Author: Kishore Mahbubani
Publication: Hindustan Times
Date: March 21, 2008
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=b256bfa5-2b67-4cd0-8113-224240a01d87
Humanity is embarking on a bizarre journey
into the future. Subconsciously, we all believe (or would like to believe)
that we live in a rational, well-ordered universe. The reality is closer to
the opposite. If this sounds unbelievable, consider the following analogy.
Imagine 660 passengers boarding a ship that is sailing into unchartered waters.
After boarding, all 660 retreat into their cabins. No captain or crew is taking
care of the ship as a whole.
Sadly, this is a literal, not metaphorical
description of how spaceship Earth is sailing into the future. Globalisation
has shrunk the world. All 6.6 billion inhabitants now live in a single interdependent
universe. From financial crises to health epidemics, from borderless terrorism
to global warming, we are moving into a world where more global governance
(not global government) is needed to manage the growing interdependence. Instead,
precisely when more is needed, humanity is either shrinking or weakening global
governance. This essay will explain why. It will also argue that perhaps only
one country can solve this crisis - India.
Global governance is shrinking because the
West, which spun a rich web of multilateral institutions and norms after World
War II, is losing faith in multilateralism. The Western powers were happy
to be custodians of the main rules and processes of the global order because
they were convinced that a more rules-bound universe, accompanied by greater
trade liberalisation, would benefit the Western economies the most since they
had the world's most competitive economies. This conviction of economic superiority
led the West to bring down trade barriers. They had no doubt that the West
would win on an open economic playing field.
John F Kennedy illustrated this confidence
when he said in 1962, "A more liberal trade policy will in general benefit
our most efficient and expanding industries." The boundless optimism
of Kennedy has been replaced by the boundless pessimism of Lou Dobbs, who
is convinced that American workers cannot compete with Chinese or Indian workers.
Sadly, Lou Dobbs is not an isolated phenomenon. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama have joined the race to the bottom by declaring that each is more protectionist
than the other. This reflects the new psyche of the American population. Europe
is not much better.
If both America and Europe lose confidence
in their ability to compete, how can they remain custodians of the rules that
ensure fairness and equity? To be fair, humanity should thank both first for
creating the 1945 rules-based order at the end of World War II. To understand
how visionary the Western founding fathers of this order were, just contrast
what they did after World War II with what was done after World War I. After
World War I, the world order forced Germany and Japan to go to war as they
tried to expand their political and economic space. After World War II, both
Germany and Japan significantly expanded their political and economic space
without going to war.
If humanity can sustain this 1945 rules-based
order, this will enable both China and India to emerge as new great powers
peacefully, just as Germany and Japan did. But there are differences now.
Both Germany and Japan emerged when America and Europe (including Germany)
believed that an open global order would naturally benefit the West. Today,
China and India are emerging at a time when the West is losing faith in an
open global order. This growing lack of faith explains the strange behaviour
of both America and Europe towards global governance.
America has taken cynicism towards multilateralism
to a whole new level. Just look at the issue of America and Iran. Every few
months, America goes back to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to
get a resolution against Iran. It hopes to use the legitimacy of the UN to
send a message to Iran that the world disapproves of its behaviour. America
is right. The UN does enjoy this legitimacy in the eyes of the world's population,
despite the many flaws of the UN. But the world has also become sceptical
of America's efforts to use the UN because America had violated the spirit,
if not the letter, of the UN's principles by going to war in Iraq without
an enabling UNSC resolution. Most international lawyers and Kofi Annan believe
that the American invasion of Iraq was illegal. Can a violator of UN principles
become an enforcer? Can a thief become a judge?
In an act of even greater cynicism, America
sent an Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who believed that his mission was
not to strengthen but to weaken the UN. He famously declared that "if
the UN building lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference".
A favourite American expression is that there
is no such thing as a free lunch. There is also no such thing as cost-free
cynicism. The rampant American cynicism towards the UN in particular and multilateralism
in general could now dangerously erode and destroy the 1945 rules-based order
when the world has never needed it more. Both China and India will be the
biggest losers if this happens. Its destruction could well prevent and derail
their peaceful re-emergence of both these great powers.
It is as difficult to explain the critical
importance of multilateralism to a lay audience as it is to illustrate the
importance of oxygen. We know that without oxygen we would suffocate but we
only truly understand this if we are thrown into a room without oxygen. By
then, it may be too late. Similarly, one reason why the world is a reasonably
stable place is because a sea of norms has been created in all fields to manage
growing global interdependence. This sea of norms is a valuable heritage that
humanity has developed.
But no norms can survive on their own. Neither
would a sea of norms. Norms need custodianship. With America and Europe losing
faith in multilateral norms, the responsibility should pass on to the new
rising powers, China and India, to maintain these norms. Indeed, both China
and India want to preserve them, but only India can provide the leadership
to do so. China cannot, for a simple geopolitical reason. The rise of India
is not generating alarm in Washington DC. The rise of China is. Hence, China,
in an effort to assuage American concerns, is deliberately trying to avoid
assuming any kind of global leadership. When the Cancun trade meetings failed,
Indian Trade and Industry Minister Kamal Nath could confidently explain India's
position and challenge the American and European perspectives. The Chinese
Trade Minister said nothing.
By default, the weight of global leadership
may fall on India's shoulders. Fortunately, India is well-qualified to provide
such leadership. Its credentials as the world's largest democracy; its open,
tolerant and inclusive culture; its unique geopolitical and cultural position
as a bridge between East and West provides it a unique opportunity to provide
the leadership for forging new forms of global governance that spaceship Earth
desperately needs as it sails into the future.
Kishore Mahbubani is Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School
of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
He is the author of The New Asian Hemisphere:
The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.
