- 8 months ago
- #considerthis
The geostrategic competition between the US and China continues to reshape the global economy—from the reconfiguration of supply chains, to the jostling for influence in Southeast Asia. So how should the region navigate an increasingly fragmented world order? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Elina Noor, Senior Fellow of the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Professor Dr Danny Quah, Li Ka Shing Professor in Economics and Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS. Both were speakers at the Asia-Pacific Roundtable 2025, organised by ISIS Malaysia & ASEAN-ISIS.
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00:00Hello and good evening, I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:25where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day.
00:30The rivalry between the US and China continues to reshape the global economy from the reconfiguration
00:36of global supply chains to the strategic competition for influence in Southeast Asia.
00:43The question is, how should this region navigate the increasingly fragmented world order?
00:51Joining me on the show today are two speakers from the Asia-Pacific Roundtable, which is
00:56organized by ISIS Malaysia and ASEAN ISIS. Alina Noh is a Senior Fellow of the Asia Programme at the
01:02Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the US, and Dr. Danny Kua, who is a Li Ka Shing Professor
01:10in Economics and also the Dean of the Li Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in the US. Welcome to the
01:16show both of you. It's good to have you in person here with me. Thank you for having us. And I think
01:22you both are well-placed, well-situated to talk about what we often say as how the US and China
01:30reshaping or redefining this multipolar era. But how would each of you characterize that? I mean,
01:38what's your assessment of where things currently stand? If I may begin with you, Alina.
01:43So I think sitting where I am now, having just returned to the region from being in the US for a
01:50long time, we are in some would say unprecedented times, but I would actually push back against that.
01:56I think these ruptures that we see in the United States have always been there. They've been latent.
02:02Perhaps we haven't paid as much attention to them as we should have. And these ruptures are now coming to
02:08the fore with a lot of unpredictability in the political space that are spilling over into the
02:14economic realm. And that's causing a bit of chaos for the whole world. Danny would know a lot more
02:21about that on the tariff front. But it makes trying to predict policies in Southeast Asia a lot more
02:30challenging just because of this unpredictability. Because US policies obviously affect us in the
02:38region. And in terms of planning, it's a little bit of a challenge when you're trying to plan,
02:44you know, a month, even a month down the line, policies in the US could change in the next hour.
02:50Was it different before? Were we more able to anticipate policies or the trajectory of the US previously?
03:00We saw a preview of this under the first Trump administration. So it's not completely new to us.
03:05But then I think we got used to going back to the normal way of doing business in Washington under
03:10Joe Biden's administration. And now some would say it's even more intense under the second Trump
03:17administration, this unpredictability and capriciousness. But yeah, we can talk about some
03:23of these latent ruptures that I mentioned earlier. But I think those fault lines have always been there
03:28on the domestic political front in the US. What about you, Danny? Do you agree that this
03:32is a moment of intensification? It is, certainly. I have spent a lot of time also traveling to
03:40Washington DC and Beijing alternately, trying to understand what the thinking is. And I might,
03:47if I may say that the way you've described this, Melissa, is a very good way, US-China rivalry. But
03:55also saying that hides a little bit some of the underlying dynamics. Let me say what I mean by that.
04:03Coca-Cola and Pepsi are rivals. They're not thinking about going to war against each other. They're not
04:11involving other nations or other companies, swirling about in a gigantic chessboard of geopolitics. So
04:18there's rivalry, but then there's something deeper. And, you know, there's a sense in which we might ask,
04:25if there's a rivalry, what is each of them trying to achieve?
04:30Danny, you've anticipated my next question. Okay.
04:33I was really kind of a zooming out really to understand what it is that each superpower wants,
04:40and what each superpower is trying to do. Perhaps before we get to that, I do want to
04:46address that question. But I think there's at least the following ways of thinking about the rivalry.
04:52Okay. One is that it's the John F. Kennedy in the 1960s got out on the steps of Capitol Hill
05:00and described the Cold War as the final twilight struggle of humanity between the forces of
05:06democracy and freedom and totalitarianism and tyranny. And every now and then you do hear an American
05:13politician say that. There's also a different sense in which America is having to deal with the
05:19economics of the rise of China, what sometimes people call the China shock. So is the China shock?
05:27Is China stealing American jobs? Is it dismantling American industry? Is it turning into ghost towns?
05:34What were once thriving middle class American communities? Now, either of these, the John F.
05:40Kennedy democracy is the fate of the world reason or the China shock reason drives it to a level above
05:47Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Okay. So we're beginning to get somewhere now. But I worry that there's a third
05:53factor here, which is a line of thinking that says that America will not tolerate the rise of an alternative
06:02powerful hegemon. Another nation that's powerful enough that can dictate terms of engagement,
06:12wherever that other nation is. Now, this is a way of thinking that then says America needs to contain that.
06:20It needs to prevent the rise of this other hegemon because that other hegemon's continuous
06:27ascendance will, in the near future, sharply constrain America's prospects and freedom of actions.
06:35That would be a reason for going to war, for engaging in the kind of conflict that we're beginning to see
06:42emerge. So while rivalry captures that, it also does not reveal this triumvirate of different
06:50reasons. And I think thinking about those reasons is maybe a one way to proceed. How would you then
06:56characterize it if not the term rivalry? Geostrategic competition, hegemonic power,
07:04the chase for hegemonic, the chase for hegemony. I do have to ask you, does China want to be the
07:12next power hegemon? I think... Or is this America projecting it on them? I think there's part of it
07:19is America's projecting. I really, I think that we can document that. Part of it is the belief that
07:27this is inadvertent. It doesn't matter what China wants. And in fact, in some of that thinking,
07:35it doesn't matter that China's political ideology is different from America's. So it's completely
07:41different from, say, the way John F. Kennedy thought about this. In this other thinking, that the
07:47the question is, who gets to be hegemon? It actually doesn't matter if the alternative is a democracy,
07:57is an economic rival in the sense of producing the same things that we're chasing technology.
08:03It's simply the mere fact that there's this other source of power out there that could be a challenge.
08:10And it doesn't matter what they intend. So that's a rather dim view of the world. I've given you three
08:16different ways to think about this rivalry. And I think that those three helpers, each of those
08:22has something to say about this. And all of them make for a situation in the world more dangerous
08:30than just rivalry between Coca-Cola and Pepsi. It is a very almost, it doesn't capture the depth
08:38and the urgency. Alina, what do you think? Does it not matter what China wants to achieve?
08:44And could you also add another layer in terms of the tech competition and the US's efforts to
08:52to have this tech containment of China? Yeah. So when Danny was talking, all I could think about was
08:58this alternate reality of the pursuit of happiness being the pursuit of hegemony. But it goes to your
09:06question, Melissa, and both your questions tie into each other, because the tech piece
09:11plays a significant role in this pursuit of hegemony or the maintenance and preservation of hegemony on
09:18the American side, at least. And I agree with Danny, it doesn't matter what China wants. China has
09:23articulated that it's not interested in global hegemony, not even regional hegemony. If it is going
09:30to be this leader of the region, Beijing has said, we're going to be a very different sort of leader
09:36than the US has. Now, some would argue that that will actually be the case. But I think from the US
09:44side, it is the maintenance of that dominance that fuels a lot of what we see today, including
09:52this pursuit of tech preeminence at all costs, right? And so you see the strangulation of Chinese
09:59access to advanced chips to increasingly all sorts of other things throughout the global value chain
10:07that includes third countries such as ours in Southeast Asia. And, you know, we cast our minds
10:14back to imperial times. You know, it was technology that drove a lot of imperial progress and ultimately
10:23capture of the world. And today is no different. We're just seeing it through digital lens.
10:28Okay, so how do we then respond to this? I mean, if this is the new normal that we have to get used to,
10:36the fact that there is chronic uncertainty in the global order, for countries, you know, in between,
10:45as giants jostle for influence, where does that leave us in this region? Danny?
10:51I can take a stab at that. You know, where that leaves us and what we must do has got to depend
11:00on what we think they're trying to achieve. So this is one of your earlier parts of our earlier
11:06discussion. There's a view that I subscribe to that regardless of what China or America want,
11:13the fact that they are so large and so powerful means that we will always need to be a little bit
11:20wary of them, even if they are great friends. And the image that I have in mind is that we're all
11:29trying to drink at a waterhole. And then we've got an elephant coming. It's the Serengeti here. Yeah,
11:35the Serengeti. So the elephant comes in and the elephant does not intend any of us harm. But by
11:42virtue of its size, it steps on us, it tramples on us, and it doesn't even notice. It drinks its fill
11:50and it turns around and it takes up half the population sitting around the waterhole and it
11:56doesn't even notice because it's so monumentally consequential. So I think that's one way to think
12:03about what's going on here. Is it China or the US who's left and vague? I intentionally avoided
12:10naming names. Very ambiguous. But if we try and get down to China and the United States, which is a
12:17question that you have pushed my direction earlier, taking into account the fact that there is this
12:24large size consequentiality effect, I think one can make the argument and document that China is still
12:31concerned about generating prosperity for its people. Half of China remains very poor. It wants
12:40to be in a position where it can say, I have delivered to you, the people, economic prosperity
12:46and stability. The problem is that the way it's trying to do that has led to America feeling very
12:55insecure economically. So we've got two elephants, one of which wants to do good for its people,
13:02the other of which thinks that by China trying to do good for its people, it threatens America. Now,
13:08this is separate from the other possibilities, but this is one potential way to think about what they
13:14intend. What should we do as a result of this? I think both taking into account the elephant analogy and
13:20this other story. I think we need to accept that the world is going to be characterized by this kind
13:28of geopolitical competition. We have to accept that and it's going to make us all feel awkward,
13:35whether it's certain or uncertain, just because of the consequentiality of their size. We need to think
13:42about how we protect ourselves, but we also need to think about how we can help. We can help America feel
13:50less insecure. We can help convince China that even if it were less so fiercely competitive with sharp elbows,
14:00its people would still prosper. We can try and bring about a reconciliation while keeping
14:06the goals of these two giants and that creates space for us. And we can try and build mechanisms
14:13to do that. So I think we have lots of agency, even in this world of great geopolitical competition.
14:20Without choosing sides. I think it's absolutely essential we do not choose sides.
14:28The choosing sides narrative is an idea that you can think about carving up our planet into spheres of
14:35influence that don't overlap. So you have to be in one or the other. But the reality is the world is not
14:43just spheres of influence. Even in just the story that I just said, help America feel more secure.
14:51Help make it feel that its people can continue to be taken care of. Make China feel that there's room for
14:58its people to enjoy greater prosperity. There's no taking sides there. We've lifted everybody together.
15:05That's the goal that I think the rest of us should aim for.
15:08Elena. Yes. Well, you know, I think this is the aspiration that many of us aim towards. But I think
15:17there are some in the United States, including in Washington, that do see the world as spheres of
15:23influence. So we do have to deal with these two different sets of reality. And in that sense,
15:29there is a choice. Do we go along with that carving up of the space? And we see this in the fragmentation
15:34of the tech space, for example. I just gave you the example of how third countries are being affected
15:41by some of the policy decisions in Washington in terms of denying China access to chips and other
15:48components. Now, I do think that we need to be good friends to both. But I think we also need more
15:56friends elsewhere. And I feel this builds on Danny's point of agency, where we not only look to the
16:03traditional poles of friendships we've always looked towards, whether it's in Washington,
16:09in Beijing, in Brussels or elsewhere. But we do need to look to the other regions that are facing
16:15similar challenges to us, such as in Africa, such as in Latin America. And those I feel have been
16:23underlooked in terms of where we can draw lessons from, because there are converging challenges all these
16:28different regions in the global majority are facing. But we haven't really communicated about
16:34the lessons and the good practices that we can exchange. What do you think is hindering more
16:41cooperation from us talking to each other? And I think about the fact that Asia accounts for half of
16:48the global GDP. But do you see a situation and how might we get to the point where the geopolitical weight
16:56of the region eventually matches its economic power or rising economic power?
17:03One of the challenges in us in Southeast Asia not talking more to our counterparts in either Latin
17:10America or Africa is the simple tyranny of distance. But also there's a language barrier with certain
17:19countries, in Spanish-speaking countries, French-speaking countries. That said, we're all in the age of
17:25translation apps now, so that shouldn't be too much of a barrier anymore. But I also feel that in Southeast
17:31Asia, we perhaps have been too familiar with talking to just certain sets of friends. And we need to
17:39break outside that mindset and think about the world in much larger terms.
17:43Danny? If I may add to what Alina said, I think that there are two important ideas that I want to
17:50advance on and build on this. One is that as we gather friends around the world, we should be very
17:58careful, scrupulous in not ever giving the suggestion that we think we're gathering enough friends so that
18:05we have enough power, so we have enough political weight to counter the giants. The last thing we want
18:12to do is to stand across a battlefield from a great power, simply thinking we've amassed enough people
18:20with us. I think that would be the wrong thing. I know that's not what you're suggesting, but I'm saying
18:24that as we look for friends, what we really want to be looking for is space to allow everyone to cooperate.
18:32That gets me to my second idea. Who's intent on cooperating these days? The world is not about to
18:38to explode in an orgy of cooperation. Nobody is agreeing with anybody else. Everybody is disagreeing
18:48with everybody else. We're agreeing. Aside from us in this room. But let me suggest that one of the
18:55ideas that I think we might want to develop is the idea of inadvertent cooperation. Inadvertent
19:05cooperation. That is getting people to do the right thing in a cooperative way, even when they disagree.
19:14Getting people to do the right thing, even for the wrong reason. So we somehow need to think about
19:23ways in which nimble nations like ours, that are smaller, that aren't, that don't want to be in a
19:31threatening kind of position. But we can provide the nudges that help move actions by countries
19:39into a cooperative position. Give me an example. Okay, so I'll give you an example.
19:45Electric vehicles. So I begin with the idea that electric vehicles, I mean, they have, there's lots of
19:53things that we can unpack about how they are coming to be. But once they're there, they're a good way
19:59for humanity to control its destiny without burning our planet to a crisp. Because usual things that we
20:07do totally destroy the planet. The world needs more EVs. But we've got a problem. Because China makes EVs,
20:16America and Western and European Union say China makes EVs so well, only because the government
20:22subsidizes this. Let's put aside whether whatever the reality, the actions in this wave of disagreement
20:30that America and the European Union have taken is we're going to tariff and sanction China. While we
20:37do that, we will build our own EV industry. So there's competition. There's the idea that the Chinese
20:43are playing unfair. We're going to get them for this. The end result of this is that we will at some point
20:50have competitive EV industries. But in the meantime, our global production of EVs will have fallen.
21:00The global south, which needs new forms of energy, does not have access to EVs now. That's one
21:08possibility. They're doing all these things for the reason that they want to advance themselves.
21:14Let me suggest a different way in which they can advance themselves, but with a very different outcome.
21:20Instead of America and EU tariffing and sanctioning China, they're supposed to say,
21:26you're playing unfair. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I will also play unfair.
21:33I will also subsidize my EV industry. Now, think about what that happens. China then says,
21:38oh, well, you're playing unfair, but you go ahead and do what you do. The end result of all this
21:44is a wave of fleets of EVs rolling out of China, America, and the EU, ready because they're high
21:53quality, lower price for the global south to use. They've done the right thing for the wrong reason.
22:00Okay. I see.
22:01They have inadvertently cooperated. I think nimble nations like ours that do not want to be in the
22:08front lines of international violent confrontation, we should be coming up with schemes for inadvertent
22:15cooperation, like the kind that I just described.
22:17Okay. Well, you know, we've spent a lot of time anticipating what the US and what China wants.
22:23And I understand that because they are superpowers, we need to be wary of the elephant
22:28in the, at the drinking pond, if I may use your analogy.
22:32Yeah. But what is it that the US and China
22:37doesn't understand or understands about a changing Southeast Asia or changing Asia?
22:42Are they taking the time and care to anticipate what Asia wants and how Asia is growing? If I may
22:49ask you, Alina, that question. That's a really good question. And I don't know if Washington has taken
22:55the time to even think in those terms. Because, as my boss says, the US and China are strategic
23:04narcissists, when they only think about themselves, and they see themselves as the center of the world.
23:11And I think that question should be directed to us in Southeast Asia, actually. How do we want to
23:18project ourselves to either Beijing or Washington? And it may be that we project ourselves
23:25differently to these two capitals, because they, these two capitals have different desires of us.
23:33But we need to be confident in what we want out of our relationships with them. And to be honest,
23:40I think this is going to depend on issues. It's going to depend on sectors, whether it's EVs or AI
23:47governance, for example. But we need to work this out amongst ourselves, first and foremost.
23:54So we should set the narrative and the projection that we want.
23:57Absolutely.
23:58I agree with Alina, we should. But I also, okay, look, as you know, I'm an economist,
24:04I have a very dim view of humanity. The fact that Beijing and Washington are narcissists is totally
24:12fine with me. But I think most people are like that. The question is, what's the consequence of their
24:18thinking? America's thinking today is very different from America's thinking 15, 20 years ago, for the
24:26last 70 years. Today, America's thinking following the narcissism line is that it feels the world has
24:35done it wrong. And the world has ripped off America. This is the Trump make America great again line.
24:44We need to take back what the world has taken from us. So in that view, whether you're NATO in Western
24:51Europe, or whether you're Southeast Asia, you've done something wrong. Liberation Day tariffs were
24:57an evidence of that. Obviously, Trump and his people believe that the entire world had done them wrong.
25:02They slapped tariffs on everybody, including my good friends in the Hurt Island and McDonnell Islands,
25:092,000 penguin economists. They too have been hit by tariffs. So America feels aggrieved. If it's
25:15going to do that to the Hurt Island and McDonnell Island, think about what it will do to successful
25:19economies like ours, if it feels that it is aggrieved. So we need to take that into account.
25:25China, on the other hand, is also a narcissist. We've got to watch out for its sharp elbows in its
25:31foreign policy. But at least it continues to talk the talk of multilateralism, globalization,
25:40win-win outcomes. Now there's lots to unpack there. Narcissists will say that even if they don't
25:46believe that because that's what they do. But put that to one side. This is how we're going to need to
25:51manage what happens here. We don't want to be in the competition where we come up and say,
25:57we are another great power. We are as narcissistic as you. Let's see whose narcissism wins out. We
26:04don't want to do that. What we want to do is say we want to be helpful. And at the same time,
26:09we help ourselves. And it is possible to do that using ideas of inadvertent cooperation,
26:17or even that we can just build our own multilateral system. If America doesn't want to be part of our
26:22world, there's no amount of arguing that can bring it back. So we need to build our own. We note it,
26:31we rewire our world, and we carry on. And that's not the best outcome, neither is it a terrible outcome.
26:40What we can do is continue to make America and China truly understand that we want them
26:48to be part of our world. It's a good enough outcome. It's a good enough. It's not a good
26:52outcome. It is. It's a good enough outcome. Exactly. It's a good enough outcome. Both of you,
26:57I could talk to the both of you for hours. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I appreciate
27:01your time. Thank you. This has turned out to be a therapy session. Thank you for having us. It's always
27:06such a pleasure to see you. That's all the time we have for you on this episode. I'll consider this.
27:10I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening. Thank you so much for watching.
27:14Good night.
27:40We'll have a look at that.
27:42epidermal with finor with finor with finor.
27:44We'll have to see you next time.
27:45Bye.
27:45Bye.
27:46Once again, we'll repeat the punches with finor.
27:47vs can be finor.
27:56We'll see you next time.
27:57Bye.
27:58Bye.
27:58Bye.
27:58What?
27:59Bye.
28:00What?
28:00Dude.
28:01What?
28:02Bye.
28:02Bye.
28:03Bye.
28:03Bye.
28:03Bye.
28:05Bye.
28:05Bye.
28:06Bye.
28:07Bye.
28:09Bye.
28:09Bye.
28:10SoùJacques Sense Hallo Douglas .
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