Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Lord Charles Powell: Siasat Politik dari Barat ke Timur

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Charles David Powell atau dikenal sebagai Baron Powell of Bayswater, KCMG adalah seorang diplomat dan pengusaha Inggris yang menjabat sebagai penasihat utama kebijakan luar negeri Perdana Menteri Inggris Margaret Thatcher pada tahun 80-an.  Dalam perbincangan ini, Powell mengupas berbagai momentum krusial, sekaligus kritikal, bagi United Kingdom selama 8 tahun masa bertugasnya dengan Thatcher. Lebih dari itu, Powell juga memberikan pandangannya terhadap isu-isu politik-ekonomi dunia. Beberapa di antaranya adalah kebijakan luar negeri AS terhadap RRT pada masa Presiden Trump, perang Ukraine, hingga pertumbuhan ekonomi di Kawasan Asia Tenggara. #Endgame #GitaWirjawan #CharlesPowell --------------------------  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

You can't just ignore what is going to be the world's biggest economy because you don't like the way it's government. But everyone denies human rights are important, but you can't base policies entirely on human rights. You can campaign for them, but you can stop other aspects of one's relationship. And that is a lesson that's quite a lot of what politicians need to learn. In China, end game. Hello, my friends,

we're to get a Lord Charles Powell from Basewater. He is a part of the world of foreign-negrie and

man-man-sen for the former-Mentry English, which Margaret Thatcher. Hi, Charles. So good to see you. Thanks for having me all.

Thank you. And it's a privilege, an honor, and a pleasure to be able to have you. on our show. I would like to begin the discussion with getting to know you a little bit better in terms of your background. How did you end up in foreign policy

after you started out in a choir school? It does seem as that curious transition, I agree. Actually, being in a choir school, which you had a musical education. There's a lot to be said for musical education. It teaches you all sorts of talents and abilities, maybe not particularly academic, but it does help you deal with life, I would say, in quite a good way.

I was never strongly motivated. By the time I left university, I didn't have strong ideas as to what I wanted to do, but I was sharing a room at Oxford University with a friend who just said he was applying to join our foreign service. In those days, the annual number of people joining was 10 or 11 maybe by competitive exam. I'd rather like exams. I said, OK, I'll take the exam too.

I passed it and ended up in our foreign service. So I can't claim that I was motivated by some strong desire to advance British interests in the world. It just seemed to me that foreign affairs, foreign policy, living abroad, knowing different societies would be a very interesting and pleasant thing to do in life. And I've not been disappointed. Amongst other things, it's turned me into a great fan of Indonesia. Oh, thank you so much. That's so nice and endearing.

Talk a little bit about your time with the Prime Minister at that time. You joined in the early 80s, right? Yes. And you spent a lot of time with her, with Margaret Thatcher. Something like, it must have been eight or nine years working personally for Margaret Thatcher when she was prime. Right. And what can I say? It was very demanding. She was a formidable leader. She worked harder than anyone herself. She would work, be characteristically up and about by 6 a.m.

Very rarely got to bed much before 3 a.m. So she was really working 20-hour days. Now, I don't claim I was working 20-hour days, but I was working 16 or 17-hour days while trying to help bring up a family and so on. So it was demanding in that sense. But the satisfaction of working for somebody who is quite plainly a strong leader with clear ideas determined to change her country in Britain and restore its standing in the world, that gives you an enormous sense of both obligation and pride. So it was not too difficult to get the adrenaline running to keep up with her. And I wish we had had subsequent leaders who were as strong and well directed as she was. She had clear views. In a sense, she was not unlike President Reagan, though she was much more active than he was,

but they shared some basic beliefs together, which were really the cornerstone of free market economics and democracy. And so one knew what she wanted, what her brought. old aims were, and that made it quite easy to help her in devising and implementing the policies that she believed in. Now, during your time with her at the Prime Minister's office, there must have been lots of episodes, moments, events that were much more complex than others, right? Tell us maybe two or three episodes that you think would have marked your you know, the administration's legacy with respect to not only the UK, but with Europe and the rest of the world.

Well, Marjorie Thatcher came into office as Prime Minister at a very low point in Britain's affairs. Right. It had a period of the 1970s of high inflation, constant strikes. The economy was in poor shape. We had a three-day week because there was not enough coal and energy to keep industry going for five days, let's know, seven days a week. And so her very first task was to turn down, turn round the British economy from the very low point it to reach and started on the upward course again.

And that was really central to her whole policy. And she achieved it by supporting people's ambitions. And that meant freeing people to keep more of the money they earned by the money. lowering taxes. You know, our taxes by the end of the 70s were at a marginal rate of about 97%. Wow. Who's going to work hard if they're paying 97% in tax? She got the top tax rate down to 40% in a few years. And that, of course, helped motivate people. She was a great believer in privatising. She thought it quite wrong for government to try to run businesses. So she started off, I think the first one, from memory was British Airways, which had been an appalling state-run airline. She put it back in the market,

and it became for a long while one of the world's most successful. And then she also allowed people to buy their own homes. A large part of the population was living in government-owned housing. She thought that was wrong. People wanted to own their homes. So she made it possible for them to buy out the housing homes they were living in at very reasonable terms and give them that sense of ownership. by privatising lots of companies, she also gave people confidence in the market. People bought shares. At one stage, we had, I think it was nearly 10 million share shareholders, which in a population, then, 55 million, was considerable.

So I think the first episode really is an episode of national renewal. It took a few years, but that was really the centerpiece of her prime ministership. If you're looking at more specific issues, I would say, well, obviously the Falklands War was a great test. Here was small islands, which had historically controlled by Britain, were invaded against their wishes. Now, there were only 2,000 inhabitants on the Falklands Islands, and they were six or seven thousand miles away from Britain. It wasn't that we particularly wanted them, but the people of the Falklands wanted to remain British, wanted to remain part of British territory. So she had no compunction when the Argentines invaded

in going to war to defend them, chucking out the Argentinans by military force, and reasserting British sovereignty. She did that, even though she was under huge pressure from any other countries over to come to a compromise, and dis-back or something like that. Once she determined to do something, she stuck to it. But that was true, for instance, in the case of Hong Kong.

We knew that Hong Kong was basically held on a lease from the Chinese government, and it would have to be returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. She was determined and returned it in a way that it would enable Hong Kong to retain its traditional way of life, its traditional freedoms, and that she did. Now, sadly, in the last four of years, that has deteriorated the Chinese government not screwed by its obligations. under the so-called joint declaration between Britain and China.

And that was another important episode. And then I would say, well, what should I choose next? The conversion of the European Union to properly market economies. Margaret Thatcher believed that the most important purpose of the European Union was to have a big single market. And nothing like that existed when she became by minister. They signed up to it. All the other countries had signed up to it back in 1957.

When they founded the European Union, had they done much about it? No, they had not. So I would say that another great achievement was turning Europe into a gigantic single market, free market. And the tragedy is, and of course we have now left it, which in mind was a great mistaken judgment by the present government, but there we are. And then if we look at other individual cases, I mean, One would be her dealings with South Africa, the release of Nelson Mandela and his coming to see her for a quite extraordinary meeting,

which I sat through with her two or three hours. They talked together. He was a remarkable man after 25 years in prison. He displayed not the slightest bitterness or anything of that sort. He was entirely constructive in wanting to change South Africa and wanted to bring it back into the world. So that was remarkable. And perhaps last of all, I would say, again,

probably possibly the most important, was her role in helping end the Cold War? The Cold War in 1989, yeah. And it started quite unexpectedly when we invited an almost unknown President Gorbachev to come visit the UK. He wasn't president at the time. and he was the junior youngest member,

the Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party. And he came when she invited to come down to see her in the British Prime Minister's country residence called Chequers. And the second he came through the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet, smiling, grinning, talking freely with a very attractive, well-dressed wife, you could see just in that one moment,

a glimpse that this was an entirely different sort of person to the elderly, dear, boring Soviet leaders being dealt with hitherto. And here was a chance. And I think it was her brilliance was to spot the chance to use Mr. Gorbachev to get to a much better relationship

between East and West. Now, of course, it was even more important that the American should see that too. It took her a whole time to convince President Reagan that President Gorbachev really was a new thing, who offered new hope for East-West relations. and the end of the Cold War. But he bought into it, and that then takes through to 1989 and 1990,

and the end of the Cold War, which was one of the most momentous events of our lifetime in the last 60 years. Fascinating. So those are some of the events that are particularly strong in my mind. Let me pick up on some of these, right? Let's start off with your observation with respect to how she would have wanted to she would have wanted to be part of that bigger market with Europe, right? Now, having seen and witness Brexit, I want to just push on this a bit in terms of what you might have seen

in terms of the evolution within the Conservatives Party and the UK as a whole, that would have made it very different decades later. Well, I mean, Britain was always different to the rest of your, but one has to accept that. We are culturally rather different. Our legal system is entirely different. Our elementary system is pretty different, too.

So Britain has never, and never did fit comfortably into the European model, which was highly corporatist based on, rather like the American constitution, on specific law instead of pragmatism. And there were people felt that we were constrained by Europe. and our foreign policy was constrained. We had to go along with everyone else, which usually meant being guided by the lowest common denominator, whichever country was least ambitious,

most cautious. So it wasn't a surprise that Britain was often uncomfortable as a member of the EU, but nonetheless, it was clearly, in Margaret Thatcher's judgment, in our interests overall to be so. And so she stuck it out, And she occasionally gave speeches, sitting out how Europe could be better, it could focus more on transatlantic relations with the United States,

it can focus more on the internal market, it can focus more on not trying to absorb all the functions of individual governments, but only doing in Europe the things that could only be done by Europe and leaving other things for the individual nation states to do. So, well, the time she finished as Prime Minister at the end of 1990, she had, or let's put it like this, Britain as a whole have become quite skeptical of Europe. But, and this is a very important part, Margaret Thatcher never in her time as Prime Minister ever contemplated Britain leaving the European Union. She never proposed it, she never discussed it, she never put it into speeches or anything like that at all. So it took a lot longer for that idea of leaving to get into the bloodstream of the Tory party.

One really has to go forward 15, 16 years. And quite why it happened is hard to say. It happened, as you know, during the prime ministership of David Cameron. He thought he could keep Britain in Europe maybe a few quite minor adjustments by the Europeans in their their policies, particularly on immigration to Britain, would enable him to sell remaining in Europe to the British public. But he didn't count on the ferocity of the campaign to get Britain out of Europe, and the amount of propaganda it spread, the claims it made for how much better Britain would be outside

Europe. And as a result, he was forced into conceding a referendum and then lost the referendum, not by that much, but nonetheless. in a referendum, it's either yes or no, and it was no. So it was no to remaining in Europe. Now, I mean, has that produced the results that people probably hope for, has Britain better off out of Europe? I would say it's very much an open discussion.

It is probably too early to say whether in the long term we'll be better off or not. But so far, it has not made any real part. positive change and it actually cost us quite a lot. Our exports to Europe, by far our biggest market and nearest market, have down something like 15%. We get that investment from Europe. We are not taking in some of the better aspects of Europe, like security cooperation, police cooperation, many other aspects of it.

Our financial services have no special status in Europe. whereas they always were the number one financial service industry and the whole of Europe. So so far, I think we've seen more of the downsides and very little of the upsides. Now, there are several reasons you can cite for that. It's not just British big-headedness. Getting through the coronavirus has obviously made a lot of things

much more difficult than otherwise be, both for Europe and for Britain. So I think it will be some time yet before the world. we can really reach a ballot sheet of how far Brexit has damaged Britain or advantaged it. All I would say is none of our leading politicians have either made party of the Conservatives or they would think it is credible for Britain to go back into the European Union. We can have a better relationship with it, cooperating with it much more than we're doing in the moment. No one proposes that it would be feasible to return to membership. From a political standpoint or from an economic reality standpoint?

Well, both, really. I mean, the politics of it are you can't go back into the market, but then not be part of the politics of the European Union. Right. It's common policies. And the fact is that there are more and more common policies which diminish the freedom of the individual member states. Most of them are prepared to accept that.

Britain is not prepared to accept it. So there would always need to be eventually a change in the relationship whereby perhaps there could have been two classes of membership. You could either join the first class, which was cooperation on everything, gradual absorption, international governments into a single European government, or you could have had two levels where there was a low level of, let us say, partial membership. It used to be called variable geometry. different shapes in the triangle, squares, and so on. I personally think that could have worked, but the time for that for now, certainly it seems to be passed.

But in hindsight, in your view, was there anything that could have been done with respect to those that were resentful and ferocious about staying? I think there were things that could be done on both sides. I think British politicians should be much more active of proclaiming the advantages of membership, promoting of the European Union, as well as whinging about the disadvantages.

I think the Europeans could have shown a lot more creativity in helping David Cameron to come up with a package of measures, which would have enabled him to avoid having a referendum at all, or at least if the referendum had to be held, enabling, making it possible for him and those who fought like him to win. So there was false on both sides. Let me ask you, if Thatcher were the leader at that time, would she have chosen the same path as Cameron would have done? Well, she was a different sort of leader.

She was a much stronger leader with much more experienced in Europe and so on. She would have gone on, she would want Britain to go on being a member of the European Union, albeit a pretty difficult member, given to creating problems and having its... own views and not always cooperating easily with everyone else. And I do not believe she would ever have gone along with the idea of Britain leaving. Some people try to claim, oh, yes, because she would have done, but I know of no evidence for that. But has to stick to evidence in these things, you know, answering hypothetical questions about what Margaret Thatcher would have done 20 years after her death is not very profitable.

But you have any basis on what she said, what she wrote, what she did, when she had the ability to influence those events. And leaving Europe was never a policy of that. Got it. Let me pick up on the last point that you brought up, which was the watershed moment in 1989, right? The end of the Cold War. We have seen how the global order has shifted, right, from being bipolar since the end of the World War II

to being somewhat unipolar ever since 89 or 91, where we had this massive, long period of robust multilateral activities, right, as a result of that unipolarity or relative unipolarity. As of late, since a few years ago, the global order has shifted to a more multipolar world. And that, in my view, has made it a bit more difficult, if not, far more difficult for multilateralism. to continue or take place. I'm curious as to whether you share that or you don't, and whether things could have been done differently.

Well, Gita, there's a very interesting point, it's a very characteristic of you to identify these broad trends. I would say that, yes, we had a Unipolar movement, and that was caused principally by two things. One was the collapse of the Soviet Union and its economy. and its ability to really exercise extensive influence in the world at the end of the Cold War. And secondly, the fact that in 89, 90, when the Cold War ended, China was still in a relatively early stage, emerging from both the Cultural Revolution and then the setbacks like Tiananmen Square.

So that is what gave the Americans quite unusual influence. It was probably you could go back to the 1950s and find it in unipolar world, but then by Nixon's time it was multipolar. And only with the end of the Cold War did it revert to being unipolar. Now what changed that in there? Well, two things. The principal thing that changed it was the rise of China, the extraordinary rise of China. once Deng Xiaoping, in a way, set China or at least the Chinese economy free, encouraged entrepreneurship, courage business, reduced the world in the state.

And that enabled China to grow at quite remarkable speed, and therefore to develop its strength. And at the same time, there was, of recovery, a relatively modest one in Russia, the old Soviet Union, you could say. And that sort of balanced up. made the world go back to, as you say, a more multipolar one. And you could add to that, too, the rise of a number of other countries as well to play a greater role. I mean, India's slow but so advanced compared to China, but nonetheless, a steady advance

as a major country due, I think, next year now, to overtake China in terms of population. You can look at the role of ASEAN, too, which is, with the other... Not small. Under Indonesia's leadership has become a very significant grouping. Right. So we're getting into a very much more diverse world, which makes, of course, diplomacy in many ways more difficult. Now, has that damaged multilateralism?

To a degree it has, but not just like that. I mean, several things have damaged, as I would say. One, of course, has been the pandemic. and sadly, every country has really looked after its own interests more than the interests of other countries. Particularly that applies to the developed world, which has focused on protecting its own people, developing vaccines, making sure they're all vaccinated. They're not done nearly enough, I think, for the rest of the world, helping them protect. That has been a blow against multilateralism and against globalisation too. Another has been the change of direction in China for a long period, as you were saying, under

Deng Xiaoping and then under successive presidents, Zhang Zemin, Huyaubo, sorry, not Hu Jintao. China continued to develop its markets. There was a growing positive relationship between China, Europe, the US, and so on. That has sadly changed since presidents. and Xi Jinping took over in 2012, there had been a steady increase in control in China. The number one issue seems to be control, whether it is, as one sees it in Jinjiang province, where control is being exercised there. But generally across the ball, the role of the state in the economy is increasing and continues to increase.

and that's squeezing the area of the market. It's squeezing the area which the great entrepreneurs can run their businesses and build them. That's very damaging. And so the great sort of momentum there was in China towards economic reform has at the very least slowed. Some would argue it would actually stop. And I think that is probably one of the main obstacles. to effective multilateralism.

There is an observation by way of the massive economic growth rate trajectory that was basically propelled ever since Deng took power, 1978. There was this continuation of the process of democratizing talent in China. They picked the best talents to fill up the position, and posts for anything that would have been good for the economy, the politics, and what have you. And there is an argument that, you know, recently that democratization of talent seems to have declined.

So talent is now selected more based on patronage and loyalty as opposed to merit, which we had witnessed in a big way during the days of Dang. Zhang Jamin all the way to Hu Ching Tao, and recently, you know, people are making that observation that the democratization of talent there has slackened a bit. Would that be correlated to, you know, what you've alluded to earlier? I think it can, Gita, again, it's a very important and sophisticated point that you make. I mean, well has to start with Deng Xiaoping. He was a truly remarkable man.

I met him with Margaret Thatcher back in 19. 84. And I have never sat in the presence of a person who exuded power to quite such a degree. Yeah. He was a very small man, diminutive man. But a giant. But my goodness, you could feel the power radiating out from him. And you could see in respect, almost sort of, what fear would be too much, but respect of his colleagues, even the most senior one. And he, he was. And he was a respect of his colleagues, even the most senior one. And he, he was a respect of his respect. And he, he was a respect of his respect of his colleagues even the most senior one. And he had set them on this course of correcting the great excessiveness of the cultural revolution, focusing again on getting the students back into university, back now you're going to go back to foreign universities, so that China would have the sophisticated talent that it needed to pursue an economic revolution. It was not without its setbacks, of course. Tiananmen Square was a savage setback in a way that affected

students, above all, the very talented people that China most needed. For them, it was a terrifying incident which had a long-term impact. But nonetheless, the economy continued down the path of economic reform after a slowdown a couple of years also over Tiananmen Square and continued to make China an ever bigger factor. Now, as part of what I was talking about a few moments ago, the return of control. Right.

as an impactor in running China, I think some of that is being lost. We're still seeing very large numbers of Chinese students abroad, particularly in Britain, particularly in the United States. We have a vast number of Britain. Indeed, our university system would probably collapse without Chinese students. But I think they're more wary than they were, more guarded in what they say and do.

And there's also a feeling in Britain, particularly in the United States, but also in Britain and in Europe, that we have to batten down hatches against Chinese intrusion into our affairs, particularly in the security side, worries about China stealing industrial and technological secrets, sending students deliberately to study subjects where they have the ability to see what has been done in America and Britain elsewhere taking that knowledge off to China for free.

And that too, I think, has made it more difficult for talent in China to advance. I don't think it's dead. One of the many things I do is I'm a sort of vice-chairman of the advisory board of a Chinese university business school. The Food and University one. And when I, in the past, have met with the students there. I'm immensely impressed by their tax. their abilities, their ambitions. And they can't have been extinguished.

You can't extinguish those sort of things in people. But you can make it more difficult for them to realize their talents and their ambitions. And I think, sadly, that is happening at the moment. Let me push more on China here. More in the context of the decoupling between China and the US, right? How do you foresee the near-foreseeable future and the distant foreseeable future? foreseeable future between the two countries? Well, I regret decoupling, and I think it's a very retrograde step, and I would in a sense blame both sides for it.

President Trump was clearly set on a more hostile attitude to China, which he believed to be in exploiting the goodwill of the United States and its openness to benefit itself. Xi Jinping had, I think, was rather too aggressive, not in a military sense, but in a political sense, in the way he was running China and making it a more difficult partner for democratic countries. And you can see different examples of that, the way in which the Muslim population in Zingjiang province is being treated, even in the last year or four years, and how Hong Kong was. been treated and how the special autonomy of Hong Kong has been rather eroded. So from a policy in the first 10 or 15 years of this century of opening up to China and believing that by trading as freely as possible in China, you would encourage a more democratic,

a more popular China, more scope for popular views in China. China, you could secure change. I think that has now been lost. People think it was a mistake to have been so open to China. We now have to be more close to it, putting on tariffs, stopping Chinese investment in sensitive areas, particularly the example of Huawei, the telecommunications company, which now has lost most of its business in the West because people are suspicious of what Huawei might be up to in terms of intercepting Western communications under the guys under the influence of the Chinese government. So it's a pity because we seem to be on a good course, and now we've been considerably set back.

And I have to say, I don't really see much difference between the Biden administration or the Trump administration in news to China, and that's the sadness. I think many of the great China experts in America, particularly Henry Kisager, also regret the way things in development of course he acknowledges and sees that we need to defend ourselves, protect ourselves against China. And he believes, and I'm sure he's right, you can combine that with a firm, pragmatic relationship with China. You can't just ignore what is going to be the world's biggest economy because you don't. like the way it's governed. It's not our business in the end of the day. China governs China, not ours. So you have to be prepared

to do business with countries like that. It won't be the first time. It's for the minute's sake. How many dictatorships and so on have we dealt with over many decades and so on. It's all very well prancing around talking about human rights all the time. And of course, no one denies

human rights are important, but you can't base policies entirely on human rights. You can campaign for them, but you can't stop other aspects of one's relationship. And that is a lesson, I think, which quite a lot of modern politicians need to learn. Got it. You know, the U.S. has imposed tariffs during Trump and Biden more than before. Do you reckon that the policies that would have been enacted do not necessarily reflect upon the economic reality?

of which we've seen even an increase in trade between China and the US. Does that mean that the policies are sort of like, you know, a departure from the economic realities, or they're probably not enough? Well, I think Trump was economically ignorant. And I think far from damaging China and the terrorism more damage the American public, the American consumer by increasing prices and making Chinese articles harder, more expensive to purchase. expensive to purchase. So in the sense that if they were genuinely intended to help the American people themselves, I think he got it completely wrong, which is why I think there's

some consideration now being given to amending tariffs against China to make them less damaging to the US. You know, the Chinese and the people in Asia seem to think of China as a threat more to the dominance of the U.S. as opposed to being a threat to the U.S.? How do you account for that? What do you think about that? Well, people in issue obviously see China first and foremost as the biggest regional power. Right.

The dominant power in the Asian region. I'd likely to become more so much as it continues to grow and increases, military capacities, and so on. So, I mean, it's understandable. America, when all of a sudden down, it's an outside power in Asia. It's present in Asia. It will probably become more so again, but it is essentially an outside power. So it's understandable that people want good relations with China,

it was a small-o-eatian country, but we do want the Americans to be there too, to hold the balance. They wouldn't like to think of Asia as being entirely dominated by China with no countervailing, counterbalancing force to protect. That is a role which Americans are playing and need to go on play. Got it. And I think I do it is an addition to that, I think you'll find that Japan is also going to be playing a bigger role in the President, the President, Prime Minister, under the previous,

very much lamented Prime Minister Arbe, who was assassinated in just a good. bringing Japan out of its shell and making sure it plays an appropriate security role in the Asia Pacific. Charles, you've met up with so many world leaders around the world, and you've met up with other luminaries such as yourself. One of which, you know, whom I'm a big fan of is Henry Kissinger. You've had so many... He has had so many discussions with him. I'd like to pick his brains through you on what key things should be happening right now,

from a geopolitical standpoint. Put that in the context of what's happening between the US and China, and put that in the context of what we're seeing in Ukraine vis-à-vis Russia and the world. Well, I've known here because of the United 1970s since the early 1970s and admired him hugely since that time. I'm not, of course, with me or in any way on a sort of level with him, but we have become friends, we have met very often

and I have listened with huge interest always to his views and his policies. I think he has, I would say, alarmed at the present situation which has materialized, both with Russia and

with China. Now with Russia, although he thinks, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is monstrous and a crime. He also, thinking very broadly, as he always has done, and over the long term, thinks that the West didn't handle Russia very well at the end of the Cold War. But to some extent, it humiliated Russia by moving NATO forward to include membership for the East European countries, from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania,

and so on, pushing Russia back inside these tightest borders. And we did that without much regard for the standing of the Russian government. Now, one shouldn't exaggerate that. There was a period in the early part of this century, when we had a NATO-Russian council. We had quite a good relationship. Putin sat down with the other NATO heads of government for meetings and so on. But clearly, it has become a great way.

and greater obsession for President Putin, the West are trying to, constantly trying to squeeze Russia and contain it and prevent it playing the role in the world that he believes it's entitled to play. So he's anxious to see some way found to get an agreement and ceasefire or not, I think, yet a full peace agreement, but some way of stopping the conflict in Ukraine. and trying to get a better balancing of relations between Russia and the West. Because at the moment, Putin's great error, that he's actually made his own problem worse.

Sweden and Finland were not members of NATO when he invaded Ukraine. Now they are, virtually are, just has to be ratified, which has made his security position, if anything, worse. So it's helping to dig Putin out of the hole, which he has created for himself, is one of the problems. I think Henry's breadth of vision and so on, he's the sort of person who could help construct a framework in which that could be achieved. And he knows President Putin personally is able to communicate with him. So I think he generally has a contribution to make now. But of course it's the same with China.

Henry was the man who conceived the reconciliation between China in the United States in the early 1970s as he worked with President Nixon. He brought about that historic visit to Beijing, because it came right out of the blue, to rebuild relations with China. So he has a huge stake in the idea that, scope for a positive, constructive relationship between the US and China. I think he's alarmed to see the degree to which that's deteriorated.

And he, again, would like to see it restored. I think he was the man who could play a role in that if the US administration would be prepared to give him the scope to do so. In a way, he's a great sort of national treasurer, national asset for the United States. And indeed, I would say, a global asset as well. Absolutely. I just hope he's given the scope to play the role,

at least through his ideas and his thinking, if not any longer as a sort of diffel about shuttling between capitals. But he's got such an intellectual contribution to make that he should be allowed to come up with the ideas and they should be very seriously considered, not just in the US, but also in China and also in Russia. He's not just entirely well. on one side, you know, because he has a vision of the world, which is much broader than

pure nationalism. He's definitely at a different level, man. Completely, completely. Any present regime, pretty well anywhere in the world. Right. And so I hope that continues, even though he's now 99 had his birthday. Oh, man. Amazing.

Now, just one quick question on, you were in that circle in 1980. In the thick of things, there's been a claim or allegation that there was a verbal promise, as for NATO, not to move east of Germany. How true is that, or how real is that? Well, I'm aware of the claim. I don't believe anything was ever said specifically, at least not by NATO. The allegation really focuses on remarks made by Secretary Baker by the then German Foreign Minister, West German Foreign Minister, Herr Gensha,

that gave the Russians the impression that NATO forces would not move into Eastern Europe. And indeed, on the whole, NATO forces are not moved into Eastern Europe, except very recently, in the face of the Soviet aggression, the Russian. I see my mind is in the past, as we'll talk about Soviet. and the Russian negotiation in Ukraine. Yes, they became members. It was not as though we moved vast numbers of troops or weapons or anything like that into Eastern Europe.

So in that sense, it's not a valid claim. So the Russians don't really have much to complain about. You can't stop free countries, as those countries became in East Europe, from choosing their destiny. If they felt their destiny needed membership of NATO, we couldn't turn it down. But there are other parts around the periphery of Russia, places like Georgia, which were integral parts of Russia, for which, I would include Ukraine in this, for which NATO membership, at least in the present, is not feasible and shouldn't be, they shouldn't be encouraged to believe it is. Yes, we would like to have a closer relationship with a better economic. political relationship, but NATO membership, they couldn't meet the requirements of Native

membership to start with, or indeed yet of EU membership, where you require a certain level of national income, GDP per capita and so on, prosperity to make it possible for you to meet the obligations of the obligations. It's not something you just take a subscription out to and say, oh, I'd like to subscribe to NATO. No, you've got to take on the obligations of Native membership as well. And there's a challenging, and the same is true of the EU. Sure. What is your view with respect to the view or the claim that Putin is really not interested in occupying Ukraine? Putin is just interested in destroying Ukraine before it becomes a democracy and a member of NATO or even EU?

I think you would have to be very demented and being twisted or to destroy a destroy a country for that sake of that. Right. No, I think Putin has a historical perspective of Ukraine as part of Russia, part of the solitude. Indeed, he's got some foundation for that, because it was part of Russia for quite a long time. And he doesn't want to see Ukraine fall into the hands of NATO. I think he's less concerned about the EU.

He could say Putin certainly not want to have the economic burden for Russia from having to reconstruct Ukraine. You want to see Europe and the United States taking on the main burden there. But he does want to bend Ukraine to his will. And he's doing that by a systematic occupation of parts of it, and going beyond what he had already occupied in the Crimea and the fringes of Ukraine to a much greater part of its landmass. Got it. That is what this is all about. He's doing it by the traditional Russian way of destroying large parts of it.

We saw what Russian forces did in Syria, for instance, and helping the Syrian president destroy the opposition to him by indiscriminate bombing and destruction civilians. He saw what he did within his own country, Chechnya, the same thing. Massive destruction. I'm afraid that's the Russian military strategy. Charles, I want to move on to Southeast Asia. But before that, my last question on Europe is with respect to what's happening with the

politics in the UK, can you shed some light on the latest development there? I'm not sure anyone can share much out on the recent developments here. It is clear that Boris Johnson as Prime Minister had lost the confidence of his colleagues in government, who objected to... not so much his policies, to a degree his policies and the inconsistency of them, but also his character and behaviour and his, frankly, his honesty.

And they thought that was tarnishing them as well. And so eventually they have moved against him. The cabinet started to resign. In all something like 50 or nearly 60, ministers and the government resigned. And you can't continue to run a government. I haven't got any people to man it. So he is finally forced to the conclusion that he had to resign that he's done.

And an election is now being mounted within the Conservative Party. Because you have to remember, the Conservative Party did win the last national election. And it doesn't have to lose that simply because the leader stands down. It quite often happens during the life of the Parliament, five-year life of the Parliament that the leader resigns. And so there's a party election going on. It comes in two parts. At the moment, anyone who wants to be a candidate from within the Conservative Party in Parliament

can stand for the leadership. And there will be daily elections to whittle down the numbers until there are only two candidates left. It started yesterday with eight active candidates who met the requirements, which is to have 20 members of Parliament supporting them. today there will be a second round where the minimum requirement will be you have to have 30 members of parliament supporting you and that will go on probably again possibly on friday certainly next monday but i think by the end of next week we'll see there will be two candidates to succeed boris johnson as prime minister at that stage the end of july beginning of august the choice moved to the conservative party in the country so not just the members of parliament but the the volunteers, the people who are active party members, who are far fewer than they used to be,

still numbered in the tens of thousands. And there will be the two candidates will pan out from the country, meeting local party members, trying to persuade them they are the best to be a prime minister. And there will then be an election within the party by the end of August, which will choose between the two candidates presented by the parliamentary party.

And at that stage, whoever it is, will become Prime Minister, and Boris Johnson will finally stand down. In the interim, in the intervening six or eight weeks, he remains as Prime Minister, but only under very constrained circumstances. He can't take new initiatives. He can't oppose new policies. There's a lot he can't do. He can only just keep things ticking over.

This is not a very dignified way of running a great country like ours. And I think it's all extremely regrettable. It affects our self-worth, but also our reputation abroad. But what has to deal with the situation as it is, and hope that whoever is selected will be able to swiftly get back on the front foot and build Britain back up again. And it's particularly damaging, of course, at a time when the economy is in deep trouble, like many economies around the world,

even the US, and at a time when effectively we are seeing a war in Europe and the idea that our politics should be effectively in abeyance against that background while we are not completely over the pandemic that's a very distressing thing that should never have been allowed to happen but it has we must now just make the best of it get it sorted out as quickly as possible choosing a good person to take over

and I just hope they'll be able to find the right cross. Fingers crossed, I'll pray for the best for everyone. Now, do you have any insight on which two names are those? Or you have any insight on which will be the one name that's going to end up winning this thing? It's very hard to say, to be honest, which, I mean, with eight candidates, you can't really tell. All I say is if you follow the press, you would expect Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of Nick Schaeckler, and Liz Truss, the former Foreign Secretary,

or the existing Foreign Secretary, who was in Indonesia already last week, to be the two survivors of the first stage. But that's very far from certain. There are some less prominent people, younger, perhaps more attractive candidates, not quite so deeply bound by Brexit and being part of the Brexit campaign, who might emerge, indeed, in a way I rather hope they do. I think we need better to have a complete change. If you think back in our politics, I mean, Tony Blair became Prime Minister,

I think he was barely 40. He'd never served as a minister of any sort in government. David Cameron became Prime Minister at about the same age, maybe 41, 42, without ever having had a ministerial job in government. And yet they were two relatively successful prime minister. So any experience is not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily make it impossible for you to be effective. It compensates by bringing in new energy, new, bigger, new ideas. And so in a way, part of me says that would be the best outcome, even in a time of crisis.

Right. All right. I want to move to my part of the world, Southeast Asia, which you're hugely familiar with, an area of, you know, 650 million people, 10 countries. You came to Indonesia with Margaret Thatcher, 1985, I believe. Yes, but I knew Indonesia before that. I know that. I know that. I spent some of my school holidays in Singapore. I know.

I used to glare across the streets of Indonesia at the time of conflicts. I know, I know. I've observed it for a very long. job. You would always invite. Thank you. Thank you. Let me put this in an economic context.

If we were to go back, you know, the last 25 years, Southeast Asia's economy has grown in the last 25 years maybe by around three times. Compare that with China during the same period would have grown nine to ten times, right? Now, what can we learn from this? Or what do you think could have been done differently by Southeast Asia? I think the analogy between Southeast Asia and China is actually a pretty false one. Okay. Most importantly, because China started for a lot further back than almost every Southeast Asian

country, a lot further back. Therefore, the capacity to draw on these vast reserves of population out in the provinces flooded into the cities and were there to work on major infrastructure jobs, building companies and so on, relatively very low comparative wages and so on, gave China a huge advantage, both because of its own internal market being so vast and driving growth, and because it was able to play this role in the world markets. Right. So most self-eustacean countries started, excluding obviously Myanmar, started a more sophisticated position, but have grown, I think, very respectively since then, by following increasingly free market policies in most of the countries.

And as their population, too, has grown, they have become, I would say, one of the world's most attractive markets and will continue to be so, which will continue to be so, which will take. Southeast Asia together in Australia, you're already looking at something pretty big and pretty impressive in economic terms. But in Southeast Asia, I agree with you that it started off at a different higher level than where China started off. But today, the GDP per capita for Southeast Asia is still below $5,000 on average, or the GDP per capita for China is already above $10,000. So you've got to admit, I mean, having

grown 10 times. You know, that's pretty special in the last 25 years, right? I do. It's unprecedented in history. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it was, I don't think my point to it is this. I don't think you can describe it to particular economic policy.

You can describe it to young charking up the market and so on. But it was basically just the facts, the facts of the vast population being freed to move into the cities to get jobs, to work, even at their wages and so on, that just gave a colossal afterburner to the Chinese economy, which Southeast Asia, on the whole, didn't have. You've had it to a degree in Indonesia. Right. But there are still parts of South East Asia, like Myanmar, which are way, way, way behind. Yeah.

And so it's a more varied, varied proposition. I'm with you. I don't find that most Southeast Asian government policies have been, have been I don't find them an obstacle to growth anyway. There are some social problems. For instance, you could cite booming preference in Malaysia, perhaps. You could cite some of Singapore's restrictions. You could cite some of Indonesia's experience.

But by and not, recently, I think they've pursued pretty sensible economic policies, which have benefited in their populations greatly. My worry, we haven't taken sufficient advantage of it in the Western economy, which we should have invested more in Southeast Asia and done more business there. We still shouldn't be lacking in that respect. Now, okay, let's try to be proactive on this then. What would it take for Southeast Asia to grow better than we have in the last 25 years? What is that we could have done or we could do differently?

so that we could be better, if not more competitive? Well, you know, in a way, it's a question you could answer much better than me. I'm curious about your views. The morals, the morals which you played in boosting Indonesia's growth. So, I was, actually, my number one choice would be more foreign investment. Got it. I agree. Indonesia, though you did your level best to increase it and so on, they did great things.

in Denetia for too long as have restrictions on foreign investment, which is, I believe, has held it back. And I speak as someone who's been for many, many years, a director of a company which has invested heaven in Indonesia. Yeah. Through particularly Astro. So it sees the greater benefits and advantages of that. But there have been quite a lot of restrictions for, I think, essentially the wrong reasons. the idea that somehow by restricting foreign investment, you benefit a country by keeping more of the fruits of its economy in the national hands.

It's just a false economy. Countries grow as a result of the investment, no matter of so much where it comes from, as long as you've got the investment. That is why so many of us fight to get investment. We fight for it in the UK. All the European countries are fighting to get more investment in the rest of the country. world, China, from America and so on. So that is why I'm a great believer in borrowed investment is the greatest possible stimulus to growth.

There have been some social policies, as I mentioned, which I think have held back growth, which would be better abandoned or is greatly reduced and minimized. That applies to Malaysia. There has been ineffectual government, which I would say implies to be in the Philippines. which hasn't made the most of it. And as an example, the other way in the sense of how a country can really overcome its problems and start to grow really rapidly. I would cite Vietnam.

I think the extraordinary way in which there's emerged from communist ideology to free its markets and to grow rapidly and let the towns of its people flower. It's quite astonishing. I think I'm, you know, in the present time, I would say, and after China, Vietnam is probably the most impressive current performer in that sense. No disagreement. They've taken the lunches of many other Southeast Asian countries from an FDI standpoint. Yeah, they've also taken some of China's lunch.

Yeah, yeah. But I think there are a couple of these who have been reconsidering whether they should cite their manufacturing supply chain. Right. They're looking at Vietnam more than any other country in Asia. Yeah. No, no, if you take a look at most countries in Southeast Asia, they're FDIO in upper capita up per year basis is still less than $500. Compare that with the FDI per capita upper year for Singapore,

which is at, you know, a range of $16,000 to $19,000, right? One would argue that Singapore, you know, has been leaning towards liberal democracy countries for the past few decades. but ironically they've been able to get money from just about anywhere, from Russia, from the Middle East, Indonesia, China, and all the rest, right? One would also argue that it probably boils down to the degree to which the international community trusts Singapore because of the enforceability of rules and regulations.

I'm curious as to what your views are with respect to this particular notion. Is it just this, the degree to which you trust a country and how well and effectively they enforce rules and regulations? I kind of agree that that's the primary thing that people take into account before they deploy capital into any particular destination or country. What do you think, Charles? Well, I would say that Singapore was great and single about it. was that it had a visionary leader as it came out from other British governments, under which it

was performing particularly well. The visionary leader who understood that Singapore had absolutely no natural resources, except its geographical vocation, and therefore had to live by its width and its brains, and that meant that it must get into the

most sophisticated areas of manufacturing it could, and to become a great centre for services. And of course, a service industry is to depend very much on rules and regulations and being able to meet the standards required for financial markets. And of course, you can say, all right, it's easier with a small country and four or five billion people than it is for much bigger countries to do that.

And that is the focus on quality, quality not only in manufacturing, but quality in services, quality of regulations, qualities of governance. I mean, Singapore is not. unblemished democracy. It's had a six-party government since its independence. But that has given it consistency, continuity, and the constant emergence of the best talent. I don't think it's another of Singapore's great strange.

It knows how to cultivate its best talent. It takes care to get them educated abroad in institutions, whether that's desirable for the best of them, whether it's business, government, or the military. So it's a very successful model, but could it be replicated exactly anywhere else? I don't think so. Not easy. I think it's a better model than Hong Kong, for instance.

Hong Kong was under British rule a very free market. In some ways, it's a slightly cowboy market. But that, of course, is all now changing. But the same things apply at the end of the day to all functions. You have to observe international standards. You have to welcome foreign investment. You have to understand how to benefit yourself from foreign markets and not just rely on your domestic market for your growth.

And those are lessons which have to be learned and have to be followed. I mean, it's kind of like what we were alluding to earlier, right? Yeah. The ability of the leadership to be able to select talent based on merit. Yeah. Over anything else, over everything else is key in making sure that there is institutional building. There is inclusive institutional building. And that's probably what the leadership of Singapore,

would have done very successfully and what maybe some others need to do a little bit better. Of course, democracy is important, as we both recognize. I agree. I would say even more important, which is the rule of law. Yeah. And that was the only a view which Marjorneux held that the most important thing was the rule of law. Yeah. That enabled you to rather a prosperous and humane society.

If people believed in the law, believed it would be invented fairly. and it would not be faced confiscation of their properties or imprisonment or criticism, the government, and that sort of thing. And making sure that is fully observed, I think, is the absolute foundation for a successful economy. Now, the other metric that I want to pick up on is productivity. You mentioned FDA, I completely agree. If we take a look at the productivity of the different ASEAN countries,

It's varying, right? Some are at $20,000 to $30,000 on a per capita per year basis. Singapore, again, is at $170,000. So if we want to get our act together, we need to work on this productivity area, right? And now we're being presented with the gift of tech, right? that's been able to basically improve productivity. So at the rate that we're gonna be slow

in ramping up rule of law in some countries in Southeast Asia, at the rate that we're gonna be slower in democratizing talent for the various institutions, there's probably hope, right, and being able to rely on digitization as to help at least improve the productivity you know, much better in the next 25 years. I don't know. Well, that is very true.

I mean, of course, Southeast Asia is far off of being the only area of the world where productivity has been lagging. The United Kingdom is an awful example. Our productivity has barely improved in the last 15, maybe even 20 years. Right. It hasn't been backwards. It's only improved very, very slowly, and is still continuing to do so. That is, well, for all the reasons you and I would agree on, I think,

that is insufficient application of technology, insufficient attention to training people. Far too many people go to university rather than into practical learning and institutions. And I think that's one aspect, one of the reasons why the German economy has always grown so well. It has this great belief, this great faith in technical education, apprenticeships and the old style, if you like, of doing things, which turns out very large numbers of usually well-qualified people to work at these things.

I would say besides productivity, Southeast Asia has lacked in technological innovation. I think South East Station has been good at exploiting it, increasingly using it, and that also covers visualization too. But you've not been much in the forefront of it. developing it. That is actually an area where Britain, I would argue, is very much better. They have had low productivity generally from various social causes, but in terms of high-tech, we've been very innovative in the front ranks. Of course, on terms of scale, it's not to compare

with Silicon Valley and the west coast of America, or even these days, with parts of the Chinese economy. But nonetheless, I think Southeast Asia could do. better in developing technology and exploiting it as an earlier stage. But for what I hear, whenever I travel now, of course, I haven't been able to travel much in the last two years because of COVID. I think the need to do it is well understood. It's just a question of now that we're all emerging from the pandemic. And COVID, people jump to the task and get on with it. Charles, we've covered the whole world. I'm sure we must have left out something.

Europe, the U.S., China, Southeast Asia, we haven't talked about Africa. We've talked a little bit about South America. I want to end this session with a question on democracy, right? Yes. You've been a champion of democracy, and you've seen how democracy has evolved in sort of a big way in the last few decades, right? What do you think needs to be done about democracy going forward? Well, I'd say the first task is to stop it slipping back, which is visible, I'm afraid, in some parts of the world.

We all see more arbitrary government, parts of that in America, for instance. That's happening. I don't think it is so true in Africa, but the Middle East has always been the heart of arbitrary government. So there was a time, particularly looking back to President Reagan's time, when democracy seemed to be on the front foot in the world. It was spreading very, very widely. But as I say, I think one's seen a bit from that now. In reverse direction, certainly in Russia, the reverse direction in China and in symbarting towards democracy, as we understand it. So it is re-igniting enthusiasm for it.

And the best way to do that is to demonstrate the effectiveness of democracy. It's got to demonstrate that it can actually deal with resolving social problems, education problems, health problems, and economic issues better than any other system. You have to believe that for your own society, and you have to have to have face in it and try to ensure that your governance is in line with that. So that parties which are generally democratic are elected into government and pursue genuine democracy. What worries me is the way the Chinese tout around the world verbal saying, well, democracy is not so important as all that.

It's getting its government action to, grow the economy, to introduce greater equality and so on. And the Western model is fundamentally flawed. Our Chinese model of party leadership and a single party and a single truth, as it were, is the way forward. We've got to fight a new battle to stop that. It's no longer as it was in the Cold War, an ideological battle. Nobody, including the Chinese, believes for a moment in communism these days.

So that's not the issue. The issue is arbitrary undemocratic government, and we've got to counter that. And you best do it by setting your own example. Totally agree. Totally agree. Charles, this has been a fascinating discussion. Well, thank you, Gita.

I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you so much. I've always welcomed visiting Indonesia. I've been very many times, and particularly in the 19th. In the 90s and the more recent past, I have not been able to come in the last two years, and I hope to come back by this autumn as the whole COVID. I'm going to wait for you.

Well, I hope you will, yeah. We'll have our usual dinner at the very least. Yes, we'll do. And you will look as always much more sporting than I do. Sorry about being informal. But I've been like this for a long time. But I'll wear a special dress for you when you're here. We'll see each other outside this issue as well, possibly.

We'll do. We'll do. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good luck. Bye. My. That's Lord Powell from Basewater,

Manthan, Penasheat from the manan of the President Murturturtt. Thank you. This is Endgame.