Most international issues have no solutions, but they can be managed, says Bilahari Kausikan, the former Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore.
“That’s good news for diplomats and journalists because it means we’ll never be out of a job,” he told NPF International Trade Journalism Fellows.
Taiwan and Gaza fall into this category of management as the best case scenario, Kausikan said.
The prospect of Taiwan joining China is “nil,” Kausikan said.
“Why would the Taiwanese want to voluntarily reunify? There’s no support for the two extremes of unilateral independence or reunification. Most people want the status quo to remain and I think the status quo can be maintained.”
But while Kausikan criticized China’s leader Xi Jinping as “mediocre at governance,” he does not anticipate war.
“Whatever you may think of the Chinese leadership, they’re not gamblers, and they’re not going to roll the dice with the most important thing to them which is the continuation of party rule. … If there is a risk, it’s going to be conflict by accident, by miscalculation – not war by design.”
There are two scenarios where the Chinese must fight, he said. “The first is a very low probability, high impact scenario, which is if Taiwan revives its nuclear weapon ambitions … the higher probability scenario is if Taiwanese domestic politics takes some strange turn.”
Kausikan says that a lot of international relations and diplomacy consists of keeping myths credibly alive so people don’t take drastic actions — which is true in both Taiwan and Gaza, he said, “which gives you something to write about.”
Gaza has been “ill managed for quite a long time,” Kausikan said.
While a two-state solution is favored by many nations, “I have not seen anybody come up with a viable pathway to a two-state solution,” Kausikan said, predicting that the conflict will remain subregional and not spread. After “mistakes” in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. is “offshore balancing” with Gaza, Kausikan said.
“You have these demonstrations about Gaza at the universities, but the demonstrations over the Vietnam War were far worse. Why? Because Americans were dying.”
Read the full transcript here.
This fellowship is part of an ongoing program of journalism training and awards for trade coverage sponsored by the Hinrich Foundation. The National Press Foundation is solely responsible for the content. All programs are on the record and resources and transcripts from this and previous fellowships are published.
