Latest / The Fourcast / Starmer Xi meeting: is Trump making China great again?

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Starmer Xi meeting: is Trump making China great again? · The Fourcast

0:00
This is a great moment for China.
0:01
They've been calling for this. They call Trump the nation
0:04
builder because Trump is actually helping unite China.
0:07
Trump and his people like Stephen Miller are trying to
0:10
militarize America. We are heading into dictatorship
0:14
if we are not already in dictatorship.
0:16
Trump is simply power mad. The question is whether
0:21
Greenland represents that watershed.
0:23
Have we learned that when we basically say these are our red
0:28
lines, what happens? Market, Market reacts.
0:30
And when market react, then Trump backs down.
0:33
Is Trump dragging this new world order closer towards great power
0:39
wars? Yes, he is.
0:44
Hello and. Welcome to the forecast.
0:46
I'm Krishna Guru Murthy. And the skyline you can see
0:48
behind me is Beijing, China, because Keir Starmer, the
0:52
British Prime Minister, is on a short official visit here, and
0:55
he has met President Xi and he has a pact schedule going to
1:00
Shanghai and meeting various people.
1:03
And it's got people wondering whether there is a proper and
1:07
bigger and more significant reset going on because Starmer
1:11
is just the latest in a procession of international
1:14
leaders who have been coming to China to try and reset their
1:18
trade relationship. And of course, it comes after
1:21
President Trump has upsets a lot of NATO and Europe with his
1:25
posturing towards Greenland. He's got an Armada around Iran
1:30
at the moment. And of course he has intervened
1:32
militarily in Venezuela. And people are wondering whether
1:37
the post war world order as we knew it is gone.
1:41
So is the old world order gone? And if so, what's going to
1:45
replace it? To discuss all this, I'm joined
1:48
by Robert Kagan, staff writer at The Atlantic and Washington
1:51
Foreign Policy Insider. The author and scholar Amitabh
1:54
Acharya, who has long criticised the US-led world order, and the
1:59
former EU foreign policy adviser Natalie Tochi joins us as well.
2:05
And Robert, can I, can I begin with you with with the question
2:08
that occurs to me here sitting in China, which is, has Donald
2:11
Trump made China great again? Well, it's a good question.
2:15
It certainly opens opportunities for China.
2:18
I think that, you know, you can't tariff all your allies.
2:23
You can't threaten them with territorial aggression and
2:26
expect them to continue to be reliable allies.
2:29
They need to find other sources for their economic interests as
2:33
well. I think ultimately for their
2:35
strategic interests, since the United States is no longer their
2:38
partner. The question I have is whether
2:41
China can take advantage of this opportunity.
2:44
They have been pretty ham handed so far.
2:48
Their their own trade policies don't make many Europeans happy,
2:53
but I think it's obviously a huge opportunity and we'll see
2:57
what happens. We'll see if China's capable of
2:59
taking advantage of it. But is this the beginning of,
3:02
you know, a realignment? Some people think we are
3:05
entering a, you know, a world of, of, of power moves and that
3:10
Trump, Putin and XI are essentially calling the shots.
3:15
What kind of new world order are we edging into?
3:18
Well, the order we're heading into is one that we've seen
3:20
before, the one that existed before 1945 and in previous
3:24
centuries. It's a truly multipolar world
3:28
without reliable alliances. You'll see shifting alliances
3:32
and a much more greater likelihood of warfare.
3:35
As the basic structure of security that the United States
3:39
assembled after World War 2 disappears, other nations are
3:43
going to have to lookout for themselves.
3:45
A lot of the things that Americans take for granted that
3:48
are the benefits of this order, access to markets, access to
3:52
bases of the free use of oceans, etc, is no longer going to be
3:57
the case in multipolar worlds. All those things are up for
4:00
grabs and in a state of constant scramble among the great powers.
4:05
Amitabh, you've lived and worked in China as well.
4:08
So the same question to you is, is Trump making China great?
4:12
Well, first of all, I do agree that it's a bit of a reset, the
4:15
term that he used, and I think it was long overdue because I
4:21
think for a long time, maybe far too long, Britain and Europe
4:25
have been following the same narratives from that. the United
4:29
States has been promoting that the current world order was good
4:35
for everybody. It's sort of cooperate.
4:38
China. China benefited so much from the
4:40
existing world order. But The thing is, great powers
4:43
don't behave like that. They don't have like, gratitude.
4:47
The Chinese also having their own agenda.
4:49
They're right. And the Indians have their own
4:51
agenda. So what we see was something
4:52
that was happening for quite some time and Trump is basically
4:56
pushing it bit hard and fast and therefore the Britain and the
5:02
European Union and Canada don't have much of A choice.
5:07
So, so that leads me the other other point that whether the
5:11
world is becoming multipolar in a in a narrow sense, yes, we
5:15
have more than multiple powers and, but but The thing is, is
5:22
not quite the same as the multipolar world of 19 before
5:25
1945. I mean, at that time there was
5:28
really no Asian or non western great powers to the exception
5:33
exception of Japan, but it was all European Western powers in
5:38
the 19th century, early 20th century.
5:40
And now we have actually non Western powers, including China
5:44
and India. And it's it's not guaranteed
5:46
that they will behave the same way as the European state before
5:49
1945. And also the structure of
5:52
interdependence today people think it's been weaponized.
5:55
Yes, but you know, there are other some of the links will
5:59
continue. The existing world order is not
6:02
completely gone. So, so maybe the United States
6:06
is out of it for the for the time being.
6:08
And finally, I would call it a Multiplex order rather than
6:11
multipolar order because there's a lot more going on than just a
6:15
Power Distribution, military, economic.
6:17
I also take into account technology.
6:19
I take into account, I'll take into account another changing
6:23
form of globalization, like, you know, that the Britain and the
6:28
India, European Union and India have signed major trade
6:31
agreements. The Asian countries minus the US
6:34
have also signed with China major trade agreements.
6:38
So it's not like everything is collapsing.
6:41
So we will wait and see before we pass the judgement.
6:45
I think some elements of the existing world order will
6:47
continue, some will be different.
6:50
Naturally. What what do you make of this?
6:51
I mean, you know, we, we have this sort of warmth towards
6:56
China coming from various European countries and and
7:01
America confusing everybody. Yeah.
7:03
I mean, I don't think that Europeans have basically, you
7:07
know, all of a sudden you turned 180° and no longer see that
7:13
China is intent and economic statecraft and that has
7:17
ambitions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
7:19
So all that remains front and center of European minds in the
7:23
same way as the Russia, China relationship obviously does,
7:27
especially as it relates to Ukraine.
7:29
However, I think Europeans also acknowledge that indeed the rest
7:35
of the West without the United States cannot be against
7:39
everyone at the same time. And so inevitably there has to
7:43
be some reassessment. And I think they also
7:46
acknowledge the fact that indeed there are two potential models
7:51
out there as far as the international system is
7:53
concerned. And 1 is a modular of, let's
7:56
call it imperial collusion, right?
7:59
And I think it's very much the models certainly that Donald
8:01
Trump is after as well as Vladimir Putin.
8:04
And the question mark is, is this also she's China's model
8:08
and it's one in which that imperial collusion perhaps at
8:11
some point tips into competition.
8:14
But the at this point in time, who is really on the menu are
8:18
the would be colonies, right? And Europe is certainly there.
8:22
And then there's the alternative model, which is indeed one,
8:25
let's call it the Carney model, you know, the sort of multipolar
8:29
or Multiplex to use expression in which there are, you know,
8:35
you know, there are still rules. They may not be as thick as the
8:39
rules of the quote UN quote liberal international order
8:42
were, but there are still rules even if they have to be
8:44
redefined. And that is, I think the model
8:47
that Europe is after obviously first and foremost trying to
8:52
intensify its relations with countries in Latin America, with
8:56
the medical school deal, with the India, deal with Indonesia,
8:59
with Mexico, but also with all the caveats, the Jew caveats,
9:04
also with China. What about the old institutions,
9:07
though, Robert? I mean, if Trump is pulling out
9:10
of all the UN agencies, hasn't pulled out of the UN yet, but
9:15
he's out of the WTO and he's out of the Paris climate agreement
9:18
and he's out of various UN agencies, is it over for that
9:25
institutional model? Yes, again, if you look back in
9:28
history, there was never a really functioning
9:33
international, these kinds of international institutions
9:37
except in the most basic ways. But even even trading
9:40
relationships were disrupted when necessary.
9:44
The League of Nations was a very weak organization.
9:49
At the end of the day, there are no rules without power to
9:52
enforce them. And that's the thing that people
9:55
need to understand. These rules don't exist in
9:59
isolation that human beings follow.
10:01
If you look at the whole sweep of history, rules are enforced
10:06
by powers that find it in their interest to do so.
10:10
It has been in America's interest to enforce certain
10:15
rules about aggression when possible.
10:18
That doesn't mean they've done it always successfully, but also
10:20
the way the nations within the world order operate with each
10:25
other. But in the absence of that
10:27
enforcement, I think we have to be realistic and realize that
10:30
there there won't be rules. There were no rules protecting
10:34
middle powers prior to 1945 in the UN Charter, which was backed
10:39
ultimately by American power. And so I don't.
10:43
Middle powers cannot simply rely on rules, and this is very
10:47
important for Europe. They need to have power to be
10:50
able to defend themselves and if they care about those rules, to
10:54
enforce them. Europe cannot leave itself
10:57
completely vulnerable to the two predatory empires that are now
11:02
on its flanks, Russia and the United States, and hope to
11:06
survive and maintain their sovereignty and a rules based
11:09
system insofar as that's even possible.
11:12
That's what you're nodding, but I mean, can can you really be at
11:15
the table as a middle power rather than on the menu without
11:21
the same kind of power as the great powers?
11:23
I mean, it's clear that European countries acting individually
11:27
are not middle powers. They're just not powers at all.
11:31
They're tiny powers. They're irrelevant powers.
11:36
However, it is obvious that Europe united and I deliberately
11:41
say Europe united and I'll come back to this in a moment, but
11:44
Europe united of course, right now I think, you know, NATO
11:48
Secretary General Mark Rutte is completely wrong when he
11:52
basically says, you know, forget Europe defending itself without
11:55
America. It means spending 10% GDP on
11:58
defence. It doesn't mean spending 10% GDP
12:02
on defence. If Europe were to have the same
12:06
capabilities of the United States, that would mean spending
12:09
10% on GDP on defence. But that's not the aim.
12:12
The aim is to be able to defend ourselves against Russia that,
12:15
frankly speaking, has not been able to occupy more than 20% of
12:19
Ukraine in, you know, 12 years of war basically, so that Europe
12:26
united. Of course, it can be at the
12:28
table now. I therefore come back to what
12:31
you're probably talking about because I think you know,
12:34
underlying the question that you were asking, thinking about
12:36
institutions, thinking about the global level in the UN, you can
12:39
almost ask the same question at a regional level, do existing
12:44
institutions, the European Union, NATO institutions that to
12:49
come back to Bob's point about rules and power being two sides
12:53
of the same coin, those institutions were basically
12:57
established within a particular configuration of power.
13:01
That configuration have gone. Can those institutions survive a
13:06
different configuration of power?
13:08
And what it's obviously very early to tell, but, you know,
13:11
what I do see is that actually most of the dynamism in Europe
13:16
tends to happen, even collectively tends to happen
13:19
outside existing institutions, coalitions of the willing, You
13:23
know, the group of countries that decided to sort of, you
13:26
know, be a little bit more forthright when it comes to
13:28
Greenland. It's not a coincidence that it's
13:31
not coming from the EU. It's not coming from nature
13:34
because these are institutions that were born and were made for
13:38
a different era. Amitabh, are you, are you glad
13:40
to see these institutions undermined?
13:43
I I think first of all to, to relate to what Bob said, the
13:50
United Nations when it was created and then we talk about
13:53
the rules, best order around the UN system.
13:56
It was simply not a purely American creation. the United
14:00
States, actually middle powers did play a very important role.
14:03
I have studied all the 22 volumes of the San Francisco
14:07
Conference, the meetings and all these things happen that created
14:12
this most war rules. And I see that Canada, Britain,
14:17
European countries, no European Union at that time.
14:20
Even India was very important even under the British rule,
14:25
creating different rules in different domains, security,
14:30
economics and also in diplomacy and the norms.
14:36
So why did the United States prefer the UN at that time?
14:40
Because the US was pragmatically aware that it is so dominant
14:43
after World War 2. So Europe is pretty much
14:47
destroyed, Japan is destroyed if it had too much power.
14:50
These countries will balance US. They will not accept American
14:53
rule. They will, you know, pretty much
14:55
what they're trying to do now. So US said will create this,
14:58
United Nations, support it, and then we can also do a little bit
15:02
of power sharing. the US remains dominant, but at least it
15:05
creates the legitimacy for itself.
15:07
Now Trump is taking that away. He's not remembering that the
15:11
rules that existed under the UN system actually favoured the US
15:15
into to a large extent, and it created the framework of
15:19
collaboration, including those middle powers.
15:23
The other point I'd like to make is that the United Nations is a
15:26
very big umbrella. So it's not just the Security
15:30
Council. It also has institutions that
15:32
are linked to the UN, IMF, World Bank.
15:35
And not every institution is doing badly.
15:38
Trump is not going to withdraw from IMF, for example, might
15:43
destroy the Security Council with the Board of Peace, for
15:46
example. And so there's a lot of UN that
15:49
is still very valuable, inefficient and deserves urgent
15:55
reform, this urgent reform. But I don't think the
15:58
institutional model is going to disappear.
16:00
But I do also want to support what Natalie said about the
16:03
European Union. Since the World War 2, Europe,
16:07
regional organizations have become very important.
16:09
I mean, you cannot think about European security, European
16:13
governance, European model without the European Union.
16:16
And similarly we have our Southeast Asia S association of
16:21
South ASEAN countries, African Union.
16:23
They actually do much more work than we give them credit for.
16:28
So it's a much more, that's why I call it Multiplex.
16:30
We have not just the United States or handful of great
16:34
powers calling the shots at the at the at the local level,
16:38
regional level, there's a lot more complexity and and Trump is
16:43
not going to demolish that overnight.
16:46
And there will be, of course, you know, there will be backlash
16:50
and the United States will see what is happening today.
16:53
The rest of the world is going to balance against the US and
16:56
undermine undercut its influence.
16:58
And what do you think China, India and Russia make of what
17:04
Trump is doing? I mean, China is, is, you know,
17:07
President Xi with Starmer today was pointing out, perhaps with
17:12
some humour, the the volatility of Trump.
17:15
This is a great moment for China.
17:17
They've been calling for this. And you know, in China there is
17:20
a saying that Trump, they call Trump the nation builder because
17:24
Trump is actually helping unite China.
17:27
And so, but I think once and also not make too much of it.
17:32
And India is playing a very smart game, going to do this
17:35
trade deals with Britain and the European Union means India is
17:40
not also doing this kind of deals with China.
17:42
There is a trade agreement in Asia called Regional
17:45
Comprehensive Economic Partnership and India pulled out
17:48
of it because of our peering Chinese dominance.
17:51
But India is then going after getting American sanctions, 50%
17:56
tariffs. So India thought it would be
17:59
very natural to push up push the deal with the European Union,
18:02
creating a, you know, a very large market and, and Britain.
18:05
So and also between Russia and China, despite the facade of a
18:10
close cooperation alliance is not going back to the 1950s.
18:15
The Chinese have their own agenda.
18:17
They see the world order very differently than the Russian
18:20
stage. The Russians of course don't
18:22
like anything about Western European or American dominated
18:27
world order. The Chinese actually not too
18:30
unhappy with the economic part of it.
18:32
They don't like the political world order, but they subtly
18:38
like the idea. They have benefited from the
18:41
economic world order, the globalization, so they're not
18:44
going to sign off on that. Naturally.
18:46
I mean, do you think China has shown Europe the way to deal
18:50
with Trump? But when it came to the tariff
18:53
threats, they matched it. Trump backed down.
18:56
Trump chickened out. Should Europe be doing the same?
18:59
Yeah. I mean, actually, I think that
19:02
probably Canada or Mexico or even India are better examples
19:08
because the China comparison with Europe inevitably runs into
19:13
the counter argument of, again, to sort of use a Trumpian
19:17
expression, China's the one with the cards.
19:21
Right now, Europe does not have the same cards vis A vis the
19:26
United States that China has. And so, you know, fair enough.
19:30
China used its cards because it had them.
19:33
I find that and This is why I didn't really kind of, you know,
19:37
refer to Mexico, I mean, you know, or, or Canada here.
19:40
We're talking about countries which are weaker than the United
19:46
States in different ways, just as dependent.
19:49
And yet they, over the course of the last year, if you take, you
19:54
know, if you take the European reaction up until the Greenland
19:57
point, yeah, I think Greenland, the question mark is whether
20:00
that represents a turning point. But up until the Greenland
20:03
point, you basically have the Mexicans, the Brazilians, the
20:07
Canadians, the Indians actually demonstrate greater.
20:13
Yeah, I mean, firmness, really. I mean, you know, essentially
20:16
saying these are red lines and no, you know, we will not go
20:20
beyond. And each and every time that an
20:22
actor has done that, Trump has reacted to that.
20:26
Right now, Europeans had tried over the course of the last year
20:30
the opposite method, right? It was Keir Starmer's regal
20:35
invites breaking protocol. It was Chancellor Mertz's birth
20:39
certificates. It was Georgia Maloney's Pretty
20:42
Little smiles. It was Alex Stoobs golf gaze.
20:48
None of that worked. You know, a year ago we could
20:51
say, well, I mean, there's a legitimate question.
20:54
Will it work? Will it not?
20:55
After a year, we can only conclude that the Shine Bounds
20:59
and the Carnies and the Maldis again let's you know, let's put
21:03
in China to one side actually achieved more than the Stoobs
21:09
and the Mertz and the Summers. And therefore we come to the
21:13
conclusion that maybe we have to change our tactics.
21:15
Now the question is whether Greenland represents that
21:19
watershed. Have we learned that essentially
21:23
when we basically say these are our red lines, we're going to
21:27
stand up to those red lines. We know that we will be hurt
21:30
more than you will. You know we will hurt you less
21:34
than you will be able to hurt us.
21:35
And yet we're willing to take the pain.
21:38
When we do that, what happens? Market reacts, and when market
21:42
react, then Trump backs down, right?
21:45
So I hope that the lesson that we will have learned from all of
21:47
this is maybe we don't have China's cards, but even with the
21:51
fewer cards that we do have, if we learn to play them in a
21:54
different way, we're actually going to get better results.
21:57
Robert, do you think Trump supporters are getting what they
21:59
wanted here, or did they have no idea that this is where they
22:03
would end up? Trump is simply power mad.
22:07
He wants to get as much power for himself and, and, and also
22:11
recognition, etcetera. But I don't think he thinks very
22:16
much about the he's under the illusion that the United States
22:19
is omnipotent and that if he just sends an Armada someplace
22:24
or if he threatens a tariff, then the rest of the world will
22:26
just go along. And I think what he doesn't
22:29
realize is that American power is not just raw, does not just
22:35
derive from raw military and economic power, although those
22:38
are important. It really does stem from a
22:41
relationship that the United States has had with much of the
22:44
world in which that world has not only tolerated but
22:48
legitimized and even supported American power in in all its
22:53
many dimensions. We have not yet lived in a world
22:56
where not just Russia and China, who by the way, are not going to
23:00
join in the carving up of the world with the, the, the
23:02
hostility, you know, the hostility to the American order
23:05
in Russia and China persists. But now we will have not only
23:08
them turning against us, but as Amitav says, you'll now have
23:13
other powers who used to be American allies, will not be
23:16
American allies and will be balancing against the United
23:18
States. And that will lead to a much
23:20
weaker and more vulnerable America.
23:22
And this is something that I don't think Donald Trump has any
23:25
understanding of. But I I hope that there are
23:27
people in Congress and, and at large in the United States who
23:30
understand this because it is going to lead to a weakening of
23:34
the United States in the medium term.
23:37
Right. What?
23:37
But what do you make of his use of military action then?
23:40
I mean, you know, there's a big difference between seizing
23:43
Maduro with some special forces and sending an Armada to Iran,
23:49
You know, is Trump dragging this new world order closer towards
23:55
great power wars? Yes, he is now.
23:58
I mean, you know, he, he only is using military power at this
24:01
moment against people who can't shoot back.
24:04
And that's why, you know, countries like Russia and China
24:07
don't really, I don't think they're very worried about what
24:10
Trump will do to them. But, you know, if you deal with
24:14
a country like Venezuela, which has no capacity to defend itself
24:16
against the United States, if you deal with a country like
24:18
Iran who, whose air defenses we never took out, but the Israelis
24:23
took out and therefore is vulnerable to American attack,
24:27
sure, What you can accomplish with these things, I don't know.
24:30
The Venezuela story is yet to unfold.
24:33
I don't know what he thinks he can accomplish in the case of
24:35
Iran. But this, the fact that he, oh,
24:38
by the way, a lot of this is domestically oriented in the
24:40
United for the United States. Trump and his people like
24:44
Stephen Miller are trying to militarize America.
24:47
And a lot of this use of force overseas has got domestic
24:51
purposes. Ultimately, he wants to use the
24:54
American military at home. And that's another thing, if I
24:57
may say so, that a lot of the rest of the world is not
24:59
understanding we are heading into dictatorship if we are not
25:03
already in dictatorship here in the United States.
25:06
If you look at what happened in Minnesota, I believe that is a
25:09
precursor to what is going to be happening across the country.
25:12
And so a lot of what Europe is expecting is that, well, Donald
25:16
Trump will go away and then we'll all go back to normal.
25:18
And I think people need to understand that America is in
25:21
much deeper trouble than then maybe they understand, and that
25:25
we may not be getting out of this anytime soon.
25:29
Amitav, I mean, doesn't that make America not just an
25:32
unreliable partner, but a country you know most of the
25:37
world will want to reappraise its whole relationship with?
25:40
Right. But I have heard Trump
25:43
supporters say, and there are some of them in Washington in
25:47
the think tanks, that this makes America more respected.
25:50
And they're using force and asserting itself and overcoming
25:54
the weakness of the liberals, the Biden and Obama years.
25:57
But in reality, it's not making America more respected, but more
26:03
more feared. And and that fear in a fear is
26:07
not a good way to organize. Well, you can do it up to a
26:10
point, but. Well, Trump thinks it is.
26:13
It will create backlash. I mean.
26:16
And so I think ultimately, ultimately this will backfire on
26:22
the United States. Maybe it's already beginning to
26:24
because you see the allies and the rest of the world ganging
26:27
up. What we have today is what I've
26:29
called in a, there's an article in Foreign Policy magazine as
26:32
world -1 the, the world without the United States and for
26:37
cooperation, for trust. But you can also call it US
26:43
minus the world, Trump, minus the world.
26:44
Trump doesn't care about, you know, he cares about who gives
26:48
him money, gives him private jets or jets that can be used
26:54
for his purposes. He's in very good terms with the
26:57
golf states. But the rest of the world is
27:00
actually ganging up against the US.
27:03
And ultimately, this is fear. This will be a world order in
27:07
the short term based on the fear of America rather than respect
27:12
and not to mention love for America.
27:15
I would like to go back to Europe and what Europe can do
27:18
again because I do think that Europe is underestimating its
27:22
its capabilities in this situation.
27:25
First of all, Natalie, you have to get used to the idea that
27:28
you're going to spend 10% of GDP on defense.
27:31
The United States spent 10% or more of its GDP on defense
27:35
throughout the 1st 2 decades of the Cold War.
27:39
If Europe understood that it's very sovereignty was at stake, I
27:43
think it can it can do what what needs to be done to protect
27:46
itself. And on the trade stuff, you
27:49
know, the American market, everybody, yes, we desperately
27:51
need the American market, etcetera.
27:53
But what people need to understand is the American
27:56
system is highly sensitive to any small disruption in its
28:01
economic well-being. And so you don't have to go
28:05
after everything in the United States.
28:07
You can go go after sectors in the United States where Europe
28:10
does have leverage and which will have an outsized effect.
28:14
Because you look at Trump, he responded to one day of market
28:18
crash. You know, imagine if if the that
28:22
the market went down for four days or 10 days.
28:25
And I just think Europe is undervaluing its potential power
28:29
in this situation. That's Lee.
28:32
Yeah. I mean, just to jump in on this.
28:35
So when I say we don't need to spend 10%, of course, what I
28:39
don't mean is we don't need to spend more on defense.
28:42
We do need to spend more on defense.
28:43
And that's, that's all that's very clear.
28:45
But we need to spend more on defense because we need to
28:49
defend ourselves against Russia without America.
28:53
So that's my starting point. And what's needed to do that
28:56
now, if on average European countries in the next couple of
29:01
years end up spending 3%, you will basically have just one of
29:06
these countries, granted the biggest one and the richest one,
29:09
IE Germany, there will be the third largest military spender
29:13
in the world, right? So after the United States and
29:15
China, more than Russia. And this is just Germany, right?
29:19
So if on average all European countries spend 3% and do so in
29:25
a rational way, in a coordinated way, that's in a sense more than
29:29
enough. That's what I was trying to get
29:30
AT. And what I feel is that when you
29:33
have people like Ruth basically kind of erecting these straw men
29:37
saying, oh, well, you know, I mean, if you really want to act
29:40
without America, you'll have to end up spending 10%.
29:44
That's basically an argument to try and get to the opposite of
29:47
what I I think you, Bob and Avatar are trying to get to,
29:51
which is basically a more autonomous Europe.
29:53
Fair enough. If I can, if I can add a lot of
29:56
person here, you know, Europe is not one, the United Kingdom is
30:02
not Europe institutionally in a way that used to be.
30:06
And I have a feeling that the British Prime Minister is in
30:10
China now and I think that he is unusually agitated about Trump's
30:17
comments about Afghanistan, that what British soldiers need in
30:21
Afghanistan to help united American troops.
30:24
So I, I, I, UK always had defected from the European
30:28
consensus about the world order. And they, it's quite possible
30:33
not just the UK, but also there are other European countries,
30:38
possibly possibly Italy, Natalie can talk about it, who would
30:41
actually have a little more sympathy for Trump and his wall
30:45
view, especially because of their domestic politics,
30:48
populism and all. Hungary.
30:50
So let's not say Europe is going to act as a single entity.
30:54
While I do agree that Europe is underestimating itself, should
30:58
have been actually not becoming too dependent on the United
31:01
States either for military or for economics, and I think it's
31:06
time to reset that. But I think there will be
31:10
divisions within Europe when it becomes to dealing with the
31:12
United States. Yeah, I mean, well, there's
31:14
there's no doubt that populism is dividing not just the West,
31:17
but Europe, too. But I mean, Natalie Starmer's
31:20
view at the moment seems to be, well, Trump won't be in power
31:24
forever. He doesn't define America for,
31:28
you know, for decades. He is the now and that we should
31:33
sort of ride this out. Is is is what you have to read
31:36
between the lines that this this too will pass.
31:41
Is is that naive? Yes.
31:43
Well, it's just not even naive. It's wrong, right?
31:47
It's wrong because that's not how history works, right?
31:50
History does not. It's not as if what is happening
31:54
now. Well, two things I think are.
31:57
I mean, I it's both true that what is happening now is not
32:00
necessarily going to last forever.
32:02
Nothing lasts forever. But it's equally true that what
32:05
is happening now means that we will not go back to what we had
32:08
before because that is just not the way history works, right?
32:14
So what is happening now is going to leave Marks and it's
32:18
going to leave marks. That is going to influence in a
32:20
sort of Hegelian way what is going to happen in future,
32:24
right? And so, fair enough if one
32:28
thinks, well, you know, we somehow need to try and gain as
32:33
much time. But you want to gain time in
32:36
order to use it, and you want to use it to become more
32:38
autonomous. You don't want to gain time in
32:41
order to wait it out with under the illusion that somehow you're
32:45
going to return to a past which, as Mike Carney wonderfully said,
32:49
has gone and the sign needs to come down.
32:53
Right. But but if Robert's right about
32:55
the kind of administration this is perhaps already, but moving
32:58
towards, and we're talking about fascism essentially, does that
33:03
mean Europe also has to question whether it wants to be America's
33:06
ally? Well, yeah, completely.
33:09
And in fact, I would put it in a in a probably even more acute
33:12
way. We need to make sure that Europe
33:15
itself does not go down the same path.
33:17
So I think the urgency about doing the kind of things that
33:21
we're talking about is that actually we don't have a lot of
33:24
time also because if we don't get it right, likelihood is that
33:29
Europe is going to go down exactly the same path that the
33:32
United States is on now. Generally, I agree the time is
33:36
short for Europe. Europe needs to make this
33:38
adjustments. But I also would like to say
33:41
that Trump is not the cause of all this unnecessarily.
33:46
He's a trigger, but the lot of the changes that are happening
33:51
in the world has been happening for some time.
33:54
The power shift is happening for some time and Trump is
33:58
exploiting that. So that's why I don't think the
34:01
old order will come back. I mean, there I am completely
34:03
agreement with Natalie. The, the, the, whatever you call
34:06
it, the liberal international order, US-led world order, the
34:10
free world order, that's gone for good and not because of
34:14
Trump. It was also happening because
34:16
there are long term ships in economic power and also in terms
34:20
of diplomatic power as well since decolonization in the 50s
34:25
and 60s. Robert, I mean, do you agree?
34:27
Trump as a symptom, not a cause. No, I don't.
34:30
And it's not that I don't agree that there were that the that
34:33
the order was fraying, but there's a big difference between
34:37
questions being raised about American relative power,
34:41
etcetera, and and actually having the United States turn
34:45
against its allies. I don't think it's, it's
34:48
important not to lose sight of that critical break.
34:52
As long as the United States was committed to the security in
34:56
Europe and Asia, I think the world order could have, could
34:59
have maintained itself for quite some time.
35:01
Actually, we can have another debate about that, but but I, I
35:05
do think it's vitally important to understand, you know,
35:09
Greenland has come and gone and people have moved on from it.
35:13
I think it's worth remembering that it was an only a couple of
35:16
weeks ago that European forces were being moved into Greenland
35:21
to defend against a potential act of aggression by the United
35:26
States. Right.
35:27
OK, that is not going to be unremembered by the rest of the
35:31
world, even if we would like to get past it right now.
35:34
That is a that is a turning point in history, something that
35:38
was unimaginable at any time in the last 80 years.
35:42
Let's not treat it as if it was a blip on the screen.
35:45
And the forces that support Donald Trump in the United
35:48
States, even after Trump is gone, they're still going to be
35:52
here. It's not as if there was, this
35:55
was a, you know, Truman's, Harry Truman's America before Donald
36:00
Trump. And in this sense, I agree with
36:02
Amitav. The consensus among public
36:05
opinion in the United States in both parties was very
36:08
disenchanted with the global order that the United States had
36:13
responsibility for upholding. They, it wasn't just Trump who
36:16
said we're being ripped off in this system.
36:19
Democrats felt that way about trade, etcetera.
36:23
So the notion that once Trump is gone, we're back to Dean
36:28
Atchison and the old boys back in the 1950s is not true.
36:34
I think that we have been in a long through in the United
36:37
States, a long period of disenchantment with the American
36:41
role. That's one reason Trump got
36:43
elected again. He ran on America First and won.
36:48
Doesn't that tell us something about the state of American
36:51
public opinion? So I just think the reason
36:54
people say, Oh, well, it'll be we all fine after Trump is gone
36:58
is it relieves them of the burden of having to do anything
37:01
now. And I think it is really very
37:04
much in accord with the appeasement approach that Mark
37:07
Ruta and others have been taking.
37:10
And, and it's just an excuse for Europeans and others around the
37:14
world not to make the hard, the very hard choices they need to
37:18
make right now if they're going to survive as independent
37:22
sovereign states in a world dominated by predatory empires.
37:27
And if Amitabh sort of world -1 is correct, can the rest of the
37:33
world maintain a rules based order that America ignores or is
37:38
opposed to? And does it mean anything?
37:40
I I think that's a very fair question.
37:43
We don't have all the answers, but I think what the European
37:46
Union is doing, what the British are doing is pretty, pretty
37:51
good. I mean, build inter regionalism,
37:53
build linkages with powers. It doesn't have to be China.
37:57
I mean, India is the largest country in the world, should be
38:01
with Southeast Asia, ASEAN. European Union has been the
38:05
biggest champion of what we call the inter regionalism, building
38:08
links within among regions. And Natalie can talk about it.
38:12
But at the same time, as I said, there would be, you know, I have
38:16
seen and I'm very much following the what's happening to the
38:19
United. The UN actually needed some
38:21
reform, needed some cutting back as excess fat.
38:25
And this can be also helping to boost the UN to reduce like like
38:30
a big corporation that has been too big downsides.
38:34
And finally, I would say that Trump is doing the Europeans a
38:39
big favor. They're finally asking them to
38:42
wake up. Or you know, you will be
38:45
finished. You'll be it'll be on the cable.
38:47
In the final couple of minutes, Natalie and then Robert.
38:51
I come back to this point about power and norms being two sides
38:55
of the same coin. So power is being reconfigured.
39:00
I didn't think that this is the moment for, you know, where it's
39:04
even possible to think that given that the the power is
39:08
being reconfigured, it's going to settle into something neat
39:12
and orderly and institutionalized.
39:15
So it seems to me that this is the moment in which the form
39:21
multilateralism, including rules based multilateralism will take
39:25
is going to be a lot more fluid. It's going to be a lot more
39:28
through coalitions, be it at the regional level, be it at the
39:33
global level. So at the global level, there
39:36
will be a whatever high ambition coalition on climate between
39:41
Europe and countries in the, you know, certain countries in the
39:45
global S on trade. We're already beginning to see
39:48
the way in which bilateral and plurilateral agreements are
39:51
working out. One could make similar arguments
39:54
on defence, on, you know, so basically on technology.
39:58
So at some point this may, may settle into something more fixed
40:04
and consolidated and institutionalized, right.
40:06
But I didn't think that this is basically the conversation not
40:10
just of this day and this month, but probably not for the next
40:13
few years still. Robert, very briefly, if you
40:16
will. Look, I just think we need to
40:17
understand when you remove the United States as a guarantor of
40:22
so many countries basic security, those countries need
40:25
to see to their own security or become the thiefs of some other
40:30
great empire. I believe it's almost a
40:32
mathematical requirement that countries like Japan and Europe
40:38
and the nations of Europe that that care about their own
40:41
sovereignty will need to respond to what the United States is
40:45
doing by rearming. And I think that that will have
40:48
benefits in terms of defending themselves.
40:51
But it is going to be a world of multiple great powers, not just
40:55
Russia, China and the United States, and multiple conflicts
40:58
as we saw prior to 1945 and throughout the 19th century and
41:03
previous centuries. Thank you all very much indeed.
41:05
It's been a fascinating conversation.
41:07
That's the forecast from Beijing.
41:09
Until next time, bye bye.