Remarks by Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen at 11th Munich Young Leaders Roundtable on "The Dialectics of Modern Democracy: Challenges Facing the Multilateral Order"

Introduction

Thank you Ms von Hammerstein. As the moderator said, this is my seventh Munich Security Conference and among the young leaders and I would consider it a highlight because just meeting with very bright – I am not sure you can be called young – very accomplished people in the prime of their life and I want to thank Thomas and Nora for inviting me back again. Thomas said, you know I managed to do something different each year and this year I am going to do the same. I have run out of ideas after the magical seven. I have tried different formats; I first started by sharing my views and then it dawned on me, you know, you have assembled under Munich Young Leaders (MYL), a stellar cast of really people from all over the world, diverse experiences and I really ought to just facilitate and hear your views and sort of frame it, and I tried that last year. I thought I'd try that again and frame the issues and then get you to hear them and if you don't mind, maybe you can select those who you think would add to the issues and I have selected three. 

Political Dialectics

For the young leaders present, I also thought that since we are in Munich, and in Germany, I'd like to begin referencing a German philosopher – you would know of him, Friedrich Hegel and his Dialectic.  And if you sort of step back and look at where we are from the prism of Hegel's Dialectic, first of all the events leading to and in the aftermath of World War II, including the Cold War, it represented a time certainly of many competing ideas and a synthesis of new ones. And if you sort of reflect on the books that came out of the era – a fascinating period – so much pathos, so much suffering, and yet from there came the richest ideas. Not only in philosophical thought, not only in political ideology, but just general literature at large,  so if you look at for example, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's books. It came from the depth, a well-spring of human kind examining why are we here, you know, how do we get here, how do we get out of this. And if you look at from the prison of the Dialectic, it represented many ideas and synthesis of new ones, competing ideas. And the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 did not, as some had thought, result in "the end of history" but really, yet another iteration of competing political ideologies and systems. So you had a phase that led to WWII; you had a phase in the aftermath of it, never again moments; you had the Cold War. And that struggle as you were, some would say, oversimplify between Communism and Capitalism, but be that as you may, when that ended, really what we ought to have said, looking through Hagel's prism that, this will be another cycle.
 
And I think it has come to pass. For the first two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world was actually, if you look back, in a surreal state. It was the abnormal state, it wasn't a normal state. It wasn't a normalised state of capitalism triumphing over communism. Because in the two decades following that, in the 1990s and the 2000s, states such as China and Russia operated with the blessings of the Capitalist victors. "We've created this system, we vanquished your ideology", was the simplistic notion. "Well now, come participate and compete and join us." And China and Russia said: Well, that's fine, that's great, I'll do it. In retrospect, I think it was, at best, what we call a modus vivendi – a state of affairs which we accept – which wasn't sustainable, especially when China's rise became, and is, unprecedented and, of course, Russia's actions in the Crimea, Ukraine and in Syria, to name a few, and whether it was the way China operated within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), or whether it was Russian behaviour, they were antithetical to modern democracies. They sort of said, well, you're operating within our system, but not quite playing according to all the rules, and this is not how it should be.

And I think the honeymoon is over. And what you have now is the US calling out unfair practices, as it sees it, and itself disavowing many of the underpinnings of the multilateral order in which it helped champion. So under US President Trump, the US has threatened to pull out of the WTO, the very organisation which it led to establish, and now even questions the value of NATO, and this is the 70th year of NATO, and sort of the reflections arising from that.
     
So the US has made clear that China is a "revisionist power" seeking to "displace the United States", and as a response enacted trade, tariffs, and you know all this. Against Russia, the US and most European countries have collectively condemned the annexation of Crimea and they remind Russia of the many accords broken, rather it's the 1975 Helsinki Accords in particular. 

What is the problem, if you want to have to define it? I think the problem is not only with what China and Russia did or does, it is ultimately, it's an issue of what China and Russia is or are, and it is anathema to the US' professed idea of freedom, democracy, and market place economics. Which in the very heart, is the substance of liberal democracies – freedom of likes, individuality, universality, equality. All which in that sense, in the liberal democracies, you don't see as existing in China and Russia. So this is quite a deep and visceral mismatch of values and political systems –again, a thesis and antithesis, and the assumption being that if you have all the right values, then you should do the best, but if you don't have the right values, then you should be the worst, but that's not the outcome. So I'd like to hear your views on this from, you know, from where you are and that's very useful. Are these competing political systems and values, are they reconcilable? From the heart of it, not only so much from what comes out of the trade talks, from what US or Europe or NATO does with Russia. Are these competing political systems and values not reconcilable and its conflict inevitable. And I'd like to hear your views on, you know, check in here and there and this is our time to listen, so thank you.

Practice of Islam in the Modern Context 

The second great dialectic relates to the Islamic countries and the rest of the modern world. And I don't want to step on any sensitivities, so please forgive me. But let me state what I see the issue as is and why I would focus on it. And even as I mention this great dialectic with Islam and the rest of the modern world, I can imagine some people saying, "Why single out Islam?" After all, you know, it happens to other religions and Christendom has its fair share of faults and excesses. In fact, for a good part of 800 years in Europe.

But I think they are fair comments, but we are where we are and I think the issue that needs resolution… that stems from Islam just as they stemmed from Christianity in Europe as a political ideology. Islamic countries now have 1.8 billion acolytes across the World. 1.8 billion. And some are in Islamic states but also many in secular countries with sizeable communities.

And you read reports of this antipathy towards the Muslim community and their practices. I'd like to ask you, and here I hope that those coming from Islamic countries can share their views. What is the way forward,v in your mind, about the practice of Islam, as it applies not only to the individual but (also) to the country? And can there be a middle ground for the practice of Islam to reconcile with modernity, and that is assuming that you think there is a problem with Islam and modernity? And what form, if this is so, would it take, and which Muslim countries would be a good role model to emulate?

The Future of the EU and Europe

I wanted to just finish up the third area. Really here I wanted to be tutored, and I am talking about the European Union (EU). And you know, you have heard what George Soros said, that Europe is "sleepwalking into oblivion, and the people of Europe need to wake up before it is too late." You have a French economic minister saying that "Europe is falling apart before our eyes." 

And this is another dialectic. And the EU was a synthesis of many ideas in post- war Europe. I think there was the opprobrium or the devastation of the world war and what the cold war did to Europe and how, that you must never have Europe as the seat of the world wars again – World War I and World War II – and therefore a united Europe would be the answer to that. But it seems now that we have been overtaken by new ideas, including a less tolerant attitude that wasn't present in Europe, and we talked about it – immigration and anti-globalisation, so much so that we now have the far right political parties that are gaining strength. So my question to you is, can the current rules that uphold the EU last? And if not, what forms could emerge? And that is a significant topic that we are talking about, and many of you live in Europe. I mean, what do you see is the future of the EU or Europe?

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Dr Ng Engages Young Leaders at 11th Munich Young Leaders Roundtable on Challenges Facing the Multilateral Order