Singapore’s former Ambassador-at-large and author of several books on China, US, ASEAN and geopolitics Kishore Mahbubani says that U.S. President Donald Trump could change the world, “trampling” on the world order, and that India should prepare accordingly. He spoke to The Hindu on the side-lines of an event by the Asia Society for his latest book “Living the Asian Century”.
Is there a difference between Trump 1.0. and Trump 2.0?
Yes I think that Mr. Trump feels he made a big mistake in listening to the experts last time. One example, he was told that deficits are very bad and that he mustn’t spend too much money. And look at what Joe Biden did? Biden bust the budget, spent billions of dollars on borrowed money, and Trump was mad as hell, saying, I could have done that too. Biden is getting credit for a booming economy but it was just the result of money printing, right? So this time around, you’re going to get the real Trump, completely unrestrained, and he’s going to be surrounded more by “Yes” people, rather than quote, unquote “experts”. And so he will, in a sense, to use a dramatic analogy, bear his fangs more clearly.
How do you think the world is going to change after the next four years?
The United States, at the end of the day, is not a perfect country, but at the end of the day, since the end of World War Two, it has behaved more or less as a responsible stakeholder to produce the global order. And even if they violated the norms, they would at least say, we believe in these norms, and countries should not invade or occupy other countries. And here comes along, Mr. Trump, and he completely tramples on all the principles of international order that the United States was committed to. For example, on taking back the Panama Canal, or what he has said about the use of force to take Greenland. These are all violations of the UN Charter. And frankly, since it was the United States that kept saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was illegal. So there are far deeper questions in the rest of the world about the next four year.
The paradox about Donald Trump is that he also says that he’s not a warmonger, and it’s true that in his first term was Trump was the first American president in a long time who hadn’t started a war.
How will the threat of a tariff war mean for Asia in particular?
Even though he’s been threatening tariffs, he hasn’t really imposed very heavy tariffs yet. He did impose heavy tariffs on Colombia after it refused to take back migrants, but lifted them when Colombian President backtracked.
And ties with China?
I think Trump shares the basic premise of the American establishment that America should remain the number one power. There’s only one thing that unites the Democrats and Republicans, which is America should remain number one and should not allow China to become number one. So the structural contest is still carrying on. There’ll be twists and turns in the road, but at the same time, Trump is somebody who is also a deal maker. So if he thinks he can get a good deal from China, he will go ahead and make it in a way that Joe Biden could never do. , Joe Biden and his team around him, Blinken, Sullivan were very scared of being seen to be soft on China, and so they didn’t dare to, even if was in American interest to do so. Like Richard Nixon, Donald Trump is the one who can make a deal with China, because he’s not seen to be in any way soft on China.
How do you evaluate where the quad is today and what its future is, given the first meeting Marco Rubio took was with the Quad FMs?
The quad keeps declaring that it is not a security organization and each of the quad leaders would deny that it is meant to be an anti-China operation. Nonetheless, that’s how it is perceived. It is natural for countries to keep as many options open as possible. India is a member of the quad, but India is also a member of the BRICS, and I would say it’s very wise of India to keep his options open at this time (Trump 2.0). It is better for India to be seen as an independent pole in a multipolar world with far more options than, let’s say, Japan, which is a completely dependent pole on the United States of America.
India has also reopened ties with China…
That is a very positive development, because it is a major anomaly that two of the three biggest economies in Asia don’t have direct flights with each other. That’s abnormal. So these are the sort of abnormalities you must get rid of. You know, just as you know, India and Pakistan don’t have normal trade with each other, which is, again, something that should be restored, because what you want to do is not become friends or buddies or allies, but just have normal relations.
Even so, the impact of Chinese aggression remains….will Trump try to contain China in any way?
The answer is complicated. I don’t think China wants a confrontation with the United States. The Chinese never think in terms of the next quarter, next one year, even the next five years. They’re concerned about where they will be 10 years from now, 20 years from now, and their strategy is very clear. They want to grow their economy, and they know at the end of the day, the outcome, the contest between US and China will be determined not by aircraft carriers or fighter jets or tanks. It will be determined by who has the biggest GNP and China is the one major power in the world that hasn’t fought an inter-state war in 45 years. That was a deliberate decision as they realized that wars crippled a country’s development. So the Chinese are in no hurry whatsoever to get involved in any kind of dispute, whether it’s with India or with Taiwan or in the South China Sea. Now it doesn’t mean that they won’t assert their position. The Chinese will become more and more assertive, but there’s a big difference between being assertive and being aggressive. US officials keep saying that
China will take over Taiwan by 2027. I don’t believe that. What’s the hurry for China? China’s economy is far more important than Taiwan’s. At the same time, if Taiwan declares independence, then definitely China will declare war.
Should India reconsider its walk out from RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement)?
I think all the economic studies will show you that India will gain from joining RCEP. When you’re part of a much larger market, you benefit. Your uncompetitive industries will not survive, but your competitive industries will thrive and do well. I think India should definitely revisit the RCEP question, especially as India wants to become a manufacturing economy. No country can become a manufacturing economy if it does not in one way or another, get more integrated with China’s manufacturing economy.
In your latest book living the Asian Century, you write about the trauma of partition your mother faced, and fled from Karachi to Mumbai and then Singapore…you remain a proponent of South Asian integration and India-Pakistan ties, why is that?
Why is that? I believe that the 21st century will be the Asian century. I’ve actually no doubt about this return to the norm from the year one to the year 1820, when the two largest economies of the world were always those of China and India. So we are going back to the historical norm. But the way for China and India to grow their economies rapidly is to remain peaceful with all their neighbours. I’m not saying that in India and Pakistan should sign a free trade agreement or give concessions to each other.. they should just have normal trade. If you compare India and Pakistan with China and Vietnam, India and Pakistan have been at odds with each other only since 1947. China and Vietnam have been struggling with each other for 2000 years, and Vietnam has been occupied by China 1000 years. Now you go and observe the trade levels within China and Vietnam, they’ve exploded, and both are benefiting. So in the same way, India and Pakistan and Bangladesh and all can all benefit.
