Keeping Asia cohesive in the face of anti-globalisation trends

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

1. A very good morning to you. It is indeed my pleasure to be here at the 10^th anniversary of the Temasek Foundation Leadership Enrichment and Regional Networking (TFI LEaRN) programme. I’d like to acknowledge the alumni participants – we have about 150 alumni from 16 countries in Asia with us today. A very warm welcome back to all of you! And from my short conversation with you earlier on outside the auditorium, I see that many of you are very familiar with Singapore, and it’s really nice to have you back with us. I also understand that you’re going to a new island – it is an unusual island, because it is a new island created out of the seabed from landfill. So ashes from our incinerated waste get barged there every day and dumped into the sea, not to create an island, but mainly to address this issue about waste treatment. How do you treat solid waste in Singapore? And it’s another subject which I’m passionate about, because I spent some time in the Ministry of the Environment (and Water Resources). Being a land-scarce country, just thinking about, first of all treating solid waste without damaging the environment, without damaging the waterways. If you just dump it on the ground, water goes through, rain goes through, polluted water will seep into your water system eventually. So we have to treat our solid waste properly. And when you incinerate the solid waste, we have to ensure that the exhaust that’s emitted into the air is free of poisonous and toxic gases. So that’s another area of concern from us, and at the end of it, you still have ashes remaining. How do you dispose it? Semakau island was created for that purpose, and of course to us, the sea is such a precious commodity. How do we treat our solid waste without hurting the ecosystem and the marine life nearby? So, I won’t take the thrill out of your visit, but do look around and see for yourselves the life at Semakau. It is an exciting place to go, not exciting in the sense of white, sandy beaches, but it is a really a brilliant solution for a small country to keep its environment clean and to keep the city liveable for its people.

Rising anti-globalisation sentiments and its implications for Asia

Global Trends

2. Now back to the topic today. Globally, we are witnessing several key trends –
   
   - First of all, globalisation of the economy has lifted countries out of poverty. A case in point would be China. Over the last three decades or so, we have seen China being lifted in its entirety, in its GDP, relative to the rest of the world, several notches up. Yet the increased competition in a global economy has created a “winner takes all” mentality, and as a result, you see countries or systems witnessing the phenomena of rising inequality. Again, you see that in China as well. If you go back to China to, say, in the 1970s or 80s, there’s relative poverty, relative to the rest of the world, but inequality was very minimised. And yet when it moves through economic progress, it has actually gone up a few notches compared to the rest of the world, but income inequality has stretched. So that’s repeated in several societies, and obviously it has brought some challenges to the countries as well.
   - The second trend would be “disruptive” technologies. We have seen that this has hastened the pace of dislocation of jobs; jobs gravitate now, not to where manpower is cheap or in abundance, but rather where manpower is skillful and valued relative to its pay. So the pace of dislocation is accelerating because of the disruptive nature of technologies.
   - The third trend would be the issue with religion, particularly with the sectarian differences within Islam, coupled with political problems in the Middle East. We’ve seen greater religious extremism, seen IS committing hideous crimes in parts of Middle East, and as a result, mass migration – of course mass migration does not originate solely from Middle East, but you see that migration of Middle Eastern people, particularly from Syria, creating very sharp social and economic problems, particularly for parts of Europe. And that’s really creating the current discourse over the control of migration, control of individual countries versus the European Union.
   - There’s also a rising tide, as a result of the first three trends I talked about, the rising tide of protectionism and nationalism. The Trump Administration, for example, prefers bilateral trade negotiation over multi-lateral trade deals (TPP). It has cancelled or pulled out the US from TPP. It has talked about building walls between US and Mexico. So these are all tendencies towards nationalism and protectionism. And you’ve seen Brexit – the UK wanting to wrest control from the EU. These are all signs of moving away from a globalised world that we know of in the last decade, towards one that is more protectionist in nature.
   - The inter-connectedness of the world through technology has its implications as well.
   a) We can see that incidents in a single country can evoke emotions very quickly and far beyond its own territory to the rest of the world.
   b) We also have the advent of the global influence of thought leaders, that’s good and bad. Leaders in one place have a reach much wider than before, and we’ve  seen that in the religious sphere, and we’ve also seen that in many other spheres, such as technological, economical, and so on. So they are good things, as in ideas  are proliferated quickly, communicated quickly, influence is also extensive, far more than we are used to in the past. But also that comes with it a social dislocation.What is ours, what is the world’s; do we accept ideas that’s coming to us that doesn’t speak to our heritage, our own values? How do we accept, do we accept, do we embrace, do we reject? So these are all challenges that cause this issue of national identity and where does it stand relative to this globalised world.
   c) There’s also the proliferation of false information – I think we’ve all heard this term called “fake news” that’s more negative that it should be – is adding to this sentiment and polarising us further.
   
   Building Solidarity and Mutual Cooperation in Asia

3. In this era where technology allows new ideas, new products to grow quickly and globally, actually young people like you stand to benefit the most. If you look at the Steve Jobs, Jack Mas, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, they are making their billions when they are less than 40. It’s not the money, but the money tells you the sphere of influence, the size of the markets that they are able to tap. Digital animation, electronic gaming, marketing on social media are new jobs that benefit mainly the youths, and in large numbers too. I was recently told at an Asian conference for children’s content – storybooks for children – that a short animated video for children made by a group of young artists from Jogjakarta was sold to a publisher for US$3m. If they had not been in a globalised world, probably this group of young artists would not have had the opportunity to benefit from monetising their artwork. So youths, therefore, have a lot to gain from a globalised world. At the same time, we have seen youths making social impact in big ways. Take Jamie Chiu, a psychologist and social entrepreneur from Hong Kong. She founded LULIO in 2015, a mobile gaming app that promotes psychological well-being, used in coordination with schools to detect suicide risk through gaming behaviour analysis. Such a wonderful idea, isn’t it? So there’s such a creative application of ideas through gaming, something youth are very familiar, but with social good as the objective. Similarly, in Singapore, we have Mohamed Abbas who co-founded Onelyst in 2014 –  an online marketplace that helps users from lower-income brackets compare loan rates across different licensed moneylenders. I’ve spoken to him before. He came from a family that is of a less-than-privileged background. And in his growing up years, he had come across many of his neighbours, uncles, aunties, having to struggle with high loans, interests, from sometimes licensed, sometimes unlicensed moneylenders, because they are trapped in poverty and needed some money to go by. This is a segment that, very often, the banks would ignore, because they are deemed as bad credit risks. And yet, if they are not careful, they get themselves trapped in a very high interest environment when they approach unscrupulous, illegal moneylenders. So how do you serve this group of population where they truly need some money, they have the ability to pay, and yet, they are not in the position to negotiate nor compare terms? They don’t know where to go, they don’t know there are options available to them. So Onelyst came up with that idea, basically, to aggregate sources of financing, almost micro-financing, and then do a rate comparison based on the profile of the applicants. A simple idea would have been ignored by the big financial institutions, because that’s not where the money is, but a group of socially-minded youths have decided to take this up as their core, and they did so by creating apps. And obviously from loans, they are now able to go into other financial services as well. Doing well, but with a very strong social objective.

4. So paradoxically, while the world turns inwards, the youths are more connected to one another than ever. Youth are overcoming physical barriers and social differences, such as distance and language, and thriving through the use of technology. They are making friends across the world through social media and instant messaging. And some of you are keeping each other informed about happy occasions in your lives, your marriages, inviting each other for your weddings through social media, so really, social media has got the world a lot smaller and closer than it used to be. They are also consuming information from around the world through the proliferation of digital content. Young people are conducting businesses and making a living across boundaries through the international digital economy.

5. There is therefore a need to take the “good” of globalisation and technology, and mitigate the “bad” that comes out of them. Asia is at a crossroads amid these anti-globalisation headwinds. Leading thinkers postulate that “the current anti-globalisation sentiment will force ASEAN to enhance the atmosphere of their own economic integration further.”

6. ASEAN’s official theme for 2017 is “Partnering for Change, Engaging the World”. The potential for economic opportunities, sustainable growth and mutual cooperation in our region is immense. We can achieve greater growth as a whole if we work in partnership with one another. That is why are encouraging our people, with their ideas, skills and talents, to engage other communities.

Youths as interlocutors to a vibrant, connected future

7. Managing the risks, what I called earlier “mitigating the bad” is something our youths should also pay attention and focus on. In this era where “fake news” is rampant, it is important for our youth to interact and understand each other first hand. How do we address segments of your countries who do not have the skills to benefit from the global economy? The “winner takes all” outcome is bad for any country and not sustainable as we have seen. The whole upheaval in the US political system actually came from dislocation, or displacement, felt by segments of the society, when they felt that the while the US economy, the few super big weights are making progress, Silicon Valley is making big money, the rest of the West belt, the rest of the blue-collared Central states are not getting the benefits. So as a result, they voted the administration out. So it is important for us to see how we can have a model of economic development that is both beneficial to its people and yet sustainable politically. How do we maintain the social compact without removing the motivation to excel? We need people to continue to move forward to have creative ideas, to innovate, to have entrepreneurship, to create businesses, to create products, and yet not leave people behind and have a social cohesion that will keep the society, keep the country together. I think these are issues that our youth should think about from time to time.

8. I understand that many LEaRN participants have exemplified the social-mindedness of our youths by undertaking various types of community work during university exchanges. These include organising health awareness and volunteer programmes to engage the chronically-ill in hospitals in Indonesia, and participating in a public campaign about the bone marrow donor programme in Singapore.

9. The TFI LEaRN programme offers a platform for reflection and discussion. It has given you the chance to engage your peers from other countries. The opportunity to learn from one another’s cultures and heritage fosters unity, cohesion as well as mutual understanding and respect. And this is so important these days, when information sometimes comes too quickly without the possibility of pausing and reflection. So it’s important sometimes to lean on some of the experiences and have an informed decision about things that you read online. Alongside building strong ties, young leaders such as yourselves have the potential to solve complex problems and improve your communities.

10. In the face of global challenges, all of you will have a key role to play in building cohesive and resilient Asian community. As such, youth leadership development in ASEAN will be a priority area for Singapore, as we assume the role of ASEAN chair next year. One of our key focus areas will be to build rapport and trust at the people-to-people level. So I’m sure we will call on all of you, particularly those from ASEAN, to support us in our initiatives.

Conclusion

11. As TFI LEaRN alumni, I hope you will continue to inspire one another, and work together to shape a better future for your country, and for Asia. Finally, I would like to wish you all a fruitful seminar, and the best in your future endeavours. I look forward to hearing from you at the dialogue later. Thank you very much.