LEE KUAN YEW - INTERVIEW WITH CHARLIE ROSE (2009)

lee kuan yew is here as singapore's founding father he served as prime minister for more than 30 years until 1990.

he now serves as minister mentor to the current prime minister his son at age 86 he is regarded as an elder statesman on the global stage whose views are widely sought he's in the united states for meetings in new york with people like henry

kissinger in washington with people like the chairman of the federal reserve ben bernanke and the president of the world bank bob zelick who will also receive a lifetime achievement award from the u.s

asean business council i am pleased to have him back at this table to get a world view that he is highly regarded for uh understanding the dynamics of the world that we have come from

and the world that we are going to so welcome thank you um where are we you think in terms of a kind of world order we have gone through the

in the 89 and 90 the collapse of the soviet union the collapse of the berlin wall then we had uh the united states engaged in the middle east

uh in a long war that continues then we had the global economic crisis so many people say what is going to come out of this

well i see the imbroglio in iraq and afghanistan as distractions it's not going to change the world

whatever happens to iraq or afghanistan because the major changes that are taking place is the recovery of china

and to a lesser extent of india the places they occupy two centuries or three and a half three centuries ago before western colonization

blanketed them three centuries ago they were between the two of them sixty percent of the world gdp just the population and the production that they put out

china is again on the growth path she's now a member of wto she knows that every year she's growing faster than anybody else

and can do that for another 20 30 years because they've got such an enormous sub number of workers back in the west in the hinterlands

eight nine percent ten percent no trouble at all but after that and they reach a ceiling where their labor is concerned and then they got to

up increase but by then in 30 years they would have an economy not per capita but in total terms bigger than the usa

which means they've got resources to build up political strategic and other influence

and in fact in anticipation of that people already treat her differently because they know that this is going to be a a big fellow around the block

it's a watershed i mean the world order that we knew was dominated by the caucasian peoples

europe uh technology sailing ships then aircraft they conquered the world

industrialization globalization ones well industrialization first and they globalize it and america is the extension of europe

with a difference and she's more embracing other races the 20th century was the american century

the first half of the 21st century a large part of it would still be the american but i believe the second half you will

have to share top places with china and also with india make space for them too you have said in a speech i read just today that the relationship between the

united states and china based on what you just said has become the most important global geopolitical issue yes of the century yes how they both

handle it from the shiny side in a very pragmatic almost cold-blooded and clinical fashion

on the american side uh there's been some vacillations first china's and adversary strategic adversaries and china is a strategic partner

and china is a stakeholder and china's uh uh not cutting his weight but i china wants to be as in the famous words of bob zelick now that

uh president of the world bank and they want to be a stakeholder because bob zaryk coined that phrase in singapore i think well i mean whatever it was whatever it was and the

chinese were wondering what that meant they didn't know what stakeholder meant they now know yes they looked up the dictionaries they didn't get much out of it they discussed it with friends and

uh i'm one of the friends so i said to them well that means although you're not a shareholder in the company you have an interest in the company

because you sell to the company and if the company goes bus you've got no customer and if you got no customer your trade will go down and you have unemployment

so you have an interest in keeping that company going and they have an interest in keeping you going because you are a good customer you're a good producer for them

cheap goods cheap products and good quality well there's great hope that they will become more of a consuming economy and will become more of a saving economy

you point that out the chinese have had four thousand years or five thousand years of all kinds of catastrophes

earthquakes floods famine invasions where the central government failed entirely and you can nobody can help you you've got to help

yourself let me tell you this anecdote i was having my game left shoulder from golf being massaged by a very

superior chinese master who attends their leaders and they sent him down to try and fix my game shoulder and he fixed it in three weeks so we had to chat because

i have 45 minutes on the couch what can i do so there was a flood up the yangtze river so i said oh well now you you've opened up you get lots of relief

supplies he looked at me and puzzled this is you don't understand relief supplies will arrive in shanghai the floods

will prevent it from reaching the villages and each village knows that it's going to happen from time to time and up on a little hill they keep the

rice the salt and all the essentials safe so that they will survive such a calamity and that habit

just like the japanese have the kit underneath their bed for earthquakes that is their habit of surviving so they stuff the money under the pillow

because banks are not trustworthy or gold and that habit is not going to change that habit it's going to take a long time it will take

one two generations of affluence and it may happen in the cities but it's not going to happen in the countryside you say this about america uh as well

you talk about the chinese is having they have patience and they have persistence and they have discipline and they have organization but you say america has something special that will

be part of the inevitable competition it is its resilience and more importantly its creativity yes of course

look it's not just american talent it gets you here you're just 300 million people and they've got 1 300 million and very many more able

people but you are attracting all the adventurous minds from all over the world and embracing them and that they become

part of your team now i don't see two two million indians and uh uh half a million other people's

japanese koreans and others becoming part of china i mean first the language is so difficult yes secondly the culture is not abrasive how do you fit in what should the united

states do as it looks at the inevitable growth of china as a dominant player what would be a wise foreign policy i think because you have two or three

decades before it reaches its full strength no more i think because you have two or three decades before it reaches its full strength no more even in three decades it won't

reach its full strength in three decades is per capita is still about one third of america it's gross domestic product well for it to reach america's standard of living and

standard of technology will take more than a hundred years so what should the united states do while it has the position it has now

i think make sure that they feel that they are accepted at the top table make sure that china feels like it's accepted at the time your place is waiting for you when you make it but you got to play by the rules

of the game and the key really is whether the next generation this generation understands it they know that

they have no chance competing against the west america especially in technology and especially in military technology

absolutely no chance let me build a aircraft carrier to guard the shipping lines where they carry oil and other minerals this is the first time where the chinese

are growing but dependent on the world for its resources but they're going around the world uh signing up contracts in iran and in africa absolutely but before that it's all

within the chinese empire they don't have to worry about the rest of the world this time they have to worry about the rest of the world because without the resources the oil the iron

ore nickel whatever the growth will stop will they be able to create the domestic demand that's necessary as they find exports reduced slowly

but in the meantime there's keeping the economy going by enormous expenditure on infrastructure in the west high speed roads

high-speed railways airports telephone lines bringing water from the south up to the north where it's added and dry

huge enormous mammoth projects that keeps it going will india have an advantage some argue because it's democracy and china is not

let me put it this way if india were as well organized as china it will go at a different speed but it's going at the speed it

is because it is india it's not one nation is many nations it has 320 different languages and 32

official languages so no prime minister in delhi can at any one time speak in a language and be understood throughout the country you can do that in beijing so in the end

do you think that system will change in beijing i think it will have to change as the people get more and more urbanized

today is about 40 urban or less than 40 urban more than 60 percent rural when you reach a tipping point

and 60 70 percent are urban with mobile phones pdas you can download anything you want send any messages you want

it's already had it it's effect i mean the sichuan earthquake in the old days nobody would know about it except seismologists who say that such an earthquake took place here

immediately sms all the chinese knew the world knew and had to go public and the prime the prime minister

took a plane full of uh press men and went there and tried to comfort them and assure them that they'll be so you're saying that communication and uh and technology

and the flow of information will have an impact and in in the and the urbanization if you're in the countryside that's different you can be isolated but

when you're in that together in an urban center and they are planning 10 urban centers with 40 billion people each

that's their plans on the plans on their greater scheme of things 40 billion people in four mega cities always you know you can call up a meeting

anytime you want you're gonna write anytime you want so it's a different world therefore you have to pay attention to what people think and today they're watching the internet

very carefully because they know what the what the average person in the in the cities are thinking what are they afraid of where is their fear of

not afraid they just do not they just do not want to lose control well so they are afraid of control no they are afraid that they will lose

control of the situation in the old days way back in mao's days everybody is dependent on the state

the state is the only employer and everybody has what you call a huko huko is a residence permit and if you lose your job

because you're auntie the governor for or you're a crook or whatever you've had it there's no other employer but today there are multiple employers

all companies so people have options yes absolutely and that means the government has lost control over the people i mean there can be entrepreneurs they can they run their own

businesses shops whatever it is but are they moving towards some form not a western form some form of more participation in the political process

uh they are co-opting all the successful people into the covenant system that's a that's a smart policy main calls it the three representatives

so whether you're an artist whether you're a businessman whether you're an activist anybody who's got the extra drive to contribute to a greater china

come and join us coming out of the global economic crisis even though the united states is a dominant country

it is forced to look to build and to engage and build coalitions on a whole range of big issues and there is never now

a guarantee of unanimous support it's hard to put together for example sanctions against iran iran is a special case iran got oil and

gas the chinese desperately needs they need oil and gas russia is playing a game with iran russia doesn't need oil and gas

but russia wants to cut the u.s down to size and remind the u.s

you need me to run the war with the chinese they have they are doing their calculations i think in extremis they must know if they

buck the world if once the russian says all right we agree i would bet 50 50 that the chinese would also say so the russians say we'll we'll engage in sanctions the chinese

will follow they would not want to be the odd man out and be held responsible what if the united states would find another partner or another supplier of

energy for iran no in place of iran yes where do you find well in the middle east in saudi arabia

not possible not possible but i had a chinese diplomat say to me that they would be they would welcome that that if in fact they did not have a necessity of needing iranian oil they would go

along with sanctions because they don't think they need iranian oil they need arabian oil they need nigerian oil they need angola oil you need all the oil they can find anywhere yes of course for the to fuel the economic growth that

they at eight percent absolutely tell me about russia and what how you see russia today

well look i'm doing a little bit of business in russia yes i'm also a member of the board of the governors of the skullcovo business

school invited to join it but matt valdez was now the president so i speak as one who is a semi

a semi-russian colleague i would say they would do enormously better if they could get their system right

the system's not as functioning and not as functional as it should be because it has gone haywire they have lost control over the

various provinces putin is trying to bring it back to the center but it's difficult what do you think of the relationship between putin and medvedev

everybody knows that mr matt vader is a friend of putin and also knows that

mr putin is a very powerful fellow and mr medvedev is working through

very powerful men called silly vocals who are all from the fsb which is a former kgb yes i mean so i would

i would not miss it mr medvedev is a highly intelligent man he's a good friend of putin and he sees no reason why he should want to clash reporting and mr putin

will return to be president another day i would say the probabilities are high but you also said in this speech i read that their capabilities of russia

are limited the capabilities are limited well they've got enormous uh

nuclear arsenal but what else the army is a very different army now

uh the air force they're building new fighters but i mean and navy yes and the population is

declining aids alcohol drugs and pessimism i mean if you're

you're you're every year more russians die than russians are born because people are not optimistic in america people are optimistic and say right i'll

bring a child up into the in bring a child into the world but when your life is so harsh and from time to time it gets better when the oil price goes up

but that's really momentary you have a different view of the future so what's the point of this what about japan back to asia

i think the japanese need an overall in terms of that political system yeah and in terms of their acceptance of immigrants

their birth rate is one point therefore fertility rate is just slightly higher than ours we are 1.29 they're 1.38 and they're shrinking but we are a small

population so we are in we can make up with any numbers from young bright indians young bright chinese young bright malaysians and all the

people around the world and some middle easterners you we now have ukrainians serving in our army our citizens because they think ukrainians in singapore yes of course

russians too east europeans and britishers who have married our local girls and british women who married singapore men

but japan does not want immigrants so they are stuck today they have 3.2 working persons to support one adult

in 2055 they love 1.2 percent to support one adult and immigrants has been america's strength absolutely

but mind you immigration of the highly intelligent and highly hard-working very hard-working people if you get immigration

of the fruit pickers you may not get very far i i met some a chinese delegation recently who's here in the last couple of weeks

and i said to a very important member of the government not at the highest level but very important what are you doing here he said we're trying to get highly

educated chinese yes yes of course to go back i said well what do you say to them say to them you'll have opportunity and i say to them the homeland needs you that's what he

said if that doesn't sell what we'll sell is you can leave anytime you want and allow your children special educational facilities

and all of you can keep your american green card or passports and that works well i'm not sure whether it will work but they'll go back and and test the waters

some but will you go back and stay maybe because for the you know the older generation they are emotionally tied up

but will your children stay no their their upbringing has been here and they go back to china and they say

wow this is a very regimented society papa i'm going back so no there's no comparison i mean there are two and

there's chalk and cheese yes between the two societies especially for young children who can see how independent american children are and can grow up and

be become anything they want beat nyx if you like to use an old expression or whatever in china yeah you come out like sausages yes

exactly so will the chinese be able to say one of the things that you point to in terms of this uh relationship between this competition you say china and the united states will have

competition but they must avoid conflict no i think both sides don't want congress they don't want country china wants to spend time focusing on its internal development

it's economic development china wants time to grow to grow if there's going to be any conflict that's postponed for 50 years but inevitably at some point as china grows

it's going to want to be the dominant nation in the world because it'll have but it is not going back to tang china

yeah or han china where they were the only dominant power in the world this time they're going back to a world where there are several

dominant poles that's as inventive and more creative than them so we're looking at a multi-polar world yes absolutely we'll never go back to sort of the kind of thing that we have between

the soviet union and the united states no no that would be the u.s that would be china the indians are going to be themselves they're not going to be anybody's lucky

they may not be as big as china and gdp then you also suggest they've got to develop a manufacturing campaign yes of course you're going to have europe will be an economic force

it will not be a strategic political or military force because they can't get together the foreign policy it's inevitable that they can never get together i'm not saying it's inevitable but

if you look at them that's still 27 different nations i mean they won't accept one language although they all use english as a second language but you tell them that in brussels you speak

either french or english or either your own language or english which is what is actually happening in committees they absolutely refuse so how long will that does it take to

disappear i don't know it may never happen take a take singapore yes you have said that you have singapore has to maintain its relevance

yes it has to be a place that people want to invest in it has to be a place go ahead it has to be a place that's useful to the world otherwise it wouldn't exist and that's

what you had created since the founding of the modern city state we have made ourselves relevant to the world and how will you maintain your relevancy

by keeping on changing you cannot maintain your relevance by just staying put the world changes there are shifts in the geopolitics and the economics of the

world we've got to watch it and we're going to write it yourself with the as the self comes this way you ride the serve

we are keeping our links with america with japan with europe they brought us to where we are and you're not going to have to choose sides but no other nation will have to choose

absolutely refuse to choose size but we will we will not choose sides between america and china or between china and india but i just read today an

announcement by your sovereign wealth fund in singapore of like over what 1.3 billion dollars in new investments none coming to the united states going

to china to india to brazil and forgotten where else that's just 1.3 billion out of 300 billion is just but none to the united states

mostly going to what they call the bric countries yeah but the united states at the moment is in somewhat of uh a

state is the dollar going to decline what do you yes it is cheap but supposing you buy and the deficits grow and ben monarchy has enabled your

federal federal chairman is unable to draw enough liquidity out of the market and he got hyperinflation

wow you go down and you've lost money so everybody's hedging and there's a very so they're hedging by looking at other places too yeah but where you tell me

oh tell me where if it's not the united states there's nowhere to go right now we go to the parties of the euro yeah uh we're not going to

you know very little to japan australia new zealand the rmp the chinese u.n is

highly controlled you can make a crop they can make you go down and you're not quite sure which way is going to go whereas in the u.s you can look at the figures

and you can read the federal reports every time they make a decision and you can make your guess you also said that china and the united states they both have to change their mindset yes what

did you mean by that well for the americans you've got to cease to think in terms of the chinese as of they are today

the chinese as they are today are people who have been suffering for a very long time especially under mao and who feel that the world

is cruel to them and therefore they are very edgy the chinese they are if you talk to chinese leaders now those over 60 they all with russian

second language right in 20 25 years time you're going to meet a generation who are now in the lower ranks who have been to america and britain and

europe and will be english speaking and have different models in their minds and they will know that they are not

going to be the sole power in the world not ever again because this is a globalized world and they know that they are dependent on the world for their growth

the resources that they need so they're going to be part of the world yes before i mean before meaning up till the time when the

british and the others colonialize them in in a partial way everything grew within china whatever

they needed they captured territory then they found global markets george h.w

h.w bush invited them to sell to america he was the u.s representative before they

had uh ambassadors and he had a liking for them they were good to him so it says you you sell to us and they

sold then it succeeded and they said yeah this is this is the way to get out of our poverty that was your friend during champagne that said yes yes

yeah then they got into the world trade center as a member wto i've just met bob rubin today and uh

he and henry and i henriksen and i told him that clinton turned down churungi for this wto so he said that's a great mistake

because if you turn them down all they will do is to be a spoiler they'll reverse engineer audio patents and you find generic products

and imitations on the market right now bring them in get them to observe the rules well that's a big if yeah you've got to get them to observe the rules they are going to have to

observe the rules and they will and they understand that no because they are going to they are making patents of their own now they want to open the markets around the world and be a part of the

global economy no no they are doing research almost in every sector now including life sciences here's what which is something that singapore got involved in very much with stem cell why did you do

that well we figured out that with these smart fellows around and so many of them whatever we do they will do in time and better

but there are some areas where they will take a very long time to be able to do what we are doing and that's to change the system

from opacity to transparency from no protection for copyright to protection for copyright

and rule of law there are two rules of law in china one for the ordinary citizen and the other for 76

million members of the communist party and the judges will do what they know what the leaders require to keep the country stable

so would you look we've got all the big pharma companies in singapore yes they're not in china they will sell their because you have protection you have

rule of law you have protection of people and we're doing joint research with them on the up on the effect of these new drugs on various types racial types

of the population can you make an argument that a country who leads in technology and science uh it will play a long it will go a long way in terms of their place in the world yes of course

that's why i think the us will still will stay a very powerful and considerable inventor and creator of new products when you look at the us and its

relationship and its concern about oil and its politics in the middle east you think it's a distraction you think that no i'm not saying the middle east is a destruction

i think trying to make a country out of afghanistan is a distraction there was no country for the last 30 40 years they've just

been fighting each other since the last king was chased out right how on earth are you going to put these little bits together

it's not possible so therefore you do what i'm not an expert but in my simple mind it strikes me that you won in iraq and you won in

afghanistan not because you fought the taliban but because you got the northern alliance to fight them exactly and you provided the northern alliance with intelligence

and the capabilities to bomb them and target them and they captured themselves yeah but i mean they've got governance problems over there too yeah that's all

right but that's their problem why do you want to make it your problem so what would you do would you pull all the troops out and let whatever happens to afghanistan happens to afghanistan it's not that threatening to the united states is

that the argument i don't know about that because i think it cannot be more difficult for the united states and to have your troops stuck there

the russians are a brutal ruthless so a lot of army people right 120 000 of them were there but they had to leave yeah and we helped that because we supported the mujahideen yeah the

mujahideen had a lot of support from around the world who wanted to see the soviet union take it yeah but whether or not the soviets helped them to

get the americans out i think the americans and the nato troops the nato members are very skeptical of the outcome even to the point of not

wanting to send their troops in certain kinds of combat areas quite right yes of course because you get shot for nothing but those who argue that it if afghanistan

is abandoned first of all the world will say or people say look you left afghanistan once before after the soviets had left and now you're leaving again the united states

has to stand for something and it has to show that it's prepared to stay you don't buy that at all you know you must have a wonderful conversation with your friend henry kissinger then no no

no no stop there though where do you and henry kissing differ on an on a look a view of the u.s

role in the world i don't think we are there's any is that right how would you define it then i think the u.s can be a benign

stabilizer of the world order a benign stabilizer without the u.s

east asia would never have grown you brought peace and technology trade and investments and east asia flourished well that's clear it's happened in east asia

you talk about singapore and north and south korea absolutely so and if you're not how do we do that in the middle east how do we do that when you've got the kind of conflict

that's taking place yeah you can't solve all the problems in the world ah some problems just got to be resolved but so what are your

priorities for singapore no for the united states which should be the priorities i i cannot think i'm not an american i do not uh

calculate in american terms i calculate what americans are likely to do in relation to what will happen to me yeah well that's that's why they listen to you that's why you're going to see mr bernanke tomorrow

and that's why you're going to see larry summers and that's why you're going to see all these american officials they want to know how you assess the way the world is working today and your central message is you got to

engage you got to make the chinese feel like they are a worthy part of the world community and you got to help them join the pto and all the things they want to do no they're very i know that i know they've joined but

you've got to make sure that you're going to treat it fairly you've got to make sure that they understand membership requires certain obligations

and the obligations start with responsibility but you also say about the united states it has to realize that most problems need an american participation

in order to be solved yes absolutely absolutely so you and i had a conversation once about about a whole range of leaders and you said to me the man that you most admired

of all the people you'd ever met was done chapped yeah that's what you told me don xiaoping admired you too because he sent chinese

30 40 000 of them to singapore to figure out what you were doing am i right yes what was it you were doing that he wanted to see

he was astonished when he came for the first time in 1978 to tell us to prevent vietnam from invading cambodia because they're doing

it on behalf of the russians then he found a singapore which was contrary to what he was given in his brief yes he found a prosperous orderly

society everybody owning their own homes and with a job so i said how did you get there i said we educated our people

and look at all these companies americans japanese europeans they bring technology they train our people we learn how to do things and because we are cheaper after a while

we become general managers and company managing directors and we learn how to do that and become

suppliers to them so he said oh you made use of capitalism to build an e a more egalitarian society

everybody owns their home i will do the same and he did he did he did he went back and you collect 12

special economic zones sun chun kuang zhou shanghai italian and so on all the course societies and it succeeded so he was the greatest man you

ever met because he understood because of the results he changed the nation and therefore he's a member of the old guard

he fought in the long march he chased the kmt out across the young sea he led the he was a victim of the cultural revolution

yes but he was realistic he knew the system was not working he knew that they were going to

end up down in a deep hole and he decided against the against all the advice of his fellow

old guards that we would change and he had the brains and the power to pull it off yes and when he tried to stop him in 1992 from going too fast

he went down to sanchon and said learn from all countries in the world and most of all learn from singapore the order is good and they are a very prosperous society you never had a

moment that you thought singapore was too authoritative have you not one moment my job is to get the place going and give everybody a decent life and a

decent education and we are now the best educated people in the whole of east asia our universities

we've got three four universities fourth one coming up so the end justifies it means whatever it might be

the ends were laudable everybody wants the same hands everybody wants good education good health a good life and their children do better than they did that means

i had the consent and support of the population if they opposed me and they did not cooperate it wouldn't have you were in control of everything no yes you were you know that but

the numbers of people who were opposing me including the communists in the very early days right was endless brings me to

president obama yes what are your observations about him he's a very great and eloquent man who is very persuasive

and he is very able and has appointed very able people into his all key positions and what impressed me most of it is prepared to appoint people with

opposing different minds for instance on this economic team larry summers and paul walker and they are both very strong-minded people malaria summer has

much more influence in paul volcker yeah but whatever it is he's got to make the final judgment so he he wants to listen to smart people who have different views that's one

thing you admire what would you want to ask him what would you want to know about him what two things first

but the 21st century will be a contest for supremacy in the pacific because that's where the growth will be that's where the bulk

of the economic strength of the globe will come from now if you do not hold your ground in the pacific you cannot be a world leader

the world leader must hold its ground on the pacific that's number one number two to hold that down in the pacific you must not let your fiscal deficits

and your dollar come to grief if it comes to grief in the in the short term and there's a run on the dollar for whatever reason because your deficits are too big and

you're the world the financial community the bankers and all the hedge funds and everybody come to a conclusion that you're not going to tackle these deficits

and they begin to move their assets out that's real trouble and there is a risk of that perception today absolutely yes and ben bernanke

knows that and he's got somehow the other to clean up and stop up soak up the liquidity but if it does it

too soon you get into another recession but you cannot build up enormous deficits

that allows all the and do nothing about it and people say oh well this is hopeless yeah there's always a treasure they can oh there's always a federal reserve they'll make more money there no one can't do that they just

print more money that will print more money exactly there's a difference so the deficits the looming deficit of the united states is what worries you the most because it will strike at the heart of the u.s global

leadership absolutely absolutely i mean that's what happened right that's why we are in this recession global recession after

afghanistan and then iraq questions were raised about america's credibility its respect in the world it went down correct or not you never bought it

no it didn't go down it it i think people were roughed up you know by saying you're either with me or you're against me yeah and uh we don't need you

we'll go it alone you do need them you cannot go it alone and all that ruffled everybody up that was not necessary but it's happened

and it's water under the bridge and and president obama is taking care of that in terms of the way he's reached out that's all right but now he's got to prove by his actions

that he can really implement this new policy of togetherness that's one thing but it seems to me you are saying that the most important question people have

about america a is it leadership and the most important thing they have about america's leadership is its economic leadership can it take care of its own house because china is growing at eight

percent in the second half of 2009 and it looks better and better as it goes down the chinese economy is nothing compared to the american economy because

the basis once you once you've stabilized but what the world wants to know or what the thinking part of the

banking and financial world wants to know is that the americans the administration and the congress both

republicans and democrats have the will to take tough measures to put this right even if it's not going to be done overnight but it is moving in that

direction it was going to put it right okay how do they do that you you've created all this needs i mean you take health care it's not going to be done at the same

price surely i mean you're covering 40 million extra people so where's the money coming from now if the world sees that you're not making any provision for that

you're not letting it go and it says wow this looks this looks as if the elected leaders have lost their will

to confront the people with the truth is it more the congress than the president both boys i say are you confident that the united states

will do something about its deficit which is at 1.3 trillion dollars for the last

well if i'm not confident and i have no hope of that i wouldn't be here as simple as that be here meaning be in america and wanting to

understand what you're doing and what is going to come out of this of your policies so i meet people who were in the administration who are in

the administration to understand the thinking the feel and the their gut feeling of what's happening what's the most important change and

most significant change in your way of thinking about the world over the last 20 years that the impossible can happen

i never thought the soviet union would implode so easily and i never thought that the chinese would abandon the communist system

and that and move into the free market so readily it was unthinkable 20 years ago both has happened the world has changed

and it's not clear exactly how it's all gonna no it is not exactly clear when it will happen exactly but that it will happen now

in the long term 50 to 100 years yes and the center of gravity is shifting to asia must be because the population is there that

the talent pool of 1.3 billion people plus the japanese the koreans and the vietnamese and the others no

it can match europe and america but that talent pool was inert did not have science and technology did

not care about science and technology but now everything that you do asia is doing you're going to stem cell research we are going to stem cell research

tiny singapore has to go into it in order to get into a field where the chinese cannot compete with us when the chinese sign it in a very big way

they're watching you and whatever you do say oh yes we will do that we are far behind of course but given time they're going to catch up

they're enormously curious they are enormously curious not just curious they're enormously ambitious to catch up for good reasons and for good ends

that you must ask them but i think the the reason is they have to they have a sense of frustration that they were down for so long

let's make it now here's our chance and the united states has to encourage them no you don't have to encourage them you just got to understand that they are

look they don't want to be an honorary member of the west unlike russia they're quite happy to be chinese and to remain as such so when you tell them you ought to do

this you ought to do that they say yes thank you and in the back of their minds we have lasted 5 000 years have you that beijing olympics if you watch it

what was the message we're back no 5 000 years and don't forget we invented all these things and we're going to go ahead in the next

5000 years it's the only country where language has survived 5 000 years the only country where the present generation

shares the same basic thinking as the past and they're very proud of it i mean you read hush in town's speech on the 60th anniversary

i mean it's all translated on the web what is it we have 5 000 years of civilization we are going

to get there and it's a rousing speech it may take us a long time you can work

very hard we will do it that's their move so you don't have to encourage them what you've got to get them to understand is with it goes

responsibility hungry africans hungry sick other people this is a global problem

you can't just take copper and gold and to hell with it you've got to have a responsibility for the people's copper and gold you're mining it goes with the job

and they will have to learn that i think they're already beginning to learn that so they're giving something back it's a pleasure to talk to you again as always