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The Rise of East Asia: Threat or Opportunity
But in order, in my view, to cope with today's problem, we need to be finding ways which we can revive and rejuvenate the authority of the United Nations and its perceived legitimacy in dealing with global problems. And that's where I worry. I worry first, because the world's only present and for the foreseeable future superpower, the United States, is no longer committed to the notions of global government, which it did more than anyone else to create in the 1940's and 50's. On the other hand, China and Russia have some difficulty in accepting the importance of the international community's role in preventing failed and failing states in causing mayhem that we've seen in the last few years.

Why hasn't there been tougher UN action, over Sudan, for example? Because, frankly, China gets 10% of its oil from the Sudan and China would veto any tougher action through the United Nations. What would be calamitous would be if in the next few years, we saw the development, on the one hand, of American led coalition of the willing, using the UN when it suited, but not really committed to really reviving the United Nations. And China and Russia, China in particular, on the other hand, leading the coalition of the unwilling. Unwilling, for example, to deal with problems of nuclear proliferation, unwilling to deal with the sort of humanitarian crisis that we see in too many failed and failing states.

You don't see somebody standing in front of you who's worried because of China's economic growth. You don't see somebody standing in front of you who is worried by military growth. You do see someone who is concerned about China's environmental records, true. And somebody who is also concerned, if America or Europe played their hands badly with China, a likely consequence is that China itself will make it more difficult than we would require to establish the sort of government we need to deal with the problems of the next few years.

I reflect that many of China's problems in the 2nd half of the last century were the result of meddling in China by outside powers. By my own country, which globalized China by forcing opium on it, by other European colonial powers, by the United States, by Russia and by Japan.

I hope in this century, we are rather more sophisticated in the way we handle China, a great economy and an increasingly important and influential political player as well.

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