ST; TABLE TALK: WITH FAREED ZAKARIA Political leadership for a new global order

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July 5, 2008
TABLE TALK: WITH FAREED ZAKARIA Political leadership for a new global order
How might Singapore deal with a world in which people are richer than ever before and many players are jostling for supremacy? The editor of Newsweek International, Dr Fareed Zakaria, proffers his thoughts
By Cheong Suk-Wai, Senior Writer
A SINGAPOREAN taxi driver's chance remark set Dr Fareed Zakaria thinking how best he might write about a world in which people are richer than ever before and many players are jostling for supremacy. Meeting The Straits Times in his London hotel suite earlier this week, the editor of Newsweek International recalled how the cabby pointed to the Republic's new ferris wheel, the Singapore Flyer. 'I looked at it and I said - I suppose in a somewhat patronising voice: 'How nice, you have a ferris wheel.' 'And he turns around and says: 'Sir, that's the largest ferris wheel in the world'.' A month later, he was being shown around the South China mall in Dongguan, when his host told him that the 9.6 million-sq ft complex was the world's largest. Dr Zakaria did not buy that at first. He thought The Mall of America in Minnesota still held that title. (Actually it is only the 18th largest these days). Dr Zakaria recalled: 'At that point I decided I had learnt my lesson. I began to realise these anecdotes I had been hearing about this country growing and that country growing were adding up to something quite significant.' So he decided his new book - his second after the best-selling The Future Of Freedom - would examine how the world's new thriving countries will change the character of international economics, politics and culture. Dr Zakaria's big, hawk-sharp eyes, which are very alert indeed, give the lie to his relaxed demeanour. His laptop pings away with news updates on a side table while we talk. Everything about him tells you he is his own man - from his powder purple polo T-shirt, an unusual colour choice, to his Indian-accented English, although he has been a naturalised American citizen for many years now. He was in London for the launch of his new weekly current affairs show on CNN. Called Global Public Square, it premiered on June 1, and the first episode saw him interviewing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Conservative Party leader David Cameron. The son of an Indian politician and a newspaper editor, Dr Zakaria is a Harvard political science alumnus. He had the ear of such luminaries as former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger from early in his career. But he really made his mark with his 2001 essay, Why They Hate Us, which he wrote just after the Sept 11 terror attacks on the US. His weekly column in Newsweek is now required reading for anyone interested in global affairs. The way forward THIRTY years ago, if anyone from Brazil, India or Mexico had predicted his country would soon be revving the world's economic engines, he would have been brushed off as a wishful thinker at best. But today, these countries are charging into the future after having embraced capitalism. As a result, three billion new players are competing for the world's ever-dwindling resources. Indeed, as Dr Zakaria points out in his new book, The Post-American World, the economies of 124 countries, including 30 African states, are now growing at the rate of at least 4 per cent a year. Compare that with the only 35 countries that enjoyed that sort of growth 30 years ago, he says, and what you have is 'the birth of a truly global order'. Singapore, he adds, is handling this brave new order very well. 'What Singapore has done very adroitly is to have moved up the value chain - to have said that 'okay, we can't compete with other countries in cheap labour, and so we're going to do value-added products, we're going to try services, we can compete (in) these areas, we're going to move to the next level'.' He applauds the Republic's 'very clever' forays into such areas as tourism, film-making and software design. And all this, on top of managing good relations with both the United States and China, he notes admiringly. But he adds that Singapore is the only rich country in the world without a fully functioning multi-party democracy. That will hobble its advance in the long run, he believes, because people 'want not only economic rights, but also freedom of association, freedom of speech and freedom of thought'. 'You may get lucky with a particular autocrat, but what happens after him?...If you could guarantee me in advance that you'll get Lee Kuan Yew, that's a whole different thing. But there's no way beforehand to know that you're going to get a leader like Lee Kuan Yew.' He adds wryly, wondering whether this would get into print: 'I think that the political system is rigged in favour of the People's Action Party (PAP). Some of it is formal...Some of it is informal. But all of it is largely unnecessary.' Singapore is already 'a very open society in many ways', he points out. 'I often say this to people because they have an image of Singapore which is essentially incorrect...It is a place where you would certainly feel as if you had many, many freedoms and liberties...It has been lucky in having very wise leadership.' But it has to widen its political outlook much more, he insists. 'Singapore's leaders have succeeded more than they realise. They created a modern society, and in creating that modern society, they must now also trust it more than they do.' He adds: 'That, in some ways, is the genius of democracy. It turns the relationship between governed and governors into a two-way street, and that will make for a much greater degree of sense of loyalty and pride in Singapore for the next generation.' He muses: 'It's funny: Whenever I meet senior Singapore government officials, I will sometimes mention this. And they'll go: 'Oh, no, no, it's not a real problem, don't worry.' And I'll say: 'You know, younger Singaporeans do feel frustrated.' And they'll say: 'Oh, I don't know if you are right about that.' 'And then, as I'm escorted out by one of the young aides to the senior government officials, they will tell me: 'By the way, Dr Zakaria, you are 100 per cent right. We are very frustrated'.' 'And these,' he notes, 'are people in the heart of the political structure.' Dr Zakaria is quite sure that if the PAP held what he calls 'open competitive elections', it would do 'quite well'. And as for Minister Mentor Lee's view that a non-PAP government would act irresponsibly by exhausting Singapore's coffers, Dr Zakaria says: 'You can produce checks and counter-checks. Nobody's talking about giving day-to-day control of Temasek (Holdings) and the Government Investment Corporation to Parliament. You can create institutions that are independent and therefore somewhat sheltered from day-to-day political control.' Tackling global crises AND political control, by the way, is what he feels the new global order needs in a big way. Great global growth brings with it great global worries. And therein lies the rub. The current lone superpower, the US, is not only being outstripped by new players on the economic front, it has also lost its intellectual and moral high ground since it invaded Iraq in 2003. On top of that, though food, fuel and weather woes have spilled over into the international arena, most countries are still thinking of how to solve these problems locally, when what is really needed is greater global consultation, cooperation and compromise. 'We have crises now. The question is whether we have the leadership.' China, he feels, is not ready to fill the vacuum America has left for two reasons. First, there is considerable scepticism about China, particularly in India, Japan and Indonesia. 'It's not as if the world is hungering for Chinese leadership.' Second, if China or any other Asian economic dragon wants to lead the world in the way the US has in the past 60 years, it would first need to present 'a compelling vision for other people to buy into and say, 'You know, we like the way Asians think about the world'.' 'It's not just about money,' Dr Zakaria insists. 'It's about setting an agenda, making people feel that there's a vision that you want to work towards.' For that reason alone, he thinks the US can still play a pivotal role. It can bring the world together to work out solutions to problems like energy and global warming. Asked which US presidential contender is better poised to lead in a post-American world, he plumps firmly for the Democrat, Senator Barack Obama. He finds Mr Obama's willingness to challenge settled wisdom in Washington - like his willingness to talk to US 'enemies' - 'refreshing'. 'And though he was criticised for it, he stuck to his guns,' notes Dr Zakaria. 'I think that was very impressive.' Mr Obama's rival, Senator John McCain, on the other hand, is 'a Cold Warrior', says Dr Zakaria, referring to the Republican's less than friendly references to Russia and China. 'That is just the wrong vision for the future.' Dr Zakaria himself is a long-term optimist about the post-American world. 'At the end of the day, the power of two to three billion people for the first time consuming, investing, producing, dreaming, inventing and problem-solving is very, very powerful,' he proclaims. [email protected]

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July 5, 2008
Dr Zakaria on...
FIRM GROUND: PAP supporters pitching in during the 2006 election campaign. OPPOSITES?: US presidential candidates John McCain (left) and Barack Obama. -- PHOTO: THE BUSINESS TIMES PHOTO: AP   View more photos Economic and political rights: People want economic rights but they also want political rights. They want property rights but they also want freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought. You may get lucky with a particular autocrat, but what happens after him? The great problem with the idea that an autocracy is a good idea is that most people don't end up with Lee Kuan Yew. They end up with Mobuto or Marcos or Mugabe. If you could guarantee me in advance that you'll get Lee Kuan Yew, that's a whole different thing. But there's no way beforehand to know that you're going to get a leader like Lee Kuan Yew. I think that for societies that are not yet at an advanced industrial state, there are considerable questions as to whether introducing multi-party democracy right away produce stability. In places like Iraq we should have had a much greater emphasis on stability and order, rather than holding as we did four or five different elections. But in the long run, for a rich country, there are very few alternatives. Singapore is the only rich country in the world that does not have a fully functioning multi- party democracy. And Singapore is a very unusual case. First of all, it is a very open society. It is also a very small country that has been very lucky in having very wise leadership - and there's no way to guarantee that. One-party rule in Singapore The system needs more checks and balances. You need the prospect of losing power to produce a certain degree of discipline. The Singapore Government They've done a very good job, but younger Singaporeans do feel frustrated. They feel the society, the political system is too closed and it's too much of an insider's club. A sense of belonging What makes somebody a Singaporean in a world in which you are going to need people who have come two years, three years ago? How do you make them think of themselves as Singaporeans? Part of it has to be, I think, that they feel they are full participants in the destiny and political structures of the country. I can tell you that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong thinks a lot about this, because he and I have had several conversations about this. China Whenever you talk about the rise of Asia, you're really often talking about the rise of China. But the rise of China produces very complicated feelings in India and Japan. So there might actually be forces within Asia that can act and counteract these things. India I feel very frustrated watching India, because I think it has extraordinary potential. Indian society is so ready for globalisation (but) the Indian state is so scared and backward-looking and corrupt and caught up with its own phobias and ideologies from a different era. The 2008 US presidential race One of the advantages of this (long) process this time around is that the crazies are out of the race. There were a lot of candidates that had very disturbing views about the world, very confrontational, very nasty and would have taken America down a very dark road. And they were all thoroughly rejected by the American public. Mr Barack Obama He's a creature of the world as well as a creature of America...So this world is not a completely alien and slightly menacing thing to him, it's something that's part of him. Mr John McCain He remains a very old-fashioned figure. He has an almost Victorian view of the world.