My name is Tan See Seng and I am Professor of International Relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore. Thanks for having me.
Q1. Shortly after his inauguration, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Could you briefly explain your opinion about whether TPP must should go ahead or stop?
My personal opinion is that the TPP should continue. It has to continue because you may recall that before the TPP there was something called the “P4” (the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership) that was initiated by countries like Chile, Brunei, New Zealand and my own home country of Singapore, whose aim was to spur trans-pacific trade in light of the difficulties that the WTO was having, and, indeed, also the slowness of the APEC Forum.
So I think this goal has not disappeared and, indeed, if anything, just because the US is no longer a member of the TPP it does not mean that the goal of trans-pacific trade therefore should be dumped. I think it is important for it to continue, but the question then is that the TPP-11 that remains has to pick up the pieces it has to move on, it has to continue to progress. It is not going to be easy, in large part because the US participation within the TPP would have accounted for, depending on who you read, 70 to 80 percent of the trade share within the TPP. But, that being said, I am very pleased to see countries like Australia and Japan taking the lead now to try to revive the TPP-11, and in Japan’s case, despite the Japanese reservations in the initial aftermath of Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the TPP. So it is very good to see the Australians and the Japanese and others coming on board to make sure that the TPP can continue and, of course, keeping the door open to the US should it decide to one day in the foreseeable future rejoin, perhaps if not the TPP, then maybe some other tweaked version of the TPP. I think, therefore, that the TPP should continue.
Q2. Do you think that President Trump might change his mind? What will would motivate him to change his mind?
Mr. Trump strikes me as a person given to a transactional disposition to foreign policy, which is to say that Mr. Trump is presumably looking for quid pro quos. He is looking for opportunities where he can obtain some form of reciprocity from partners and interlocutors. I do not think he is a person therefore given to insisting on perhaps an ideological disposition to international affairs. It would seem to me that Mr. Trump—being the businessman that he is being hopefully the pragmatic person that he has claimed to be as well—that when the moment is right, when the conditions are appropriate, that the United States would conceivably return to the fold, as it were.
I think it really boils down therefore to the prospective negotiations that Mr. Trump would presumably have with his other interlocutors and whether those conditions are therefore appropriate in his view for the United States to return to discussions. I think that is where the difficulty lies. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and presumably that is where the complications could emerge. But so long as Mr. Trump and hopefully the other partners all keep an open mind to the possibility for further discussions down the road and therefore that the door is not completely shut, then I think the region stands a pretty decent chance of some kind of progress downstream.
Q3. Over the past years, globalism, regionalism and liberalism have prevailed in the context of our political and economic life. Do you think that such ideas were right? In other words, did they make us happy?
My sense is that the fundamentals are inherently really sound. Countries have, in my view, unfortunately very aggressively pursued wealth policies with very little care and concern for what I would call the other equally important things such as distributive justice, that is to say, making the distribution of wealth much more equitable. I think that is a very important thing which helps to balance some of the neo-liberal excesses of the system.
The case in point is we saw the greed, the avarice and recklessness of the banks and all the brokerages that, when left unchecked, really created a lot of problems leading to the global financial crisis of 2008. My sense is that it goes beyond just mere checks and balances. Income inequality is hollowing out and shrinking the middle class in the West, in the US and Europe as well, and it is certainly widening the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. It is this kind of thing that has led to Brexit. It is this kind of thing that led to Mr. Trump’s victory in the US elections. Therefore, I think globalization and liberalism, if it has a future, it must embrace some form of distributive justice, be very conscious about it, work hard to protect it, and work hard to preserve it.
Q4. Since the inauguration of the Trump administration in US and the Brexit referendum, it seems that global politics and economics are entering a new phase such as ‘My country Country First,’ which contrasts from with globalism and regionalism that are largely based on ‘free trade,’ ‘rule of law,’ and ‘human rights.’ Then do you think that liberalism is in crisis? If you are yes (or no),W what do you think the future of our world will be?
It is still very difficult to say whether liberalism is already in crisis mode. I think the jury is still out on that. I think what would be detrimental is that if other countries retaliate against the United States should the US engage in some measure of protectionist policy. It is this very fact that would serve as the basis for the US potentially precipitating a trade war. But even that being said, even if you had this kind of tit-for-tat behavior, it could hopefully be a short-term event. But what is much more fundamental—the more challenging risk—is if countries were to reject global norms and repudiate global norms and institutions that underpin the liberal globalized economy, and end up essentially rejecting the global economic order. This will happen if countries believe for whatever reason that the United States is no longer committed to the economic order as it stands today and is no longer committed to shouldering the burdens of the global economic order. When that happens, but I do not think we are there yet, I think liberalism will be in big trouble.
Q5. If a new U.S. administration is inaguratedinaugurated after Trump leaves, then can the U.S. can reverse the trend towards populism and protectionism?
If one were to look at the long cycles in US history, not world history, one sees the pendulum shifts in ideological responses. But that being said, the source of populism and protectionism that we see today seem to be not particularly corresponding to any specific ideological stance or at least traditional ideological position. That is presumably the worrying thing, it would seem to me. One could hope perhaps that the lesson of history would teach us that these things do swing back and forth, and what will be important is a combination of national leadership as well as the corporate sectors and civil society working together to present, hopefully collectively, the message that these trajectories—populist, protectionist, mercantilist, isolationist—are, at the end of the day, inimical to the well-being of global order. What needs to happen is some kind of a balance and commitment to ensuring that, as I said earlier, some form of distributive justice has to be in place in order to keep that stability in balance.
Q6. As we saw with Brexit, European solidarity shows signs of cracking. Will the EU collapse or endure?As you have seen the Brexit referendum, it seems to tell us that Europe’s solidarity might begin to crack. Will European collapse or get over?
I would like to think that Mr. Macron’s victory in France—Mr. Macron is, of course, a pro-EU centrist—would suggest that the EU will not collapse just yet, in part because the French-German axis is so important to the well-being and stability of the EU. But the EU’s future could well depend on how well negotiations over Brexit go. What I mean by that is an orderly and cooperative Brexit is not a given, unfortunately. The outcome of Brexit negotiations will determine the future of the EU-UK relationship and whether that relationship will be a positive and constructive one. We need to keep an eye on how well those negotiations proceed.
Q7. Western liberal values have long dominated the global geopolitical landscape. Given power transitions, will Russia, China and other Asian countries construct new values and take the lead in global politics?Undoubtedly , the Western values, such as liberalism, have dominated the global geopolitical landscape for such a long time. If we assume that they come upon a critical period now, then will Russia, China and other Asian-Pacific countries construct new values and take the lead in global politics? If you are yes (or no ), what makes you think so?
Intuitively, one would assume that if China were to lead the Asia-Pacific region, that a China-led Asia-Pacific would look somewhat different than a US-led one. But the issue is not just about new emerging powers re-defining the rules of the game, because if one were to see what is happening today, it is Mr. Trump and the United States that is presenting the world with a revisionist agenda for a more populist, more protectionist, and presumably more self-centered America. Whereas it is President Xi Jinping on the other side who is championing globalization, and defending globalization as he did at Davos in January of this year. It is by no means a given that established powers will automatically preserve the status quo whereas rising, emerging powers are the ones that are more revisionist in nature. Because looking at America and China, they, at least rhetorically -, it seems as if the tables have been turned.
Q8. Populism will remain a critical issue in domestic politics as well as world politics. If this will pose a serious challenge to democratic values, what would be a reasonable strategy to overcome it?
Two things come to my mind, the first of which is the dissatisfaction of the people with their personal economic circumstances. It is these things that drive people to support populist and protectionist causes. There are inherent problems like housing crises, limited access to education, things of this sort, that highlight the policy failures that need to be addressed at the domestic level. The second issue is that there is a worrying trend of, as I mentioned earlier, mainstream politicians and national leaders sounding very populist themselves in their reactions to populist and protectionist trends. Going back to the point I made earlier, national leaders will have to make a concerted effort and commitment to ensuring that they themselves do not end up sounding like their opponents.
The temptation is there because when you face a disaffected populace and voters that are pushing you to take a particular stance, championing globalization and liberalism would be very unpopular in that regard. There needs to be, nonetheless, some level of commitment to protecting these sorts of values that would ensure that the world does not go off in the direction that is isolationist and becomes problematic unto itself.
Q9. Should we make something right now for the future, given the reality that populism, nationalism and America-first policy have appeared in Europe and the United States?
We have already touched on many of these issues and, as I said earlier, there needs to be a concerted response and rejoinder to a post-Trump, post-Brexit world. This is a role that East Asia can play. We need to provide a collective, concerted response that will ensure that the values of globalization and a liberal economic order are preserved and maintained. Again, I do not want to brush off the difficulties that that kind of system has posed to the world that has led to Mr. Trump’s emergence. I think there are very serious issues which need to be addressed, very serious deficits which need to be addressed, such as distributive justice.
What East Asia can offer in response is not just to argue on behalf of globalization or liberalism, but to make the message that there needs to be all these other considerations. A case in point would be the role that South Korea plays. When South Korea chaired the G20 some years ago, South Korea did a very important job in arguing on behalf of the importance of sustainable development. It is this kind of role that East Asia can play as a whole in providing a rational and reasonable response that hopefully would encourage the rest of the world not to bring us to the brink of the kinds of much more potentially ugly things that an extremely protectionist and populist world will indeed lead us toward.
Q10. Please briefly explain your opinion about the future of regionalism.
I am not quite sure what to expect downstream but I would certainly hope, and as I have argued, that East Asia can provide that sort of reasonable, rational response. and And that East Asia has for the duration of the post-Cold War period been a very robust advocate for open regionalism, for a brand of regionalism that is not exclusive to East Asia but one that in fact champions the sorts of norms, values and principles that underpin a globalized economy. East Asia is the prime example of a region that has maintained and enhanced those connections with the world-at-large.
Of course, it has opened the region up to other kinds of problems. When the global financial crisis struck, because of East Asia’s openness some economies in our part of the world suffered as a result. But it is that kind of robust commitment and investment in ensuring that regionalism ends up shoring up and providing the sorts of building blocks and stepping stones to a world that is interconnected, a world that hopefully through trade and investment linkages would be able to maintain a shared prosperity for one and all. That is the kind of regionalism I would like to see East Asia play, and hope to see East Asia play down the road.
Q11. Any last words to our Jeju Tube viewers?
I just want to wish everyone a good and prosperous Jeju Forum and maybe see better things to come down the road.
