The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 30

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's Munk Member's podcast explores three important stories in the news this week: Somber Olympics kicks off in Japan as the nation battle delta variant outbreak; why is the mood of this Olympics different from past summer games? Is it the lack of crowds? The strain of the pandemic on athletes? Or, a host nation that has bigger problems on its plate in the form of a the delta variant? – The Chinese government wipes out a trillion dollars of stock value off its high flying domestic tech companies with threats of new regulations; what is behind this move on the part of the Communist Party? Are we seeing the beginnings of the “splinternet” as China takes control of its tech titans to mold a made in Beijing global world wide web? – And, millions in Australia have strict lockdowns continued to suppress delta variant spread. Is this sign of the failure of Australia's COVID zero policies? Or, can the spread of delta be stopped by punitive lockdown measures including calling out the military to enforce public health controls? We discuss it all. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.com, and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www. Monk Debates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this. our weekly monk members-only podcast. This is the program where we provide you exclusively with a look at the week that was. We dive into the big stories, issues, and ideas in the news to hopefully unpack some

original analysis and insights that you can use to understand the world as we find it today. And as our guide in all of these conversations, we're exceedingly fortunate to have on the program, Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, internationally bestselling author, acclaimed scholar. Janice, terrific to be in dialogue with you once again. Great to be here, Roger, and what a week this was. It is, Janice.

And, you know, with this program, it's interesting because we always kind of think to ourselves, oh, no, on Monday, what are we going to talk about on Friday? And then Friday rolls around. and you and I started emailing the day before. And it's triage. There's so many issues. I don't know. Am I wrong?

You always have to be careful about what's that kind of word, exceptionalism, that you think that the moment that you live in historically is so different than every other moment. But there is this feeling that just everything is changing so fast. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is an exceptional moment. You know, it's exceptional to have the past. pandemic that we had. We haven't had one like that for 100 years. China took 200 years to recover its position in the world, which it is now recovered. That's an exceptional moment, right? So wherever you look, whether you look at politics, you look at sport, you look at health, we really are living in exceptional times. And you put your finger on it, right? It's the pace of change. It's sped.

up. We're all speeded up all the time. And I think that's what we're feeling. Yeah. Well, thank you for helping me try to cope with the information flow and sort of what's actually important and what's not. And you mentioned sport. And that's where I want to begin, Janice, because we're all tuning into the Olympics this week. And I got to say, I really appreciate watching the athletes, seeing the dedication to their sport, the spirit of competitiveness. but there's a, I don't know, just a strange kind of mood, Debbie Downer, if you can say that, over these Olympics. And I don't know what's driving. Am I wrong?

Is this my misperception? There's a kind of pall over Japan in these games. I think you're absolutely right. And it really is puzzling. And I think it emanates from Japan. It's almost like it's seeping through the broadcast airwaves. And why do I think that right? Baseball came back last year, empty stands.

We had hockey for a while, for a while, long time nobody in a basketball came back with no fans in the stands. Now, it's true those are all professional sports, soccer. And we were overjoyed just to watch the games. I don't think it's, although it's eerie in huge complex, is not to have fans watching. I don't think that that fully explains what I call these joyless Olympics. These Olympics are without joy.

Now, let me put in brackets. There have been fantastic performances by women in this first week. And so there's lots of celebration of these great women, especially in Canada. But they really are joyless. A big part of this is that there is growing infection rate in Tokyo. So you have this feeling that they're cocooned off the athletes. It's barely under control because there have been some cases. But what is really not under control is COVID in the city of Tokyo.

And there's worry about exploding numbers. So there's almost two Japan. There's the Japan that's going through the formal. and celebrating that it finally got the games back. And then there's Japan that is in face of a grim reality, which it really has not been able to control. It has not done as well. And this is an Asian story that we don't talk enough about, Rudyard.

It has not done as well in vaccinating its population. Very low numbers. And we're seeing around the world, somebody two days ago declared the official start of the fourth wave in some part of the world. So it's not that the Delta variant is not hugely contagious, it is. But we're seeing a big difference between the number of cases, on the one hand, in vaccinated countries and the number of hospitalizations. And the people in hospital, for instance, in North America, overwhelmingly unvaccinated people.

So we call this the epidemic, the wave of the unvaccinated, certainly in North America. In Japan, the numbers are so low. They could be in front of a brutal wave that could really begin to grow exponentially during the symptoms. And without the vaccination rates in the background, you have the risk of your hospital's, a situation getting overwhelmed.

My take on the Olympics this week was really the Simone Biles kind of moment to me was more than just, I think, an athlete in an admirable way acknowledging their mental health and how that was impacting their ability to compete. I think in some ways it was maybe even more than just symbolic of the world's kind of exhaustion and the mental fatigue so many of us have felt and experienced over these last 16 plus months as a result of the pandemic that there's a you know there's there's something that's happened in our culture and we don't talk about mental health a lot we're starting to do a better job in our society I think Simone biles did an amazing thing in terms of in Japan where it's

about the last thing they talk about yes you know I think we all have to acknowledge that you know, there has been some trauma here. Beyond the deaths, there has been low-level stress that people have been operating under now for months. And that is bubbling up in ways. And I think it's partly responsible for that feeling. Again, I think you hit the nail in the head, a kind of zeitgeist of kind of joylessness around these games.

I think Simone Biles' withdrawal is kind of emblematic of a withdrawal that a lot of us are feeling and maybe wanting to make. We're tired. We're tired of this. We're tired of the stress of it. We're tired of everything else in life, which hasn't gone away, you know, responsibilities to family, to work. It's a lot.

I think we're all feeling. I think that's so right, Roger. And of course, Naomi Osaka, who is a. Japanese star, tennis star, essentially did the same thing as she was defeated, but she also said, enough is enough is enough. Enough of this grueling competition for which you sacrifice everything. I'm going to put my mental health first before these grueling rituals of competition. So I think that's a, that is what Simone Biles did and is not a passing moment. It's, it's, putting a period and saying we're not going to go the limit.

I think there's a third piece to this, which is interesting, which is where Japan is. Japan has had an exhausting 30 years of stagnation. You know, think back the last real episode of declineism we had in the United States was in the 1980s and Americans were convinced that the Japanese industrial model was going to triumph and it was going to triumph. and it was going to eat their lunch. And we had a lot of the same conversations going on then

that we now have in the United States, certainly with respect to China. And then Japan starts what could only be described charitably as 30 years of secular stagnation and a rapidly aging population. They're the oldest country in the world. So if you're looking for dancing in the streets and joy, it's especially hard to find it.

in a geriatric Japan, but that aging Japan is part of the reason for the stagnation. You know, they have very few young people who have to work. If you're tired, Redyard, they're even more tired because they have to work triply hard because, relatively speaking, the proportion of younger people to older people is so small. And, you know, to play to one of your favorite themes, the Japanese have debt financed for years, and it hasn't broken the deflation and the stagnation and the feeling that they cannot work their way out of it. So when, I think that's a big part.

This is not the Japan of earlier times where there was optimism about the future. And I cannot resist saying every time you go after the central bankers for their effectiveness and responsibility, we can now say, yeah, but Japan didn't get at it early enough or big enough and stagnated and has lived in a deflationary economy.

Or some people would say all that debt, all that QE, all the manipulation of asset prices has led is what is creating and has reaffirmed a stagnant Japan. But let's leave that debate to another day because you mentioned China and that's where I want to go next. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast to access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www. Wunkdebates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our Monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.