into the region? Therefore they want to move. Some of
them may want to come to Singapore. We are happy to welcome them, but
actually we would be more pleased if they were happy to remain in Hong
Kong. It is competition for Singapore, but it will make for a vibrant,
dynamic region and Singapore belonging to the region will benefit from
that.
The
longer-term issue for Hong Kong is after 2019, after the student
demonstrations, China changed the rules and made new laws. The
environment has changed and now the companies have to decide: in this
environment, what business can they do?
They
can still do business. A lot of companies are in the mainland, on the
other side of one country two systems, doing business quite
successfully. But what can they do in Hong Kong which is still unique
and valuable and different? And do they need to be in Hong Kong still or
can they be elsewhere, where there may be other advantages? It could be
that some of them will move. Some may come to Singapore. Some may go
elsewhere. We will have to see.
Before
reunification, Hong Kong and the mainland started off very different.
The hope was that as time passed, they would converge, and in a good
way, so that at the end of fifty years, when the one country two systems
arrangement ends, it is not such a shock to bring the two together. The
mainland would become closer to Hong Kong and Hong Kong would become
closer to what it is like on the mainland. This year will be the halfway
mark. I believe Hong Kong can still make a living, and more than make a
living, even as the environment gradually changes.
WSJ: When you were at the Council on Foreign Relations, you said that you did not think that turning China into a democracy was ever in the cards, nor was it the reason why we brought China into the WTO or engage with China. Then you said that we would do it on our own merits, it has been good for Americans. But it seems to me that the whole idea of engaging with China was to actually bring it towards something more democratic, and even if it was not democratic, that it would be less aggressive and expansionist. That has not happened. It has basically been funding dictatorships like in Cuba, in Venezuela, in this hemisphere, and dictatorships that do a lot of work in destabilising US interests in the region.
Later
on in that same remark, you said that what we need to do is bring in
China, give it more influence, like with the WTO and the IMF. Why should
we do that when China is acting in an aggressive, or passive aggressive
way, in our own hemisphere. Basically, helping prop up countries that
are engaged in things that are basically totally against our interest,
and I am not talking about whether they have democracy or not, but I am
talking about issues of stability and national security.
PM Lee: We
all have our idea of what is improper interference in other country’s
people’s political affairs. And certainly, Singapore takes the view that
Singapore’s politics is for Singaporeans, and if you are not
Singaporean, you have no business either engaging in it or funding it. I
think most countries would think like that too. But it is a fact of
life that a lot of countries do try to influence the domestic affairs of
other countries. Influence operations happen in a lot of countries in
the world.
I would say the counterfactual is, if you did not
bring China in and you kept them out of the system – with the objective
of making them poorer off and less able to be a destabilising factor in
the world – are you sure that this would be less destabilising? The bet
was that as China developed, as the population became more affluent,
they would grow a middle class, they would develop a vested interest in
the status quo and in the international system, because that is the
system which they profit from. China needs the international finance
system; they own several trillion dollars of US Treasuries. They need
the world trade system because they export, they do business around the
world. And it is better that they be part of this system than not be
part of it.
WSJ: One quick follow up – I accept all that, that is reality. But I am not sure why the US should want to welcome China, for example, into the IMF.
PM Lee: They are already members of the IMF and World Bank.
WSJ: To expand their influence, I guess.
PM Lee: The
IMF and the World Bank were set up after World War II at Bretton Woods,
at a time when the US was dominant. And they were so set up that
basically the IMF had a European Managing Director and the World Bank
had as President somebody whom the Americans would approve of, and the
voting shares reflected the weight of the economies at that time. The
shares have been somewhat modified over time, but only very partially.
So, the question is not why you want to give China more influence, but
what is the legitimacy of an institution, which was created at a time
when the balance of the world economy was quite different, and what is
the implication of letting that remain the status quo, when you cannot
really prevent the Chinese from being part of the world economy?
You
can say, okay, I keep the World Bank like this, I always would like to
have a big say on who its President is. The Chinese say, alright I will
set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). It is not quite
the same, but it is another way they can engage. Is it better for the
world? Probably it would be even better if all of us were operating
within one global framework. But is it possible for us to say, no, you
must not do that, that is wrong? The Chinese want to engage, they want
to invest and do business, other countries also want to do business with
them, this is a mechanism by which they can do so.
Once
upon a time it was different. In the 1980s, we had the same
conversation about the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
the precursor of the WTO, and it was not China, but it was the Soviet
Union. They were not members of GATT. GATT had maybe 150 members then,
and we had GATT Rounds and each time we made progress, bringing down
tariffs and allowing freer trade. And the question was whether or not to
bring the Soviet Union into the tent. And at that time the argument was
made that it is better to keep them out of the tent, because if they
come in, we will have a general gridlock and nothing will be settled,
because every argument will become so complicated. But in that case, the
Soviet Union was a negligible part of world trade and we could work it
like that. But with China being a substantial share of world trade now,
if they are out of the tent and not subject to the same rules, I think
you will find it more complicated.
WSJ: Also, on the topic on foreign influence, I had seen that Singapore last year passed legislation on foreign influence, and I wondered if you could elaborate specifically on what countries it (Singapore) perceived as being a threat in this way, and what specific conducts or behaviours were the basis of concern?
PM Lee: We are very exposed to the world. First of all, we are multiply connected with multiple terabits of capacity on the Internet. Secondly, Singaporeans all speak English and read English. Thirdly, our population is multi-racial – we have Chinese, we have Indians, we have Malays and sprinklings of others as well. And in every case, we are not like the Japanese. If you are an ethnic Japanese, you probably live in Japan. But there are big populations of Chinese, Malays and Indians elsewhere in the region, and we can never say that these connections are not useful to Singapore, or that these connections do not matter to Singapore.
Therefore,
we look very apprehensively at influence operations which have been
done on the US, at other countries which have experienced similar
problems, sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant, often pervasive, and we
ask what reason we have to believe that it will not happen to us. Just
look around the world. There are any number of reasons why somebody
might want to influence our attitudes and political opinions – either to
push us in a certain direction or to cause differences in views amongst
our population.
It
has happened repeatedly in our modern history. Recently one French
think tank did a study about influence operations, and devoted one whole
chapter to a case study about Singapore. They saw us as being a target
because of ethnic connections, and yet saw how we have been trying to
immunise ourselves by building a Singapore identity and standing up
differently from other countries with similar ethnic compositions. And
they gave some examples of incidents where such things could have
happened.
WSJ: We are all obviously trying to guess what is the impact of the war on Ukraine on China’s thinking about Taiwan in particular, (among) other regional issues. I am wondering what impact it is having on your thinking about the strategic arrangements in your region, you and other governments and in particular, what conversations you are having about perhaps strengthening the security architecture of countries in the region related with the United States? You said in your remarks that obviously there is not an Asian NATO and there is not going to be an Asian NATO, but we have heard in other countries in the region – Japan, Korea – that this is perhaps sharpening their sense of the strategic security in the region that should be in Asia. What are your thoughts on that and how is it changing how that may evolve given the challenge that China presents?
PM Lee: All the countries in the region must be calculating what it means for their defence. I said it does not just stop with conventional, but goes on even to nuclear questions, and I was talking about Northeast Asia particularly. Mr Abe has raised the question explicitly which has been just under the surface for some years already. And the South Koreans also have considerable views in favour of developing their own nuclear capability. If that happens in Northeast Asia, I am not sure if that is as far as nuclear proliferation will go.
Then,
what about the security architecture? Some of the Asia Pacific
countries are allies of the United States, like Japan, South Korea and
Australia. Others are not allies of the United States, but we have
security cooperation which has gone on for a long time, like Singapore.
Singapore even has a special title for our relationship. We are a Major
Security Cooperation Partner – it is the only one you have; the others
are allies or friends.
Singapore
and the US cooperate closely, we think it is good that you are
participating in the region, but that does not mean we fight your wars
or that we are expecting you to ride to our rescue should something
happen to us. There is a certain flexibility to it, I think it is best
to keep it like that, because the countries in the region, we are not
lined up eyeball to eyeball. I have my friends, you have your friends,
and we both have some friends in common, and we both do business with
one another, a lot of business with one another. So, what the
architecture we want for the region are structures which will bring the
region together and make you pause a little bit longer before deciding
to go for an extreme solution.
The
Chinese engage the region by many economic and other schemes. Singapore
has an FTA with them, ASEAN has FTA with them, and now we have formed
the RCEP, and China has even applied to join the CPTPP. That started off
with a few small partners – Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand and Chile,
and then it expanded into the TPP when America got involved, and that
changed the game. And we made the argument that this is how America can
have one big chip on the table. This is one strategic move which will
show that you are in play, deepen your engagement with the region, and
give the countries in the region a reason also to say, “I’m standing
with the United States”.
But your politics made it impossible,
you had to walk away from that, and you left the door open, and somebody
else is now knocking on the door. What the CPTPP members are going to
do is one question, what the US is going to do is another question. I
cannot ask the US to come back through the door because that is not on
the cards for your domestic reasons, but you should be present and
playing the game, and working towards improving market access and
deepening your economic relationship with the region.
The
Biden administration understands this. They talk about the IPEF –
Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. The difficulty is how to make this
framework tilt towards facilitating market access, without needing to
get Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) or ratification from Congress. But
begin to have that conversation, begin to get countries together on
this, and do it in a way which is inclusive, meaning this is not
something which is meant to be ‘everyone but China’, this is ‘various
countries for the time being not yet including China’. China will not be
part of it soon, but one day it can happen.
In the case of the
CPTPP, for example, for a long time people did not believe that China
would ever want to come into this. And the way that it was negotiated by
the US, it was, if I may interpret an intention, specifically to make
the rules so strict that it would be difficult for certain other
countries to participate. The Chinese watched closely. First, they saw
it as a threat; they denounced it as a devious plot. Then, they studied
it, and one day, they asked the US at a very senior level “what would
you think if we asked to join?” This was some years ago.
And
then last year, after you did AUKUS they made their move and said, “I
am putting up my hand, can I accede?”. So, they are making these sorts
of engagements, and I think to say that the region should reject that,
is wrong. It is not just unrealistic, it is wrong. We do want China to
engage, but we want to engage it in such a way that it is not the only
partner, and we would like the United States, we would like Europe as
well. Europe declares that they have got a strategic interest in the Far
East. Every now and again, the British sail out their new aircraft
carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, to the South China Sea. They have just
done that. And every now and again, the French sail out the Charles de
Gaulle and before that the Jeanne d’Arc, just show the flag and be
present. And we welcome that.
But you want to have an overlapping
and constructive engagement in the region, so that you do not have a
frontline and the need to say “well, this one is my buffer state”. A few
states are a bit like that, like North Korea, and maybe some of the
Indo-Chinese countries, not all. But by and large, the countries in the
region since the war have been your friends, some of them your allies,
and that has not been a threat to anybody and long may that remain so.
WSJ: Mr Prime Minister, you move forward with a certain historical consciousness, I think. You think about the broad meaning of things. The broad historical implications of what is going on. And I wondered as you spoke, you have been Prime Minister since 2004, have you in that time seen or think America changed in some ways, do you think it has a sense of its own historical intentions and do you think they are the right intentions? And in the same sense, Mr Xi of China as a historical figure with certain intentions and meaning. How do you read him? Not things like immediate TPP, but what is his meaning and what does he want, and what is America’s meaning right now and what does it want and what should it want?
PM Lee: For
a long time, you not only held yourself out as a city on a hill, but
you saw that it was in your interest to be open, to be willing to carry
the obligations of being a policeman in the region, and you saw the
stability and the prosperity of the region as being a plus to you, a
great boon to you. And in fact, it has been, because you have a lot of
problems in a lot of parts of the world, but for many decades, the Asia
Pacific has not been your hottest potato. In fact, it is a region where
you have invested, where your MNCs have profited, your people are there,
and many friends are there, who have spent time here, studied here, and
developed fondness and links for the US.
Over time, as the
balance has shifted, and particularly, as the Chinese have developed,
but the other partners too, like South Korea and Southeast Asian
countries, a counternarrative has developed in the US, which is “Why
should I bear this burden? My share is smaller than it used to be. The
others are not as poor as they used to be. And can I not now bear less
of the burden, and gain more of the benefit, and you pay more of your
bill?”
Certainly,
that was the narrative of the previous administration. This
administration takes a broader approach towards your friends and
partners, but the strategic and economic balance has shifted, and
adjustments do need to be made in terms of what the other countries in
the region will do.
I think one big part of your mind is on how
do you deal with China. You are trying very hard, you understand the
stakes, but you find it very hard, if not to have a meeting of minds, at
least to start to have a connection, which can help both sides manage
this problem and take it forward in a more constructive direction, and
to find a partner on the other side who wants to do that, and do it with
consistency and predictability over more than one US election term. And
that is a big issue for you and for the region. It preoccupies you.
On
China’s part, I cannot read Xi’s mind, but I believe he feels a sense
of mission. They explicitly use this three-part formulation – stand up,
get rich, get strong. 站起来，富起来，强起来. Mao has done站起来 (stand up), Deng has done 富起来 (get rich), and now Xi wants to accomplish 强起来(get
strong). What does it mean, the two-100 years? They have just passed
the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China, and they have
declared an end to extreme poverty in China. And for their next
centenary, that is 2049, 100 years of the People’s Republic, they aspire
to be a modern, great nation.
And your challenge is, is it
possible for you to manage the relationship with China, so that they get
there in a way which is constructive and not destabilising to the
global system?
In the early 2000s, 20 years ago, they
commissioned a study of how great powers rose and fell. The study was
reported to the Politburo, and they made a video series out of it – 12
programmes, I think, of all the great powers in history, starting with
the Portuguese, and then the Spanish, and they talked about the French
and the Soviets, and the United States. And at the end, they brought it
all together and drew the lessons which they learnt, which was that all
the powers which rose by might of arms eventually ran into trouble, and
it has to be done in a more sustainable way. And they broadcast the
series domestically. So, it was a very interesting insight into the way
they thought of how they would arrive in the world, at that time.
WSJ: Could I ask you to elaborate a little bit on nuclear weapons, because one of the lessons of the Ukraine crisis seems to be that a country that does not have those weapons or gives them up, is vulnerable to invasion, and an aggressor who does have them very much limits its opponents’ freedom of action. There are some who might argue that “I understand the concerns about proliferation, but increased deterrent would be a stabilising force, not a destabilising force.”
PM Lee: If
you take literally strategic game theories, then you could make an
argument and maybe construct a mathematical proof of that. But in real
life a lot of accidents can happen, and people are not necessarily
rational even on the most existential things. You do have to ask as the
number of players proliferate, are you absolutely sure that all of them
understand the nuances of mutual assured destruction (MAD)? I do not
think Kim Jong Un is crazy; he certainly does not want to commit
suicide. But supposing nuclear weapons proliferate in the Middle East,
are you sure that those restraints will apply? And even in Northeast
Asia, even with restraints, are you sure that accidents will not happen?
During
the Cold War, there were many times when you came far closer than
people knew, and closer than you ever wanted to, to catastrophic
accidents. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, for one. And not just the
overt things like General Curtis Lemay wanting to “nuke them till they
glowed, but tense tactical engagements which could have escalated into
disastrous exchanges. And you had other incidents, near misses like the
Able Archer Exercise in 1983 which could easily have ended up in sudden
devastating grief. So, I really do not think proliferation is a good
idea, but it will be very hard to prevent. All you can hope to do is to
slow it down.