Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - George Yeo: Measuring Our Success as a Society

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Mantan politisi dan salah satu pemikir terbaik Singapura George Yeo bicara tensi Amerika dan China yang tak kunjung mereda, arti kebahagiaan, dan bagaimana perlakuan terhadap mereka yang berada di kelas sosial paling bawah dan termarjinalkan adalah ukuran kesuksesan suatu masyarakat. George Yeo memulai karirnya di militer Singapura dan Kementerian Pertahanan sebelum memasuki politik pada tahun 1988. Berkarir di pemerintahan tak kurang dari 23 tahun, portofolio beliau di kabinet menyentuh bidang Informasi dan Seni, Kesehatan, Perdagangan & Industri, hingga Luar Negeri. Setelah meninggalkan politik pada tahun 2011, beliau kini aktif memberikan arahan di sektor swasta dan berbagai lembaga pendidikan, George Yeo bisa disebut beraliran konservatif liberal. Produk dari sistem meritokratis namun otoriter Singapura, ia percaya pada perlunya disiplin dan stabilitas di atas segalanya. Namun demikian, ia mengakui bahwa ketertiban dan stabilitas hanya dapat bertahan jika sistem tersebut tetap senantiasa menarik inspirasi dan energi dari warga negara yang lebih muda dan liberal. Beliau sempat memimpin delegasi Singapura merundingkan Perjanjian Perdagangan Bebas (FTA) dengan Amerika Serikat, Jepang, Australia, dan negara-negara lain. Secara kontroversial, ia juga yang mengusulkan gagasan untuk memiliki Resor Terpadu, termasuk kasino, di Singapura. Seorang pragmatis sejati, ia percaya bahwa pembuatan kebijakan sering kali mengharuskan kita memilih satu dari dua sisi zalim. #Endgame #GitaWirjawan #GeorgeYeo -------------------------- Pre-Order merchandise resmi Endgame: https://wa.me//628119182045 Berminat menjadi pemimpin visioner berikutnya? Hubungi SGPP Indonesia di: admissions.sgpp.ac.id [e-mail] https://wa.me/628111522504 Playlist episode "Endgame" lainnya: https://endgame.id/season2 https://endgame.id/season1 https://endgame.id/thetake

Why is suffering so important to human society? Characters, communities are forged in pathos, not in laughter. If there was no suffering, no collective suffering, maybe we'll be fighting each other. This is Endgame. Hello, my friends, Today we're coming George You, manan the job of the Javadnegarer of the government of Singapore,

who has been in jabat as Mentery Perdagangangue and Industry, Menteri Liwarknegris, and other than other. Hi, George. Thank you so much. For coming on to our show. It's a real honor. And, you know, it's a pleasure

to be able to talk to you. And I want to, I want to be able to talk to you. I want to try to have a conversation about you starting with how you grew up. What made you? And I know you've gone to St. Patrick, St. Joseph, on to Cambridge University and Harvard. Tell us your story. I was born a Roman Catholic. So it was natural that I should go to Catholic schools for my education.

Right. As I was a good student, I had reasonable expectation of a scholarship provided by the government that sent me to Cambridge for my undergraduate studies in engineering. It was not a university I could have gone to on my own because it was expensive, and I didn't even know how to apply to get in. But all that was done by the Public Service Commission. and we were kind of shoehorned onto a particular pathway. I was both an armed forces scholar and a present scholar. And when I came back, I was bonded to the Singapore government. I worked in the armed forces.

I had my initial training with the US Army and then went on to eventually become a signal company commander, did my staff college, was sent over to the Air Force, where I was a bit of a misfit. It was a struggle getting myself accepted by the men in blue.

Eventually, I became Chief of Staff, the Air Staff, and Director of Joint Operations and Planning in the Defense Ministry. Along the way, I picked up my MBA from Harvard, again on a partial scholarship from the Defense Ministry. And you decided to

go into politics in the late 80s. And how did that come about? I entered politics at two young and age of 33. I was not keen on going to politics before I was established myself and not having to depend on politics as a career. But at that time, I was... put under some pressure from both Go Choctong, who was my minister in the defense ministry,

and also by Lee Kuan Yu, who was prime minister, and who told Go Choctong, tell George, if he wants to learn from me, better come in now rather than wait till later. I succumb and entered politics in 1988. You know, you've done so many portfolios, right? Information, trade and industry, foreign affairs. Which of these would have given you the highest of challenges? And I guess I should say or ask the highest of fund. I've often been asked which ministry I like the most.

I find it hard to answer that question. because each had his own flavor, which I enjoyed. Right. But the most stressful was the Ministry for Information and the Arts. It was not a ministry which received a lot of funding. Right. But it dealt with many sensitive subjects like race relations, censorship, the media, the internet, languages, religion.

And it seems to be it. as if at any point in time there were sensitive issues to be managed. And if any was mismanaged, it became a big problem. So it was a stressful ministry which I held for nine years. Wow. It was also enjoyable and I made long-lasting friends. I dealt with librarians, I dealt with artists, I dealt with those in television, I dealt with people in technology, people, people who are in the cultural sphere. Yeah, that was interesting. I mean, it's not important in a way that

foreign affairs was important or trade industry was important. And it was always difficult to get money. But it was challenging and to me, perhaps, the most profound. You know, you've been referred to by many, including myself, as a real visionary. And you've alluded to this in many talks of yours about how difficult it would have been for you to choose upon censoring.

Right? And you've always said that every country censors. It's all about the degree to which it censors. And you came out with the idea of jumping on this internet bandwagon, I mean, in the 90s, right, when not a lot of people were thinking about, you know, the internet, the way it's exploded, you know, as we've seen it in the last 20, 25 years. Talk a little bit about that before I push on, you know, something related to this. Well, censorship is a question of balance. Yeah.

It's an adult. Well, we resent being censored. I'm an adult, I'm mature. Why should you tell me what I can do or cannot do? But we're also parents. And wearing that hat, we're always concerned about the way we raise our young. So inherent in censorship is the need for society to maintain a set of balance, a set of values, and transmit these values to the next generation.

respecting that they will not be the same with us but they have to begin on a basis which we have a responsibility to transmit to them. I often said you may have

you know lute magazines in a cupboard somewhere but you don't want it to be on the table in the living room there's certain things you do not want presented in polite company, especially when children are around.

Now, when the internet came on the scene, it presented a particular challenge because it appeared as if there was now no limit, and there was universal access. But I rapidly came to the conclusion that that's not true. That in the case of Singapore, it's a small country, we access media from all over the world, but the internet comes in through certain portals. And the portals can always be controlled.

When I was a minister, as a matter of principle and of practice, we kept 100 sites under surveillance and censored. Just to keep ourselves practice, that any site which becomes important, which is dysfunction in any way, which we need to act against, we can. But there's no sense in going after small things. I mean, we pretend to go up to small things,

but the young people would be able to get around our restrictions. So it was a continuous balance. Explaining this to members of parliament was not easy, because many of them did not really understand the internet. All they wanted was to express their fears. And those fears had to be addressed. So it was tough managing that process, but I was very intrigued.

one year in 1996, when China sent a high-level delegation to Singapore, to study the media, and they paid a lot of attention to our internet regulation. Now, this was a delegation led by a polybrew member with many ministers in it. They spent six days. They did not take time out for sightseeing or for shopping. And by the time they left, the new aspects of it, of Singapore, which I as minister did not know, and it made me feel a little uncomfortable. So after I wave them off, I wanted, what was it all about?

A few months later, it turned up that they were introducing their own internet policy for China, and they wanted to make some little checks before finalizing the document. So I tell my colleagues that in a tiny way, we paid a small role in China's cyberspace policy, which enable them to create an internal universe and spawning all these companies that we know of today, like Alibaba, Tencent, and so on. But without China losing control of its own destiny, of its own internal space.

Wow. I want to build on this with two relevant questions. The first one is how the Internet has used. to a place where many liberal democracies are defining democracy as if it's equivalent to the amplification of algorithm, right? Which to me is a bit unfair because what's been amplified in the Internet spaces a bunch of unhealthy narratives. you know, as compared to the much more healthy narratives, which are less, if not a lot less amplified.

That's probably not how democracy ought to be defined, right? And the world has evolved so much. And I'm just curious as to what your view is with respect to, number one, whether this is a correct observation. And number two, if it is a correct observation, how do we remedy this so that we have a much more proper way of defining democracy in the context of the digital age? There was a time, a short period, when we thought that the Internet represented freedom from censorship, freedom from manipulation.

That period did not last very long. Very quickly, it became aware that the Internet became a means of manipulating mass opinion. sometimes without us being conscious of, just by the way information is either filtered or amplified. Every time I make a Facebook posting, it says, do I want it boosted? I never boost my postings. But when I see that sign come before me,

I view it as a threat. Because if they can boost me, they can unboost me. They can put more friction. across cyberspace because of the desire for revenue there are algorithms

to create addiction so the more you watch snake videos the more snake videos you receive the more you watch monkey videos which I've taken interest in recently the more monkey videos I receive so these are algorithms to create addiction

because eyeballs mean money and behind the scenes, there are governments, intelligence agencies which interpose themselves. The national law said, if I intervene, you cannot tell the world that I'm intervening. That would be a crime, so that the people who are being influenced do not know. Trump was the first major politician who succeeded on the basis of his ability to make use the social media. And he became a threat to many vested interests.

And now the entire social media is regulated, not by the government, seemingly, but by powerful people to prevent him from getting his views to the public. And he's being blocked even at a server level. Now, these are people who are not elected. But people who have decided that they would decide the views which are not. people should receive. Now, I'm not advocating for Trump. What I'm saying is you can do it to Trump, you can do it to Xi Jinping, to Putin, to anyone you choose. And to me, that's scary. I was in Hong Kong during the year of violence. And I came to the conclusion that Hong Kong people were being manipulated by the social media without their knowledge. And one month, I came back to Singapore,

I was asked by the police to give a talk, which I was happy to do. I titled the talk, first demonize the police. If you want to destabilize the society, the first thing you do is to demonize the police. Then other institutions. It's not easy to build by manipulating the internet,

but it's very easy to be destructive and to tear down. Right. And I worry a lot about the way we are being influenced against without our knowledge and against our will. And what all this means for democracy. Because too often now, democracy has been reduced to mass manipulation. Yeah. No, in the US, it's one-man-one vote.

But you're not required to vote. I mean, Singapore and Australia, voting is compulsory. They're mandated. But not in Indonesia or the US. So you want to get people angry so that they vote, or you want to calm them down so that they don't vote? That's important. It affects the outcome.

And the US Supreme Court has determined that yes, it's one-man-one vote, but freedom of speech is also freedom to spend money on speech. So if you're a billionaire, you put in a billion dollars in a super bank, you can influence people. Right. But you have no money, you have the wrong Chilic, you have no voice. So what does democracy mean? So it's not a panacea.

It's a much more complicated subject and voice is often presented as. You know, you've mentioned the fact that the digital age has helped with respect to the disruption, if not the corrosion of institutions and also institutional building. I want to take this to the personal health of the human being, right? I read this book that talks about the four digital villains. The first being the digital deluge, the deluge of information. The second being the digital distractions. The third being the digital dementia.

And the fourth being the digital deduction. You alluded to this, how human beings. is being reduced, right? And this, you know, has repercussions on a personal health of a human being by way of just those four identified, you know, digital villains. I'm curious what your views are with respect to this. The technology itself is neutral. It can be used for good or for evil. we teach children from a young age how to handle fire.

If they get it wrong, they hurt themselves. They can hurt themselves very badly. We teach people how to use knives and firearms. They can be used for good, they can be used for evil. It's the same with digital technology. But in our education system today, in our business schools, we don't talk very much about the moral dimension of the technology.

We can't say, look, I only teach you how to use a knife. How you use it, that's your problem. I'm not interested. We should be interested because that knife can kill. It can be very destructive. It's important from a young age that we teach students and that we are aware of ourselves of the moral dimension of this technology.

that has come before us, which can be very useful, which can vibrate people who would otherwise be wheelchair-bound, bed-ridden, isolated, but who can now, through this technology, access the universe and be productive. There's a lot of good in it, but there's also a lot of evil in it. And we should discuss this moral dimension. Wow. Well, we can go on and on on this topic of, you know, the digital villains, right? And how they have eroded morality of humanity.

I want to try to switch topics here. If you don't mind, I'd like to go around the world and take your view on the GEOPLE. geopolitics of things. Let's start off with what's happening in Ukraine and how you think this will have repercussions on the day-to-day life or livelihood of people in Southeast Asia. Walk us through this. I take a historical perspective. The collapse of the Soviet Union, beginning with the collapse.

of the Berlin War in 1989 had huge repercussions on the entire world. There was a period when the US thought itself as the new Rome in a unipolar world, then led to hubris. And after September 11th, a series of wars, which ended with the ignominious withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan. Ukraine represents a long tail from the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite verbal promises they made, NATO kept expanding eastwards. And they were happy to see Russia being reduced into a power to be pitied, to be helped, to be patted on the head.

but it created within Russia itself, and the Russians are great people, who say, no, no, we will retreat no further. So Ukraine became, as it were, a stand that they felt they should make. That if Ukraine went to the Western camp, next will be Belarus, and after that, Russia itself. This is how Putin sees it. Last July, he wrote a long essay on the common history of Ukraine and Russia, because Russia began in Kiev.

It began with Vladimir, who, when he converted to Christianity, chose Constantinople over Rome. And interesting that Zelensky and Putin are both named after Vladimir, the case of Zelensky. Volodymia. So the history of Russia began in Kiev. And this doesn't mean that just because they have a common history, so we have forever trapped in the same country. But the history is important because it determines how people behave. If you are France or Germany, you have long experiences with Russia. I mean, during COVID, I had time to read war and peace. after Braudino the Zah evacuated

Moscow Napoleon entered into an empty city which was set on fire a year and a half after that Zah Alexander was in Paris on 22nd June 1941 Operation Barbarossa one of the largest

offensives in human history by April 1945 the Red Army was in Berlin. Berlin. So if you are European, a Western European, you say, well, you've got to live with Russia. But if you're an Eastern European who had to suffer under the heels of the Soviet Union for many

years, Russia cannot be small or weak enough, and you want the US to be there. Now, the US has his own agenda. I mean, Lord East May, the first Secretary General of NATO made those famous words that the purpose of NATO is to keep out the Soviet Union, keep the US in, and keep the Germans down. Well, in some ways, that consideration has not changed. Right. So there are divergent views. And Ukraine, the poor Ukrainians are now caught in between. The tectonic place collide, which is why it's very important for clear leadership, knowing the history and being clear what is a feasible space for the future.

It's very dangerous to build hopes and illusions because it leads to tragedy. So on Ukraine, Putin has crossed a Rubicon. He cannot lose. He cannot afford to lose. The Americans don't want to see him win. So I fear that this will be a long struggle, and it may lead to a partition of the country for a long time to come. No, in 1974, the Greeks on Cyprus wanted Enosis, which was union with Greece. The Turks on that island were naturally opposed, and this led to Turkey's invasion, and the partition of Cyprus, which continues till today.

Today. And the Greek part has joined the EU, but there's still a dividing line, and it is tragic. I fear that, unless we learn from history, such a feat may also be for Ukraine for decades to come. It just seems very tough to try to reconcile. On one side, call it ideology. On the other side, strategic security interest, right? The NATO's and the EU's and the US's interest in preserving the ideology in the context of Ukraine

and Russia's strategic security interest on the other side. Now, to the extent that it gets long drawn, right, I mean, the possibility of this becoming nuclear cannot be precluded. I'm just not sure how that's going to impact upon many people around the world. How do you see this unfolding in, call it the base case scenario, as opposed to the best-case. if not pessimistic scenario. It's very sad. We thought that we left all that behind us to the end of the Cold War.

But the demons of the past have come back to frighten us, to haunt us. Russia knows that it cannot compare to Europe or to America and definitely not to the combined West in terms of economic power. of economic power. So all it has is weaponry. And that if you push me beyond a certain point, I can hurt you militarily. It's come to death. Years ago, I remember Kissinger's saying,

if you want absolute security, that means my absolute insecurity. So stability is achieved by a balance of insecurity, that there are risks if I push too far. And this idea that a country has a natural and an irredeemable right to decide on its own security arrangements, I think deny that very principle that our securities are intertwined, that there has to be a relationship, that there has to be a compromise. Without compromise, we'll fight to the end of time. And I hope we have learned from the mistakes, the tragedies of the past.

And I don't like the way the nuclear option is being talked about in a cavalier way, not just in Europe, but even in Asia. Right. Over Taiwan, the sub-Chimacy. I think it's madness. And we were very affected should register of strong objection.

What can we do better, if not more, to maximize the probability of that sort of a compromise taking place in the most realistic manner and in the most expedient manner? For us, Indonesia and Singapore, I think we have to be realistic. We can't change the world.

But we have influenced. over the neighborhood, that we can do. And Indonesia plays a particularly important role in ASEAN. If ASEAN is vital, if ASEAN is united, not in the rigid way, but in the soft cultural way, then it becomes a very important piece holding larger Asia together. Today, only ASEAN can convene all the powers together. Russia, the US, North Korea, South Korea, India.

We can do that in Asia because we are ASEAN, because we are not threatening, because we don't have nuclear weapons, we don't have ICPMs. So we are acceptable. No one else can do it. So we have to preserve this space and prevent civilization from being volcanized. And Indonesia is a large part of Asia. It's 40% of its land area. It's about 40% of its population.

And you'll assume 40% of its GDP. So Indonesia's role is critical. If Indonesia takes the lead, when I say lead, I mean in a Javanese sense, of leading by restraint, not by arrogant assertion. Sure. Then ASEAN can cohere. Assyan in all its diversity We'll find a higher unity

And the rest of the world, the major powers We have to take cognizance of it Which is why I think If we Put our shoulders to the wheel We can make ASEAN a factor Which no major power can ignore And this intern will help

improve the chances Of peace and resilience in the region. That's a good point. And I want to take this further. It just seems to me that at the rate that the United States is allocating so many resources

into Russia slash Ukraine, just within logic, it just seems to be misallocating the resources that it needs to be. allocating more towards China or with respect to China, which clearly is the second largest economy, soon to be the largest economy. How does that vote for all of us in Asia Pacific, right? Which needs the balance, if not the balancing between two great powers.

At the rate that we're going to lack or miss this duality, our bargaining lever is going to be diminished? Well, this is part of the nature of the US. The US is a relatively young country. It has only two neighbours, over which it is dominant, is flanked by two oceans. It never had centuries of having to deal with

a complex array of neighbours, some friendly, some not so friendly, some openly hostile, which is China's history. So when China deploys its state craft, it takes the whole picture holistically. In the U.S., the checks and balances create a fragmented power structure. So different groups have different objectives. You're right.

If your principal concern is China, well, concentrate on China. If your principal concern is Russia, concentrate on Russia. Why direct limited resources to both at the same time? Unless you're so confident of turning Russia around that you think that, well, I take Russia first and then the entire West will be against China. That's not going to happen. And even China, I mean, those surface in the region. The history of China in our region goes back to the beginning of its.

You know, before there was any significant kingdom in Civilis Asia, the Han Dynasty had already plotted the meridian in the Java Sea. So the kingdoms, the countries of Southeast Asia have seen China in its many cycles. So the nature of China is not unknown to us. We know how that China will behave when it becomes strong and powerful again. There are certain things he will do. There are certain things it doesn't want to do. China is not interested in conquering other countries and incorporating the population because they find non-Chinese people hard to manage.

China today is 1.4 billion people. It's over 90% Han. And this is not by accident. This is by policy. It's by policy. They do not want to incorporate too many non-hunt people into the reality. It's just too difficult for them. So the way they deal with the world outside is what countries are we doing in Bandong,

mutual non-interference, mutual benefit. We don't try and convert each other to our religion or to our political system. live and let live. Cooperate where we can have regard for each other's security. But the US finds it very difficult to see China in that light.

And therefore, I fear that for a few decades at least, there will be a trial of strength. And the US will not easily be convinced by China's rhetoric that he has no wish to be a hegemonic power. Because the U.S. in its own history assumes that China will have a similar history

when it becomes dominant. So we're in between. In the sense, we have to be peacemakers. Right. Because if there's no peace, we'll be dragged into the conflict. Interesting. You know, let me take this further. We've seen how the global order has shifted from a bipolar to a unipolar and now to a multipolar. Called a unipolarity starting off, whether it's 89 or 91, but it kind of dissuaded over time, and now we're seeing a much more multipolarized world.

And I've been hypothesizing that the reason why the world has been able to multilateralize, it would have been significantly on the back of how the world or the global order was so unipolar. Ironically, or paradoxically, at the rate that the global order is becoming more multipolarized, it's actually more difficult now for the world to multilateralize. Right?

As we've seen in the last few years, we've seen sort of like a decline of multilateralism. And that seems somehow correlated with the way, the world has gotten more multipolarized, whereas multilateralism was a lot easier when the world was unipolar under the dominance of the United States. How would you view that?

Is that the right line of thinking? For a few centuries, the West erupted out of his own continent to dominate the entire world. The fact that we're speaking to each other in English is because of the Western ascendancy in many of the things that we do, the standards we employ,

in the terminology we are acquainted with, many of these things are derived from a dominant west. Now, that dominance is receding. relatively speaking. It's not that the West is in decline. The West is in relative decline. McKinsey puts out regular forecast of the world in 2050. The biggest economy will be China. The second will be the US or India. The four will be Indonesia. It's just the logic of numbers and the fact that we are catching up on technology and organization. But we have our own ancient cultures. And increasingly, we who are non-white,

is then being lectured to by the West, being told that we are not meeting their moral standards. We need only to recall what happened during the colonial period to reject that intellectually. Right. But emotionally, it's not so easy, because we are being fed by popular culture, by the international media, of what is right and wrong.

And we grew up seeing Western standards as higher standards. So this period is wrenching for everybody because it's transition. So when we talk multipolarity, it's not only the military, political and economic sense, is also in a cultural sense. And that we should not be used to being told what is right. and wrong, but people who are not like ourselves. And it's hardest for the West. Because for the first time and a long time,

people are standing up to them and looking them eye to eye and saying, no, I disagree with you. These are not universal standards. These are not universal rules. These are your rules. Let's talk about that. So there is some degree, if not a high degree, of reverse. revisionism, right, with regards to, number one, the global order, and number two, the role of the East that's expanding relatively, as you aptly pointed out. How do you see this revisionism fair going forward in the next few years?

We have to get used now to a world which is not as coupled as it was in the past. It's a little like COVID. COVID has forced us to erect borders again and to shut doors and to control entries more tightly. And it's frustrating because we were used to free movement before that. I think politically and culturally now we've got to be used to a world which is fragmented. There's the US, there's Europe, within Europe, there are different centres, each proud of itself. in Asia, there's China, but there's also India and there's Indonesia. And within Southeast Asia, no one wants to be bossed around by anybody else.

A kind of an acceptance that, yes, you are bigger than me, but we are morally and spiritually equal. And our relationship depends upon mutual respect. I think this is a period where we've got to go back and appreciate each other, understand each other in his history. and in its culture, and not just as economic statistics. How, I want to push on this. You know, alluding to, you know, to borrow the concepts of Neil Ferguson, of the six killer apps,

you know, which are competition, work ethic, modern medicine, science, consumerism, I lost track of the six, but these are basically the killer apps that the Western civilization has been able to succeed upon in the last few hundred years. But every one of these six killer apps, we're seeing sort of a relative decline, you know, within the context of the Western civilization, be it competition, work ethic, science, consumerism, medicine, you name it, or property rights, which basically dovetails into, you know, enforcement of rules and regulations. I want to build on this as much as we'd like to believe that the East is thriving better on many, if not all of these six killer apps. There are paradoxes, there are paradoxes, right?

I think it's a lot easier said than done. We in the East have our own weaknesses. And I can point out to some democracies in the East which have their own weaknesses in terms of their inability to democratize talent as a result of which we can't compete, as a result of which we don't have the kind of work ethic, we don't have the right instrument

to advance medicine, signs, and all that good stuff. So I'm just curious as to what your views are with respect to how the six-killer apps are moving or shifting and what the East civilizations would have to figure out what to do going forward. I'm kind of all over the place here, but I think you get my point, right? It could ball down to how we take a view on each one of these six-killer apps that the Western civilization has. thrived if not succeeded upon? To me, all these apps are means to an end. Right. They're not ends in themselves.

Right. What you want is for human beings to be able to live as social beings in harmonious relations with fellow human beings to raise the yam and not to marginalize people. We can't be happy. I was listening to the BBC just the other day, and there was an expression that a mother is only as happy as her most unhappy child.

The mother is a natural socialist. Those who are doing well, she's happy, but her mind is always on the weak, on the sick, the one who's suffering. And a child is retarded. She gives it extra attention. to me, the measure of a quality of society is how it treats those who are at the bottom

who are marginalized. You cannot judge a society by its billionaires, you know, by the cars they drive, the wines they drink, the restaurants they go to, the private jets that they fly in. No. I say, look at the bottom. are there homeless people on the streets? Are there beggars?

Are there groups who are kicked around as if they're not fully human beings? Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta, Singapore, Colorado, Lumpur, Bangkok, London, Paris, New York, San Francisco. I use it as my ruler. Democracy to me is complicated. It's a means, not an end in itself.

The end is the mother. The mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child. And a society should only be able to feel itself a good society if those at the bottom are properly looked after. Not to be dragged down in a procrastian equality, which was what China was in the past, but one which allows us to flourish as whole human beings, to be at the limit of a potential,

but which requires as a human beings, look after other human beings. I'm not familiar with what Neil Ferguson wrote, but to me, unless you talk about these other issues, those other things are not important. But those other things are important in order to achieve these core issues of what it means to live in human society.

Let's, no, and I'm with you. Those are means to an end. And I agree with you that at the end of the day, we've got to humanize the things that we want to be. I want to talk about humanity. I want to talk about what it takes to be happy. Right? and I know you're working on a book

and I've read your earlier book Bonsai, Banyan and Tau, what makes a person happy from your perspective? What does it take to be happy? Let me invert their question.

Why is suffering so important to human society. Characters, communities are forged in pathos, not in laughter. It is when a people suffers, when a human being suffers, that something in him is forged. My younger son had to fight for his life

because of leukemia, which relapsed twice, and in the end he was saved by a bone marrow transplant. When I was newly married, I had plans for a family, for him to do. All the plans came to nothing because all attention was focused on saving him. And the entire, the life of the entire family was distorted because of him. Is this something to regret, to lament over? No. How can it be? because he's alive.

He's not a junior doctor. And I watch his siblings. They are close to one another. If there was no suffering, no collective suffering, if life was all about luxury and travel and skiing and choosing between cuisines, maybe we'll be fighting each other. So when you look at a society at a tribe,

always look at the suffering. And in the suffering, you find this character. And strangely, it is when we have that character that we are able to understand the world with all its problems, and only by accepting the world for what is this, and setting it in context, can we be happy? If happiness is just pleasure, it is ephemeral. It would quickly lead to the opposite.

but if happiness comes from an understanding of why we are human, from accepting the world of what it is, from being in the flow of things, that is a philosophical happiness. And I think the happiness is almost spiritual. It's also accepting the non-permanence of a state. Right. that's basically what it takes. I mean, people that are less happy or unhappy

are usually those that do not accept the non-permanence of a particular state. They think that it's permanent, which is why there is a dissonance between expectation and reality. And I agree with you that I think taking one to the end of the spectrum, call that suffering, makes you a lot more cognizant of what it takes to be less unhappy. And sometimes it is by helping unhappy people that we achieve our greater self-satisfaction. If our preoccupation is just our own wellness, it's superficial. And it

cannot endure. It's just going to a spa. Right. But the joy that comes from lifting someone up of making a difference in another person's life or filling yourself useful, that is deep. So happiness cannot be divorced from our relationship with others. Although sometimes we feel that we are happier when we are rid of them.

But I think there's an illusion. Yeah. What keeps you busy now? I know you're working on writing something amongst many other things. Is that what's preoccupying you now? Well, I'm semi-retired. I'm on a few boards. I'm advisor to various companies.

I help various universities around the world. But in the last one year, I've been preoccupied with working on a book of musings. It was supposed to be an easy effort. Someone comes to my office and after 10 series of interviews, he wrote it up and it's done. It's nothing like that because I discovered that my thoughts were all over. So I started writing before the weekly meeting, spent 10 to 12 hours. Wow.

And this went on for six months. Everything written down. Sorry, 10 to 12 hours in a day. In a week. In a week. To prepare for the weekly interview. This went off for six months. And then the chapters were too long.

The publisher said, no, no, you have to break up the chapters. So I'm rewriting all of them. And in the process, what was intended as one book has become three books. But they're musings. It's not an autobiography, it's not a memoir of my public life. It's a mixture of things big and small. And it's me talking to you. And you may be interested, I may be interesting, I may not be.

I can talk to another person on a different subject. So it's just a series of such conversations as it were. But it's easier to sit than done. It's an enormous effort. If I knew how much was involved from the beginning, I would never have embarked on it. But now I'm more than halfway through, and I look forward to finishing that journey. You want to give us a sneak preview on anything that might be relevant to us in Southeast Asia or in Indonesia? Oh, yes, yes.

I talk about my early chow. my parents, visiting my grandparents in China. What being Chinese, what being Christian mean to me, what being Singaporean means to me. I talk about various communities in Singapore, the Eurasians. I talk about India, my involvement with Nalana University. Then I have chapters reflecting on Chinese culture, Singapore's Chineseness, Chinese education.

I talk about Hong Kong. That's in the first volume, the second volume. I talk about my work in the Vatican, my meeting with the three popes. I talk about the Vatican's relations with China. I talk about Islam. Islam in the struggle. I can't use the word jihad because that's what has been captured by others.

I talk about Islam in diversity, while still remaining one oma. Then I talk about Europe, my education there, my travels there, my work there. I talk about Europe cresting and its dominance of the world. Then I talk about the US. My education there in Harvard, my education there as a young military officer. I talk about how three members of my family had serious illness, and they were safe in America.

Then I talk about my involvement as a minister of the US, the free trade agreement, various other things. Then I talk about whither pex americana, you know? How long will this end up? Can it end up? What happens when China becomes the dominant economic power? But the US still be primos interparis, you know? Then in the third series, I talk about WTO trade negotiations, my wife. work in information and culture.

My experiences in the SCF, I talk about God, I talk about Li Guan Yu, I talk about Taiji, Qiqong, I talk about life and its meaning, and I end it with a prayer. So it's kind of all over. And this is coming out at which year, this year, or next year? The first series will be out at end of August.

Okay. The second will be before Christmas and the third early next year. I'm definitely going to get my copies. You may find it too much of a jumbo. No, no, no, no. You know, at the end of each episode, I usually ask, you know, after we talk about, you know, their background and their views of the world and state of, you know, everything,

we talk about how they, in. vision, the future, right? We usually end up in the year 2045, which by your standard is short-term. But for most people in Indonesia, it's long-term. What or how do you think Southeast Asia would look in 2045, you know, having seen everything that's been happening throughout your multi-dimensional, you know, I read Chinese history a lot. I also read Southeast Asian history. And it's always been that every time China was united, it had the most biggest economy.

And it created a huge China trade, which sometimes kingdoms in Southeast Asia fought over. So the historians now believe that the reason of why the Cholas destroyed Sri Vijaya a thousand years ago was because of the trade of the sudden song, which was very lucrative. I believe China's rise will bring a new era of prosperity

to Southeast Asia as a general idea, but it requires infrastructure, it requires education, but most importantly, it requires proper management of relationships. So the Southeast Asia is a compliment to China, and not an arena or proxy struggle between China and other major powers.

And that requires a strategic view of ourselves in that future. It requires leadership, it requires diplomacy. And in all of that, Indonesia's role is necessary. It's not sufficient in itself. Indonesia will have to work with others. And Singapore, Indonesia have always had good relations. So I think we should work together. And our views are mostly aligned anyway.

It requires Indonesia to play a major role. And if Indonesia does not, Southeast Asia will be weakened. Indonesia's own future will be jeopardized by that. How do you see Indonesia playing a more major role? What is it that we could remedy to be perceived as playing a more major role for purposes of that endgame in 2045? Last night I was writing my chapter of Indonesia, and I was reflecting on Sukarno. When I was in primary school, we had to tape the glass windows because of bomb glass.

And even after September 1965, relations were not patched up. But Benny went up and down, then Li Kuan Yu hung the two Marines, which caused our embassy in Jakarta to be ransacked. But Li Kuan Yu knew how important Indonesia was. And he asked our ambassador in Jakarta that every speech Suharto made,

he wanted a voice cassette sent back to him because he wanted to listen and practiced his Baza, Indonesia, before his first meeting with Suharto in 1973. When he went there, he went to Kalibata, he scattered rose petals on the graves of the two marines. And they had a good meeting with Suharto. And after that, that friendship between him

brought the two countries close together. As a young ministry officer, I got involved. I remember our first exercise over Sumatra, Air Force exercise, Elang Indupura, how nervous all of us were. But year by year, the relations grew, became intimate. Then 98, the world changed and the succession of precedence, Habibi, Kuzdo, Megawati, SBI, and now Djokobi. So I admit short reflections on each of them and how Indonesians and Singapore our destinies are intertwined. When I was in government, the country I visited the most was Indonesia. And I always believe that among all countries in the world, Indonesia is one of the most important to us.

I don't expect Singapore to be that important to Indonesia. but I always remember what Barney told me that when he spoke to Lamhanna students, he told them, if Indonesia was threatened in Papua and Singapore was threatened, in which direction should Abri, Nauti and I, focus his attention.

His point was, not Papua, it should be Singapore. So Singapore has some importance in Indonesia. And this bilateral relationship is very important. And we should work together to strengthen us here. It's vital for our future. And it can be a very bright future, provided we get the basics right. And this would have been the great Benny Mordani that you're alluding to, right? Oh yes, but Benny.

Yes, yes. I still have his golf balls with four stars. Okay, I'm going to be. I'm going to ask you a couple of last questions. And this relates to the centrality of ASEAN, which you've been a very big proponent of. How do you see the centrality of ASEAN right now, compared to how it would have been some years ago? It's a paradox. Asian is central only because it is weak. If ASEAN was strong, we're rigid, ASEAN cannot be central.

because we, however strong we are, we are a minor piece on the larger chessboard. So we play a different role. We play a role as convener of bringing people together, of being a buffer in the region where tectonic plates meet. And because we are flexible, so we can take shocks, we can take earthquakes. And in that process, help the tectonic place. help the big powers. So this requires us not to have an inflated view of ourselves, to think that we can pronounce on others and take positions.

I think that's unwise. ASEAN is strongest when it is soft, not when it is hard. Being soft is an essential quality of ASEAN. And this, I don't have to tell Indonesians, because it's so much a part of our culture. Yeah. Wow. You know, I'm going to save the second question for the next time. Because I think I've just figured out that you've actually answered my second question. This has been wonderful, George. Any final messages you have for all of us here in Southeast Asia that would be enduring?

We should The waters are relatively calm now They will become choppier And we may run into a storm We should not think that the current calm will last forever We should make use of the calm now To prepare for the storm

I think the storm will come In one way or another So this is the calm before the storm Not the storm before the calm I was hoping you'd say a storm before the calm. After the storm, there'd be a greater calm. Amen. Amen to that. Okay. Thank you so much, George.

Thank you, Gita. What a pleasure. And Salam Sehat. Yeah. Yeah. Teman, that's the time Declad our time George Shio, manan,

and manan in many in some of the portfolio of other from from the United States of Europe. Thank you. This is NG.