The World Is Fragmenting. Here's What Comes Next - George Yeo (4K)

George Yeo is a former Singaporean Cabinet Minister whose distinguished career in public service spanned twenty-three years. Between 1988 and 2011, he held several senior portfolios in the Singapore Government, most notably serving as the Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2004 to 2011, as well as the Minister for Trade and Industry and the Minister for Information and the Arts.

After retiring from politics, he transitioned into the global business arena, where he served as the Chairman of Kerry Logistics Network for several years.

Today, he continues to contribute his expertise as a Senior Adviser to both the Kuok Group and Kerry Logistics.

Beyond his business interests, George Yeo is a prolific intellectual and a bridge-builder between civilizations. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and a member of the Board of Trustees of Berggruen Institute.

His commitment to interreligious dialogue is reflected in his long-standing service to the Vatican, where he served a member of the Council for the Economy under Pope Francis.

A widely respected voice on geopolitics and Asian history, he recently authored the acclaimed three-part series, George Yeo: Musings.

He remains one of the most insightful commentators on the evolving relationship between the East and the West and the future of international cooperation in a multipolar world.

00:00 Trailer & Intro
01:13 Rome to Today: World Orders Explained
03:30 Why Global Stability Is Gone
05:45 The New Power Poles
08:00 AI and the Fragmented World
10:51 Making Decisions in Chaos
13:00 How to Learn Today
16:30 Why the West Sees Thucydides
19:00 Understanding Other Civilisations
22:00 How Trust Works
25:41 How To Understand China
28:00 Trump as an Agent of History
31:24 What Drove the MAGA Phenomenon
34:00 Can America Heal Itself?
39:23 The US Dollar's Uncertain Future
43:00 Gold, Bitcoin & Fiat Money
46:19 Gaza, Singapore & Staying Neutral
49:40 The Diplomat's Deal
51:51 Why Long-Term Thinking Wins
53:15 Taiwan: Will There Be War?
57:00 Cross-Strait Politics & What's Shifting
59:18 What Singapore Must Become
01:02:30 Singapore's Lesson
01:04:42 Balancing Global and Local
01:06:18 Lessons From Public Service
01:08:18 The Taoist View of Existence
01:09:02 One Piece of Advice

This is the 77th episode Of The Front Row Podcast

Keith 00:00:44

I had the privilege of speaking with George Yeo, Singapore's former foreign minister and one of the most astute geopolitical analysts of today. In this conversation, we unpack the coming global multipolarity and figure out how small states like Singapore can survive in this global disorder. I hope you'll enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

You once alluded to the three-body problem as an accurate description of what the coming multipolar world will look like. I wanted to get your sense of why this specific analogy — and perhaps sketch out for us how we should feel when this coming multipolar world arrives.

George Yeo 00:01:26

If it's a unipolar world, like what it would have been for people living around the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire, there is a certain stability and certainty about life. You conform, and if you're a Roman citizen, you get certain privileges. If you are difficult, you get smacked down, and life went on. Trade flourished. Of course, it can't last, because it leads to corruption and all the excesses of the Roman Empire.

If you are in a bipolar world, like during the Cold War, there was a certain stability maintained by a nuclear arch where each side could destroy the other completely. It was stable because each had a counter-strike capability. A whole theory developed around nuclear warfare which maintained an arc of stability during the period when both the US and the Soviet Union were equal military matches for each other.

With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, for a brief moment we were back to a unipolar world, and a certain hubris infected American thinking. The neocons started nursing almost untreatable ambitions about US dominance in the world. It's very ahistorical, because the world doesn't stay still.

I remember Lee Kuan Yew saying, when the Berlin Wall fell, that the ice has cracked — meaning it's a glacier, and now the ice has cracked. That's just the beginning of further cracking, the development of which would be difficult to predict, but which follows a certain direction.

In a sense, we're seeing the world still cracking, and there's no going back to a unipolar world. However strong China becomes, it will not dominate in that way, and that's not how it sees itself. It's a subject I've talked about repeatedly — China is a universe unto itself. The rest of the world can disappear. It has really no wish to dominate the entire world, because that makes the whole job of internal governance infinitely more difficult. Governance is difficult enough with a homogeneous population. If their population were to become heterogeneous the way Western society has become, then all that Confucius and Mencius have bequeathed onto the Chinese people would become almost impossible to follow.

So we can't avoid the world becoming multipolar — with China as one big pole, the US remaining a very big pole, and Europe separating but becoming a pole unto itself.

Whether Europe can become a unified pole — this is the European experiment. We don't know. It's never existed before. Ever since the fall of Western Rome, many have tried to unify Europe.

But I often say, in an affectionate way, that the European peoples are tribal nations. They're passionate about being Portuguese, German, Bavarian, Dutch, or Croatian. And you say, "Well, come together." They've tried many times and always failed politically, but they are held together by a certain sense of all being inheritors of Greece and Rome, and most importantly, the Christian inheritance, which really unified Europe.

Now they've said religion should be set aside. Prince Charles talks about being not only the head of the Anglican Church but embracing all religions, which is a very humanistic thing to do. But it cuts into the very core of the European construction, which is a Christian basis giving it a civilisational quality, even though the constituent elements are tribal nations.

So Europe will be a kind of pole unto itself. After the Second World War, it was kept in place. But with Trump now, and with the Ukraine war not getting anywhere, there is a recognition that Europe must find its own future. Will it be a unified future? We don't know. But it's going to be a big drama in Europe.

Then in other parts of the world, you have India. India is too big to be anybody's sidekick. It's growing organically. It will become the world's second biggest economy later this century — I think that's a certainty, because of the size of its population, growing sometimes because of government, sometimes despite government. At the surface you'll find all kinds of excitement, but if you go down to the villages, to the countryside, to the smaller cities, they're all growing. Infrastructure is improving, people are getting more educated and connected. You can't hold them back.

So we now have a world with many poles — China, Europe, America, Russia, which will not be subjugated by anybody. People have tried in the past, to their grief. There's India, there's Brazil in South America, which represents a different vision from that of the north. Whether Brazil can become economically powerful, we don't know, but it certainly has a strong sense of itself. And then Africa — Africa doesn't belong to anybody. It belongs to Africans. It's three times the size of China, it's got over 50 countries, and they're all finding their way to the future with varying results.

It's going to be a messy world. So when I use the three-body metaphor, I'm saying that with just three bodies alone, the mathematics is impossible. With multiple poles like the period we're entering, there will be no stability. It'll be a kind of continuous movement — the ice continuing to crack — and people having to live with each other.

I don't think anybody can dominate everybody else. Some will try. There will be a lot of friction at the margins. Each pole will now develop its own character against the others. And even within each ice floe, technology — and now we have this AI revolution — is creating a lot of internal fissures. So there'll be further cracks.

We may find new collaborations, because the first stage is a breakdown of hierarchies into smaller and smaller pieces — fragmentation. But then the fragments are linking up in a kind of neural network configuration, made possible by the internet, by air travel, by drones, and so on.

So we're entering uncharted territory. No historian, no philosopher can anticipate it. It will be a world first empirically experienced and felt, and then philosophers and historians will rush to catch up and make sense of what's happening — and perhaps find a chance to give the evolution some direction.

This is what I meant when I said we're entering a kind of three-body, multi-body world.

Keith 00:10:53

You don't have the sense of certainty that existed in the past. Even at a micro level, the decisions you make — where to study, what kind of career to pursue, what kind of company to go to — it all seems harder than before.

George Yeo 00:11:07

Yes. I think it's a moment in history. It's like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey — marking the end of an old epoch and the beginning of a new one, where that monolith appears and the orchestra strikes up that famous strain. And it begins, first, with violence.

So what is this world we're entering? At one level, there are new freedoms. We're no longer tied to a particular configuration because of where and when we were born. We can travel. We are connected. Money flows. We need not be trapped in any particular jurisdiction.

So patriotism — old-fashioned patriotism — is weakening. It will still be important, but there'll be new tribal affiliations, new religious affiliations. All of us, like a node in a network, will be tied to multiple nodes, not just to the one above and the ones below.

It affects countries, companies, families, and individuals. So what do I do? Will AI replace me? Do I become obsolete? I no longer have to learn how to code because AI will do the coding. How do I add value? What does life mean in this world?

There's a lot of questioning, and it's important to question. Because if you don't question and you think you know — you are definitely wrong. But if you think you're not sure, if you're confused — that's a very good start, because it begins a process of searching, of asking the right questions.

Keith 00:13:08

You take AI, you ask any question, and it pops out abundant answers. We don't trust everything, so we check multiple AI sites. What's your approach to navigating that?

George Yeo 00:13:22

Let's put it this way. You can put a child in the British Library, surrounded by all the knowledge of the world. Will all that knowledge go into the child's mind by osmosis? No. The key is: how does the child decide which book to access? The ability to identify what is useless, what is obsolete, what is interesting — and then hunt it down and read it — that is something no AI can teach the child.

And maybe in the world we're entering, this is the kind of education we need for ourselves. It's not about getting more knowledge. There's already too much knowledge, too much information. It is about what should be subtracted from that haystack. Which drawer do I go for?

I find myself no longer trusting any media outlet. I don't read newspapers. I don't have a go-to source of information. Instead, I say, "Oh, this subject looks important — the Japanese election, Ishiba just had a big victory. What does it mean? Whose analysis do I read?"

I can try to read some Japanese sources, but I don't read Japanese, so that's difficult. The South China Morning Post is not bad for Northeast Asia. If I want a particular point of view, I may want to read Chinese sources or Western sources. And then I think back — what is Japan in its history, in relation to its neighbours, to China, to America? If I were Japanese, what would be my deep desires, which prompted them to vote strongly for the LDP and for a fairly right-wing set of objectives?

Then you begin to form a view of what's happening. It takes time. If I happen to have a Japanese friend, there's an opportunity to learn — but don't depend on just one friend. Know from which standpoint your friend is giving his views. Is he young or old? Right-wing or left-wing? Then meet another, and another. After a while, you form a view.

So the process of learning is very active. It requires you to access diverse sources, to meet people, and to be intensely curious — not judging them, but seeking to understand why they hold a certain point of view, why they have certain hopes and fears.

Keith 00:16:26

You've alluded in other lectures to the fact that the West is very fond of the concept of the Thucydides Trap, and the way they see great power relations today isn't necessarily the multipolar view. They have this view that the US will dominate its part of the world as a regional hegemon, and China will become a regional hegemon in this part of the world. The question I've struggled to grapple with is: why is this thought so persistent?

George Yeo 00:17:07

You cannot escape your own history, because your history is embedded not just in your conscious mind but in your subconscious and unconscious. When we wake up every day, we can't begin at zero to decide how we relate to one another or what we do. Every day is just a delta upon what we inherited from yesterday.

Every human being who exists has embedded in him all the memories of his past. So if you are a Western student, you learn your own history — Greece and Rome, Judeo-Christianity, the Peloponnesian War, Napoleon. It is natural that you should view the present and the future in the terms you grew up with.

For East Asia, the dynamics of the Peloponnesian War might have occurred during weak periods — like between the end of the Han and the beginning of the Sui dynasty. Right now I'm watching a series called Nirvana in Fire, which marks the transition between the end of the Tang and the establishment of the Song. During such periods, kingdoms view each other in a very suspicious, paranoid way, which may hearken back to the Peloponnesian War.

But these are only brief periods in Chinese history. The rest of it is just internal governance. Foreign relations mattered only in periods when the realm was weak, and then external forces opportunistically came in to take advantage. So it's a very different view.

In Indonesia, in Japan, in Vietnam, you can't understand your own history without reference back to China and the great cycles of Chinese history. But no such equivalence existed in the West. In the West, at every period of history, religion played a role — particularly Christianity. And it's very difficult for the Chinese people to understand this, how religion can play such a role in human society. So they go to St. Peter's, they take photographs, they try to remember the names of popes and saints, but they find it baffling.

There's nothing to be surprised by. Each views the world through the prism of his own past.

Keith 00:20:29

But if we are prisoners of our own history, how then does one understand each other?

George Yeo 00:20:36

It's important not to see your own experience as universal, and to accept the possibility that there are other ways of viewing that same reality.

I found it interesting that Xi Jinping, when he met foreign leaders recently, said that China is like a big elephant, and different people feel different parts. One should continue to assemble these different perspectives together to form a view of the real China — which is probably too big for any one person, including even Chinese leaders, to fully comprehend.

This exercise requires humility. It requires a recognition that there are many things you don't know and that you should try to find out. Hold back the temptation to judge, to close the loop and say, "No, it must be this or it must be that." Just suspend judgment. Understand the reality, understand the dynamics, and gradually crystallise in your own mind a model of what the reality is — accepting that at any one time the model is imperfect and probably needs newer versions to replace it.

If our Western friends can see that of China, and if China can see that of the West, then they say: "Oh, now I understand why you said those things. Now I understand why you did those things." And then maybe, because we have a better grasp of the dynamics — you know, if you know yourself and you know the other side — you can strike better deals. Because there are things which are important to you but not important to me. I offer them to you. And in return, there are things which are important to me but not important to you. You offer them to me. Then it's win-win.

That is the kind of world we should be entering. And it requires a greater humility from each side about itself, and a greater willingness to accept that there is an internal logic to the way the other side behaves.

When I was in India recently, I had a session organised by an old friend. An Indian industrialist said, "Oh, I don't trust the Chinese. They will cheat you."

I had the same thing in Hong Kong and China — said about India. I said, "How could it be that the Chinese cannot be trusted? If the Chinese cannot be trusted, how can there be a Chinese economy? If India cannot be trusted, how can there be an Indian economy?" But each has its own system of trust. And when you don't understand it, you jump to the conclusion that they're cheats. And therefore, there's no room for negotiation.

But if you say, "Oh no, trust for them operates in this way" — a contract, yes, is very important, but litigation is frowned upon because it already represents a rupture. The essence of a contract should be a relationship. Whereas in the British legal tradition, a contract once signed is sealed. However the world changes after that, you're bound by it — and suing is almost commonplace. Don't take it personally.

I remember once: my brother was a doctor in Boston. My father went there for a cataract operation and it did not go well, and he became partially blind as a result. My American brothers who had immigrated said, "No, we should sue." My brother from Singapore, who had recommended the doctor, said, "How can you sue him? He did it as a favour to us, and these things happen."

The other brother said, "No, that's nothing personal — they all have insurance. You're just a statistic, and when it turns the other way, they just sue and get their claim."

I, being the youngest, watched this conversation with some interest. I said, "Wow, this reflects the perspective of two different worlds."

Keith 00:25:44

If you want full access to the transcripts of every episode, just head over to ykeith.com and you'll get full free access to each transcript. Now, back to the show.

To understand a country as big as China, you need to touch the elephant. And you've intimated how the system of trust in China works. I thought it would be useful to get your sense of what are some of the things you feel strongly about regarding China today — things that you think more people should better understand, that perhaps remain underappreciated or understated.

George Yeo 00:26:18

Singapore is between and between. My mother came from China. She spoke no Mandarin, no English throughout her life. My conversation with her was in limited Teochew. She spoke some Malay in the marketplace and some Cantonese, but that was it. And somehow we were able to communicate. Looking back, I thought it was a very low level of communication — but she had the greatest influence on me, because there are things which are passed on not just by words. There are things which exist on other planes.

Two brothers died young, so the family converted to Catholicism. So I grew up in the Catholic tradition, and I take a deep interest in the Catholic Church and the history of the Church in Europe.

In a sense, I'm not unusual for Singapore. We live here, rooted in different civilisations, and therefore we sense how each views the other. We try to benefit from that — sometimes we can arbitrage, but sometimes we try to be peacemakers and say, "Look, the reason they are reacting this way is because of this, that, and the other."

In Europe, the greatest minds in European history have always wrestled with the idea of God and the afterlife. Even when they become kings and emperors, they seek the blessing of the Pope. All of Europe is reflected in the Vatican, in one way or another. During the seven years I worked for Pope Francis, I got to know the Vatican a little. I came to understand how intricate it is, and how in that microcosm all of Western civilisation finds its reflection.

In China, what is spiritual and religious is understood differently. The objective is not to gain entry into paradise. The objective is to bring paradise to the earth. So the greatest minds in China will not engage in science, mathematics, or engineering — they will engage in governance. In how human beings should relate to one another, as individuals and in families, in order that there will be peace and everybody can live a good life.

These are two very different intellectual and philosophical traditions. Both have their truths. Each can gain much by learning from the other — which may well be the next phase of human history.

Keith 00:29:47

In this configuration, there is this relatively new power — a new empire — which was the US. When thinking about the US, I remember you made this comment that Donald Trump is an agent of history, which I don't think is a mainstream view of how people see him. I'd like for you to help us understand what you mean by that — when you say that Donald Trump is actively fast-forwarding history.

George Yeo 00:30:13

The cracking of the ice is a phenomenon much larger than any human being or group of human beings. You can't stop the ice from cracking. But you can make it crack faster. You can make it crack in certain directions, by human agency.

In a sense, Trump is doing that. By his egregious behaviour towards the Europeans, he is deepening a fissure which was already there, turning it into a cleavage, and eventually there will be some separation. So even if there were no Trump, it would have happened. It might have taken another 10 or 20 years. But Trump is going around with sledgehammers, hitting the ice. In certain places he will achieve nothing. In other parts where fissures already exist, he may well accelerate the division. That's what I meant.

Keith 00:31:24

Every year across the globe, over 400,000 children are diagnosed with cancer, and the harsh truth is that in many low-income countries, the survival rate is below 30%. For those who survive, their quality of life is severely affected, because they lack access to advanced medical facilities to help treat their conditions in time.

Mr. George Yeo and his wife, Mrs. Jennifer Yeo, set up the Viva Foundation for Children with Cancer to eradicate the scourge of cancer for every child, regardless of their geography. They've moved the needle by funding paediatric cancer research, improving medical care, and enhancing education opportunities for these children. The best way you can help is to either volunteer or donate. You can go to ykeith.com/viva and see the opportunities I've personally created where you can find ways to contribute meaningfully. Alternatively, you can scan the QR code here to donate. Help us win the fight against cancer for children — and together we can make a better world. Thank you so much for considering these opportunities. Now, back to the show.

What drives this force that causes someone like Trump to emerge?

George Yeo 00:32:34

It is driven by the internal dynamics of American politics.

The US was created by Western civilisation. It was a daughter civilisation of Europe — stripped of all its trappings and restrictions, transplanted onto a new continent. It flourished. It's like you have an old bonsai, trapped in a pot, its roots cramped into one another. And suddenly you break the pot, you free up the roots, and you transplant it onto fertile land, with sunshine and water. It is the same tree, but now it grows — and it grew and grew to become the greatest power on earth.

Then the demographics changed. From the 1950s onwards, white Americans started taking liberties with themselves. You had the Vietnam War, the counter-culture movements. Because people were no longer prepared to work as hard, you brought in migrants. Those on Wall Street encouraged it, because that's how they made money — you outsource, you bring in cheap labour. And those among you who couldn't work as hard? It's okay, you buy them off.

Then the quality and nature of the society began to change. Values changed. The Vietnam War quickened this process. There was a kind of Reagan restoration, but things were already moving.

Increasingly, they felt a loss of confidence in themselves. Then you had the Obama phenomenon, which was remarkable. No one in Asia had believed that Obama — a Black man — could become president. But he did, for two terms. I had Republican friends who shed tears over how profound that was. But it led to disappointment, in the sense that this had not made their problems go away — it had made them worse.

So this dissatisfaction with what had happened in America created the MAGA phenomenon, and that created the phenomenon of Trump. Trump is the result of a deep current in American society. He reacted against many things which had gone on for a long time. It's a little reactionary, because it hopes to go back to the past. But I don't think it's possible to go back to the past. You have to find a new, creative solution to the problems you now have.

Those new ideas have not yet emerged in America. So right now, it's almost a contest as to whose version from the past should apply to the future.

It's the biggest drama in the world today — what's happening within America. And unlike China, which can tear up its constitution and still remain China, or France, which is now into its fifth republic, you tear up the American constitution and it's finished. I don't think it comes together again.

So even when you have to go to prison, even when you think the elections were rigged, you accept that these are the processes, these are the courts. You may think the judges are not fair, but this is how the system works.

But there are a lot of guns. And at some point, if people feel that you've bent things to breaking point — there could be violence. And we're beginning to see violence in American society. They have a tradition of handling guns responsibly. The great majority do. But is it a tinderbox? Will more sparks start a bigger fire? We don't know.

There are people, especially in Asia, who think that America is in terminal decline and are wishing for a speedier decline. I'm not sure that is wise, because if America is in terminal decline, there'll be mayhem for generations in the world.

Can it heal? If it heals, how long will it take? It will take more than ten years, because the decline took more than ten years. So we're entering a period of uncertainty with global ramifications — all of which is somehow reflected in one man who arose from that sense of unhappiness with the evolution of American society. He is an agent of change who has no real sense of history. He is a bully, acting impulsively — sometimes to the benefit of his people, sometimes not — but operating within what are still, possibly, the acceptable bounds of America.

So we're all watching with bated breath. And beyond Trump, it could be a JD Vance, it could be a Democrat — but no one can reverse the cracking of the ice.

Keith 00:39:23

If you think about the US today, one of its greatest strengths is that it is still the reserve currency of the world. In that situation where you see this ice cracking, what happens to the dollar's status? Would there be an alternative financial system that emerges, or will the US be able to maintain it, given its extensive military presence across the world?

George Yeo 00:39:51

There's a conventional wisdom that you need a financial system, that you need a reserve currency. But for most of human history, there was no reserve currency. If you entered China, China had a currency. If you entered a big polity like France, you had a currency. But if you were in the Hanseatic League or Venice, you went back to precious metals, which are not dependent on political power.

What is the essence of fiat currency? The essence of fiat currency is a contractual obligation to pay, and you fulfil that obligation with paper money, by law. Can that law be enforced? Behind fiat currency is, ultimately, the power of the state — and behind that, violence.

When Marco Polo went to China, he encountered paper currency, and was a revelation. The Venetians believed in gold ducats. Paper? But then they saw the chop — the seal of the great Khan on it. Because he can honour it. And if his treasury is short of resources, he can acquire them. So the paper is good.

It's like going to a casino — they give you a thousand-dollar plastic chip. For as long as the casino operates, the chip is good. One day the casino shuts down, and that chip is just plastic. But if it's gold, well, it's still gold.

So people ask me about Bitcoin. I say Bitcoin has no balance sheet backing it and no intrinsic value. For as long as the casino is operating, Bitcoin is okay. But if something happens to the casino, it's just plastic.

So you ask yourself — the Singapore dollar. We used to issue $10,000 notes until, under pressure from other countries, we stopped. But they're very convenient. It's like Marco Polo seeing the banknote from Kublai Khan. And I say, "Yes, Singapore has no violence, we are a peaceful and law-abiding people" — but people know that our currency is backed by reserves, backed by gold and hard currency. So it's good money.

China is preparing itself for financial crisis. It's been building up gold stocks, because if you have gold, people say, "Maybe I can trust the currency." Putin saw war coming and knew the rouble would be attacked. So he built up gold stocks. When the rouble was attacked after he moved into Ukraine, he opened a gold window and set a minimum price for the rouble. For a period, the rouble went higher, not lower.

So you come to the American dollar. There are rumours that Fort Knox is not overflowing with gold the way we used to think. We don't know. But Germany has asked for the gold it kept there to be returned. It's taken years, and only a small proportion has been returned.

The fact that the gold price has been soaring is because people worry that the US dollar may eventually lose its status. And if it does, there is a big problem — because the US cannot finance its deficit. Cannot. The debt servicing is already bigger than the defence budget, and it's diverging year by year.

Trump doesn't mind the US dollar getting cheaper, because it makes the US more competitive. But it means that if you don't work harder, who will finance your consumption? So then you print more money. And what happens? At some point people say, "You are just inflating" — and one day the currency be worth less, which accelerates the whole cycle.

There is no central bank, no corporation, no wealthy family which does not worry about the long-term future of the US dollar. I think it is of great concern to the powers that be in the US. When rumours swirled that the BRICS countries might create an alternative reserve currency, Trump's immediate reaction was visceral — 500% tariffs immediately. I thought: that is a neuralgic fear. There is fear.

We don't know how the US is going to square the circle. They thought they could cut down expenses, so they brought Elon Musk in and created DOGE. It was an abject failure, because every part of the budget is already accounted for and politically entangled.

Keith 00:46:17

That seems to be the biggest question coming out of the US right now, at least from my point of view. A lot of people are asking: can the primacy of the US dollar be eroded? And if it falls, what happens?

George Yeo 00:46:29

It depends on the US economy. It depends on the ability of Americans to work harder, save more, consume less, and take fewer liberties with themselves. And can you do that without immigration?

If you can do it without immigration, fine. If you do it with immigration, social stresses will increase. The Republicans will think that immigration is a way to pack the electoral rolls with people more naturally inclined towards the Democrats — though I'm not so sure about that, because sometimes when people are migrants, they come in and they don't want government to waste money, because it feels like their money.

The US is going through a very difficult period.

Keith 00:47:22

You've made this point about legitimacy being backed by violence. And today we are seeing actual violence in our times. I think in Singapore, for example, a lot of people pay great attention to what's happening in Gaza and Ukraine. Especially the Gaza situation — Singapore is in a delicate position. Our defence ties with the Israeli military have been well documented, and at the same time we have a significant Muslim Malay population within Singapore who feel a very strong kinship with what's happening. And not just Muslims — I think people from other races and religions also feel that what's happening in Gaza is very bloody, and it offends us.

So the question I have for you — you're someone who's been a diplomat, who's been in these spaces trying to broker peace. I want to ask: what is the endgame? How should one take a cold-blooded analysis of what's happening in Gaza, and how should we understand our response?

George Yeo 00:48:32

We can't change the world. We can't change Israel. We can't change Israel's relationship with its neighbours. Arab society is going through its own evolution, which we can only follow. It has some impact on us, in the matter of extreme Islamic beliefs. We have some control within the neighbourhood — limited. We just have to protect ourselves, and when the pieces move, we have to recalibrate dynamically and try to get into the safest position possible at all times. Sometimes we make mistakes — so we quickly adjust, pay the price, and adjust again. But be very alert, and be objective.

Keith 00:49:38

Can you elaborate on why we need to be objective?

George Yeo 00:49:43

I was watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan, and how the Israeli athletes were booed. There is a very strong feeling in the world against what Israel has done in Gaza. Our position is very clear — a two-state solution, going back to UN resolutions. Our relationship with Israel is not premised upon agreeing to Israel's larger ambitions.

So at some point, if Israel says, "Look, either you support us or you don't" — all relationships are affected. We have to accept that possibility. The same with Taiwan. We train in Taiwan. This has always been the understanding. But at the same time, we have to understand what China's core interests are.

At one point, we were going to have an air detachment in Guam. I was very troubled by that. And I'm glad that we decided not to proceed with it, because it would have put us in the line of fire. No position is permanent. Maybe one day we can train in Guam. Maybe one day we can do this or that. We just have to constantly calculate in our own self-interest.

Keith 00:51:17

There's this paradox about politics, right? You have to be cold-blooded at the same time as being warm-hearted. You have to feel that you care for the people you serve and work for. I think you embodied that during your time in politics — trying to be dispassionate, but also deeply passionate about serving people. How do you balance that dichotomy of trying to be objective without being too cool and calculated?

George Yeo 00:51:53

It's sometimes said that diplomats are paid to lie for their country. I was never comfortable with that description. You can lie and gain advantage once. It's not likely you can do the same thing twice. Do it repeatedly, and no one trusts you — so you've given up a long-term position.

In my years in government, I always tried to establish long-term relationships, and then settle short-term problems within those long-term relationships. And since I'm coming back to you again, how can I be nasty to you or cheat you, because I'm going to meet you again and again? And equally for you.

So I think good foreign policy takes a longer-term view. This is the wisdom of Chinese statecraft — they take a very long view and set problems and issues within a longer-term perspective. So even when they have a big quarrel and they apply pressure, they always leave a ladder, because they want to go back to the long-term position.

Keith 00:53:14

If one were to use the Taiwan example you've alluded to — I read a lot of commentaries, and there's a lot of discourse about, for example, Xi Jinping having fired some of his most senior military generals. There's a lot of chatter, especially in Western media, around the idea that China is moving in on Taiwan. What's your view?

George Yeo 00:53:50

I read those reports with scepticism.

The main reason, in my analysis, is corruption in the PLA. They're recruiting very bright young officers because they have to be technologically advanced — in AI, quantum computing, aerospace. You can't have a bunch of senior leaders who are corrupt, and the corruption was very deep.

The problem is that in all countries, military procurement requires secrecy. You cannot subject it to the same scrutiny as civilian procurement. So there have to be internal checks and specialised groups — and that therefore creates more opportunities for special arrangements to be made.

It was quite clear, before Xi Jinping, that promotions were being bought. Think about it: from colonel to general, from one star to two stars, and so on. This went on for many years. People knew about it and played the game. It doesn't mean they weren't professional — they still were, otherwise they could not have developed hypersonics and aircraft carriers. But there was a lot of corruption which degraded the professionalism of the organisation.

So cleaning up the PLA takes time. It's layer upon layers. And even if you have a new group coming up, can you be sure they were not already tainted further down? It'll take time.

To me, that is the most plausible explanation for what's happening. But of course, in a hierarchical system — which is consistent throughout Chinese history — in the process of cleaning up, you also make sure that your political purposes are served.

Keith 00:55:51

Your view is that the structural trends between China and Taiwan suggest that war is unlikely to break out.

George Yeo 00:55:56

Whether or not there's war with Taiwan depends entirely on the US. If the US doesn't back Taiwan, the Taiwanese would quickly find ways to negotiate. Where the US gives Taiwanese people hope that it will back Taiwan independence — whether explicitly or implicitly — the politics of Taiwan are affected. People say, "There's a chance, so let's vote deep green." If there's no chance, they say, "No, that's a dead end" — and minds will change.

When Trump was interviewed by the New York Times after a certain operation, he was asked: what would he do about Taiwan? What is it to him? His answer was astonishing — essentially, that it was no different to Venezuela. One dark night, a special operation, a country folded.

And if you're China, you say, "Oh, that's interesting. Maybe I should plan for such an operation." And you lick your lips.

And if you're a Taiwanese — whether green, white, or blue — you say, "Okay, elections are coming. This is my view of cross-strait relations." It must affect the politics of Taiwan. It must affect the way young Taiwanese are thinking about their future.

The KMT under its new chairwoman — arrangements have been made for her to go to China to meet Xi Jinping. Her deputy has already gone and met with officials. At first, people said she was wrong to take a clear position on one China, because she would lose supporters. I'm not sure about that. Because in a period of instability, what you want is clarity. You may lose some support initially, but in the end you may gain more.

And one notices that this is also Xi Jinping's position — a formulation first articulated by Deng Xiaoping, used a number of times, and recently repeated by a senior Chinese official to the KMT during a meeting in Beijing.

So now, if the blue and white work together, they will win. But I don't believe the green will just sit back and do nothing. They will also adjust. So we're into a new dispensation.

Keith 00:59:14

I wanted to draw out all of these takes precisely because I think they help bring into clarity this idea of multiplicity — that things are going to be much murkier than we assumed before.

Going back to Singapore: in all your lectures, you've been consistent in showing us that the essence of Singapore is arbitrage. We become the place where — as you put it — we buy cheap and sell dear. I wanted to ask you, from your view of where this world is headed, what should Singaporeans be carrying in their minds in terms of how we should adjust?

George Yeo 01:00:05

If we are just traders — if Singapore is just a Change Alley where you buy and sell and make on the margin — that may be the essence of an economy, but it will not give us great satisfaction as a people. It's not all we are. There was once a dismissive comment made about the Japanese — that they were just transistor radio salesmen. It was a remark of contempt. Are we just a big Change Alley?

What we are philosophically, in terms of values, is much more than that. Arbitrage is the result of the fact that in this small place, the world is reflected, and we learn to live with one another. This is very important.

I may be a Buddhist. I may be Chinese, and Chinese New Year is coming. In the old days, there were firecrackers and the smell from the joss sticks. But you're Muslim, you're Hindu — you may complain a little bit, but not too much. You live with it, and you celebrate it too. You visit your Chinese friends, you go to their homes. You don't eat the pork, but you eat the other delicacies. And in doing this, we are embodying and expressing values which the world desperately needs at this point in time.

When I was in Delhi recently, talking about Panchsheel version 2.0 — the five principles adapted for the modern world, taking into account the environment, human rights, and other things — the world needs more of that.

You can be China, you can be Brazil, you can be Russia — each has its own nature, its own history, its own sense of itself. Not only accept that: something you can admire and celebrate.

When I was in Natuna recently — it's in the middle of nowhere, right in the South China Sea — I found the people preparing for Chinese New Year. I thought there must be a lot of Chinese there. There are some. I was talking to a local man who spoke Chinese. He said, "No, everybody celebrates Chinese New Year here. Everybody celebrates Christmas. Everybody celebrates Hari Raya." It's a small community of about 8,000 people, overwhelmingly Muslim, but with some Chinese and a smattering of Christians.

I thought: it's a little like Singapore. Next to the temple is a church, and further down is a mosque. I was woken up by the call to prayer — I'm not used to that. But if you live there, you adapt. I have friends in Indonesia who, during Ramadan, become vegetarian. They say, "We also join in the self-sacrifice."

People adapt. The world needs much more of this. In other words, Singapore is particular, but Singapore should also be universal — in our own unique way. We don't arrogate to ourselves that we are espousing global values. It's just that by who we are and how we treat one another, we express a hope for the future of a diverse world.

Keith 01:04:42

But there's a tension inside, right? Being global and local at the same time. I think you experienced that firsthand — the political cost of trying to embody that spirit, where sometimes in policy it doesn't translate perfectly and locals grumble. How should governance manage this tension between, as some scholars put it, the particular and the universal?

George Yeo 01:05:16

The tension never goes away. It's in the nature of society. The moment you have interaction, there's conflict.

I was listening to Father John Paul, a Franciscan friar, at mass yesterday. He said that when he was younger, he found many of his brothers irritating — they didn't like each other. As you grow older, you become more mellow and eventually become friends. There's always conflict. The moment you live together, there's conflict — within the family, between husband and wife, between parents and children. These conflicts have to be managed every day, not just occasionally. That's how we have society.

And sometimes hard decisions have to be taken — where it involves right and wrong. So too with society. There will always be troublemakers. There will always be moments when moral issues have to be decisively settled. And that's Singapore.

Keith 01:06:09

You are one of the most fondly remembered ministers, and many people view your 2011 exit as premature. I want to ask you: looking back at your time in governance — and even predating your time in politics — what are some of the big lessons you have learned?

George Yeo 01:06:36

I see it as a continuum in my own life — from school days to university, student politics, my time in the army and air force and SAFOS, having to deal with diverse groups both within the SAF and with other agencies in government, then helming different ministries, leaving government to join the private sector, working for the Holy Father for seven years, and then being involved with a number of universities and groups not only in Singapore but scattered around the world.

I don't see each stage as dramatically different from the others. In all of them, you are dealing with human beings. You have to respect them. You have to find ways to work together. You have to achieve common direction. Set goals and do your best.

Never take credit, because you are just part of a flow. Never be depressed by failure, because that too is part of the flow.

That's how I see my own time in politics. People say, "Oh, you did wonderful things with MICA." I say MICA was already being cooked years before I became minister. The idea for it came long before. The land was already reserved in the 1970s. There were many white papers about building the arts in Singapore. I was just there at a particular point in time. The ingredients came, I did some frying, and passed it on to somebody else. So take some credit, but not all — and always remember: if you take all the credit, you take all the blame.

Keith 01:08:13

That sounds very Taoist of you. I think that's where the Taoist strain of thinking emerges.

George Yeo 01:08:19

It's very deep in me. But it's not a choice — to me, it is the nature of existence.

The Taoist view is, I believe, a scientific view. It is not about values. It's the nature of the world. Everything is in cycles. Everything is in motion. And there are cycles within cycles.

Keith 01:08:47

One last question: you are in the business of advising many people, including young ones like myself. If there is one piece of advice you would want a young Singaporean today to take into this coming, more turbulent world, what would it be?

George Yeo 01:09:00

When I wrote Musings, I wrestled with whether I should dedicate it to my children — not to puff them up. So I dedicated it to them with a prayer that their lives should be a blessing to others.

You can be very clever, you can be wealthy, you can have high achievements. But in the end, for that brief moment when these atoms coalesce and become you — from birth to death — have you added or subtracted from the world? If you have subtracted from the world, then perhaps it is better that you did not exist. You are a net minus.

But if you have added to the world, you will die happy. If you have subtracted from the world, I think you will die miserable.

Keith 01:10:09

Wow. Those are powerful words, Mr. Yeo. Thank you for coming on.