A superpower in relative decline should seek to strengthen the multilateral order, as China is doing.
In a 2005 speech before the National Committee on US-China Relations, former World Bank president Robert Zoellick famously called upon the Chinese government to become a responsible stakeholder in the global system, and to work with other international
powers to maintain stability and security around the world. One can assume that when Mr Zoellick delivered his speech on that autumn day in New York, there was no doubt in his mind - nor in the minds of most American leaders and policymakers - that
the United States was in fact the responsible stakeholder in the international system, and that China was not.
However, last year's election of Mr Donald Trump has spurred a remarkable reversal in global perceptions of the US and China.
President Trump has loudly proclaimed that he will pursue unilateralist "America First" policies, and he has also threatened to withdraw the US from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In an interview last year with NBC's "Meet the Press", he said: "We're
going to renegotiate or we're going to pull out. These trade deals are a disaster. The World Trade Organisation is a disaster."
By contrast, after the two brilliant speeches delivered by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Davos and in Geneva in January this year, China has projected itself as a defender of the prevailing multilateral order. Mr Zoellick would not be able to deliver
his 2005 speech in 2017. The roles have reversed.
Clinton'ssubtle warning
This need not and should not have happened. As a power that is - by President Trump's own admission - in relative decline, it is increasingly in the national interest of the US to strengthen multilateral rules and processes. Articulating this truth in
a visionary 2003 speech at Yale University, former president Bill Clinton said: "If you believe that maintaining power and control and absolute freedom of movement and sovereignty is important to your country's future, there's nothing inconsistent in
that. We're the biggest, most powerful country in the world now. We've got the juice and we're going to use it But if you believe that we should be trying to create a world with rules and partnerships and habits of behaviour that we would like to live
in when we're no longer the military, political, economic superpower in the world, then you wouldn't do that. It just depends on what you believe."
His audience might not have been aware at the time, but this was a cunning bit of advice from the once president. Mr Clinton was telling them to prepare for a world in which the US is the No. 2 global power, and China is No. 1. As the world's second power,
America would prefer to live with a No. 1 power that supports "a world with rules and partnerships and habits of behaviour" that would make the world a more orderly place. Even more cunningly, Mr Clinton was suggesting that the US could slip the "handcuffs"
of multilateral rules and processes more effectively onto China if America slipped those very same handcuffs on itself while it was still the world's pre-eminent power.
China's decision to take the opposite course of strengthening rather than weakening multilateral institutions should be seen as a surprising, even shocking, decision. Why is China not following in the footsteps of the prevailing No. 1 power? One possible reason China is not emulating America in undermining multilateralism is that the two countries have very different conceptions of their roles in the world.
However, Mr Clinton's speech would have been more effective had he honestly admitted that it has been a consistent American policy to weaken, rather than strengthen, multilateral rules and institutions. This was a dirty little secret I discovered while
serving twice as Singapore's ambassador to the United Nations, from 1984 to 1989 and again from 1998 to 2004.
This policy was also made plain when the US walked away from the World Court in 1985, refused to ratify the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and tried to undermine the International Criminal Court in 2002. America has also consistently tried
to pick weak and spineless UN secretaries-general to head the global body. Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton admitted this publicly in his memoirs when he quoted then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said: "I'm not sure
we want a strong secretary-general."
Unfortunately, such candour is a rarity from US leaders.
Paradoxically, Mr Trump may emerge as the most honest and forthright American president on the issue of multilateralism. He has made public his disdain for multilateral rules and institutions. He has denounced the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and
threatened to walk away from commitments that the US had made on climate change. At a White House briefing earlier this year, Mr Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said: "As to climate change, I think the President was
fairly straightforward: We're not spending money on that any more."
Multilateral China
Such rhetoric should have been music to Beijing's ears. As a rising power poised to become the world's largest economy within a decade or so, it would be in China's interest, one might argue, to see international institutions such as the United Nations
weakened and marginalised. This is, after all, exactly what the US has done for decades.
But China chose a different tack. Its decision to take the opposite course of strengthening rather than weakening multilateral institutions should be seen as a surprising, even shocking, decision. Why is China not following in the footsteps of the prevailing
No. 1 power?
One possible reason China is not emulating America in undermining multilateralism is that the two countries have very different conceptions of their respective roles in the world. The US sees itself as an "exceptional" country, hence it believes that
it has a global responsibility to transform the world. It refuses to be constrained by multilateral rules when it interferes in the internal affairs of other countries. It has promoted many so-called colour revolutions, including the 2005 Tulip Revolution
in Kyrgyzstan and the 2011 Arab Spring revolution in Egypt. No other country shares this messianic impulse of the US.
By contrast, China is only interested in improving the livelihoods of its 1.4 billion citizens (or one-fifth of the world's population). After a century and a half of "hell" - from the First Opium War in 1839 through to the end of the Cultural Revolution
in 1976 - China experienced "heaven" and enjoyed the world's fastest economic growth, especially after joining the global multilateral order that the West gifted to the world after World War II. No country has benefited more from the WTO than China
has. This is why China is now the world's No. 1 trading power.
Having enjoyed many remarkable benefits by walking away from Mao Zedong's isolationist policies and towards Deng Xiaoping's integrationist policies, China knows from first-hand experience that integration into a rules-based multilateral order has served
it well. In another remarkable reversal, the values and benefits of free trade have been documented and explained by American, not Chinese, thinkers. Yet, today, it is politically toxic in the US to defend free trade agreements like the North American
Free Trade Agreement and the TPP. By contrast, China is enthusiastically signing more and more free trade pacts. Since it joined the WTO in 2001, it has signed 14 FTAs with countries as diverse as Australia, South Korea and Peru and, in 2002, it agreed
to a broader free trade area with the 10-member Asean.
Can Washingtonfollow Beijing?
It was, therefore, a mistake for American pundits and policymakers to pooh-pooh the two speeches made by Mr Xi earlier this year. They reflect a well-considered position that China benefits from a stronger rules-based multilateral order. Similarly,
it was also unwise of the American media to excoriate Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for characterising the US-China relationship as a very positive one built on "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation", as is common
in Chinese policymaking circles. Article 2 of the UN Charter, after all, spells out the principles of international cooperation, and Mr Tillerson's statements were only a reiteration of these principles.
Sadly, Mr Tillerson was accused in the West of kowtowing to China. The clear assumption behind these criticisms is that America is pursuing the correct international policies while China is pursuing the wrong ones. However, the US clearly remains committed
to weakening and undermining multilateral rules and processes, while China still believes that it is in its national interest to do the opposite.
As Mr Clinton wisely advised, it is now in the national interest of the US to change course and strengthen multilateral rules and institutions. In an atmosphere of global financial crises and climate change, of pandemics and terrorism, and numerous
other international challenges such as famine and cyber security, it is high time that the US embraced global institutions and became a responsible stakeholder in the global system once more.
This piece was published in the Straits Times on 28 April 2017.