NUS expert: Complex future calls for integration, not confrontation

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]I think the world is facing many major transitions from a unipolar world to a multipolar world. That's one dimension.

[00:00:08]But equally importantly, we are moving from what I call a mono-civilizational world. A world that was dominated by the West for 200 years plus, you know.

[00:00:17]Uh to a multi-civilizational world, which is therefore becomes much more complex to deal with.

[00:00:24]And here, you know, it was easier for the West to engage the rest when the rest were trying to become like the West, you know. That would make it easier. Okay, you know, we're all trying to be the same.

[00:00:36]But now as news as as the older civilization, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and they're all coming back, and they're rediscovering their identity and and their differences, it's it's a much more complex world.

[00:00:50]But I want to emphasize that even as it becomes a multi-civilizational world, we're not going to end up with Samuel Huntington's uh vision of a clash of civilizations. I don't see that happening.

[00:01:05]Because in many ways, the newly emerging countries, newly emerging powers, actually have a greater stake in this 1945 rules-based order that was created by the West. So, China today, the new powers actually is surprisingly want to preserve this rules-based order in some ways more than certainly the United States under I think United States under President Trump uh is feels that these are constraints. Um but you know, the the the newly emerging powers actually are benefiting uh from this uh current world. So, instead of a clash of civilizations, I've argued that what we will see therefore is a fusion of civilizations, and fusion is a happy outcome.