Dr. Shashi Tharoor

Host: During the recent years, especially the last months, we've really witnessed an unprecedented convergence of crisis. Political tensions, wars, economical instability, health pandemic also a few years ago, and the growing, of course, impact of the climate change, which is very important for, the world and this planet. Countries, nations, institution, individuals are facing a challenge that test their resilience, our resilience actually, and vision for the future.

However, I like this however, history often shows that chaos can also, be a breeding ground for innovation, transformation, and the new opportunities. Today, in this, of course, session, we will explore how the current global turmoil might not only be, a source of concern for all of us, but a catalyst for a positive change. Thank you for being with us.

I will start with you Your Excellency, Dr. Shashi. How do you define the current state of the global turmoil? Dr. Shashi Tharoor: You know, we had a period when the Cold War bipolarity gave way to two overlapping and by and large seen as positive developments: globalization, spreading around the world and knitting us together economically, technologically, and so on, and of course from 1990 with the end of the Cold War, the unipolar Mm.

When the US seemed to be, in really a position of dominance technologically, economically, militarily, politically. Now, this has suddenly been challenged with four developments I'd like to identify briefly. The first is the backlash against globalization, which gathered pace.

It had two components, economic and cultural. The economic backlash was people in the developed countries saying, "Why are we voting for governments that are sending our jobs off to China and India?" Mm. And I think there was a cultural backlash as well against the cosmopolitanism that came with globalization.

Davos Man flitting around the globe, the, migrants who were coming into different countries, and that cultural backlash, has been described very effectively as a clash between the somewheres and the anywheres. Mm. Anywheres being people like us here who Yeah. Speak anywhere in the world, and the somewheres being those anchored in one country, one religion, one language, one place.

So that's the first major trend. The second, I would say, was the end of the peaceful rise of China, which took place during that Period. Of globalization. China becoming more assertive, more effective.

Yeah. And challenging the US dominance in all these areas: political, economic, technological, military. Third, and this is where Carl I'm sure will have a lot more to say, is Europe. Europe, I remember Carl telling me a few years ago, "Oh, there's an arc of crisis from the Nile to the Indus."

Well, it's gone well beyond the Nile now. Ukraine has Yeah. Europe into this arc of crisis, and I think, there is a certain European ambivalence as well about where they fit into all of this.

Ambivalence over Ukraine, ambivalence over China, and of course Russia right on their doorstep. And the fourth and final trend I see is the emergence of new theaters, of international cooperation in response to all this. You've got the talk about the Indo-Pacific for the first time.