The Economist | 18.08.21

Afghanistan does not mark the end of the American era; the challenge to its global standing is political polarisation at home, says a foreign-policy expert

The horrifying images of desperate Afghans trying to get out of Kabul this week after the United States-backed government collapsed have evoked a major juncture in world history, as America turned away from the world. The truth of the matter is that the end of the American era had come much earlier. The long term sources of American weakness and decline are more domestic than international. The country will remain a great power for many years, but just how influential it will be depends on its ability to fix its internal problems, rather than its foreign policy.

The peak period of American hegemony lasted less than 20 years, from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to around the financial crisis in 2007-09. The country was dominant in many domains of power back then—military, economic, political and cultural. The height of American hubris was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it hoped to be able to remake not just Afghanistan (invaded two years before) and Iraq, but the whole of the Middle East.

The country overestimated the effectiveness of military power to bring about fundamental political change, even as it under-estimated the impact of its free-market economic model on global finance. The decade ended with its troops bogged down in two counterinsurgency wars, and an international financial crisis that accentuated the huge inequalities that American-led globalisation had brought about.

The degree of unipolarity in this period has been relatively rare in history, and the world has been reverting to a more normal state of multipolarity ever since, with China, Russia, India, Europe and other centres gaining power relative to America. Afghanistan’s ultimate effect on geopolitics is likely to be small. America survived an earlier, humiliating defeat when it withdrew from Vietnam in 1975, but it quickly regained its dominance within a little more than a decade, and today it works with Vietnam to curb Chinese expansionism. America still has many economic and cultural advantages that few other countries can match.

The much bigger challenge to America’s global standing is domestic: American society is deeply polarised, and has found it difficult to find consensus on virtually anything. This polarisation started over conventional policy issues like taxes and abortion, but since then has metastasised into a bitter fight over cultural identity. The demand for recognition on the part of groups that feel they have been marginalised by elites was something I identified 30 years ago as an Achilles heel of modern democracy. Normally, a big external threat such as a global pandemic should be the occasion for citizens to rally around a common response; the covid-19 crisis served rather to deepen America's divisions, with social distancing, mask-wearing and now vaccinations being seen not as public-health measures but as political markers.

These conflicts have spread to all aspects of life, from sports to the brands of consumer products that red and blue Americans buy. The civic identity that took pride in America as a multiracial democracy in the post-civil rights era has been replaced by warring narratives over 1619 versus 1776—that is, whether the country is founded on slavery or the fight for freedom. This conflict extends to the separate realities each side believes it sees, realities in which the election in November 2020 was either one of the fairest in American history or else a massive fraud leading to an illegitimate presidency.

Throughout the cold war and into the early 2000s, there was a strong elite consensus in America in favour of maintaining a leadership position in world politics. The grinding and seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq soured many Americans not just on difficult places like the Middle East, but international involvement generally.

Polarisation has affected foreign policy directly. During the Obama years, Republicans took a hawkish stance and castigated the Democrats for the Russian “reset” and alleged naïveté regarding President Putin. Former President Trump turned the tables by openly embracing Mr Putin, and today roughly half of Republicans believe that the Democrats constitute a bigger threat to the American way of life than does Russia. A conservative television-news anchor, Tucker Carlson, travelled to Budapest to celebrate Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban; “owning the libs” (ie, antagonising the left, a catch-phrase of the right) was more important than standing up for democratic values.

There is more apparent consensus regarding China: both Republicans and Democrats agree it is a threat to democratic values. But this only carries America so far. A far greater test for American foreign policy than Afghanistan will be Taiwan, if it comes under direct Chinese attack. Will the United States be willing to sacrifice its sons and daughters on behalf of that island’s independence? Or indeed, would the United States risk military conflict with Russia should the latter invade Ukraine? These are serious questions with no easy answers, but a reasoned debate about American national interest will probably be conducted primarily through the lens of how it affects the partisan struggle.

Polarisation has already damaged America’s global influence, well short of future tests like these. That influence depended on what Joseph Nye, a foreign-policy scholar, labelled “soft power”, that is, the attractiveness of American institutions and society to people around the world. That appeal has been greatly diminished: it is hard for anyone to say that American democratic institutions have been working well in recent years, or that any country should imitate America’s political tribalism and dysfunction. The hallmark of a mature democracy is the ability to carry out peaceful transfers of power following elections, a test the country failed spectacularly on January 6th.

The biggest policy debacle by President Joe Biden’s administration in its seven months in office has been its failure to plan adequately for the rapid collapse of Afghanistan. However unseemly that was, it doesn’t speak to the wisdom of the underlying decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, which may in the end prove to be the right one. Mr Biden has suggested that withdrawal was necessary in order to focus on meeting the bigger challenges from Russia and China down the road. I hope he is serious about this. Barack Obama was never successful in making a “pivot” to Asia because America remained focused on counterinsurgency in the Middle East. The current administration needs to redeploy both resources and the attention of policymakers from elsewhere in order to deter geopolitical rivals and to engage with allies.

The United States is not likely to regain its earlier hegemonic status, nor should it aspire to. What it can hope for is to sustain, with like-minded countries, a world order friendly to democratic values. Whether it can do this will depend not on short-term actions in Kabul, but on recovering a sense of national identity and purpose at home.

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Francis Fukuyama is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Mosbacher Director of its Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has offered a pop-up model for a new global order.

Chan Heng Chee | Straits Times | 8 MAR 2022

What a difference a week makes in global affairs. Before Feb 24, strategic analysts viewed the emergence of the New World Order after the Cold War as an organic tug and pull of competition, including zero-sum competition, between the United States and China. Sometimes one power attenuated the shape in its direction, sometimes the other, using military groupings and alliances and economic initiatives.

The shape of the order was still to be determined and no one was willing to come down strongly yet on what would emerge. That just happened with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's assault on its neighbour suddenly sharpened the lines by inadvertently delivering a pop-up model sooner than we thought, a pop-up model that has the possibility of becoming a fixture and evolving to a new New World Order.

What we are seeing is the hardening of the division between US and Europe (and treaty allies such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea) on one side against Russia, with the potential of drawing in China on the other side.

But it is not just simply a Cold War realignment of the past. It will be far more complicated. It is a division that will not be based simply on security and military issues, but will affect the flow of investments, trade and technology.

It would lead to a more advanced degree of decoupling and very likely a messy one as the interdependence of the economies of the US, Europe and China is strong. So is the dependence on Russian energy in Europe.

This division carries the strength of ideological conviction, lining up democracies against autocracies. Finland and Sweden, understanding fully the security challenges, have indicated their interest in Nato membership, something they have avoided strenuously, and the last thing that Russia wanted.

Where will other countries fall in this division? Much will depend on what happens in the next couple of months with the war. Will this be a short war or a longish war with substantial losses on both sides? Will Russia stop at Ukraine? A Russia that extends war beyond Ukraine will probably cause pause even among friends and a prolonged internationally isolated Russia cannot be an attractive pole. How will Mr Vladimir Putin and Russia emerge? How will the Western alliance deal with Russia?

A more complex cold war

The new New World Order will be a more complex iteration of the old Cold War Order for several reasons.

China at the time of writing is seeking a position that would balance its "no limits" partnership with Russia, uphold the UN principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries and protect its vital economic interests, that is, not to be caught in the cross hairs of sanctions and secondary sanctions and becoming collateral damage.

China wants stability in its relations with the US and Europe. Unlike Russia, China is strategically cautious, not reckless. Ripping up the world order is not in its interests. China will want some space where its economic interests and transactions can be preserved, but the in-between space, as a friend of Russia and working with the US and EU, would be harder to reconcile following the Ukrainian invasion.

China will be pushed to take the side of Russia because it knows no matter what it does to help Ukraine, the US will give it no credit in the bilateral relationship. The Chinese also understand their interests in the end are fundamentally opposed to the US in their perception of the world order.

Since January, it was evident the US and the EU would be focusing their energy and attention on Ukraine and Russia. After the war started, it was more clearly so. The quagmire would not be the war itself as Nato troops cannot actually be sent to Ukraine to fight with the Ukrainians, but what follows is sorting out the red lines in Europe for Russia and what to do about it.

Keeping watch over Russia's next moves would be a Nato and European preoccupation. It has thus been argued that the winner in this Ukraine war would be China, which would then be able to move and develop its relationships in Asia.

But as developments unfold, that is not at all the clear outcome. While the US and its Western allies will be distracted by Ukraine and Russia, China will have to deal with the complications of the Russian relationship and how that impacts on its global economic interests and potential sanctions. The Chinese would not want to be further hit as domestic economic growth is a key concern. They already face the gamut of Trump and Biden administration sanctions.

A key question in this reconfiguration is where India stands in the new New World Order. Although a Quad ally, India's abstention votes in the UN Security Council and on the UN General Assembly resolution on Ukraine must have seriously discomforted the US.

The Soviet Union and India were staunch allies, and Russia and India continue to share a warm relationship. India is heavily dependent on Russia for military arms and equipment. India has deep concerns about China along its Himalayan border, but deeper concerns about Pakistan and Afghanistan to its west. Russia remains a useful ally, especially as China has a close relationship with Pakistan. Russian vetoes on Kashmir in the Security Council are most helpful for India.

But trends currently indicate that India, when it comes to the crunch, will be lined with the West when dealing with the rise of China, even as Delhi will preserve an area of independence of action even on security matters.

The 10 countries in Asean each has its own interests but will watch the dominant global trend. Only Vietnam and Laos abstained in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on Ukraine. Most Asean countries, with an eye to China, are likely to opt for a US-led security order but are comfortable with a China-led economic order.

The same conclusions can be made about Middle East countries. In security matters they are likely to fall with the US-led order but would maintain independence to cooperate with China so long as the relationship works to their benefit.

Latin America is an interesting continent. If the UNGA vote on the Ukrainian resolution were an indicator, the tilt is towards the US - all Latin American countries except for Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua voted for the resolution. Many regard themselves as democracies and a couple of countries, Argentina and Brazil, are major non-Nato allies of the US. But each country has different histories with the US and strong economic relations with China.

While for a long time analysts were holding out calling the international situation a return to the Cold War, we are now witnessing the old Cold War Order re-emerging with some differences.

The US and Europe have been re-energised and resolute in setting the rules on how to respond in the international context in the case of flagrant aggression against a sovereign state. Neutrality may no longer be a European option.

The third space

But there will be a group of countries in other regions that will split alignments on security and economics. They do not see this as contradictory nor an exclusive alignment. They want to occupy a third space but move to cooperate with the US or with China depending on the issue. They do take stands on critical issues.

In the last three decades since the end of the Cold War, many countries in Asia have developed their economies and political systems and taken initiatives to enhance their interests. They have a sense of their own agency.

In this context the leaders of the new New World Order would win more adherents by listening to their concerns and allowing this third space to exist.

Chan Heng Chee is Professor, Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and Ambassador at Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Separate events are accelerating a shift that is transforming global politics.

By Michael Schuman

MARCH 28, 2022 | The Atlantic

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and a series of COVID-related shutdowns in China do not, on the surface, appear to have much in common. Yet both are accelerating a shift that is taking the world in a dangerous direction, splitting it into two spheres, one centered on Washington, D.C., the other on Beijing.

The world was not supposed to turn out that way. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union three decades ago, globalization seemed to be knitting all types of countries and societies into one prosperous order, bound together by trade, the internet, and, to a greater and greater degree, shared political and economic ideals. China’s capitalist revolution raised hopes that even that Communist giant would become too immersed in the democracy-led global system to turn against it.

As the 21st century has worn on, however, only those with rose-tinted glasses can still foresee this future, as political confrontation, economic nationalism, and cultural nativism resurface. Deteriorating relations between the U.S. and China, combined with Beijing’s heightened strategic and economic ambitions, have already ushered in renewed great-power competition and an ideological struggle between liberal and illiberal global norms. And now diplomatic fallout from the Ukraine crisis is ricocheting around the world in unanticipated ways, while the strain of the lengthening coronavirus ordeal has the potential to alter the international economic map. As the Russian invasion continues, and China sticks to its zero-COVID strategy, the likelihood of these tensions solidifying competing blocs is only increasing.

China’s leaders have already been unwinding their ties to the world. In recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has set in motion policies aimed at creating a new Pax Sinica—an altered world order built by Beijing. With a newly aggressive foreign policy, Xi has apparently come to see the U.S. as China’s chief strategic and economic adversary, and the U.S.-led global system as a constraint on Chinese power. He has taken steps to decrease his country’s reliance on (and thus vulnerabilities to) the U.S. and its allies, stressing a “self-sufficiency” campaign to ensure that China controls the production of items key to the economy by securing supply chains and replacing imports with homegrown alternatives, including microchips and jumbo jets. His Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), ostensibly a development program to build infrastructure in needy nations, is in reality designed to promote Chinese political and business influence in emerging countries and bind them to China through trade, finance, and technology. This reorientation emerges in the pattern of Chinese overseas investment: The U.S. is the top investment destination for Chinese companies on a cumulative basis, according to the latest analysis of Chinese outbound investment from the American Enterprise Institute. But from its peak of $53 billion in 2016, the flow plunged to $3 billion in 2019 and to a (pandemic-hit) $1 billion last year. Growing suspicion of Chinese companies in the U.S. has scared off investment, too. Meanwhile, BRI participants have risen in importance.

In Beijing’s eyes, the Ukraine crisis is likely proof positive that Xi’s course is the best for China’s future. We can’t know with certainty what he and his top policy makers are thinking, but it is safe to assume that they are looking on the stiff sanctions imposed on Russia by a strengthened Western-alliance system with trepidation. Protecting China from just this type of punitive action is a major motivation behind the “decoupling” policies. President Joe Biden probably reinforced Xi’s conviction in a conversation last week by warning the Chinese leader that his country would face consequences if it aided Vladimir Putin’s war effort.

Meanwhile, the persistent coronavirus pandemic is straining the ties of trade. More than two years after the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China continues to pursue its zero-COVID standard and is still closing down entire cities, sometimes over a relatively small number of cases. The most recent shutdowns hit the country’s two most vital economic centers: Shanghai, the financial capital, and Shenzhen, a major technology and export hub.

In many respects, China’s approach has helped the global economy. Without a significant health crisis, China’s economy and its factories have remained open and on the job, easing already challenged supply chains. Yet the suddenness of these shutdowns has at the same time created uncertainty. Chinese authorities have hinted at a slight relaxation of anti-COVID protocols to exorcise more extreme measures and ease the disruption to a sagging economy—and indeed the shutdowns in Shenzhen and Shanghai have been less severe than elsewhere in China. But these unknowns are adding to the pressure on international companies to diversify their sources of supply away from China, on top of rising costs, political risk, regulatory hurdles, trade disputes, and human-rights concerns. “There is this long-term sourcing diversification out of China,” Stephen Lamar, the CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, a business lobbying group, told me. China’s zero-COVID policy “is another reminder of how problematic it can be to have your supply chains rooted in or passing through China right now.”

This great disentangling may never become a complete divorce. Relocating the Chinese manufacturing operations of a company like Taiwan’s Foxconn, supplier extraordinaire to Apple, is extremely difficult, as the firm’s bungled factory project in Wisconsin showed. There’s no reason to believe Starbucks coffee shops in China will close anytime soon, if ever. The world has been “flattened” so successfully over the past 40 years that unraveling what’s been done may be close to impossible. Unlike the Cold War, when the U.S. and Soviet blocs were clearly delineated, the two segments of the coming world will likely remain somewhat connected.

Yet the outlines of these two spheres are becoming more distinct nonetheless. The fact that the war in Ukraine has alerted the U.S. and Europe to the new threats they face from aggressive authoritarian powers is also contributing to the emerging split by reinvigorating the transatlantic democratic alliance. As NATO solidifies in Europe, in Asia the Quad, a partnership that includes Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S., is coalescing into a China-containment club. Simultaneously, Beijing’s continued support for Moscow is forming the axis of an anti-West coalition, which already includes other destabilizers such as Belarus and North Korea.

Economically, too, Beijing and Moscow are looking to each other to decrease their reliance on the West and its allies: China has long sought to wean itself off the dollar, an exercise Russia is undertaking in real time. Technologically, the lines are being drawn more starkly. China has already separated itself from the global internet with the Great Firewall and is investing heavily in its own chip, AI, and electric-vehicle industries to overtake the technological leadership of the U.S. and its friends in Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, many countries have grown wary of (or been persuaded by Washington against) using Chinese technology, as shown by some governments banning telecom equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies.

As in the Cold War, some nations will be reluctant to take sides. India—a pioneer of the Non-Aligned Movement decades ago—finds itself in the odd position of growing closer to Washington on China policy, but, like Beijing, taking a soft stance on Russia. (Sniffing an opportunity to woo India, China’s foreign minister visited New Delhi last week to improve strained ties, but, in a sign of the complexity of today’s global diplomacy, appears to have made minimal progress.)

As the global divergence continues, however, countries will gravitate toward one side or the other, and (as during the Cold War) not necessarily on clear ideological grounds. Communist Vietnam, fearful of rising Chinese power, is open to American overtures, while democratic Pakistan, a Cold War ally of Washington’s that is now heavily linked to China through Belt and Road investments, has effectively become a client state of Beijing.

Changes in governments and leaders could prevent what seems an inexorable slide into a new world. Barring that, though, what could emerge are two semi-distinct spheres, with tighter economic ties within than between them. Each will use different technology and operate on different political, social, and economic norms. Each will likely point their nuclear missiles at the other and compete in a zero-sum game for power and influence. This is not the world anyone wanted. But it may be the world we’ll get anyway.

The world must face up to the gravity of the challenges it faces and organise itself more effectively to address them.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

PUBLISHED STRAITS TIMES 16 JUN 2022

The pandemic, war in Ukraine, the threat to food security and the resurgence of global poverty. Heatwaves, droughts and other extreme weather events. These are not random shocks. Nor are they a perfect storm in the conventional sense, a one-off conjuncture of bad events. We face instead a confluence of lasting structural insecurities - geopolitical, economic and existential - each reinforcing the other. We have entered a perfect long storm.

We cannot wish away these insecurities. We can only restore optimism by recognising the gravity and collective nature of the threats we face and organising ourselves more effectively to address them.

First, the risk of escalating geopolitical conflict is greater than it has been in over three decades. The system of global rules and norms aimed at preserving peace and the territorial integrity of nation states was always fragile. But the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is not just another rupture in the system. Its ramifications could be catastrophic.

Second, we face the prospect of stagflation, with higher inflation and stalled growth for a period of time. The chances of advanced countries' central banks taming inflation while achieving a soft landing in economic growth are slim. When the history of the decade is written, however, inflation in the advanced countries is unlikely to be viewed as its most serious problem - certainly not compared with the implications of distress in the developing world or a weakened international order. But prolonged elevated inflation will erode the political capital needed to respond to our larger challenges, domestic and global, including the climate crisis. Notably, an escalating cost of living will demoralise populations that are now much older than they were in the 1970s, when the advanced countries saw their last episode of high inflation. It can set the world back in ways that economic models cannot predict.

Flying blind

Third, the existential commons are deteriorating at an accelerating pace. Climate change, shrinking biodiversity, water scarcity, our polluted oceans and a dangerously congested outer space, and the spread of infectious diseases will pose growing threats to life and livelihoods everywhere. We must address these threats in parallel, because the science is clear on how they reinforce each other.

The unpalatable short-term reality is that the world will have to rely more on fossil fuels, including even coal, to ensure energy security and prevent sharply higher energy prices. But it also means we must redouble efforts now to achieve the long-term transition to a low-carbon energy future. We need clear policy frameworks - including effective and predictable carbon pricing and fossil fuel subsidy phase-outs, and direct assistance to vulnerable groups - to achieve this critical transition while preserving energy security.

Fourth, we must confront the risk of growing divergences, within and especially across countries. Higher prices of basic foods, livestock feed, fertiliser and energy are taking the biggest toll on poorer countries, which are already the hardest hit by extreme weather events - and especially on the poorest in their populations. Their governments have little fiscal capacity to offset these shocks. More than half of them are already in or near debt distress. Faced with these immediate constraints, we risk continued neglect of education and healthcare improvements, with dangerous longer-term and global consequences.

There is now a real prospect of rollback of the hard-earned economic and social gains that many of these developing countries made in the last two decades. It will risk permanent scarring of the young, further disempowerment of women, civil wars and conflicts between neighbouring states.

We must address these threats, not on the basis of scenarios that reflect our hopes, but through a realistic appraisal of what could plausibly go wrong. Covid-19 and the Ukraine war were not black swan events. The full scale of these tragedies may not have been foreseen, but the risks had been blinking visibly on the radar for some time.

We must bring preparedness for threats, known or unknown, into the mainstream of public policy and collective thinking, just as regulators learnt from the global financial crisis and sought to fortify financial buffers in advance of the next crisis.

Investing in global public goods

We have to invest at significantly higher levels, over a sustained period, in the public goods needed to address the world's most pressing problems. We must make up for many years of underinvestment in a wide range of critical areas - from clean water and trained teachers in developing countries to upgrades of an ageing logistics infrastructure in some of the most advanced countries. But we also have the opportunity now to spur a new wave of innovations to tackle the challenges of the global commons, from low-carbon construction materials, to hydrogen electrolysers, to combination vaccines aimed at protecting simultaneously against a range of pathogens.

To fund these investments we must embark on public-private collaboration on a scale never before adopted. We must reorient public finance towards mobilising private investment to meet the needs of the global commons. The world will need to invest an estimated US$100 trillion (S$139 trillion) to US$150 trillion over the next 30 years to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. That may sound daunting. But the US$3 trillion to US$5 trillion annual cost is not a large percentage of the world's US$100 trillion capital markets, which grow by about that amount each year.

There is no lack of private and market finance. But channelling it to meet the needs of the commons requires a proactive public sector and well-designed frameworks for risk-sharing with the private sector. Policies and standards to rapidly scale up the deployment of clean energy technologies that are already proven, and to incentivise large-scale infrastructural investments such as in smart transmission and distribution grids, will be critical to achieving significant cuts in emissions by 2030. However, almost half the technologies needed to reach net zero by mid-century are still being prototyped. Governments must put skin in the game to leverage private-sector R&D, and promote demonstration projects, to accelerate the development of these technologies and bring them to market. Besides getting to net zero on time, they should aim to spur major new industries and job opportunities.

Making multilateralism work

However, we cannot address the challenges of this new era of profound fragility without a more effective multilateralism. It does not require a root and branch reconstruction of multilateralism or building entirely new institutions. But we have to move with urgency to reorient existing institutions for a new era, devise new mechanisms for networked cooperation among the multilaterals and other institutions including non-state players, and pool resources in ways that can meet both collective interests and nations' self-interests more effectively.

First, we need new thinking on the global commons. We must view money spent on strengthening them not as aid to the rest of the world but as an investment that benefits nations both rich and poor many times over. For example, the additional international investment required to plug major global gaps in pandemic preparedness will not only be affordable but will enable us to avoid costs that would be several hundred times larger if we fail to act together to prevent another pandemic. The longstanding aversion to collective investment in pandemic preparedness reflects political myopia and financial imprudence, that we must overcome urgently.

Updating Bretton Woods

Second, we must repurpose the Bretton Woods institutions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were set up almost 80 years ago to help with problems faced by countries individually, at a time when financial markets were mostly small and not interconnected. Their missions must be brought up to date for an era where financial crises are often global in nature, and where the deterioration of the global commons will pose an increasing challenge to all countries, most especially in the developing world.

The IMF and World Bank must be better resourced and empowered by their shareholders to make swifter and effective interventions in this new global era. The IMF must be given the mandate to manage a stronger and more effective global financial safety net, more akin to how the leading central banks inject stability at home when a crisis hits. The global commons must be placed at the core of the World Bank's mandate, together with poverty alleviation. It must also play a much bolder role as a multiplier of development finance. It must pivot more boldly towards catalysing private capital, using risk guarantees and other credit-enhancement tools rather than direct lending on its own balance sheet.

Third, we have to safeguard the digital commons. The positive agenda is clear. We must build the infrastructure and policy frameworks needed to close the global digital divide and close digital literacy gaps in every society. But we must also address the growing challenge of cyber-attacks and their impact on international security, and build guard rails to make the Internet safe for democracy. We do not yet have global rules or norms to counter the industrial-scale disinformation already seen and systematic efforts to spread distrust. The European Union's new Digital Services Act, aimed at forcing online platforms to remove misinformation and hate, is a major step forward. Similar approaches are being taken in nations like the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia.

Avoiding a polarised world

Fourth, a more effective multilateral system will require fresh strategic understanding between major nations, most importantly between the United States and China, as the world shifts irreversibly towards multipolarity. This new understanding must be shaped by their overarching common interests - in climate and pandemic security, peace and the avoidance of global financial crises.

It will require considerable geostrategic skill, as well as more active strategies to create good jobs and broad-based opportunities at home, so as to rebuild the domestic political foundations for economic openness.

We must update the rules of the game to ensure fair competition and resilient supply chains, without retreating from an open and integrated order that is vital to each nation's rate of innovation and growth and long-term security. Covid-19 and the Ukraine war have accelerated the move by businesses towards more diversified global supply chains, but global sourcing remains as important today as it was before the pandemic. Trade between the US and China remains hugely beneficial to both.

We can be under no illusions that an integrated global order, with its deep economic interconnections between nations, will on its own assure us of peace. But economic interdependence between the major powers, save for sectors impinging on national security, will make conflict far less likely than in a world of increasingly decoupled markets, technologies, payment systems or data.

We must take the long view. Our overriding priority must be to accommodate a multipolar world without becoming more polarised. A more polarised and fragmented world will ultimately weaken all nations, including the largest, and make it difficult if not impossible to meet the interests that all of humanity shares: in a safe, sustainable and prosperous world, inclusive of all.

Singapore's Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam is a member of the United Nations Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism and co-chairs the recently launched Global Commission on the Economics of Water.

This article was adapted from a commentary first published in the June 2022 edition of the IMF's Finance & Development journal.

Hariz Baharudin

PUBLISHED 14 MAR 2021 | Straits Times

Globalisation may be under pressure, but there is still a lot going for it, and the imperative for countries to cooperate is not going away, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Globalisation has also benefited everybody in Singapore, he said, adding that if the country did not have multinationals or the international trade it did, and were not as open as it is, there is "no doubt all of us would be worse off".

Speaking in an interview with the BBC broadcast on Sunday (March 14), Mr Lee acknowledged that there will be tensions between countries over security, competitiveness and control of technology.

"But you cannot avoid working with one another because to go back to where you were, that way lies poverty and despair, and probably instability and conflict," he said.

Citing the example of Covid-19 vaccines, he noted that not every country can make its own vaccines, and countries that can do so need to cooperate with one another. "Globalisation will be under pressure, but the imperative for countries to cooperate, for businesses to operate across many geographies, to tap resources, to bring skills and talents and experiences together, and then serve markets all around the world, I do not think that is going to disappear," he said.

The Prime Minister noted that deglobalisation has been under way for some time, not least because of United States-China tensions, and Covid-19 may give it a further push. "Everybody says I need to make my own masks, I need to have my own supply chains. When everyone scrambles at the same time for something scarce, it is not very good for the world," he said.

The pandemic has seen some nations turn inward and adopt a more protectionist approach as they tackle the coronavirus, adding to pressure on globalisation, which is already beset by waning confidence in multilateral institutions and strains in the US-China relationship. Asked by the interviewer, BBC World News Asia Business correspondent Karishma Vaswani, whether Singapore needed a new economic model, given that many people have felt left out of globalisation, Mr Lee said that globalisation has benefited everyone here.

"You may not feel it so, but if we did not have the multinationals here, if we did not have the international trade that we have, if we were not open as we are, I have no doubt all of us would be worse off," he said. "What has generated tensions is when the interface is so stark, people see the competition directly - because they are in a global market now," he said. "But at the same time, they understand that our way forward cannot be to close ourselves up, because if we do that, we are all going to be worse off."

Mr Lee added that Singapore will work hard to ensure people get support to compete and can see that globalisation is working out for them. For those who feel that the competition is fierce and the future unpredictable, they will be assured that they are not alone, and there is extra help and support for them, he added.

Singapore will also make sure that they are well-looked after, provided they make the effort to upgrade themselves. He noted that the Government has in place the national skills and lifelong learning movement SkillsFuture, calling it a "comprehensive programme" to train and retrain people throughout their working lives. This includes organising courses, having schemes and arrangements with employers, as well as government subsidies. "Every country is trying to do this, but we are trying to do it more systematically, and with our full resources behind it," he said.

Tham Yuen-C

Senior Political Correspondent | Straits Times | 24/9/2021

Despite the worldwide backlash against the openness of economies and the mass movement of people around the globe, Singaporeans generally have a positive view of globalisation, with 83% of the people polled recognising its benefits, an Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) study on national pride and identity found. But more than half of the respondents also believed that immigrants may take their jobs, with people of lower socio-economic status more likely to express such worries.

The findings of the study, which polled 2,001 Singaporeans and permanent residents from a representative national sample of households, were released on Thursday (Sept 23) in the report Making Identity Count In Singapore: Understanding Singaporeans' National Pride And Identity.

IPS principal research fellow and head of Social Lab Mathew Mathews, the study's lead author, said globalisation has a substantial bearing on national identity and, in Singapore, it has sparked debates on foreign manpower and free trade.

Recently, for instance, Parliament debated the impact of foreign professionals, managers, engineers and technicians and the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement on jobs for Singaporeans.

The study, which surveyed people between September and November last year (2020), asked respondents about their perceptions on globalisation and immigration.

Overwhelmingly, people – 83% - believed that globalisation benefits the economy and Singaporeans in general. A smaller proportion, 17%, said it benefits only foreigners and the rich.

On immigration, 75% of those polled agreed to a large or moderate extent that immigrants provide a boost to the economy, and 62% agreed that the newcomers improve society by bringing in new ideas and culture.

Even then, 50% of the respondents felt that immigrants take jobs away from Singaporeans, and 53% believed that the Government spends too much on helping them.

Those who are of a lower socio-economic class and received less education were more likely to feel the competition. Lower socio-economic class is defined in the study as people who live in three-room or smaller Housing Board flats, while those with an education level of secondary school or below are considered less educated.

For instance, 58% of those with less education agreed that immigrants take jobs away from Singaporeans, while 43% of those with higher education, who have at least a degree, felt the same way.

Dr Mathews said this shows issues like foreign competition for jobs affect some groups more keenly than others as they are more likely to suffer economic displacement and jobs losses as a result of globalisation.

"The proper response should be to carefully understand why particular groups are more concerned," he added.

National University of Singapore Associate Professor of Sociology Tan Ern Ser, who is a co-author of the report, said the results show that Singaporeans are not anti-globalisation or anti-immigration, but that they want policies on immigration to be improved.

The study also found that education and socio-economic status, rather than age or race, accounted for differences in how proud people feel about a range of institutions here that were deemed as sources of national pride.

The 24 sources of pride, ranging from the healthcare system to racial equality and level of meritocracy, were derived from international studies and focus group discussions here.

In general, the research indicated that national pride and identity in Singapore were healthy, said Prof Tan.

The healthcare system, cleanliness, Singapore Armed Forces, religious diversity and freedom, education system and Covid-19 pandemic management were among the aspects of Singapore that people were most proud of.

Meanwhile, having the same ruling party for a long time, government autonomy, sporting achievements, the arts, treatment of migrant workers and press freedom were aspects that people were least proud of.

The results also showed that respondents of higher socio-economic status were less proud than those of lower socio-economic status on things such as meritocracy.