The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 49

Episode Date: December 10, 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 Members podcast explores three important topics in the news. First, a boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics by the diplomats of Western democracies is gaining momentum at the same time that the Biden administration convenes a virtual “summit of democracies” to push back against the perceived threats posed by authoritarian regimes. What it stake here? Is democracy promotion an effective foil to blunt the rise of China in the current geopolitical environment? Second, more virtual diplomacy was on tap this week between Russia and the United States. Are there now the outlines of a great power deal over the future of Ukraine? What could this look like? And finally, how should the world combat the threat of autonomous weapons? Will armed robots, drones, AI and mass surveillance of the battlefield make us more or less safe in the 21st century? 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.W.Munkdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, the Monk members only podcast. This is our regular Friday program.

We dig into the big issues and ideas and the news exploring the topics and trends that we think should be kind of top of mind as we figure out this extraordinary moment that we're all living through together. As our guide, our guest on all these programs, we're so fortunate to have Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and public policy and internationally renowned authors. author and scholar Janice, great to be in dialogue with you again after yet another busy week. And great to be here with Muck members and with you, Richard. Yeah, let's keep the feedback coming from our Munk members. Lots of terrific emails. Tell us what topics and issues you'd like, Janice and me to discuss.

You can do that anytime, podcast at Munk Debates.com. Janice, off the top, I want to use the news this week of a growing diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics scheduled to take place in just a matter of a month or two to have a conversation with you about this increasing intention, it seems, concerted on the part of the United States to marshal the world's democracies in an alliance to oppose China. So my double-barrel question for you is, one, is what's the purpose of this alliance? What, I mean, what is the goal here? And Joe Biden, at the same time as announcing this diplomatic boycott, Canada, UK, Australia, all the traditional allies joining. There's a summit of a virtual summit undergoing this week, led by President Biden.

So what are they trying to accomplish? And can they achieve something meaningful out of this notion of a league of democracies, an alliance that, again, seems to really put China in the crosshairs of whatever this new nebulous group is going to do? So unpack this for us. What is the significance of this? You put your finger right on this. Roger, there is tension. inherent in the summit of democracies, which is going on in Washington. And by the way, it is

connected to the diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Games in China. There is a strong argument to be made that democracies that share core values should come together and do much better at aligning their programs, their development assistance, a whole set of positive initiatives so that they can have a bigger cumulative impact than they've had in the past. If that were the purpose of the summit, I would say go for it.

And part of it sounds like it is because, believe it or not, there is going to be accounting every member and there are almost 100 in the room is going to make some sort of commitment and there will be an in-person summit next year in which people will be held to account it. States will be held to account

for the commitments their leaders make at the summit. So what's not to support about that? What's making this much more complicated are two big things. The first, the hidden text here is This is an alliance, whose target principally is China and other authoritarian states who engage in all sorts of things from election interference

to human rights suppression to interference in democratic politics that is below the radar. And that that is really the driving force behind President Biden's initiative. And I frankly think that's what it is. And this makes it very uncomfortable for many of the governments that are in that room. Well, let's go deeper on that first point because I think that's a key insight here, Jay, to kind of pull aside the veil, so to speak, and try to go to the root of what this is about. I mean, is there, you know, is this the moment for, especially the Americans, to be leading on this?

I mean, Biden this week kind of painted the greatest threat facing democracy, these autocratic of regimes. I would say the greatest threat facing U.S. democracy is, you know, the trifecta of outsourcing their public square to the corporatization and manipulation and control of big tech, the relentless gerrymandering of their congressional districts to ensure, you know, this perpetual war of political supremacy between Republicans and Democrats that leads to intense polarization. add on to that, the threat of Trump in 2024 and the state legislatures reworking American voting laws to encourage the mass suppression of different voting constituencies in the United States. I mean, isn't America anything but right now a poster boy for why the rest of the world should be embracing democracy? This all seems somehow tone deaf to the very real internal challenges that we have as democracies that have nothing to do with Russia. China, Turkey, Hungary, whatever autocratic regime of the week that we want to call out. That's in effect, the chatter in the virtual halls, that there is more than a little bit of irony that the United States is taking the lead right now on sponsoring this kind of initiative. And it's more than the lead. Biden has said the defining struggle of the next 25 years or more will be between autocracies

and democracies, and his goal is to prove that democracies can deliver for their populations. This, he says, at a moment when, frankly, U.S. democracy has never been at greater risk, certainly in the last 100 years than it is right now, and there isn't a government leader in that room who is not aware of how hot the temperature is in the United States. how concerned many Americans are, but more importantly, even among close allies like France, like Germany, what you hear people saying is, well, I'm reserved right now about joining this kind of coalition, because I don't know if two and a half years from now, there might be a president who would be an autocrat in the White House. who repudiates all of this.

And that's certainly what you're hearing. So I think in many ways it is at all time. You know, this was an election promise that Joe Biden made. He's had to keep it. But to put it mildly, this is genuinely awkward for the president and for a lot of the governments that are in the room. Now, let's tie this in for one moment, Roger, get down to brass tax, as we say, on the diplomatic boy.

part of the United States. Well, of the diplomatic of the games of the games that are being held out. Substantive or symbolic, Janice. Substantive or symbolic. Well, here's the problem, Richards. Okay. It seems symbolic because after all, how many

diplomats go to the Olympic Games in Beijing? So it seems symbolic. But at least you're doing something, but the Olympic athletes are all being allowed to go. Well, I think and there's been very little discussion of this. There's actually risk in this policy.

Why did diplomats go to the Olympic Games for two reasons? One, they show their flag and their enthusiastic support to the Olympics. But the second purpose, things happen to athletes during these games. You need your diplomats, whether you need help with a medical issue, whether you need help leaving. You actually need, you can need your diplomats. Sometimes delegations come from at home to go to the Olympics, and here too, you need your diplomat.

I have to say as a Canadian, where Michael Covec and Michael Spavler had an extraordinarily difficult experience that just ended, we have joined the boycott, and I look at a Canadian team that is going without any diplomatic bench behind it, if they need help on the ground, for what purpose?

For virtue signaling, frankly. You have to ask yourself, was this the right decision? And we make these kinds of decisions when the rhetoric takes precedence over the concrete action. I would much rather see us do something

concrete for people who have for wiggers who have left China but don't have a place of refuge. It really is time to refrain from showy moves at the expense of substance. You know, Jess, I would agree with you

and maybe on a slightly different tangent, is that I worry about what's happening in terms of how the rhetoric is playing into, for lack of a better expression, a kind of otherizing of the Chinese. So, you know, yes, there are detention camps in Xijing province. The Uyghurs are definitely experiencing oppression. But when you start throwing around the words concentration camps and you begin to evoke the horrible imagery and history of the Holocaust, you are cranking the dial to 11.

When you, you know, describe to the Chinese this idea that their autocratic regime is stalking our democracy, that they are bent on tearing down our institutions and our most cherished and fundamental beliefs, you are setting things up in a very binary black and white way, both for your own internal population and for your Chinese interloculars. Add over that, a diplomatic ban, which I agree for you is far more symbolism than substance of the Olympics, it just, it seems like we're replaying a kind of Cold War playbook against an opponent, which we have to acknowledge is not the Soviet Union. This is a much larger, much more sophisticated, much more economically dynamic, arguably a pure military competitor. And it just seems so, it seems that we have this muscle memory that we're incapable of confronting a threat of China, protecting our interests, asserting our ideals and values. But doesn't this all, Janice just seem, again, like a replay of a bad movie that we didn't enjoy too much through the 50s, 60s and 70s, yet we seem committed to buying a ticket to the Sunday matinee week after week after week. You know, I do not think this is the right strategy. I think you are correct that when we inflame the rhetoric, certainly what is going on in Jun-Jane with the Wiggers is really awful.

It is really awful. People are forced to work in prison-like conditions for 15 years. This is, I think, is perfectly accurate to say this is forced labor and re-education with really an attempt to wipe out the cultural memory and traditions of a whole population. So it ranks pretty high up there on the scale record of egregious acts. But when we inflame the rhetoric and we choose to score symbolic points and then we tell our own public, the Chinese government is a deep threat to our democracy, we are actually giving China far more power than it has. Nothing that the government of China can do, nor the government of Russia,

for that matter, even though, and there's clear evidence that Russia, unlike China, has interfered in our elections, as well as the United States and in Europe. But ultimately, nothing that they can do is an existential mortal threat to our democracies. As we've said, what threatens our democracies, political polarization, discrediting our institutions, violence used by officials to disperse crowds. Big tech algorithms. Big, you know, gerrymandering of districts, you know, unfair representation. Those are the things that will discredit democracy in the eyes of our population. So my view of this is, why give China and Russia that stand?

why elevate them and give them that much power? Second point, of course, is also right. China is not only a great power. It is a great civilization. It is a proud country. It has been here far longer than any Western democracy. And frankly, until the 1800s was one of the most important economies in the world. And it sees itself right now as regaining.

its rightful position in the world. We have deep differences with China, but they will be one of the two great powers for the rest of this century. And we have to learn to live with China because if we don't, the story, the muscle memory that you talked about, that war stayed cold, Richard,

but there's no guarantee. We were lucky. The Russians were lucky. We got through that. one, there's no guarantee that we are not provoked. We are not stoking the flames in ways that, in my view, are truly irresponse. Just to bookend this topic before we go on to our next. The Canadian, the new U.S. ambassador to Canada was out late this week saying, I am here to help Canada confront China. So again, Janice, help us understand. That to me sounds like a

Like a pretty, a pretty, is that a command performance, Janice? We are supposed to now confront China, little old Canada, with our 35 million people. You know, this is the brutal world that Canadians live in, and I call it a brutal world. I believe that Ambassador David Cohen is here to deal with soft lumber, to deal with the electric vehicle, preferential subsidy, which the Biden administration has legislation moving through Congress right now, which can decimate our auto sector, with the integration of the greeting of the two economies. That's why we need a really first-rate ambassador in Ottawa. Now, he's saying to us, and he said, wow, some explicit interview,

here's your ticket to the meal you want. You line up with us on China. It's brutal politics. It's a rough game. Wow. Okay, listeners, we're going to take a quick break when we're back from this short intermission. We'll dig into our second topic, which has got to be the dance. I don't know what it is, square dance, a waltz between President Putin and Biden.

and the growing tensions over Ukraine. We'll back with that conversation right after this break. 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.w monk debates.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.

Thank you.