Remarks by Minister for Defence, Dr Ng Eng Hen, at 10th Munich Young Leaders Roundtable, "Peace and Security in the Asia-Pacific"

Let me begin by generally talking about how globalisation 1.0 has been felt by Asia. And if you look at any statistics, Asia has done exceedingly well. I caveat that, because you could have a very academic debate about how do you measure progress for any nation. Professor Graham Alison, who was at our Maritime Security Roundtable yesterday, recently submitted an article to the Huffington Post, and he talked about this. I thought he was very open and fair in his treatment. Take for example, he said that usually you measure the progress of democracies as freedoms. He made a very good distinction, that there were two types of freedom; (i) Freedom to – freedom to speak, freedom to believe, freedom to believe what you want and freedom to have your personal preferences; and (ii) Freedom from – freedom from poverty, freedom from crime. Because if you cannot feel safe walking in your streets, what kind of freedom is that? So along the same lines, but if you look at statistics for Asia as a whole, I think Asia has exceedingly well. So, if you look at for example, comparing two decades ago to now, ASEAN’s GDP has almost quadrupled; India has grown five-fold; and China has grown 10% (annually) for three decades. That is why it is today the second largest economy, and soon, in terms of economics size, probably going to be the first.

So globalisation 1.0 has worked very well. And the question is that if you had to give a prize to the originators to globalisation 1.0, who would you give it to? I think it is fair to say that the United States (US) and the western hemisphere countries were instrumental in putting in place globalisation 1.0. And, they had good reasons to. There were two great deprivations that had consensus to move, and that of course is World War II, the never again moment that you had to have a different system. And secondly, the ideological struggle between capitalism and communism. In other words, how should men live and how should men be ruled. That two deprivations, one real and one potential, caused a generation of leadership to put into place (globalisation). But what’s happened now? Now there is a back-lash against globalisation 1.0, against the very originators sometimes. And that’s why last year when I was here, I quoted US President Donald Trump’s "America First" inauguration speech and contrasted it to US President John F. Kennedy’s (JFK’s) inauguration speech, (where JFK said) that they would "bear any burden" to liberate. Then I contrasted it to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pro-globalisation speech at Davos. Now if I didn’t tell you who said what, you would have thought it was the other way around. It was a remarkable turn of events. Given this state of circumstances, I do not think globalisation 1.0 will be dismantled, I think it is too precious and that countries have too vested interests, so despite what everyone says, I think we will proceed. But, it is certain that globalisation 1.0 has its own problems and that is why you have (the) emergence of the far-right along Europe; I think Brexit was a manifestation of globalisation 1.0 backlash. Certainly President Trump, the US politics was a response to that; and in your own countries you have seen it. And there has to be a globalisation 2.0, with slightly different set of rules, adjustments and balance in positional powers. 

We are also asking the question, who rules and who gets to make the rules and on what basis will you be accepted or chosen as a ruler. There were different broad ideas, why not instead of one major ruler, have multilateralism. I think that is the test of the EU system, whether it survives and whether you can actually have that. But history is less kind about multilateralism. In fact, if you look at global history, we have been ruled by a series of either regional or global hegemons. The US is a hegemon; no one disagrees with that. Mr Lee Kuan Yew, our founding prime minister said that "you are a more benign hegemon than most". And the basis of that rule making, as you rightly pointed out, was because military, economic and political is indivisible. You cannot be a ruler without military might, as the Romans showed. You cannot be a ruler without economic heft, which is what China is showing, vis-a-vis US’ change in trade patterns. Probably one or two decades ago, the US was the leading trade partner for all of ASEAN and Asia, it is now China. But you also cannot be a ruler without the moral high ground and that is the test now. Can you rule with just being a military and economic might, without the values that you talked about? I would argue that post World War II, JFK’s inauguration speech encapsulated the moral basis in which the US would come into Asia and would persist in Asia, and the proximate question in my mind is, supposed China continues to be the leading trade partner for all of the Asian countries, and the US is solely there from a military dominance, is that structure stable? I think that this would evolve, I asked Graham Alison, who was at our roundtable yesterday, and remember he wrote the book or the articles some years ago about the Thucydides Trap, where rising power and incumbent power; and he analysed out of x number, how many went to wars. And I asked him what he thought of the crucial US-China relationship, that relationship and how there would be an accommodation. His thesis was that when you looked historically, out of 13 episodes of an incumbent power, versus a rising power, seven or eight ended up in wars. There was no availability of accommodation. But the accommodation of China and US is crucial. I think the China-US relationship is all critical. I will not go so far as to say there is an American retreat. America has not retreated. You cannot retreat when you have the 7th Fleet, Guam and Hawaii in the Pacific. China cannot establish a Monroe doctrine because that is a different set of conditions. I would characterise it more as a US tentativeness and it leaves pockets which even in Europe now you have to fill. 

Another set of concerns – remember Samuel Huntington coined the term the "clash of civilisations" in 1993. We are seeing manifestations of that, Sunni-Shia rivalry, the traditional orthodox Islamic governance challenged by modernity. We are seeing the Middle East being reordered, we are seeing another fundamental change. For the first time in history, the US is energy self-dependent and in fact exporting energy and will outstrip Saudi-Arabia’s exports for the first time, must be recorded history. What do you hope to see for both your local and external changes in your own societies, political reforms?

Thank you.

More Resources

Globalisation Still Important to Asia-Pacific: Dr Ng