Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : SINGAPORE CONFERENCE HALL
Tarikh/Date : 14/12/88
Tajuk/Title : THE SINGAPORE LECTURE 1988
REGIONALISM, GLOBALISM AND SPHERES
OF INFLUENCE: ASEAN AND THE
CHALLENGE OF CHANGE INTO THE
21ST CENTURY
REGIONALISM, GLOBALISM AND SPHERES OF INFLUENCE:
________________________________________________
ASEAN AND THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE INTO THE 21st CENTURY
_______________________________________________________
Mr. Rajaratnam,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to thank the Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies for inviting me to deliver this Singapore Lecture,
the ninth in your series. It is indeed a great honour for
someone who is not an economist and who is not a retired
statesman to be invited to speak at one of the most
celebrated events of the Institute.
2. The subject of this Singapore Lecture is related to the
future. My fear is that economists and politicians, retired
or otherwise, are about as good at foretelling the future as
those who rely on the stars and the tea leaves. Practising
economists have the aid of the most sophisticated models and
the most sophisticated and complex theories. The members of
this profession have the advantage of being able to rely on
the staple of their trade: the two hands. On the one hand,
this. On the other hand, that. Unfortunately in predicting
the future, even two hands are often not enough.
3. I should of course not be too tough on the economists
since the members of my own profession -- and here I am not
referring to the medical profession -- do not have an
enviable record either.
4. Like the economists, politicians too have some
advantages when it comes to discerning the future. They are
in a better position to plan the future and execute it. If
they fail, the profusion of words that constantly issue from
their mouths are likely to confuse and cause a lapse of
memory among those who heard them. In any case, politicians
can modify their predictions as they go along. In the end
of course they are never too far wrong.
5. Still the wise politician always hedges his bets. And
so I would like to remind you that the one thing we must
expect about the future is to expect much that we don't
expect.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
6. I would like tonight to reflect a little on two quite
unextraordinary thoughts about the future. The first is
that the world has entered with some fanfare into a
historical era of transition and its attendant uncertainty.
This is the second transition -- the first was when all
empires had to be dismantled after the war.
7. Mankind has reached a historical turning point rich
with political possibilities but replete also with serious
economic threats.
8. The second is that in a shrinking world no one will be
allowed to escape the consequences of the changes the world
is going through. There will be winners and there will be
losers. There will be those who will be caught in between
and who will be squeezed. Some will not know what hit them.
Whichever it may be life for everyone will not be quite the
same again.
9. It is therefore necessary for us to fully grasp the
critical elements of continuity and transition and to
respond quickly, flexibly, with creativity and strength, to
the opportunities that will present themselves as well as
the challenges that will be hurled at us.
10. To do this we have firstly the task of comprehension.
The second is the challenge of action: attempting to do the
right thing at the right time and in the right way which is
extremely difficult in the best of times.
11. The task of comprehension in an age of uncertainty
demands that we wear no blinkers and have no illusions. It
is especially important to ensure that we are
informationally rich and analytically well endowed. It is
incumbent upon us to be prepared to confront new realities
and their logic however discomforting they may be to
preconceived notions. This does not mean the abandonment of
our personal and national, regional and global ideals. Far
from it. But it does mean the need for quick and continuous
re-assessments of our objectives and ideals in response to
quick and continuous changes in our external environment.
Knowledge, because it is power, is an essential ingredient
for our survival.
12. The challenge of action confronts us at all levels: the
national level, the regional level, the inter-regional level
and the global level. Comprehension without action is about
as fruitful as action without comprehension.
13. My remarks this evening focuses largely on the external
environment of states. But I feel I cannot let the occasion
pass without stressing the central importance of action at
home; the criticality of continuous reform and
reconstruction within our respective national borders.
14. The primary determinant of our fortunes in the
challenging days ahead, as in the past, will be our own
national resilience. The most important helping hands we
can rely on will always be the ones that are at the end of
our own arms.
15. As for action beyond our shores, there is every need to
be realistic. The nations of the ASEAN Community --
influential though they may be, must realise the limitation
of their influence. There is only so much they can expect
from their trading partners but beyond that they will have
to rely on themselves. In the new developmentalist world
which is emerging, ethics and friendships are not to be
relied upon too much.
16. At the same time it would be foolish for us to be
negative in thought and action in the international arena.
It would be a great tragedy if we are oblivious to our
potentialities -- oblivious to what we can get from and what
we can give to the world if we can summon the will and the
statesmanship, the guts and the grit.
Ladies and gentlemen,
17. We in ASEAN and indeed everywhere else must remember
that the twenty-first century is not some far-distant time.
It is no more than eleven years away.
18. A proper sense of time is important for we should not
waste our time on fascinating possibilities -- the emergence
of Japan as number one, the surge of China to number two,
the possibility of a "Super Europe" stretching from the
North Atlantic to the North Pacific, of a fortress America
from the Arctic to the Antarctic, of the actual dismantling
of the nation state or even the very destruction of a viable
habitat for the survival of the human race itself. All
these can come to pass. But not within the space from now
to the twenty-first century.
19. What actual great challenges of change, then, can we
expect the world to throw up in the next 132 months?
20. Because history will not bow to Mahatma Gandhi's plea
that there be more to life than increasing its speed, the
changes that we need to deal with will come thick and fast.
Fortunately, a large proportion of them have and will
continue to be positive structural trends whose course and
contents are already clearly evident and clearly
constructive of a more prosperous, peaceful and stable
world.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
21. Amongst the most hopeful of these changes must be the
big swing to the Right: in the countries of the Left the
modernisations and perestroika, and in the countries of the
Right privatisations and deregulations. By comparison to
what is happening now in the market economies, Malcolm
Forbes with his capitalist tool is a leftist.
22. These developments -- internally generated, self
determined, an expression of the wishes and the will of
their own people -- have undermined totally any faith in the
permanency of ideologies and systems. Nothing is sacred any
more. Economic atheists have now taken over everywhere.
23. Of course it is possible to envisage circumstances in
which the trend will be reversed. But this is most unlikely
in the forseeable future. Certainly from the frozen wastes
of Siberia through Eastern Europe, Central America and much
of Asia there has been an erosion of faith amongst the
faithful. Dogmatic Marxism and the traditional command
economic system as a method is on the retreat in the minds
of men and in their actions.
24. I think it was Rousseau who said that there is nothing
more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Some may
paraphrase it by putting it the other way round, that there
are few things more powerless as an idea whose time is over.
The time of rigid central planning and regulation of
economies is over.
25. To be sure, there could be some negative elements in
this trend. It can be carried too far. The switch from
trading in real goods to trading in paper, including
non-existent money, is one of them. Trading in corporations
and not trading through corporations is another. But the
ascendancy of pragmatism over dogmatism, the decline in "the
age of ideology" in the traditional historical sense, the
reduction in the play of passion and the complication of
dogma in international relations all augur well for the
world community as they will for ASEAN.
26. Pragmatism's rise to power in the People's Republic of
China initiated the transformation of many key elements of
the Seventy Years "War" between the so-called "East" and the
"West", a war which began with the Russian Revolution in
1917 and shaped much of the history of the world in the
twentieth century. Pragmatism's rise to power in the Soviet
Union and likely changes in the national priorities of the
United States and elsewhere threaten to eventually put an
end to this "war" in the remaining years of the twentieth
century.
27. As is the case with all protracted conflicts in world
history an ending comes with a redefinition of national
priorities. This is often tied to a sense of psychological
and material exhaustion (on the part of at least one side to
the conflict) and a realisation (on the part of more than
one side) that there are other more important battles to be
fought, different dragons to be slain, new powers and
constellations to relate to.
28. It is a fact that after the Second World War neither
the United States nor the Soviet Union settled down to a
peace economy as did the defeated powers: Japan and West
Germany. Because of the narrower economic base of the USSR,
it has been forced to sustain a quasi-war economy with the
result that Soviet missiles can deliver at this instant a
million-ton TNT equivalent load to any place on earth with
impeccable precision whilst Soviet agriculture cannot
produce quite enough for Ivan's dining table. The United
States too has paid a high price, as evidenced by massive
deficits and erosion of its leadership position.
29. In the context of new global and domestic realities,
passions and priorities, the decline of the Seventy Years
War can be expected to have major effects on the lives of
practically everyone everywhere. Already we see tremendous
effects on Iran and Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Angola,
Namibia, Palestine, Israel, Kampuchea, Vietnam and a host of
other arenas and theaters.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
30. Even the humblest student of international relations
will notice that both the military superpowers were in
political decline even as they achieved the peak of their
military might. Because of the momentum of military
production and the mad scientists who are forever devising
newer and better ways of killing and destroying, the
build-up of military weaponry will continue; but this will
not slow down the rise in the power of moral and immoral
suasion, as evidenced by the western-originated
transnational pressure groups, the power of economic
arm-twisting in their various forms and the uninhibited role
of the media, to name a few.
31. Conventional war as an instrument of policy has become
increasingly illegitimate, increasingly costly and
increasingly ineffective in producing the required results.
War is no longer a glorious activity to which even nobility
would contribute the flower of its youth. Today, in the
eyes of the individual, in the eyes of the world community,
and often in the eyes of the very perpetrator, war has,
frankly, a bad odour.
32. There was a time when wars could be won at what may be
termed as a reasonable cost. It no longer is. Even the
richest oil nations can be bankrupted by a few days of
hurling ballistic missiles at each other. In the end there
is so little to show -- no new empires, no subject people
and no new sources of wealth to plunder. Powerful nations
have invaded and conquered only to negotiate ignominous
retreats with nothing to show except a long list of
casualties. Conquest is a messy business in an age where
people matter and where the masses will not simply lie down
and submit.
33. I am not saying that we have or we will ever reach that
condition where swords will be turned into ploughshares and
men will war no more. Man is a contrary creature. There is
a madness in him which leads him into doing extraordinary
things. Despite the obvious futility of war in this day and
age, there is no certainty that a mad man on a mad impulse
would not precipitate a war. And so we have to keep our
powder dry and, like the Scouts, we have to be prepared.
34. Empires and conquests may no longer be the acceptable
things they once were but a willingness to fight and defend
oneself and render aggression costly and unprofitable are
essential to sustain modern mores or the proper behaviour of
nations, big and small. The problem is what level of
preparedness. Only acknowledged enemies can determine this,
that is if they can talk with each other. Some of them are
at last talking to each other.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
35. I have little doubt that the increasing realisation of
the decreasing utility, power and the application of
conventional military force, the turning inwards towards
domestic reform, the reduction in the push of ideology and
perhaps the thirst and the need for a period of peace and
tranquility in important quarters -- have all conspired to
produce an outbreak of peace in 1988. One might be excused
for thinking that for the first time in a long time the
world is being confronted by a peace epidemic of sorts.
36. War, it has been said, has it own momentum. Peace too
may possess that quality. I would expect that in the
nineties, although new brush wars may break out, the peace
momentum will continue.
37. It might also be noted that just as war has its awesome
consequences, peace too will have its enormous threats and
problems as powerful nations seek to use other weapons to
manipulate in their favour. This is what we are really
concerned with.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
38. Pragmatism's assault on archaic ideologies has resulted
in what might be called the "Modernisations in the Five
Kingdoms". It started off with China's Four Modernisations.
Then came glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union.
Because of the force of other factors we are now seeing the
second opening of Japan, a process that in terms of domestic
change may rival the Meiji Restoration.
39. Now the European Community is about to create a single
market with free movement of people, goods and money
throughout Europe by 1992. The process of the modernisation
of the Five Kingdoms will be complete when the United States
launches its own programme of internal reform and
reconstruction. The Americans who have been so engrossed
with their own success and are not quite capable of
imagining that others too can be successful have finally
awaken to the facts of life. An inability to compete and
massive and intractable deficits have contributed towards
this realization. Still for the moment more ideological and
economic reforms are needed in the US than anywhere else.
40. What is the Modernization of the Five Kingdoms all
about? It is about economic prosperity and Developmentalism
as they affect the people rather than the state. A powerful
state is no compensation for citizens living in backwardness
and poverty. Today a state is only meaningful if it is able
to provide its people with real prosperity and rights. The
power of the leaders and the strength of the state no longer
bring glory and respect for a nation.
41. The 180 degree turn that China took under Deng's
modernization and the glasnost and perestroika of Gorbachev
are as motivated by developmentalism and economic needs as
are the unification of Europe and that of the US and Canada.
Of course Japan's single minded drive for prosperity since
its defeat in World War Two need no analysis. All this
switch in policies is intended to give their respective
peoples a better life.
42. If the Russians and the Chinese are willing to reduce
their arms unilaterally it is because they know that
supporting a modern military machine is debilitating for the
economy of even the richest nation. If they need any
convincing they have only to look at the Allied-enforced
Japanese policy of minimal expenditure on arms. Clearly any
country wishing to prosper must spend less on defence, and
to do so they must have less tension in the world.
43. That developmentalism itself has reduced tension and
stopped wars is obvious. But it must be remembered that
peace is sought not for itself but for the sake of economic
development and national prosperity. In the past the
prosperity of the big powers had always been largely at the
expense of the poor. Nations were conquered so that their
wealth could be plundered. It was an easy and an acceptable
approach when wars were glorious and empires respected and
admired.
44. But will the desire for economic development in the
post imperial period lead to yet another rape of the poor?
The answer could be Yes. The poor may have to pay so the
rich can prosper. The truce among the Five Kingdoms is
consequently fraught with danger for the unsuspecting poor
countries of the world.
45. The array of weapons at the disposal of the Five
Kingdoms are as numerous and as varied as their military
weaponry, and they are just as effective. Aid, loans,
markets, GSP's, currencies, labour unions, media,
transnational pressure groups, non-tariff barriers, tariffs,
technology, investment funds and knowhow, global
corporations and a host of other institutions can be
manipulated to ensure that the development of the Five is
achieved, if need be, at the expense of the poor.
46. We see how the poor are made poorer through borrowings.
Some have profited from the loans but most have been forced
into the equivalent of debt slavery of old.
47. By pushing up the value of the currencies of the NICs,
immense economic gains can be achieved by the rich. If that
fails, there is always protectionism to fall back on. If as
a side-effect of revaluation, the debts of some poor
countries are doubled, that is too bad. The fluctuation in
the currencies of the world, manipulated not just by
powerful governments but by the equally powerful commercial
banks of the West must have driven a number of Finance
Ministers and Central Bankers in the poor countries out of
their minds.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
48. In the centuries of exploitation of the natural
resources of the rich countries, vast forests were denuded
to make way for farms and cities. Now suddenly the value of
these forests in the protection of the environment is
realized. Do the rich countries reafforest their land in
order to restore the ozone layer? Of course not. The poor
countries are told not to log their forests even if that is
their sole revenue earner. If in the process the softwood
producers in the rich countries have the market to
themselves, this is just coincidental.
49. But the poor can take heart. The Five Kingdoms may
have to compete with each other so fiercely that there may
be room or opportunities for the poor to reap some benefit
in between. However much depends on the South's reading of
the situation and their willingness to act. They say when
elephants fight it is the mousedeer that gets trampled on.
But an alert and nimble mousedeer should not only escape but
should gain something as well.
50. Poor as they may be the countries of the South together
still constitute a huge market. But the key word is
together. Alone their individual market is too small to
influence the attitude of the rich. It is therefore
important that the countries of the South at least present a
united front, if not unite.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
51. The states of South East Asia have already opted for
regional grouping. It must be admitted that ASEAN was not
intended to counter the pressures exerted by others. It was
really a political grouping to facilitate problem solving
between neighbours. But nevertheless the grouping should
prove convenient for countering the pressures from the
North.
52. So far ASEAN has proved effective in the political
field. It has not been so successful in economic
cooperation. Yet now it has to face new economic challenges
resulting from the modernisations of the Five Kingdoms and
their stress on the economic betterment of their people.
53. The GATT experience and the Uruguay Rounds may be a
foretaste of what is in store. Just as in politics, the
rich and the powerful can totally ignore world opinion even
when alone, it is equally certain that they can and will
ignore the world if need be should anything be proposed that
is not in their interest.
54. Already the Group of Seven has taken it upon themselves
to shape the world's economy. A unified European economy
together with an economic union of the US and Canada
working through the Group of Seven would be even more
powerful.
55. Perhaps an economically powerful Russia and China can
provide an alternative for ASEAN, but that will be a long
time in coming. There is no certainty that they will not
exert their own kind of pressure in order to achieve the
economic gains they are seeking.
56. Closer regional economic cooperation within ASEAN is
now imperative. ASEAN member countries must learn to
complement rather than to compete. In agriculture the
climate and other natural attributes have forced us to be
competitors. But manufacturing can be planned for
complementation and yet remain mutually profitable. No
country in the world can manufacture everything that it
needs. By choice it has to buy from other nations or face
retaliatory measures. ASEAN countries must accept that even
if each can manufacture all its domestic needs, it is
economically cheaper and more profitable to cater to the
whole ASEAN market. With a big domestic market it will be in
a better position to export competitively its products.
57. But ASEAN is not the only regional grouping in the
developing world. In South Asia, Africa, and Latin America
there are also regional organisations which for the moment
are still political in character. A link-up of these
groupings in the economic field would make the South more
capable of playing a role in the world's economy and even in
the inevitable economic wrangles between the emergent
kingdoms of the North.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
58. The South Commision has been set up to look at the
potential and possibilities of greater economic intercourse
between the countries of the South. There is no way they
can stop trading with the North but a fair proportion of the
trade in goods and services can be redirected to the South
for mutual benefit.
59. There will be tremendous obstacles. Dumping, aid and
grants by the rich North are but a few of the obstacles to
trade between the South. But if there is a will, a resolve
to correct an unfair and inequitable wealth distribution,
many things can be done. At the very least the threat to
buy South will push the North to sell their goods and
services at more reasonable prices.
60. I am not suggesting a trade war between the South and
the North as a solution to the new threats consequent upon
the swing to the right in the Five Kingdoms. Such a war
cannot be won by the South. But the fact is that the
fortress mentality in Europe and America and the desire by
the Soviets and China to go for economic growth as well as
Japan's already overwhelming economic power requires some
adjustments by the regional groupings of the South.
61. ASEAN has so far shown the greatest promise. The
region has adjusted itself to numerous pressures from
outside and some debilitating internal problems. But the
countries of ASEAN will need to do more if they are not
going to be deprived of their growth potential in
competition with the developmentalist strategies of the new
North.
62. There is no doubt that a more united ASEAN with a
single common strategy will be more safe than separate
strategies devised and implemented by each member state.
63. Also ASEAN together with other regional groups of the
South would be in an even better position.
64. Confrontation is not necessary. Every effort must be
made to co-exist and to benefit from the new turn of events
in the North.
65. There are many things that can be done. But the most
important of all is for the member countries to get closer
together and for the regional groupings of the South to do
the same.
66. Till the end of the century the whole world must
rearrange itself. The nations of the world did a good job
when the first transition took place with the shedding of
the global empires of the West. Now the nations of the
world must do an even better job in order that the end of
the Seventy Years War will see the shaping of a better and
less oppressive world.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
67. Many of our ideas on politics, economics and social
affairs are out of date. They are out of date not because
they were ill-conceived in the first place. They are out of
date because they have been correct and effective and they
have changed human society so much.
68. When Marx wrote Das Kapital rich individuals personally
_________________
owned and controlled what he called the means of production,
the capital, land and labour. It was an inequitable world
and an unjust society. But even as Marx suggested ownership
of the means of production by the state in the interest of
the people, the capitalists were rushing to correct the
extreme exploitation that they practised.
69. They succeeded too well. Indeed they lost control of
the process. More and more the profits of a capitalist
system became distributed among the people.
70. It took the Russian Communists seventy years to
acknowledge that their laudable objectives have been
achieved by their rivals -- the capitalists. The
acknowledgement was painful. But with the acknowledgement,
a whole new era must begin.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
71. We are living in the beginning of the era. We are
still sceptical. Will the leopard change its spots? Will
diehard Communists sworn to spread the creed throughout the
world really give up their ideological mission? We are not
completely sure.
72. But the process that has been started cannot be easily
stopped or reversed. Like the capitalists who liberalised
their ownership and control in order to counter the spread
of Communism, the Communists are likely to lose control of
the liberalizing process which their leaders have started.
73. We do not know for certain where this will end up. But
for the next few years before the century ends we are likely
to have more peace in order to build quite literally a new
world. It will be a more truly inter-dependent world where
decision-making on the management of the world's economy
will not be confined to a few major powers.
74. Decisions must involve greater participation -- a
democratisation of nations rather than just people. I see a
need for strengthening the UN system in its role in economic
and social developments, in securing peace and the
mitigation of such global problems as drugs, terrorism,
environmental degradation and refugees. God willing, we
will have a more comprehending world able to act positively
to meet the problems posed by the latest age of transition.
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