Telenovela

CAG Senior Research Fellow Tess del Rosario argues in her new book Scripted Clashes - A Dramaturgical Approaches to Three Philippines Uprisings that the three collective people power uprisings in the Philippines which occurred over a time period of fifteen years (1986-2001) are "dramaturgical productions", each one governed by an underlying "scrip". Following is Tess' take on some of the key points in the book:


The study of collective uprisings in the past has suffered from an intellectual tradition that tends to equate social protest with crowd behavior --- a form of sociopathology endemic in societies experiencing social breakdown. This book challenges that perspective.

In looking at the three people power uprisings in the Philippines which occurred over a time period of fifteen years (1986-2001), I employ a Goffmanian perspective called “dramaturgy” --- a theoretical variant within “cultural constructionism” (Jasper 1997) that is largely premised on the idea that humans are “symbolic making creatures, who spin webs of meaning around ourselves . . . that we humans together create everything that we know and experience, or at least the interpretive frameworks through which we filter all our experience.”

In this book, I argue that the three collective uprisings are “dramaturgical productions”, each one governed by an underlying “script”.

The first two uprisings embody the larger moral vision among protestors and participants to a distinct social project called modernity. While Marcos himself sought to modernize the Philippine nation under an authoritarian framework, the failure of this experiment provoked an alternative vision in which modernization would continue under a democratic political system, thus the theme of “re-democratization” shaped the character and flavor of the modernity script of the first uprising.

As a “sequel” to the first, the second uprising of January 2001 carried the same moral vision, but reworked to suit the requirements of the 21st century.

The third uprising witnessed the massive mobilization of the so-called lumpen poor and elaborates on James Scott’s notion of the “hidden transcript” formed in the subterreneal regions of discourse among the poor and the marginalized. It is inspired by the Biblical Pasyon, the movies, and the telenovela.

I argue that this discourse can be best understood by looking at internal cultural categories of meaning that reside in religious beliefs, symbols and practices and are carried over to the cinema, and more recently, to the telenovela, which are then recreated and acted out during uprisings. This evokes a “tele-cinematic” effect.

The three uprisings are competing social dramas and the Edsa shrine is the “center stage” of re-enactment. I elaborate on the notion of “spatial agency” to argue for the role of social spaces in collective action, and to provide an instance in which a physical site becomes a locus for creatively addressing the tension between structure and agency. Finally, I conclude this study with a meditation on the dangers of dramaturgy and the possibilities of utilizing it as constructive social critique to promote social justice and to deepen humanistic concerns. [Tess]

Unlikely contenders in championing transparency

Imagine the global contest for leadership as a battlefield. The front lines aren't just military and economic: Ideas are at least as crucial. And in this struggle, openness and transparency are growing ever more important. The United States, which once had an enormous advantage in terms of transparency, lost its position during the Bush-era rollback of civil liberties. Meanwhile, two surprising contenders have entered the lists.

The first is India. India's rambunctious, sprawling democracy has long been highly secretive, in keeping with colonial British traditions. But this started to change in the early 1990s, when grass-roots groups began demanding access to documents held by local governments. Day laborers, who are often left un- or undercompensated for government projects, demanded to know who else was getting paid, and how much. Villagers wanted to know why their schools remained unfinished. The movement spread rapidly, based on the notion that transparency was essential not just to liberty but to survival.

By 2005, this nationwide grass-roots campaign led to one of the world's most sweeping right-to-know laws. Indeed, the Indian Right to Information (RTI) Act is proving to be a muscular instrument for empowering citizens vis-à-vis India's notoriously ponderous bureaucracy. When police can't be bothered to accept a complaint about a theft, citizens can file RTI applications to find out why not, which often prompts the police to do what they should have done in the first place. Public works contractors must publish their contracts at their work sites, allowing local citizens to measure how work is going. The government and nongovernmental organizations have launched evaluations of the act's impacts, both still underway. But already campaigners are finding that some two thirds of focus group participants said that greater access to information would help solve many of their problems.

The far more surprising second contender is China. Conventional wisdom in the West portrays China as authoritarian, secretive, and rigid. Yet in 2008, China's State Council proactively established a set of nationwide open government information regulations. Now, via gazettes and Web sites, the government discloses an increasing array of statistics and details about health, education, budgets, economic programs, and urban planning. The same regulations allow citizens to request the release of information from the government.

This move, drawn from several years of experiments with transparency and accountability at local levels, represents a major political shift. China's system, traditionally dominated by secrecy and the rationing of information, is increasingly premised on openness and public scrutiny. One year in, the regulations are actively being used by citizens addressing grievances in land requisition, by environmental groups monitoring corporate standards, and by lawyers and public intellectuals scrutinizing everything from government toll collection to budget spending.

The sea change is likely due to strategic party calculations, rather than an embrace of democratic principles. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party has found that secrecy can cripple its own efforts to foster growth and stability in a globalized world. For instance, China needed to improve its economic transparency to join the World Trade Organization. The global health and economic damage brought by the 2003 SARS outbreak and 2008 melamine poisoning scandal further spurred the government to become more open and stamp out malfeasance within its system.

The calculations are also domestic. China has to deal with official corruption that is not only endemic, but spreading. Its citizenry is increasingly informed, networked, and assertive. With pressures on these multiple fronts intensifying, the leadership has come to recognize that it must build in checks to its own administrative power if the country is to enjoy the economic growth and political stability upon which the party's continued dominance depends.

Thus, the contours of a new global contest are emerging. Western countries no longer have a monopoly over the definition and value of openness and disclosure. India's grass-roots approach champions transparency as a critical means of empowering the poor. China's state-driven approach wields transparency fundamentally as an alternative (rather than a prerequisite) to democratic reform. If the United States and other Western countries want to avoid losing the battle, they'll pay close attention to developments in these two countries. [AF & YT]

This article, titled "Transparent warriors" was first published in FOREIGN POLICY.

Health should be in all policies

Dr Tikki Pang, Co-Chair of the S.T. Lee Project's Global Health Governance (GHG hereafter) Study Group and Director of Research Policy & Cooperation at the World Health Organisation (WHO) summarises the discussions of the various global health issues that have taken place at the recently completed 62nd Session of the World Health Assembly.


1. Endorsement of WHO leadership in the context of influenza crisis:

Member States (as well as the external media) have been complimentary and largely supportive of the way WHO has handled the crisis so far. There have been a few critics, but by and large, the "erring on the side of caution" approach has been accepted by most.

In the context of the ST Lee Project's GHG, this crisis has served to reiterate the central role WHO must play in the context of global heatlh issues. The Organization's image is probably at the highest it has been for many years. Make no mistake-it could've so easily gone wrong-and kudos to the Director General Dr Margaret Chan for her decisiveness in the past month or two. The new US administration (new Health Secretary Sebelius came to Geneva) has been particularly supportive of WHO's efforts in coordinating the global response.

Another highlight was that UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon delivered the keynote address at the Assembly-his presence is yet another signal of the good coordination across the UN during this crisis.

Finally, WHO was also urged by its Member States not to move to phase 6 alert level although, based on current criteria, this should've happened-the countries urged the Organization to re-visit the criteria and take into account other factors such as disease severity, virus pathogenicity, clinical features, etc.

2. (However) tensions still running high on the virus sharing issue:

The IGM (Inter-governmental Meeting on Sharing of Influenza Viruses) met a few days before the assembly and, unfortunately, came to no agreement after 2 years of negotiations on trying to forge an equitable framework for sharing of viruses and benefits derived from any vaccines developed. Some developing countries mentioned, for example, that developed countries have signed agreements with vaccine manufacturers for 50% of the soon-to-be-developed vaccine against influenza A (H1N1) leaving the developing world highly exposed with the remaining 50%.

The agreement of the Assembly was to ask WHO/the Director-General to "support further negotiations", especially around a standard material transfer agreement for sharing of viruses. This topic was then linked to another one on the agenda in relation to "public health, innovation and intellectual property" which also has important implications for GHG as well as GHRG (R=research), i.e. how can GHG/GHRG tackle this issue of equitable access to health products and avoid the perception of "economics always trumps health" (expressed by a delegatiion at the Assembly).

3. Continued interest in primary health care and the social determinants of health:

In the context of the "dual burden" of the global financial crisis and potential influenza pandemic, the Member States were even more concerned about the state of their national health systems. In particular, it was felt that the basis for strengthening health systems should include considerations of equity, solidarity, social justice, universal access to services, multi-sectoral action, decentralization and community participation.

Financing was obviously a big issue and some countries highlighted the fact that low-income countries in particular rely a lot on overseas development aid for their health systems-which may be reduced due to the financial crisis. This underscores the view held by some that the ultimate objective of good GHG is the strengthening of health systems in low and middle income countries. This, in turn, has direct implications for global health security more generally.

4. Inter-sectorality important in future:

The message that "health should be in all policies" was repeatedly heard during the Assembly and the Norwegian delegation, for example, quotes their minister of health who had stated that "to close the health gap between rich and poor in a generation, every minister must be a health minister". I think this is part of a larger global trend- a meeting was held recently in Asia (the Prince Mahidol Award Conference) on "Mainstreaming Health into Public Policies". Although the idea and importance of an inter-sectoral approach is clearly relevant, whether it can be extended on a practical level, e.g. to inter-agency cooperation, is an open question. For example, there was debate at the Assembly on whose role is it to take on IPR (Intellectuual Property Rights) issues related to health products (WHO? WIPO? WTO?).

5. Tuberculosis (TB):

Amidst all the excitement about influenza, Member States also agreed that antibiotic resistance, as exemplified by the ongoing problem of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB, deserves urgent attention and action. There are 500,000 cases of MDR TB and 50,000 cases of XDR TB annually (mostly in the developing world), and only 3% of patients are getting treatment according to standards recommended by WHO.

In terms of broader implications, it should be remembered that deaths during influenza pandemics in the past have been caused mainly by secondary bacterial infections (e.g. pneumonia)-so resistance to antibiotics may indeed be "the mother of all infectious disease challenges" (as expressed by one delegate).

6. Ongoing concern about support for WHO:

Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO appealed to the Member States for enhanced financial support for WHO. Dr Chan reiterated that only 20% of WHO's budget comes from Member States contributions (this figure is around 80% for other UN organizations) and that the other 80% are from external donors, often highly specified for specific project areas. This, of course, compromises WHO's independence and credibility as it runs the risk of having its agenda defined by donors-in all reality, WHO is now a "soft money" organization just like academic institutions relying on external grants . This clearly has important implications in light of the expectation of WHO leadership in global health in the future. [Tikki]

Global health's quest for governance

The Lancet, a leading medical journal published out of New York and London, recently ran an editorial which highlights an ongoing concern with governance within The Gates Foundation – one of the most active and generous philanthropic foundations in the world (US$ 3 billion annually).

The editorial starts out by, deservedly praising the invaluable contributions made by the Gates Foundation, particularly for its deep commitment to global health. The Lancet credits the Foundation for adding “renewed dynamism, credibility and attractiveness to global health” as well as “inaugurating an important new era of scientific commitment to global health predicaments”.

Much of the criticisms on the Foundation consist on two areas: the Foundation’s choice of investments; and its alleged lack of transparency in governing process.

On the choice of investment, the article points out following issues:

• “The Foundation gave most of its grants to organizations in high-income countries”

• “The grants made by the Foundation do not reflect the burden of disease endured by those in deepest poverty”

• “Important health programmes are being distorted by large grants from the Gates Foundation. In some countries, the valuable resources of the Foundation are being wasted and diverted from more urgent needs”

On the lack of transparency, the article argues that for such an influential investor in global health like the Gates Foundation should not just be governed by the Foundation’s guiding principle #1 - “This is a family foundation driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family.”

The article then proposes five recommendations for the Gates Foundation: Improve governance, increase transparency and accountability, allocate grants to better reflect disease burdens, invest in health systems and research capacity in low income countries and listen and be prepared to engage with others.

The following is a statement released by the Gates Foundation in response:

“We welcome this article and its finding. We try to be very thoughtful about how to target our resources and we constantly seek out feedback from outside experts and stakeholders. In the end, we use our best judgment to determine where our finding can achieve the greatest reductions in health inequity around the world. We are committed to communicating information about our strategy, grants, and results, and are using our website to make it easier to find this information.”

Read The Gates Foundation's Guiding Principles
Read The Gates Foundation's Approach to Giving

What If Women Ran the Wall Street?

Would the world be a better place today if there were not less bankers but rather more bankers with heart; and even a better place with more women bankers with a heart and a soul?  

Indie is one of my good friends in Singapore with whom I can sit and have those wonderful "Bengali adda" moments. Every few months, over a cup of "deshi cha" we philosophise about life, the world, and -- in true Bengali fashion -- criticise almost everything under the sun.



It was on one of those evenings, after a lazy dinner, while having cha, of course, we were trying to "talk" our way into fixing most of the world problems.  All of a sudden, Indie blurted out that she had told her daughter that one profession never to even think about is investment banking -- "those evil bankers." 



Having spent a portion of my career as an investment banker, my defenses came into gear. Yes, some bankers are to be blamed for today's problems, but the world does still needs bankers, just as it needs doctors and lawyers. Maybe the world would be a better place today if there were not less bankers but rather more bankers with heart; and even a better place with more women bankers with a heart and a soul. Remember, I was one. I can attest to it.

It was exactly 20 years ago that I was woken up from a late morning sleep by a telephone call from Morgan Stanley. A senior banker called to congratulate me and to offer me a job as a financial analyst in their corporate finance department in New York. I was ecstatic. In those days, getting an offer from Morgan Stanley truly marked one as a "chosen one." Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were two of the most prestigious investment banks in the Street. They interviewed tens of thousands of students from around the globe and selected only 60 to join their Financial Analyst Program (a two year program to get into the management track of the company.) I was one of those 60. 



Thus, my career as an investment banker began. I was a 21-year old, armed with an undergraduate degree from a prestigious liberal arts college in New England and a passion to change the world. How would Morgan Stanley help me change the world? I did not know, but what I did know was that as a Bangladeshi woman (the first one in the bank's history I was told), I was getting an incredible opportunity to work with some of the smartest people in the world who were shaping the global financial markets (or making a mess out of them -- whichever you prefer.) 

Working in a prestigious white-shoe bank, I hoped I would learn the Midas touch of efficient financial markets that I could bring back to my country. Of course in the process, I could also save a little money to go to graduate school -- that was the added bonus.



That summer between graduation and the start of my new job, I was filled with anticipation. 

Liar's Poker (by a former bond salesman about his experience working on Wall Street) had just come out and was a bestseller. While driving around California with my dear friend Sunita, I read it and everything else I could get my hands on about the new world I would be entering. After all, I had to be prepared -- I would be working with the creme de la creme of the academic institutions. I knew a lot of them would be difficult (jerks, to put it bluntly), but I would survive and thrive. I would be representing my country, my race, and my gender. I had the weight of many people's expectations on my shoulders. Well, if nothing else, I was naïve. 



The first day of work was a day-long orientation session. I, of course, overslept. I got up in a panic, could not get a taxi, missed my turn getting in the crowded subways, and eventually walked into the big orientation hall half an hour late, while Dick Fisher, president of Morgan Stanley, was touting the virtues and discipline of banking. Thus, my fist day got started with some rude stares and shaking of heads. The only redeeming factor of the day was that, in the process of being late -- all sweaty and stressed out -- I met my future husband in the elevator, all calm and collected. It was not really love at first sight, but more shared misery at first glance. Anyway, given that this is supposed to be an article about my professional life, I will skip the romance for now. 



Looking back on that first day, I don't remember much else except the advice one of the directors gave in his speech. He told us that Morgan Stanley was an intense place, and that a lot will be demanded from us. Consequently, he continued, there will be many moments when we will want to burst into tears. And, when that happens, "go to the toilet, flush it and cry; because frankly nobody wants to deal with a crybaby." I thought the man was insane. Well, sadly, that turned out to be one of the sanest suggestions I took away from that day, as I put it to good use more times than I would like to remember over the course of the next two years.



Despite the tears, in general, my time at Morgan Stanley was intellectually stimulating, and it taught me what I had hoped to learn -- how to be a banker. I learned accounting, finance, and the intricacies of capital markets. I also learned what terrible management styles and awful personal lives most bankers had, and how I never wanted to be one of them when I grew up. It was a badge of honour within the Financial Analyst team to work 100-hour weeks and to count how many all-nighters one pulled. The small handful of women in the bank were told that we had to keep up with the "machismo" of the environment if we wanted to "make it." 



It was eye opening to see what the top bankers could get away with if they brought in lucrative deals. I recall one banker who had his phone replaced virtually every week because -- out of rage -- he would regularly throw them against the wall. I also remember brilliant minds like Vikram Pandit (yes, the same one now running Citibank) who could be rude and condescending but who could also solve any problem I might have regarding even the most complicated equity issuance. 



I could write volumes about my time at Morgan Stanley, and maybe one day I should. For now, I have to borrow Dickens' words and sum it up as: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity."



Investment banking truly brings out the best and worst in people. One is pushed to the limit of intelligence, creativity, endurance, and at the same time raw competitiveness. Sports metaphors were a part of nearly every conversation. It was basically a testosterone-driven environment where "sink or swim" was practiced and honoured as a law of the jungle. All this was exacerbated because there were so few women around to bring a different sensibility in the picture. 



A recent survey found that nearly two-thirds of women employed in London's financial markets believe their gender makes it harder for them to succeed. The machismo of the environment makes it difficult for women to climb the banking ladder, and even if they do, there is definitely a glass ceiling that they cannot go beyond. 



Perhaps if more women would stay in this industry, change the macho politics and bring a different sensibility to it, we would not be in the financial mess we are in today. In recent World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, there was a pretty broad consensus among the participants that if Wall Street had been run by women they would have saved the world from the corrosive gambling culture that dominated many a trading room. 



While I did not stay on in Wall Street and fulfill my duty of making the Street a kinder and gentler place (I will leave that to the next generation of women bankers), I did use my banking skills to the fullest in my subsequent careers. I used my financial modeling skills to create growth models at Grameen Bank, my business forecasting acumen at the publishing companies I ran, and my deep financial know-how in starting my own company.



Now my career is coming full circle as I am putting in place the first Social Stock Exchange of Asia. I am making use of what I have learned in the last 20 years of a career that has spanned the social sector, media, academia, and most importantly, banking to create perhaps one of the most important financial platforms for Asia (or the world, for that matter.)



I could not have done this if I had not started my career on Wall Street. Those tears shed in the toilet stall will now help raise money to build toilets for hundreds and thousands of people without proper sanitation in Asia. As a woman, it feels especially good because I not only survived the Street but I am using it to help me change the world. Hats off to all the women bankers -- the world needs us. [Durreen]



This article was first published in The Daily Star. Durreen Shahnaz is the Founder and Chairman of Social Stock Exchange Asia and Head, Program on Social Innovation and Change at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS.

Centralised vs. Decentralised

Tikki Pang, a member of the S.T. Lee Project's Global Health Governance study group and Director, Research Policy & Cooperation at the World Health Organisation (WHO), emailed in few days ago a thought-provoking piece written by David Brooks of The New York Times. The Brooks' article addresses global health governance in the current context of the potential swine flue epidemic and the relative merits of a "top-down" centralised response versus a much more "bottom-up", decentralised approach in the context of responding to transnational threats like pandemic.


Swine flu isn’t only a health emergency. It’s a test for how we’re going to organize the 21st century.

In these post-cold war days, we don’t face a single concentrated threat. We face a series of decentralized, transnational threats: jihadi terrorism, a global financial crisis, global warming, energy scarcity, nuclear proliferation and, as we’re reminded today, possible health pandemics like swine flu.

These decentralized threats grow out of the widening spread and quickening pace of globalization and are magnified by it. Instant global communication and rapid international travel can sometimes lead to universal, systemic shocks. A bank meltdown or a virus will not stay isolated. They have the potential to hit nearly everywhere at once. They can wreck the key nodes of complex international systems.

So how do we deal with these situations? Do we build centralized global institutions that are strong enough to respond to transnational threats? Or do we rely on diverse and decentralized communities and nation-states?

A couple of years ago, G. John Ikenberry of Princeton wrote a superb paper making the case for the centralized response. He argued that America should help build a series of multinational institutions to address global problems. The great powers should construct an “infrastructure of international cooperation ... creating shared capacities to respond to a wide variety of contingencies.”

If you apply that logic to the swine flu, you could say that the world should beef up the World Health Organization to give it the power to analyze the spread of the disease, decide when and where quarantines are necessary and organize a single global response.

If we had a body like that, we wouldn’t be seeing the sort of frictions that are emerging from today’s decentralized approach. Europe has offended the U.S. by warning its citizens not to travel across the Atlantic. Ukraine is restricting pork imports. Europe could hoard flu vaccines, leaving the U.S., which has only one manufacturing plant, high and dry. Fear of a pandemic could lead to a restrictionist race, as nations compete to curtail movement and build walls.

Those dangers are all real. Yet, so far, that’s not the lesson of this crisis. The response to swine flu suggests that a decentralized approach is best. This crisis is only days old, yet we’ve already seen a bottom-up, highly aggressive response.

In the first place, the decentralized approach is much faster. Mexico responded unilaterally and aggressively to close schools and cancel events. The U.S. has responded with astonishing speed, considering there are still few illnesses and just one hospitalization.

The Times published a photo on Monday of the New York City health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, leading a crisis response meeting. The photo is the very image of a focused, local response. People are wearing polo shirts and casual wear — intensely concentrating on the concrete incidents in their own backyard.

If the response were coordinated by a global agency, those local officials would not be so empowered. Power would be wielded by officials from nations that are far away and emotionally aloof from ground zero. The institution would have to poll its members, negotiate internal differences and proceed, as all multinationals do, at the pace of the most recalcitrant stragglers.

Second, the decentralized approach is more credible. It is a fact of human nature that in times of crisis, people like to feel protected by one of their own. They will only trust people who share their historical experience, who understand their cultural assumptions about disease and the threat of outsiders and who have the legitimacy to make brutal choices. If some authority is going to restrict freedom, it should be somebody elected by the people, not a stranger.

Finally, the decentralized approach has coped reasonably well with uncertainty. It is clear from the response, so far, that there is an informal network of scientists who have met over the years and come to certain shared understandings about things like quarantining and rates of infection. It is also clear that there is a ton they don’t understand.

A single global response would produce a uniform approach. A decentralized response fosters experimentation.

The bottom line is that the swine flu crisis is two emergent problems piled on top of one another. At bottom, there is the dynamic network of the outbreak. It is fueled by complex feedback loops consisting of the virus itself, human mobility to spread it and environmental factors to make it potent. On top, there is the psychology of fear caused by the disease. It emerges from rumors, news reports, Tweets and expert warnings.

The correct response to these dynamic, decentralized, emergent problems is to create dynamic, decentralized, emergent authorities: chains of local officials, state agencies, national governments and international bodies that are as flexible as the problem itself.

Swine flu isn’t only a health emergency. It’s a test for how we’re going to organize the 21st century. Subsidiarity works best.


This article "Globalism Goes Viral" by David Brooks was published in The New York Times on 28 April 2009.

Best foreign affairs / politics movies

Stephen Walt of Harvard University has listed his favourite top ten movies on "foreign affairs / politics" in the latest issue of FOREIGN POLICY.

Here is my list of top five:

5. The Last Emperor
4. The Motorcycle Diaries
3. East / West
2. The Lives of Others
1. The Great Escape

And the honorable mention goes to: Team America (The Dear Leader carried this movie! Watch him singing "I am so ronry" and Hans Blix's "very very brief" meeting with the Dear Leader.

What's on your list? [Sung]

Difference between global governance and global government

CAG Director Ann Florini explains the difference between "global government" and "global governance," intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, and the role and achievements of civil society and transnational networks, particularly on environmental issues.

















[RELEVANT READING]

Ann's 15 April 2009 interview with The Straits Times "Asia is opening up, slowly".

"The seemingly opaque world of Asian governments is anything but that these days as several are trying to open up to scrutiny. Asia is a hotbed of experiments in this area."

Building knowledge on transparency innovations

Significant global trends are combining to make transparency and disclosure regulation one of the most important and exciting areas in which government and civil society can be working to transform and strengthen local governance structures.

Not only are advances in electronic and digital communications enabling people to access information that governments may not want publicized; ideas and norms have fundamentally shifted. It is increasingly expected across societies that “good” governments are transparent and open, and practitioners are also actively recognising that transparency can be a useful regulatory tool to improve performance across a range of governance sectors, from economic issues to environmental, health, and corruption concerns.

From March 4-6, 2009, The Asia Foundation and the Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore jointly hosted an International Workshop on Transparency and Access to Information. The event brought together academics, civil society members, and government officials from China, Vietnam, India, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, and the United States, to discuss ongoing innovations and challenges in the use of transparency regulation in strengthening local governance.

The workshop afforded opportunity for remarkably open discussion on the approaches and obstacles for transparency regulations that spanned the whole policy-making process. For example, at the policy drafting stage, the Vietnam National Assembly has agreed to include an Access to Information law into the 2009 legislative agenda and assigned the Ministry of Justice to head the drafting committee, with the expectation for the law to be promulgated in 2010. At the implementation stage, China’s Open Government Information (OGI) regulation came into force on May 1, 2008, and efforts are ongoing to implement the regulation at the local level. And on the enforcement and sustainability question, countries such as Korea and Mexico have had access to information laws in place for over a decade, placing them in a position of being able to share plentiful lessons in implementation and efforts at improvement over time.

The diversity of country experiences gathered in Singapore made for some intense discussion on the wide-ranging approaches to enacting transparency regulations. For example, India’s remarkable transparency law was the result of a sustained and extremely widespread campaign carried out by a vast network of civil society groups across the country. China’s OGI regulation, in contrast, evolved from a combination of sustained experiments by local governments, on the one hand, and central level legislative commitment on the other.

The workshop saw participants engaging in lively discussion on the various roles of government, civil society, and academia in advancing the use and understanding of transparency as a governance tool. Some emphasized that civil society demand for information is crucial to the successful practice and implementation of access to information laws and regulations, and underscored the need for civil society to be constantly vigilant and to act as a check against the government. Others placed greater store on the need to have stronger government leadership and political will to drive reform and overcome the myriad of vested interests within the system, to create an effective system of disclosure, and transform the mindsets of public officials. Still other participants commented that it would be important to debunk some of the common myths and misconceptions leading to fears about the potentially destabilizing effects of government openness. Academia plays an important role in this process, in building up research projects that rigorously investigate the relationship between transparency regulations, and governing performance.

Participants also tackled the relationship between transparency regulations and democracy. It was pointed out that in Mexico, a gradual and steady process of democratization led to transparency being viewed as an important component of the democratic system. Some argued that transparency can only flourish in a culture where the principle of transparency is tightly coupled with the democratic notion of access to information as an individual right.

On the other hand, it was also argued that transparency regulations can work across a wide range of political environments. For example, in Vietnam a surprisingly vibrant media and the growing importance of public opinion in the country’s political, economic, and social life are energizing the call for greater transparency and access to information. One presenter suggested a few broad guiding principles for the enactment of successful transparency laws: First, the laws should be compatible with the existing political environment; second, the law has to benefit public officials as well as the people, so that there are proper incentives for successful implementation; and third, implementation efforts should involve participation from civil society and the media.

The workshop saw substantive discussion on the challenges of implementation. It was noted that there are several challenges lying ahead for the implementation of the OGI regulation in China. Particular attention was given to the initial efforts being done by the Legislative Affairs Office of Hunan Province, with technical support from The Asia Foundation.

In general, participants noted a wide range of challenges on the implementation front. First, challenges can arise from a culture of secrecy within the government and bureaucracy, and a lack of political will and commitment. Second is the challenge of having adequate resources, building the proper systems and procedures for archiving, record-keeping and disclosure, and training for public servants. Third is to establish consistency between new disclosure regulations and existing laws, particularly secrecy laws. Fourth, it is critical to generate sufficient awareness within the government bureaucracy and publicly across business and society. Without outside pressure and demand for information, the government faces little incentive to implement disclosure systems properly.

Moving forward, workshop participants raised a wide-ranging set of research and programmatic agendas for potential future collaboration. There was an enthusiastic reception to the idea of forming global networks between academic institutions, civil society organizations, and governments to promote long-term sharing of knowledge and learning in transparency that can help create awareness and build norms across sectors.

Participants were also keenly interested in the development of indicators for assessing the performance of transparency initiatives. It is clear that the issue of transparency and governance is a topic of great relevance to Asia’s development. As countries from India to Vietnam to China continue to experiment with different approaches to transparency, it is likely that we will be witnessing significant innovations coming from the region. [Yeling]

Yeling Tan is The Asia Foundation’s Consultant in Singapore. She can be reached at ytan@asiafound.org.

Inadequacies of the status quo

Professor Tommy Koh is Ambassador-At-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, Chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the National Heritage Board. Professor Koh shares his views on key trends in global governance, how should Asia and Southeast Asia be more engaged in global governance, what to expect from Obama Administration and finally the EU’s role in global governance.


Q. What are your assessments of the key trends shaping global governance?

The first key trend is the speed, breadth and depth of globalization. We have become inter-connected and, to varying degrees, inter dependent. What happens in one part of the world will have an impact on other parts of the world. The current global financial and economic crisis started in Wall Street and in the US, but, it spread very quickly, across the Atlantic, to Europe, and then to the rest of the world. So, because of globalization, an American crisis has become a global crisis.

The second key trend is that many of our global challenges cannot be solved by any single country, no matter how powerful, or by a group of like-minded countries. They can only be solved by all the countries of the world, working together. Take global warming and climate change as an example. It is a problem which cannot be solved by the US alone or by a group of like-minded States comprising the US, Europe and Japan. It can only be solved by a new international consensus, supported by all the countries of the world, including China and India.

The third key trend is the growing deficit between the world’s need for global governance and the inadequacies of the status quo. I am glad that the LKY School has launched the ST Lee Project to address this problem.


Q. How is global governance conceived in Southeast Asia and what role can this region play in global governance?

Southeast Asia is one of the most globalized regions of the world. It is a region which does not reject globalization but welcomes it. It seeks to harness the opportunities presented by the bright side of globalization and to cope with the challenges released by the dark side.

The region plays a positive and pro-active role in global governance through its regional organization, ASEAN, and through other regional organizations, such as, ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN+3, the East Asia Summit and through such inter-regional forums as APEC, the Asia-Europe Meeting, Forum of East Asia and Latin-America and the Asia-Middle East Dialogue.

ASEAN also plays an active role at the global level, at the UN, WTO, WHO, IMO, ICAO, UNEP, etc. ASEAN is aware of the deficit in global governance. It will work cooperatively with other regions of the world to reduce and, if possible, erase that deficit.


Q. What contributions can Asia make to global governance?

Asia is a major beneficiary of globalization. Asia is also a region of growing prosperity. Asia must, therefore, behave as a responsible stakeholder and not as a free rider. What does “responsibility” mean?

First, it means that Asia should be generous in sharing its wealth, knowledge, expertise and experience with other less developed regions of the world. Japan’s generous ODA is a laudable example. The current efforts by China and India to help Africa develop its infrastructure is another example.

Second, Asia should shoulder a larger burden in helping the world to maintain international peace and security, such as, in peace-keeping missions.

Third, Asia should contribute leadership and intellectual capital to global governance. It is not enough for Asia to contribute money, eg “cheque book diplomacy” or provide “arms and legs”, eg sending troops to UN peace-keeping missions. We must also provide the world with Asian leadership and Asian ideas.


Q. What role would you like the US to play in global governance in our multi-polar world?

I think the Obama Administration would probably agree that we no longer live in a unipolar world. The world has become increasingly multi-polar. It is, however, also true that not all the poles are equally powerful. The US is, in every respect, the most powerful country in the world. Whether you love or hate the US, you will probably agree that the US is the indispensable leader of the world. Few enterprises will succeed without the participation and support of the US.

My vision is for the US to return to its historic role of world leader. My hope is that the US will seek to translate its overwhelming power into moral leadership; that the US will lead but not dictate; that it will respect international law and international institutions; and that it will resort to the use of force only as the last resort. The US leads best when it leads by example.


Q. What is your view on Europe’s role in global governance?

Europe suffers from a bad press in Asia. There is inadequate appreciation in Asia of the miracle which the EU represents. One only has to compare Europe in the two halves of the 20th Century to understand my point.

The EU is an expanding oasis of peace and prosperity in Europe. Europe is not a fortress but is open to the world. When drafting the ASEAN Charter in 2007, my colleagues and I often looked to the EU for inspiration. Europe has an important leadership role in all aspects of global governance and not just in setting new norms. Let me give some examples of the kind of leadership which we would like to see more of. The former President of Finland, Maarti Ahtisaari, brought peace to Aceh. The EU and ASEAN provided observers to oversee the process of disarmament and reconciliation. Another European, Pascal Lamy, is head of the WTO and is driving the desperate quest for a successful conclusion to the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The EU took the initiative to propose the convening of the G20 Summit, in Washington, in September 2008, to address the global financial and economic crisis.

The EU also took the initiative to convince the UN Security Council to authorize the use of naval power to combat the Somali pirates preying on ships off the Gulf of Aden. I therefore believe that Europe has played and will continue to play a constructive leadership role in global governance.


This interview was first published in the February 2009 edition of Rapporteur - CAG Newsletter.

Creating Social Stock Exchange Asia

My phone beeps. I forgot to put my mobile phone on silent mode. I am thoroughly embarrassed because I am sitting in the first of hopefully many important meetings with the officials of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. We are discussing the merits of situating a Social Stock Exchange in Singapore. I cannot resist -- I glace down at my phone under the table and see that the text message is from the company registration board telling me that the registration of Social Stock Exchange Asia (SSXA) has been approved.

I am ecstatic. I have been on pins and needles because the registration took several weeks to process (as opposed to the 24 hours it usually takes to register a company in Singapore.) I had worried that this was because the only other exchange in the country is the Singapore Stock Exchange, partly owned by the government. Needless to say, even the mere registration of SSXA had the potential to raise a few eyebrows.

Raised eyebrows aside, the fact remains that on March 20, 2009, SSXA was created to provide a capital market for social good. This indeed is the start of a new era and an apt response to the financial greed that gripped most of the developed world for the past several decades. The best part is that SSXA has the potential to be the sensible Asian response to the Western mayhem and bring social consciousness to the forefront of global financial markets.

Creating a Social Stock Exchange is indeed a lofty goal; but I cannot aim at anything less lofty. Exactly ten years ago, I created my first social purpose company, oneNest. It was an idea that germinated from my time at Grameen Bank when I saw many micro-entrepreneurs struggling due to lack of market access for their products. These entrepreneurs needed more than access to credit, they needed help managing the supply chain. Grameen Bank ultimately recognized this and eventually responded by creating Grameen Check and Grameen Shamogri.

A few years later when the twists and turns of life gave me the opportunity to start a company, I reached back to my Grameen days and created a market place where I brought together, on the one hand, thousands of microcredit borrowers and cooperatives creating beautiful handmade personal and household products with, on the other hand, luxury catalog companies, boutiques and department stores in the Western market. I ran and grew oneNest and eventually sold it (granted I had very little control of the company by the end -- but that is another story). However, the thought always nagged me that I could not do enough for the disadvantaged millions of the world. I had to do more. Now is my second chance.

What will SSXA do? Simply put, it will increase access to capital for enterprises with a social mission. On a bigger scale, it will help social enterprises further develop the professionalism of their operations and create a whole ecosystem around it to support social enterprises – some of which is already in the works. SSXA will be Asia’s first social stock exchange, providing a trading platform and an efficient capital raising mechanism for Asian Social Enterprises (SEs), including both for-profit and not-for-profit entities with a social mission. SSXA will connect these SEs with impact investors seeking to achieve both a social return and an economic return on their investment while providing capital to fund innovative social businesses. This platform will also enable philanthropic donations.

Such an exchange will bring all the relevant players in the ecosystem together, speaking the same language and assisting one another in creating greater social good. It will encourage the governments, civil societies, academics, investment banks, research companies, auditing bodies and social enterprises to agree on a framework to measure social value, common terminology, transparency, and social and financial goals.

Social enterprises seeking to list shares or bonds on the exchange will go through proper social and financial auditing (third party validation) and report regularly to investors on both their social and financial results. Investors purchasing shares and bonds on the exchange will be attracted by the transparent disclosure of social returns and will evaluate companies based on both their social and financial returns. They will understand that a social enterprise may not maximize its earnings due to the cost associated with fulfilling its social mission. And they will be willing to accept a limited financial return in order to support this mission. Of course, given the current dismal state of the market for profit-maximizing businesses, any economic return topped with a social return may feel like a windfall to an investor.

Social investors are an emerging group of investors in the financial market. In Europe, and especially in the UK, they are a rapidly growing group which initially focused on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) but now includes many investors focused on investing in social enterprises and social purpose businesses. These investors comprise of private investors, high net worth individuals, family offices, investment funds and charitable foundations with the common thread being that they seek double bottom line returns (ie, social and financial returns) from their investments. Given the current financial climate, more and more charities are also leaning towards ‘mission-related investment’ as well. In the UK alone, there are now over 25 billion pounds dedicated to socially responsible investment.

In Asia, the social investor pool is smaller, but growing. Bodies such as UNPRI (United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing) and ASRIA (Association for Socially Responsible Investing in Asia) are actively promoting the notion of socially responsible investing. A number of family offices and wealthy individuals in Asia are also focused on social investment. Much of the interest so far has been focused on microfinance institutions. In addition, Islamic banking has been very active in South East Asia in promoting their unique brand of responsible investing. SSXA will push the envelope on the existing socially responsible investing, bring forward social enterprises and social purposes companies (in addition to microfinance) in energy, water/sanitation, media, fair-trade, health, education, and cottage industry and bring to the attention of these investors a whole new set of enterprises which would not have been noticed otherwise.

Such a platform/exchange cannot be created overnight. It will take years before SSXA is a robust trading platform. However, with the proper assistance and support from other members of the social investing ecosystem, it can become the cornerstone of a potentially very large social enterprise economy. Given the current economic climate, I have to say, organizations and government bodies are ready to pause and listen. I thank them for that. As more players embrace the idea of SSXA, each will become a crucial part of a peaceful revolution in the making. [Dureen]


Dureen Shahnaz is Founder of Social Stock Exchange Asia and Head of Programme on Social Innovation and Change at the Lee Kuan Yew Schoool of Public Policy, National University of Singapore

Two Old Presidents and Barrack Obama

Deep into January 2001, two children of former presidents took their oath. George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the 14th President of the Philippines.

Both assumed their office in a cloud of legitimacy. He lost the popular vote to Al Gore, but after a protracted legal struggle in those unceasing Florida recounts, was awarded the presidency by five Supreme Court judges. She assumed hers through a second round of people power uprising, after which the unanimous pronouncement of twelve Philippine Supreme Court judges granted the Constitutional certainty of her ascension.

An egg pelted George W. Bush limousine on the way to the inaugural site. He raised his hand on the Capitol steps in Washington with thousands of protestors carrying placards that read, “Hail to the Thief!”

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo raised hers at the Edsa shrine amidst a jubilant middle-class citizenry who congratulated themselves yet again for another presidential ouster. Meanwhile the poorer classes who awarded Joseph Estrada a landslide victory in the 1998 elections stayed away, sneering and hissing at the spectacle of a stolen presidency.

He had eight inaugural balls the night before his inaugural, all of them black-tie events. Hers was a four-day street party of savvy texters. Drunk with triumph, the urbanite protestors gyrated along the ten- kilometer stretch of Edsa to the music of the Ouster Band.

He is known to falter in the English language. The Brits call him “The English Patient” for the way he so badly needs remedial lessons. He massacres the words “nuclear” and “trepidation,” and could barely remember the names of heads of state during televised debates with his opponent. While Americans were nervous about having a “mentally-challenged” President, Filipinos were secure in the competence, at least linguistically, of theirs. After all, she has a PhD in Economics.

On the day America celebrated its new President, the weather sucked. It was bitterly cold in Washington on inaugural night of January 20th 2001. Rain had become snow. The next morning the new President woke up to a nasty winter storm.

At the other wide of the world on Saturday noon of January 20th 2001, the sun was brilliant and warm when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became the 14th president of the Philippines. The middle class of Metro Manila celebrated the triumph of another Edsa, their bodies standing tall, their hearts feeling stout again.

Fast forward to January 20, 2009, eight years to the exact same day. It’s bitingly cold in Washington DC, but the day is bright with the sun out. Somewhat like people power in Manila, an estimated two million people came to view the inaugural of the first African-American president, Barack Obama, except that this one stands solidly and firmly on Constitutional foundations. No pelting eggs, no booing, no hissing but a whole lot of cheering and clapping.

At a little past noon, the country definitively closed the page on the Bush presidency and opened a new one. The world watched the fifth youngest US president step into the most powerful office with an aura of near-invincibility, while Aretha Franklin sang as though her voice had been honed through many years of song for this one musical moment.

What makes presidential winners finally deserving of their office is not what they bring to the campaign but what they deliver to the electorate at the moment of their victory. Candidate Obama has won, and President Obama he has become. With his victory is the transformation of the nation itself, with aspirations bigger and better than all the different sentiments of the citizens combined.

Colin Powell aptly described Barack Obama as a “transformational figure.” Beyond this outstanding description lies a sense of deep faith shared by all, Americans and non-Americans alike, that the world can be re-made and that people can make better choices. Two million people stood outside to testify to this faith. Several millions more watched on television, as if the world was experiencing a Durkheimian “collective efflorescence”

Barack Obama embodies this faith. This was the source of his easy victory. To move us all along forward, resolutely. To forge ahead despite the burdens of an economic recession and a dangerous world with two raging wars. To wear power and strength, but graciously, much like the African adage that was Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite: “carry a big stick, but speak softly.”
The true task of the presidency, I submit, is a firm and resolute commitment to it, to ensure that the sacredness and sanctity that citizens have imbued the office with are preserved, if not expanded. Presidents become enlarged persons when wearing presidential shoes, because they are expected to assume bigger-than-life proportions. They must be transcendent of narrow desires and ambitions, free of the pettiness and vulgarity that grips ordinary people. President Obama is America’s redemption and America’s pride.

Meanwhile, two other presidents on opposite sides of the world --- one ex, the other an incumbent --- are competing for the title of the Most Unpopular President.

He’s back in Texas and hasn’t been heard from. No one from the global media seems to think it worthwhile to do a post-mortem.

She’ll still be around for another sixteen months. Filipinos have suffered her this long; perhaps it’s worth the wait, just to avoid another constitutional row. That’s assuming she doesn’t concoct some legal maneuver to prolong her stay. Which might mean another people power uprising, and thus elevate the practice as the country’s national pastime.

Like America, I prefer to keep my faith. [Tess]


This article was first published in Globalnation.inquier.com

Witnessing a movement

Like many Bangladeshis living overseas, I was energised by the US election, which produced a remarkable president and, as importantly, mobilised the young and old like no other political event in recent history.

Was it possible for such an election to occur in Bangladesh? I was sceptical. But, I flew to Bangladesh with hopes of being a part of history in the making. Thankfully, my scepticism was proven wrong. What I experienced was far beyond my fondest imagination.

On returning home and embarking on election work, I not only witnessed a remarkably orderly election process, but also had the feeling that it was just the most recent manifestation of a movement that is gripping the nation. I witnessed that the citizens cared about the election and wanted to make a difference through their votes.

Like my fellow citizens, I got swept into the wave of optimism and felt that anything was possible. Only when I stepped out of this wave did I realise that what I had experienced was a movement, a powerful movement that none of our political parties could have imagined gripping the nation after years of political, social and economic abuse of the people.

While I was basking in the warm glow from the excitement of the election process, I had another reason to feel good as I saw that the new cabinet would contain four women ministers. For the first time, our politicians realised that we needed women more than just as figureheads of the political parties.

Dr. Dipu Moni, whom I had the chance to meet a few weeks ago on the campaign trail, is the new foreign minister. My “chance meeting” with Dr. Moni took place in Chandpur at a Mukho Mukhi program organised by Shujon (Shushashoner Jonnyo Nagorik). This and many other Shujon programs gave me opportunities to meet the candidates.

As a proud participant in Shujon's democratic process, I sent Dr. Moni a congratulatory text message. Just think about thisI, an ordinary citizen, had the chance to actually speak with a potentially powerful candidate and then text her. If this is not a sign of a powerful new movement, I don't know what is.

There were a number of organisations that can take credit for bringing this new voice to the people. The social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations played their role in uplifting and empowering Bangladeshis over the past several decades. In this election, however, this empowerment was put to practice by entities like Shujon. Shujon collected information on all 1500+ candidates and organised over 80 Mukho Mukhi programs.

As a witness to the process, I can definitely say that Shujon's process of disseminating information and publicising its message of electing the “clean and right candidates” influenced many thousands of voters. My congratulations and gratitude to the more than a hundred thousand volunteers who worked tirelessly to make this process possible.

While the Americans celebrate the beginning of a successful grassroots movement initiated by a charismatic leader, we need to celebrate Bangladesh's successful grassroots movement initiated by its citizens. There was no one leader or party that mobilised the citizens. It was the people themselves.

Platforms like Mukho Mukhi allowed the people to speak up. In gatherings of several thousand people, women got up and asked the candidates what they would do for women, young people asked about job opportunities, and young/old all asked how clean the candidates would be. They were making clear to the candidates that they must serve the people.

This fire of citizen movement that has been ignited needs to be nurtured and developed. If not dealt with carefully, such a fire can become uncontrollable or die. The winning party not only has to live up to its election mandates but also has to listen to the millions of voices across the nation. In the US, President Obama's team is keeping the fire of his movement burning by creating “Organizing America.” We need to do the same.

Shujon, along with similar organisations, will continue to push along the democratic system by promoting: accountalibility of the elected officials; decentralised governance; grassroot participation in democracy; women's, children's and minority rights; youth involvement; and self reliance. However, all political parties need to become a part of this process.

The new government needs to work with community leaders to empower the citizens and mobilise them for good governance, social justice, clean politics and correct policies. It should with start communicating with the people.

Perhaps our leaders can take a page from the Obama book and keep the line of communication open with the people. Dr. Moni, I am looking forward to your response to my text to you! [Durreen]


This article was first published in The Daily Star.

Building global governance around the human being

This is a transcrip of speech by Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore, George Yeo at the 2008 S.T. Lee Project on Global Governance Conference, 4-6 December in Singapore.

First let me thank Kishore for inviting me here this evening to join you for a discussion on global governance. I feel very honoured to be paired with Strobe Talbott, whose speech I enjoyed very much. A few weeks ago, Ann Florini sent me his book – The Great Experiment - which I dipped into with pleasure. He had a section on gypsies which I really enjoyed reading. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a Roman Cardinal some years ago when I was in Rome attending the canonisation of the Opus Dei founder Josemaría Escrivá. The cardinal said that John Paul II had not too long before, canonised a gypsy saint; and St Peters square was flooded with gypsies. But this time in a role which most Italians were not used to seeing. The Roman Cardinal said to the gypsy leader: “Now that you have your own saint you have got to behave better.” The manner in which he narrated this story to me showed first, recognition of the problem, then a challenge to better behaviour but, most importantly, love, profound love. Reading Strobe Talbott’s account of the gypsies in his book, how he sought them out in order to understand better, I thought that this is a man with a heart. I had not met Strobe before and am very proud to be joining him this evening for this discussion on global governance, which must always put human beings at the heart of what we are trying to do.

There are almost infinite ways in which human beings can be organised. That is the study of history, and gypsies who are unrooted in geography are an example. For the first time, more than any other time in history on this planet, we are all bound together. Yet at the same time, each community, it could be a nation or tribe, has centuries if not thousands of years of legacy transmitted through its cultural DNA, which is very difficult to change. There was a time in Australia when they thought that they could pole-vault the aborigines into the 20th Century by taking the young away from their parents and then educating them in a modern environment. The result was an absolute tragedy. We do not quite know how the cultural DNA is transmitted from mother to child. We know it takes a village to raise a human being. In ways, we do not fully understand, the cultural transmission is tenacious. When we talk about globalisation, we are talking about the way in which we bring different complex operating systems together. It is like the internet. The internet was an ARPA discovery. That by each operating system accepting a certain protocol, TCP/IP, different systems could interconnect even though they have different legacies and different deep programmes. Built upon this, through hyperlinks, we could communicate as if we belonged to a common system. In some ways, this is what globalisation is. Through common rules, such as those of the UN, rules of warfare, rules of human conduct, rules of trade in WTO, rules of financial management in BIS, and so on, different countries and different systems are able to come together resulting in a greater division of labour and greater productivity for humanity as a whole.

The recent financial crisis is a crisis of that hyperlink, or an aspect of that hyperlink. The global imbalance - so much has been written about it, this is not the subject which I am going to talk about tonight. Except that the financial crisis is a problem of the higher system which links us all together. Strobe talked about President Bush convening the G-20 meeting to address the problem, of this hyperlink or the hyper net. But if you look deeper into it, stripped of all the extraneous aspects, the core relationship in the 21st Century is the relationship between the US as the world’s sole superpower today and China as an emergent superpower. I am not discounting the importance of Europe, Russia, Japan, Brazil or India – after all we are talking about the multi-polar reality this century - but the core is the Sino-US relationship. If we get that right, I believe the other poles can be fitted in and the global system can run reasonably effectively. But if that nexus between the US and China is broken, there is no way we can put the global system together. Whether it is a problem of proliferation or climate change or financial stability, without the US-China nexus, it cannot work.

This evening, I would like to talk about this critical relationship in global governance - the Sino-US relationship. These two countries, China and US constitute very different operating systems. Singapore is a point, a city state and we take the world as it is. We do not try to change the world because we cannot change the world. But, we got to adapt to it and live by arbitraging differences in systems, cultures and so on. We are three-quarters Chinese, so we have a certain familiarity with the Chinese system but we were established by the British East India Company. We use English as our common language for communication. Our legal system, our administrative systems, are all Anglo-Saxon in origin. There is a lot of the Anglo-Saxon world in us. When we deal with the Chinese, we switch to our Chinese channel, when we deal with the Americans; we switch to our American channel. We do this almost instinctively because we are taught at a young age to adjust to different groups and different combinations of groups. This is really what defines Singapore - our multi-channel characteristic.

But going back to China, to what it is, and why it is so different from the US. China is China. China is a highly evolved civilisation which is almost impossible for any individual or group of individuals to change rapidly. Mao Zedong in his final days said he achieved very little. This was by his own admission. China has a tradition, what Fairbanks called the Great Tradition, which is persistent and enduring. Some years ago, when I was Minister for Heritage and Information on a visit to China, I asked to see Mao Zedong's hometown Shaoshan in Hunan. I visited the museum which had the usual political presentation. But next to the museum was the Mao ancestral temple which to me was far more interesting. In front of me, on the high altar, tablets of the most important forebears, an urn with incense burning, and Mao was on that altar.

Recently when I had dinner with a cousin from my ancestral village in southern China, we were talking about the Hakkas, you know Lee Kuan Yew is a Hakka, and an important town in Guangdong is Meixian where Ye Jianying, came from. Ye Jianying was the man who protected Deng Xiaoping from the Gang of Four so that after Mao died, he could be resurrected, and his leadership changed China. He told me that if you visit Ye’s ancestral temple, you would find many great men in that family tree. It is a glorious ancestral temple.

A few years ago I went back to my ancestral temple. They were re-opening one branch and I had to do the ceremonies. I could not say no because it would look very bad if I were to deny them that honour, if I were to decline their invitation. After the ceremony I asked to record the names of my children in the ancestral book. When I said “My daughter's name is . . . “, they said "Oh, girls do not have to be recorded, only your sons". My sister who was with me grumbled "You see, when they want money, they contact you, when it comes to recording who you are, they ignore the girls". But the daughters-in-law are a separate matter. I have a nephew whose daughter-in-law is British, and they wanted her name. They said "What's her name?" “Jane Goodall.” “How do you write it?” "J,a, ". They wrote it down letter by letter. Sons and the wombs bearing sons are recorded. Throughout Southern China, despite all the official talk about Communism and so on, an ancient tradition is coming back with amazing force. Every Chinese Minister, every State Councillor, every Vice-Premier, every member of the Standing Committee is being claimed by his ancestral temple because it brings honour to the ancestors, it brings honour to the progeny. Listening to Hu Jintao in recent years, he talks about a harmonious society and you notice they downplay the dictatorship of the proletariat and the class struggle. They have gone back to Confucius now. This Confucian aspect of Chinese society is deep in the cultural DNA and not something which can be willed away. Yes, when you're trying to overthrow the emperor or government, you debunk Confucius but when they re-establish power, they bring it back.

China is a country, indeed it is a civilisation, with a deep sense of itself. Every dynasty considers it a duty to record the history of the previous dynasty, and over the centuries, 24 official histories had been written, astonishing in its accuracy with respect to names, events and geography but always exaggerating triumphs and failures. Today, the history of Southeast Asia, the history of many parts of the world including India and Central Asia, would not be a fraction of what it is without reference to the Chinese records. The last Chinese dynasty was the Qing dynasty which ended in 1911. It is only a few years ago that the PRC decided to write the official history of the Qing dynasty. After close to a hundred years! Li Lanqing, the Vice-Premier, spoke to the scholars and the historians before they embarked on this exercise: “Collect the material - local sources, provincial sources, foreign sources - but do not be too quick to draw conclusions”. This is an instinct or a worldview which no other civilisation has. The Chinese have no desire to convert a non-Chinese into Chinese. They are like the Jews, if you not born one, that is okay, there is no requirement for you to become one. But for precisely this reason the Chinese have a view of the world which sees globalisation in terms of China at the centre, and China's relationships with other countries individually. The idea of a melange, a complex network with multiple nodes, is something not comfortable to the Chinese. This is in stark contrast to the American view of the world.

The first time I was in China to visit my grandparents, I went with my parents. My experience was a deeply emotional one. It was the only time in my life when I kept a daily diary. When last year I read Obama's book Dreams from my Father, going through his last chapter on his visit to Kenya, I felt a strong resonance. Obama felt he had to go back to find out where he came from, the way I felt I had to go back to find out where I came from. It is emotionally entangling because you have all these relatives and obligations, elders who make claims on you which you resented but which you felt you have to oblige to a degree because it is expected of you. Then when you left, you felt a certain relief but also feeling a compulsion to come back from time to time. And a few years later, I brought my wife, after I got married, to see my grandparents.

Obama brought his wife back to see his roots in Kenya. For that reason, he is a very unusual person because of his background. He said when he went back to the US, he felt a certain liberation. And indeed Asians visiting the US breathe fresh air because it is a country which downplays tradition. You can be who you are, you can express your views freely, and you are under not too many obligations. Every time I visit the US, I try to visit heritage sites in New England, Monticello, Mount Vernon and Philadelphia, reading the speeches of the founding fathers, the deliberations that led to the founding of the republic and the writing of the Constitution. They are deeply inspiring, because here were a group of men, people who left Europe, who were persecuted in Europe, arriving on a new continent determined to create human society afresh. In Obama's speeches, you hear echoes of the founding fathers. Because the US was conceived in that manner, it has a different culture; it has a missionary spirit, wanting others to be like them. So unlike the Chinese who do not seek to convert you and make you Chinese, Americans want you to become American because it is such a good thing.

If we look at globalisation today, it is really an American construct, the hyperlink - the HTML language, the XML language - is basically an American language. It is expressed in accounting rules, financial rules, the way armies are organised, industrial standards, financial standards and so on. The problem is when the US becomes excessive in this missionary zeal. Political scientists like Kissinger talk about the dual strain in American foreign policy. There is the national interest which defines the foreign policy of all countries, but there is in American foreign policy always an additional strain, a call to an American ideal, a desire to spread the word, to democratise the world. To a point, that is very attractive and to an extent it enables the world to be globalised. But beyond a point, when you start intruding into the deep operating system of particular countries or tribes, it creates problems.

When America goes into Iraq and tries to democratise Iraqi society as if it has no legacy, you have a problem. When it goes into Afghanistan, and tries to overwrite deep tribal instincts, it runs into problems. I was in Iran a few years ago, in 2004 the year after the US moved into Iraq. It was a very interesting visit; I went to Persepolis and had a sense of how the Iranian saw themselves as being an ancient people with a long history. Someone in my delegation on the last day decided to ask the protocol officer who accompanied me a provocative question. He asked him. “If the Americans were to invade Iran, would you fight the Americans?” His reply shocked me. In a loud voice he said, “Fight them? I would lead them in and show them the way.” I was worried for him. He spoke at such a high volume I thought that they would immediately arrest him and throw him into some dark dungeon. In fact if you meet ordinary Iranians, there is a great affection for American culture. Of course, in the establishment, among the elite, there is a strong nationalism that would not buckle to American pressure. American culture can be very attractive, propagated through Hollywood, through its products and services, its brands or the ideas of its founding fathers. But when the US seeks to go beyond that, it finds resistance and limits.

When we talk about global governance and America leading the way, there is no substitute for American leadership because the software linking the world is fundamentally American. The Chinese cannot do that. The Indians cannot do that. The Europeans cannot do that. The Japanese cannot do that. Look at it another way, if one day planet earth were in danger and the only way to preserve the species was to colonise another planet and we draw people from all over the world for that journey. How will human society be organised in that new world? I believe that society is more likely to be like America rather than China, India or Japan. Recently the Chinese had a man walk in space, and being ethnic Chinese, many of us in Singapore felt proud of the achievement. When you watched the people in the Chinese control room cheering, they were all Chinese faces. But when you watch a space launch in the US and observe the people in the control room, they are individuals drawn from all of humanity. If one day there is a Spaceship Enterprise, the Captain can be white, brown, yellow or black and we would not be surprised.

Coming back to the issue of global governance - America has to lead, but America has to lead in a way which acknowledges the diversity of the human family. Whether you are a gypsy or an Australian aborigine or a Chinese or Indian – in fact there are many kinds of Indians - or Arab or Jew, each is profoundly different. Yes, there are similarities which enable us to intercourse like we do this evening. But when it is time to marry off our young, when it is time to conduct funeral rituals, we are different and we have no wish to be the same. Please do not get me wrong when I talk mostly about Sino-US relations. It is not because I am downplaying the importance of Russia, Europe, Japan, India or Brazil or other countries but because I believe in this century that is the single most important relationship to be concerned with.

I would also like to make a brief comment about Islam because I believe Islam is a big challenge to all of us in this century for a variety of reasons. We need more than a seminar or a speech to talk about why Islam is a challenge in this century. Just yesterday, I had a very interesting discussion with the Aga Khan. I was charmed by him. I was so impressed by his sense of humanity and he is the Imam of the Ismaili Shia community! There are 15 million of them in the world. I thought, this is a very different perspective of Islam which we are not used to seeing. For many of us, in many parts of the world, Islam is associated with terrorism, blood and violence, with men wearing turbans and beards. Yes, there is an aspect of Islam which is Salafi, which enabled Muhammed in the 7th Century to unite the tribes of the deserts and steppelands, which many centuries later, also enabled Abdul Aziz Saud to reunite the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. But that is only one aspect of Islam. There is also the Islam of Samarkand, Bokhara, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo and Cordoba which represented a great civilization. We are in the middle of a financial crisis. There is so much written about it. I was reflecting on the Muslim proscription against insurance and interest payment. We used to laugh at these strange proscriptions but there is wisdom in them. The underlying concern is about moral hazards when the interests of claimants diverge. When we look at the problem of the financial world today and what led to the crisis, it is because the interests of claimants are opposed. So there is something in Islamic finance which makes a lot of sense. It is important, even as we fight terrorism, to see the achievements of Islam - to celebrate a civilisation which is so well presented in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, which you can see today in Doha in the new Islamic Centre designed by I M Pei, in the Aga Khan. They enable us to view Islam in perspective and sow greater respect between Muslims and non Muslims. This is very important because, without respect, we cannot deal and, if we do not deal, we suboptimise on the solutions we find.

An Indonesian Minister told me this a few months ago. It was a story that I could not recount earlier because it would be interfering in American domestic politics. He said that at a reception in Washington, he saw Obama whom he knew from before across the room. Obama shouted at him “Assalamu Alaikum” and he replied “Alaikum As-Salam.” I was afraid that if I were to repeat the story during the campaign, it would give credence to internet reports that Obama was a closet Muslim. He is not a Muslim. He expressed that greeting not because he is a Muslim but because he understood the words, may the peace of God be with you. There cannot be a better greeting than that.

When we talk about global governance, when all is said and done, it has to be built around the human being – respect for human beings, respect for the diversity of human beings. I can never forget what the Roman Cardinal told me. He served the Pope as the secretary of the Synod of Bishops. He has passed away now. He told me how he drafted a speech for Pope John Paul II to bishops from around the world, saying the “even though we are different we are one”. The pope said no, it is because we are different that we are one. In other words, before we can love, before we can respect, we must respect the uniqueness of every individual. If we are all the same, something is very wrong. Countries are different, tribes are different, cultures are different, and in global governance, the basic building block must acknowledge that diversity and that difference. But that which binds us all together, that hyperlink, that for a long time will be American in its essence.

Minister George Yeo's speech on Global Governance, Part I, 4 Dec 08 @ Yahoo! Video

Minister George Yeo's speech on Global Governance, Part II, 4 Dec 08 @ Yahoo! Video