Oleh/By : DATO' SERI DR. MAHATHIR BIN MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : SHANGRI-LA HOTEL, SINGAPORE
Tarikh/Date : 13/10/94
Tajuk/Title : THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM EUROPE/
EAST ASIA SUMMIT RE-ENGINEERING THE
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL LINKS BETWEEN
EUROPE AND EAST ASIA
I am delighted to be given the honour to speak about the
future at this World Economic Forum; the future economic
and political links between Europe and East Asia.
2. The focus on the future is certa inly very appropriate.
It is the most important time for all of us. Although we may
celebrate or berate the past; although we may enjoy or
struggle through the present; the future is really where
all of us will be spending the rest of our lives.
3. Even today, there are some who say that Europe will
inherit the future. Lester Thurow used to argue this very
strongly. He may well be right. But he is more circumspect
these days.
4. There is a growing number who glibly talk about the Age
of the Pacific. And there are those who talk about the 21st
century being the Century of Asia, as if in some way various
parts of the world will oblige the popular historian by
agreeing to rise or fall, on each occasion, in neat chunks
of a hundred years.
5. Thus it is said that the Nineteenth Century was the
Century of Europe, the Twentieth Century is the Century of
America and the Twenty-first century will be the Century of
Asia.
6. The more objective truth with regard to the past surely
is that for many more than one century Europe dominated the
world -- in a way that was never done before. And in a way
that can never be done again. For a relatively short time,
the United States was the most important superpower. But
its cumulative impact on the world was not of the order of
the European onslaught.
7. As to who will inherit the future, I hope that no
single nation, no single people and no single region will
inherit the future.
8. I hope that a very large number of nations from every
corner of the global compass -- including Asia, Europe,
Africa, the Americas and elsewhere -- will inherit the
future. I hope that all people of talent and diligence, who
earn the right -- including a very large number of Asians,
Europeans, Africans, Americans and others -- will inherit
the future. I hope that the future will belong to all those
who have the will and who are willing to put in the effort.
9. My hope is that the Twenty-first century will above all
be a century of cooperative global prosperity, democratic
global governance without hegemony from any quarter, with
greater global equality, fraternity and caring and much more
mutual respect. The need to establish a much more
prosperous, democratic, egalitarian, fraternal, caring world
order built on mutual respect is the backdrop against which
my more specific remarks on the Europe-East Asia
relationship should be seen.
10. Quite obviously to reach the new world order that I
have envisioned will require an economic revolution --
because there are too many millions living in poverty and
too many living in abject poverty. There has to be a
political revolution because there is too little democracy,
too little egalitarianism and too much hegemony in the
community of nations. And there has to be a psychological
and cultural revolution because too many believe in
beggar-thy-neighbour policies when all our interest lies in
enrich-thy-neighbour policies, in enriching others so that
we can take advantage of their wealth and prosperity. There
also has to be less arrogance and more mutual respect all
around.
11. Equally obviously, the Europe-East Asia nexus is also
very much in need of revolutionary change; for the most
dynamic and drastic evolution at the greatest speed
possible.
12. First, Western Europe should sell more to East Asia and
vice versa. We need to strengthen and enrich our trade
relations.
13. In 1990, the European Community (EC) accounted for
close to 30 percent of total global output. If everything
is equal, the European Community should account for 30
percent of East Asia's total imports. In fact, the European
Community's share of East Asia's imports added up to only 12
percent of the regional economy's total imports.
14. This is not bad given that in 1985 the European
Community's share was only 9 percent. In 1980, the figure
was only 7 percent. The movement is in the right direction,
having increased from total exports of only US$21 billion in
1980, to US$28 billion in 1985, to US$78 billion in 1990.
Today, the European Union (EU) economies export more to East
Asia than to the United States.
15. But it is just as well to remember that in 1990, which
by East Asian standards is a long time ago, East Asia was
already importing US$658 billion from the outside world.
Thirty percent of that is close to US$200 billion. This is
twice as large as the EU's total exports to the United
States and seven times more than the EU's exports to all of
Latin America in 1993. Indeed, it is US$25 billion more
than the European Union's combined total exports last year
to the United States, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
16. The potential for Western Europe is enormous.
The IMF predicts that in the 1990s, US$7.5 trillion will be
added to the gross world product. Half of that will be
produced by East Asia.
17. The recent European Commission policy paper, "Towards a
New Asia Strategy" concurs with the view of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is almost identical
with the analysis of the World Bank. The European
Commission goes on to state that by the year 2000, which is
only 62 months away, 400 million Asians "will have average
disposable incomes as high, if not higher, than their
European or US contemporaries." As you who are in business
know, goods and services are sold to individual customers,
not to states and regions. By the year 2000, there will be
many more well off or rich East Asians than well off or rich
Europeans and North Americans.
18. To cite further the European Commission, "half the
growth in world trade up to the year 2000 will be generated
in East Asia. This holds out enormous opportunities for the
(European) Union and can create many jobs."
19. Many of today's realities already "boggle the mind".
You might be interested to know, for example, that the
United States exports more to my small country, Malaysia,
than it exports to all of Eastern Europe and Russia. In
purchasing power parity terms, the East Asian regional
economy became bigger than both the Western European and the
North American regional economies in 1992. In terms of
foreign exchange US dollars, this should happen in the early
months of the year 2000.
20. The potential beyond this 62-month horizon, must surely
challenge even the most creative of imaginations.
21. You who are from Western Europe must sell us more. It
is good for you. It is also good for us, for we must not
forget that consumers buy for their own benefit and
satisfaction, not for the benefit and satisfaction of those
who produce.
22. But for Western Europe to trade much more with us in
East Asia, there is need first of all for a fundamental
awareness revolution.
23. I know that you who are here today are fully aware
about East Asia. But you must often be quite frustrated by
those at headquarters and in Europe, all of whom think they
are open minded and global participants, most of whom are in
fact incredibly Eurocentric and often incredibly unaware
that they are so.
24. I am reminded of Marshall McLuhan's remark: "I do not
know who discovered water, but I know it wasn't the fish."
Sometimes it is only from the outside that one can clearly
perceive the obvious truth.
25. The obvious truth is that most of Europe has still to
wake up to what has been called "the East Asian miracle".
Europe still has to truly discover Asia. The last time
around, it required a heroic effort and sometimes wondrous
exploits of courage and persistence by men of adventure.
Perhaps this time around, it will also require a heroic
effort and more than the occasional wondrous exploit of
courage and persistence from men and women of the business
world.
26. On the other side of the equation, it is equally clear
that East Asians too have to fully discover Western Europe.
27. In 1990, East Asia accounted for 23.7 percent of total
world output. But in the same year, East Asia supplied only
8.8 percent of the total imports of the European Community.
28. This is not really bad given that East Asia is only two
thirds the economic size of Western Europe. But the truth
remains: in 1992, the European Union economies alone
imported almost as much as East Asia - US$636 billion.
Twenty-three percent of that is US$146 billion.
29. I have talked about trade, which is the lowest, though
the most important form of economic cooperation between
nations. Equally important is investment.
30. How has Europe done? Unfortunately, not well.
31. In the 1960s, the European Community grew on average by
4.5 percent a year. East Asia grew on average by 7.1
percent. In the 1970s, the EC economies grew on average by
3.3 percent a year. East Asia averaged 7.9 percent. In the
1980s, the EC averaged 1.7 percent. East Asia averaged 6.4
percent. So far in the 1990s, East Asia has been running
at over 6 percent per annum, recession or no recession
elsewhere. Overall these miracle years, when the East Asian
economies were galloping, Europe's investment position -- in
some countries European companies not too long ago held all
the commanding heights -- has either been eroding rapidly or
simply collapsing. The European Commission sadly notes that
in the years between 1986 and 1992, only 10 percent of the
foreign direct investment in East Asia came from the
European Union.
32. There are many other economic issues that I should
mention. Because of the time constraint, let me say a few
words about human resource development and technology
transfer and cooperation. The importance I attach to this
should be clear from the countless visits I have made to
Europe. Many say that European companies are much better at
transferring technology than, say Japanese companies.
Nevertheless the most tangible results of technology
transfer to Malaysia are still those from the Japanese.
True, we have to squeeze it from them, but in the end we got
nearly all that we need. When we suggested that cars should
be assembled in Malaysia, many great names just quitted the
market. And we in East Asia have a great deal to learn.
Speaking for Malaysia, and I believe, for ASEAN too, let me
say that we are eager to learn. And we fully appreciate all
the gestures that have been made to help us with our
programmes forhuman resource development and technology
acquisition and development.
33. There are also a great many things that I should say
about the political side of the Europe-East Asia nexus.
Because of time constraints again, let me concentrate on
only one dimension, a dimension that has been well
articulated by the European Commission.
34. The Commission urges the EU to continue to strengthen
the Union's bilateral relations with individual countries
and sub-regions in Asia. It urges support for the efforts
of Asian countries to cooperate at the regional and
sub-regional level. It specifically mentions the ASEAN
Regional Forum and calls for efforts to strengthen the EU's
relations with ASEAN and the South Asia Regional Cooperation
(SAARC).
35. What I found particularly striking are these words,
uttered at the very beginning of the Commission's policy
paper: "Asia's growing economic weight is inevitably
generating increasing pressures for a greater role in world
affairs. At the same time, the ending of the Cold War has
created a regional environment of unparallelled political
fluidity. Consequently, the European Union should seek to
develop its political dialogue with Asia and should look for
ways to associate Asia more and more with the management of
international affairs, working towards a partnership of
equals, capable of playing a constructive and stabilising
role in the world."
36. The age of hegemony has not yet quite passed. It
should die away. We should bury it. Europe, East Asia,
Africa, the Americas, all parts of the world, should indeed
seek to work for a partnership of equals.
37. The European Union now already has a regular dialogue
process with ASEAN. If Western Europe believes there
should bea regular dialo gue between Western Europe and
East Asia, this is an idea which should be seriously
explored.
38. Let me re-state one of the central themes that runs
through my remarks. There is an urgent need for a
revolution of the minds, the most rapid transformation of
mind sets. Fundamental to the new partnership of equals
that the European Commission talks about is a mental
revolution.
39. Europe must decide its priorities. Is economics in
command? Or is economics not in command? As ye sow, so
shall ye reap.
40. Europe must increasingly not only understand but also
appreciate pluralism.
41. Bad governance should attract the condemnation of all
mankind. Atrocities are atrocities wherever they occur.
But why is it that so many from Europe understand and
appreciate the fact that Asian music should develop along
its own path and should not be great imitations of the
Beatles, Aznavour, Mozart and the Modern Jazz Quartet? And
yet so many cannot tolerate any Asian form of governance
that is not a fair copy of the European form.
42. Why is it that so many from Europe understand and
appreciate Asian art and celebrate its enormous diversity
and take it as only natural that it is not a carbon copy of
European art? And yet so many insist that Asian ways of
business and economics, politics and administration cannot
be legitimate unless they are carbon copies of European
ways.
43. There can be no real movement towards "a partnership of
equals" until there is a greater equalisation of humility
and the disappearance of what some will call incredible
arrogance.
44. Many in Asia look at the state of Europe. In their
more exuberant moments, there are many Asian leaders, I am
sure, who think they can solve Serbian atrocities in Bosnia,
the Basque problem, the income inequalities between northern
and southern Italy, the problem of homelessness in rich
societies, drug addiction, classroom violence, vandalism and
the ridiculous health systems. There are some societies
where there are more illegitimate babies born than
legitimate ones. There are countries where large numbers in
their thirties or even forties have never worked for a
single day of their lives. There are places where an
unemployed person is better off not working than if he found
a job. There are some polities where political leaders are
afraid to do what they know is right, for one reason or
another. There are economies where employers can only afford
to retrench when they are doing well and cannot afford to
trim their staff when they are doing badly. There are so
many countries where people expect to earn more and more for
doing less and less. And the people and the leaders in most
European countries live in fear, fear of the free media
which they so loudly proclaim as inviolable. Everyone is
entitled to privacy except when the media choose to invade
it. It has become a many - headed hydra which sours
everything on which it breathes. Publicly they breath in
the foulness of the breath, but privately they express their
abhorrence. Such is the monster of their own making.
45. Many Asian leaders, in their moments of levity, let me
hasten to add, believe that they have the answers to such
problems. If some European countries want their help and
advice, I am sure they would be willing to give such help
and advice. But so far, it has not entered the mind of any
Asian leader to threaten sanctions if any European country
fails to put its house in order. No Asian parliament I am
aware of has passed a single resolution calling on its
government to take steps should a European country not
reform itself.
46. If any Asian leader were to so threaten or if any Asian
parliament were to so act, the west would regard them as
mad. The west would regard the whole idea as preposterous.
47. But, reflect. If it is preposterous and mad
for Asian leaders to threaten sanction when Europeans fail
to measure up to their standards and norms, could it not be
equally preposterous for Europeans to threaten sanction when
Asian countries prefer their own standards and not Europe's?
48. Europe has now called for "a partnership of equals
capable of playing a constructive and stabilising role in
the world." Let me add that this partnership of equals must
serve not only the interests of Europe and Asia but also the
entire world. It must be an important element of the new
world order I spoke of, an order characterised by
cooperative global prosperity, democratic governance, with
greater global equality, fraternity and caring, and much
more mutual respect.
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