Voices of Asia

Interview

Founder and Chief Execuctive of Hong Kong-based Global Institute for Tomorrow Chandran Nair speaks to Mark Zavadskiy about what Asia should do in the coming century and why the West should let Asians be Asians.

Chandran Nair is one of the most controvercial thinkers in Asia and he is not afraid of tackling publicly the most pressing issues. Chandran is the regular keynote speaker at APEC Summits and Chinese Davos Forums as well as many other conferences in Asia, USA and Europe. He is always sharp and to the point, the recording of his dispute with famous American investor Jim Rogers on the future of capitalism at September Vladivostok CEO Summit has become viral online already.

Interview

Founder and Chief Execuctive of Hong Kong-based Global Institute for Tomorrow Chandran Nair speaks to Mark Zavadskiy about what Asia should do in the coming century and why the West should let Asians be Asians.

Chandran Nair is one of the most controvercial thinkers in Asia and he is not afraid of tackling publicly the most pressing issues. Chandran is the regular keynote speaker at APEC Summits and Chinese Davos Forums as well as many other conferences in Asia, USA and Europe. He is always sharp and to the point, the recording of his dispute with famous American investor Jim Rogers on the future of capitalism at September Vladivostok CEO Summit has become viral online already.

What is going on in Asia now intellectually? Chandran argues that the “voices of Asia” are not yet the part of the global intellectual platform still dominated by western school of thinking that is bound by some unconditional truth that no one dares to doubt. Asians, on the other hand, can bring new ideas to the international debates and add new meanings to existing concepts – but only if the West agrees to see equals in them.

Chandran, you have always been an advocate of Asian thinkers. Why do you think Asian voice is so important?

I think it’s obvious why it’s important. Today, when economic power is shifting from the West to the East, we need more Asian voices to be added to the blend of ideas. I am not in any way suggesting that the ideas of the West are inferior, but in a melting pot of thoughts, I think, you need proper representation. Yet, at the moment, Asian voices are hardly heard.

But lots of Asian thinkers got their education in the US or Europe, so basically they gained their background there. Do you think they are really different from western voices?

I don’t take those Asian voices into consideration, to be frank. But that’s essentially my point: the Asian voices, who I think can bring a narrative that is not rooted in ideological belief in the western notion of free market, capitalism, the role of technology—that’s what I mean by Asian voices. The problem we have in Asia is that because of two or three centuries of subservience to colonialism, we have inherited deep-rooted intellectual subservience. Therefore, the best minds in Asia are going to the schools that you’ve mentioned and coming back with the narrative that is ideologically bankrupt. We need to have new ideas.

Do you think it’s better for Asians to study in Asia?

I think there is a need for Asian universities to create more courses, curriculum that reflect the realities of the world. And, therefore, there should be investments in leading universities. But we also need professionals in the field of education to start bringing this about. That doesn’t mean I am suggesting they should all stay in Asia. But the world itself needs to understand that reality is changing. The problem with western schools is that they still think that the next 50 years will be like the last 150 years.

Can you give an example of the narrative you want to bring to the West?

I think the narratives I would like to bring is that in 2050 six billion Asians should not aspire to live like westerners, particularly the United States. Europe, I think, understands this predicament and is adjusting. Once you start accepting that, then everything changes. And in a much longer conversation, everything changes about the notion of capitalism, the notion of price increase, losses and rights, and fundamentally we organize ourselves and, therefore, the systems of governance. The West believes, western democracies possess a utopian idea that can be spread around the world. I think, this is extremely naive. I am not suggesting that we have some authoritarian state. What I’m suggesting is that we need to create this learning. The west cannot because it is in denial.

Are you worried about China, about the rising nationalism as a part of the narrative that has really been shaping the agenda of Chinese politics now? Is it dangerous for the rest of Asia?

I think, nationalism is present everywhere, I’m just intrigued why twice a year, Chinese march on the streets in certain cities. The whole world sees Chinese nationalism as a very dangerous trend. Yet, there’s an extremely strong nationalist movement in India, it is widespread in Indonesia, there’s very strong nationalism, framed as patriotism, in the USA. So, we should all be aware of nationalism, however, it’s a function of the political systems we live in. I do think that the surge of nationalism we have witnessed latest in China against Japan is very sad because China and Japan should be the forefront of shaping new Asia.

You’ve been running the initiative for young leaders in Asia. How did you start it and what are the results of it?

Well, I started the global young leadership program about five years ago in response to my point that executive learning versus education is all wrapped up in a western worldview. And we need new thinking. So, the fundamental basis of our program is if the world is changing and economic power is shifting from the West to the East, it’s as simple as saying it’s an Asian century. There are huge implications for this, I said at APEC last year, but the idea of an Asian century is a very bad one. We need the 21st century, which is either nobody’s or everybody’s. Thus, the leadership program is about departure from ideological biases.

The first few years were tough but in the last couple of years we’ve got a lot of recognition. I think, we are the only one doing this internationally, and many of the world’s largest companies are now approaching us because we are raising very tough questions about the role of Asia. And therefore, what does leadership look like in this context—both business and political leadership? And I must say we are slaying some cows in front of Brahmins, most of the business schools don’t do.

And by the way, I have an article in the FT Today about why Asian business schools or Asian leadership learning programs must reject the narrative coming out of the business schools of the west which sees the world in its same old way—with privilege and entitlement.

What would you teach them in this program that will be different from all the rest?

Well, I think I would not say we teach, but I try to engage people in a new conversation, so that they come to their own conclusions. And the main issue is coming back to my point: everything in the 21st century - the UN leadership, and business, and politics will be shaped by how 5-6 billion Asians aspire to live.

If you think about that as defining the 21st century, then we could ask some very different, profound questions about who has what, what is the cost of things, what do business models look like and what does political power look like, both at the local level and the geopolitical level. And then in the secon week of our two-week program , we asked participants to go to a second country to run a project, where they come face-to-face with new realities rather than the glossy image of Asia, portrayed by the shining lights of Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore or Beijing. It’s very different in the real world. That gives the executives a deep understanding of some of the inherent contradictions.

But many Asians still look up to the West. They want to buy French bags, and Italian shoes. Do you think it’s changing, it’s going away or it will stay like this for a long time?

This is exactly my point: the subservience to the view that everything in the West is better. But you have to understand, where that notion comes from. If for two centuries you’ve been told that everything from the West is better, then it’s very difficult to change your mind, even for someone like me.

All I’m trying to do is ask people to appreciate things that are worth it, rather than ape the western economic model. I suppose what I’m saying in terms of the extreme outcome of all this is that Asians aspire to live like Americans—and I’m not talking about luxury goods. That’s a small segment of consumption. The outcome is bleak, the signs are very clear, and we can’t deny these signs.

And what are these signs?

I won’t bore you with more details on climate change and emissions. But the signs are very clear about things like fisheries, forests, and water. Water is going to be a huge issue but the narrative that we have somehow subscribed to is to ‘innovate’—a word I detest. There are no technological solutions at the moment to the depletion of oceans. It’s going to take collective action with rules. Their markets don’t play a role in the depletion of nutrients from soil, which is a major issue in Asia, nor does it help with water. So I call for rules, and then, naughtily, I suggest we need a strong state.

But we need some innovations to deal with these problems and so far, most of them are coming from the west. And there were a lot of debates about whether Asia is capable of producing a real innovative idea, not a package. Do you think Asia is capable of this kind of thing?

What we mean by innovation, is typically technology. But I think the greatest innovations of the 21st century will not be technology. The greatest innovations will need to be how we politically organize ourselves, how we start pricing things, etc. Technology will fit in once we understand our constraints.

Now, I don’t believe that the West has a certain superiority in terms of innovations in the broadest sense. Even in technological innovations, you can see that some of the best minds are Asians or Russians who’ve gone to where there is money. So long as our best minds go to western schools, then of course the innovations would come out of there because these people reside there.

We will need to think very differently about how we innovate. But the West, particularly, —and I don’t want to be over-critical of the US—is sure that everything is about technology. This is a nation that comes from a very narrow perspective. And those of us who come from older societies, including the Russians, know that American experience is still a very juvenile one , and is based on essentially exploitation—I don’t mean this in a harsh way—entitlement, and privilege. And then, to suggest that the rest of the world could ape this - is the height of naïveté. But we are the ones, who are naive enough to imagine that we can have all of those things, based on exploitation, European conquest, etc. We need to wake up from this false dream and understand that we need to ‘innovate’ very differently.

Do you see Russia mostly as a part of the present civilization or Asian civilization?

I think, Russia is one of those unique nations with a long history, which has a foothold in Asia alongside with a foothold in Europe. I hope Russia will play, because of its geography, a very important part in bridging the gaps. And I hope many Asians will learn from Russia, and help Russia, while Russia helps us.