Recession? George Yeo in full flow

Recession? George Yeo in full flow

Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo gave an excellent speech three days ago at Cambridge University, which is celebrating its 800th anniversary.

What the IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn called the Great Recession, Yeo calls The Great Repricing.

That’s the title of his lecture on how the economic crisis will change the world, altering the global economy, job prospects as well as the political order and cultural values. He sees a multipolar world which will still need American leadership.

The Straits Times published an edited excerpt of the speech, but it should be read in full on the blog, Beyond Sg.

The Straits Times omitted the entire section on relations between China and India and the Indian government’s plan to revive the ancient Buddhist Nalanda university, destroyed by Afghan invaders 800 years ago. Yeo is involved in the project as part of a mentors’ group chaired by Nobel Prize winning Indian economist Amartya Sen.

Yeo has a way with words and ideas. He ranges from Schumpeter to an 18th century Chinese emperor, Darwin to Huen Tsang in a clear, thoughtful speech about the need to adapt for the future.

There’s just one false step. He ends by saying:

Human civilisations learn from one another more than they realise, more than we realise... In the heyday of Third World solidarity in the 50s, the Indians had a saying ─ "Hindi-Chini, bhai bhai” ─ Indians and Chinese are brothers. In these confused times, we need to learn from one another on the basis of a deep respect for each other as human beings.

The slogan,”Hindi-Chini, bhai-bhai”, had a bitter aftermath. The two countries fought a border war in 1962. India lost and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who popularized the slogan, never recovered from the ignominy. He died two years later. The dispute has not yet been settled.

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