For the politicians, diplomats, academics and business figures on the tropical Chinese island of Hainan this week for the Boao Forum for Asia, there was no escape from talking about the consequences of Donald Trump’s reshaping of American foreign policy.
Many of them see the US abdication of its role as global policeman and “leader of the free world” as the latest confirmation that we now live in a multipolar world.
But for Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore’s former ambassador to the United Nations and the author of The Asian 21st Century, today’s world is not just multipolar and multilateral but also multi-civilisational. He told a session on multipolarity that after two centuries, we have reached the end of western domination of world history and other civilisations are becoming stronger.
“If you look at the longer history of humanity, it’s very clear that the last 200 years of western domination of world history has been a historical aberration. Right now, we are going back to the world that existed before 1820, when you had all civilisations of the world on a par with each other,” he said.
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“I would assume that since the West has had the enlightenment, they believe in rationality; they have the best universities; they should be adapting rationally to a multi-civilisational world.
“But the fundamental problem is that the West is not adapting rationally to a multi-civilisational world and refusing to acknowledge that other civilisations can be as successful, whether it’s Chinese, Indian, Islamic civilisations that are emerging in the world,” he said.
Mahbubani argues that, just as Europe dominated the 19th century and the US the 20th, this century will be the Asian century. He believes the Asian countries are better placed to deal with Trump because, unlike Europe, they were not “stuck in a time warp” where they believed shared values would guarantee an alliance with the US forever.
“Traditionally, the Atlantic relationship has always been much stronger than the Pacific relationship. But you may end up in a curious situation moving forward whereby Asians may have a better chance to have relations with the United States, because Asians also believe their relationship should be based on interests or not on values, and we can all work together pragmatically,” he said.
For Mahbubani, the European Union should be a natural partner for the non-western world in multilateralism but he complains that the EU “has become geopolitically incompetent at a time when it should be geopolitically competent”.
A few hours before he spoke at Boao, Mahbubani published an article in Foreign Policy magazine, saying Europe needs “a complete strategic reboot” and to move from being a US satellite towards being an independent and autonomous strategic actor.
I asked him what Europe should do now in response to the US stepping back from global leadership under Trump.
“This creates an opportunity for the European Union to say, ‘Okay, we believe in strong multilateral institutions in the world and we will step up to the plate and defend multilateralism.’ But, as you know, Europe is a very sad and lost place,” he said.
“One of the biggest mistakes the European Union has made has been to give up a strategic autonomy and serve essentially as a vassal state of the United States. And that’s always a mistake because one of the cardinal rules of geopolitics is that you never put all your geopolitical eggs in one basket. You always diversify and hedge.
“So here, actually, in this multipolar world that is coming, it’s better for the European Union to emerge as an independent strategic pole in a multipolar world and provide some leadership in terms of global multilateralism.”
As he Mahbubani was speaking in Boao, European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic was arriving in Beijing amid a Chinese diplomatic charm offensive directed towards the EU and its member states. Mahbubani thinks the EU needs a change of approach if it wants a more co-operative relationship with China based on mutual interests.
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“It doesn’t mean partnering with China but it is unwise for Kaja Kallas, the [high representative] for foreign affairs, to go around criticising China unnecessarily – because she has no moral authority to criticise other countries,” he said.
“Europeans must learn to be a bit more humble when they speak to the rest of the world because they can no longer lecture on what is good and what is bad. China represents a huge opportunity for Europe, but it’s got to be a mutually beneficial relationship based on mutual respect between both sides. And that’s something that European leaders have forgotten how to do.”
