Asian Youth Forum April 26-30, 2000.
By Dr. Kantathi Supha-mongkhon (Adviser to Prime Minister)
Globalization is the biggest phenomenon at the present stage and time. Having been in the United Nations that's very normal because in the UN a meeting starts about half an hour late. You know when I first arrived at the UN, the chairman of a certain meeting said let's meet at ten and I was the only one in the room-at the appointed hour. Maybe ABAC and UN are following the same culture. I think outside the UN structure, time became quite important in globalization. What dose that mean? There is no real consequence. Everyone agrees that we are experiencing globalization, but no one really knows what that word really means. There is no consensus on the definition. To me, it means the rapid movement of goods and services including information and values across the national boundaries beyond the control of the national governments. As you see from the definition the role of the computers and the Internet, becomes central. Information technology is the heart of globalization. Some people are questioning whether to join in the globalization. The big question is "Do we have a choice." Some people said that we should stop the world so we can jump off: Globalization can be dangerous, you know, we cloud lose the national identity, we could be exploited by others.
The question there is "Are we asking the right question or the wrong question?" Do we have a choice to stay inside globalization or can we stay out?
My answer, it would cause us tremendous amount of every thing if we stay out, so there is no choice but participate in globalization. And the question becomes "How do we manage globalization so we can all benefit mutually from globalization that becomes the Key".
We have talked a lot in the world about the gap between the rich and the poor countries. A few years ago the consensus according to the UN statistics, the gap between the rich and the poor used to be about three times, and now it's roughly about seven to ten times. But with globalization and with information technology the gap will actually increase and the UN expects the gap within the next few years to be about a hundred times.
If the countries are left outside globalization, if they don't participate in information technology, it would be nearly if not just impossible for them to catch up.
The decision that we make today will have a major impact on our future. Globalization does not have to be zero-sum (win-lose situation), but we can manage globalization in such a way that it will be a positive sum game in which all participants gain and then that would be a major goal for us to achieve. The economic crisis that hit this region, in 1997 may reflect the inability of certain societies to effectively prepare themselves for globalization. That is a major warning, it happens here and in other countries, but it serves as a warning into the future, the message is that we don't have to suffer if we are prepared. We need the effective strategies to cope with globalization.
The question has been raised about whether globalization will be good economically, whether globalization will lead to the loss of national identities. The answer depends on your attitude. In a big way if we don't participate and use the Internet to get the information and to get our information out-information goes both ways-then you maybe at a major disadvantage. The globalization if effectively handled can help our trade with the world, but if we are not effective then we lose out to countries that are effective. The same with value or national identity, there's a tendency for the American culture to dominate the world of globalization, but it doesn't have to be that way, and it all depends on the strategies also. We can export our national identity to others, our culture, our goods etc. With an effective strategy we can use globalization to our advantage, without the effective strategy we will be hurt. That's pretty clear. Another thing that is very important and is also quite clear is that in globalization with the Internet, English has become the global language. About over 80% of the Internet is in English, so those with the ability to use English would have the major advantage already. Everyone here already has the major advantage on those, who could not use English effectively in the globalization.
Three keys to success of globalization would be
In many societies the focus on education has been to look at the ability of students to memorize thing as well as to go from A to B to C, but maybe it's time also to look at the concept of rational thinking and it is very important-rational thinking means, maybe you can get to C without having to face B as an obstacle. Maybe there're the other ways to get to C than to go through B-you have to rethink your thought processes.
I have an example, which demonstrates the tremendous difference in expenses if nothing else, if one has that ability to think out of box: When the US sent the astronauts out to outer space: there were the desires for the astronauts to be able to use a pen. A pen in outer space to write the report, but they discovered that they couldn't use the pen effectively, because the ink needed gravity to write. The United States then wanted to make sure that something was done to improve the pen in order for the astronauts to write in their hand-writing a report from outer space. Millions of dollars and couple of years later eventually they came up with a very special, very expensive pen, which could write could write with no gravity.
The Russians, on the other hand, used the different method of thinking, a different bow or, out of box of US. They looked at the goal. How do we get our people to write from outer space? Instead of spending a million to improve the pen, they spent less than a dollar and they solved the same problem because they used a pencil instead. So we have to train ourselves to look at everything we are considering and take as wide as possible a picture and not just from "A" to "B" to "C" but to see a whole comprehensive lateral field. That becomes the key. Negotiations are another very important aspect of your lives even when you are in college and also when you go out into the business world. How to negotiate effectively. In globalization, the meaning of power may have changed also. We have talked about power. If you look at the international relations, the talk about power is- is it an entity like super power, major power and small power. The assumption there is that a super power naturally always has its way, if it was dealing with a smaller power. But that's misleading, As you know in the 70's, the United States which was the super power did not have its way with Vietnam – North Vietnam which is half of a small country. So the power equation does explain the outcome. Because one would assume that any one with more power would be to win the one with the lesser power. So we need another way of looking at power and that is that actually power is relational and psychological and much depends on our ability to translate our assets- what we have. The term comparative advantage becomes important when it turns into actual creative gain for us. The USA has a lot of assets including nuclear weapons but it wasn't able to convince Vietnam that it would use those assets. It was unable to convince Vietnam to obey what it wants because psychologically, it couldn't translate what it had and forced the Vietnam which had a lot less. But they used what they had in such a way that the bigger power actually became the smaller one at equation. So the psychological aspect, the strategy becomes very important and when you go into business, you would notice this also. Now with the new economy, with the Internet economy, with the "DOT COM" economy companies don't have to have a lot of assets. But they can win with an effective strategy. So, what am I saying is that the goal to winning is no longer what you have as your possession such as the assets but it's all in your intelligence, your brain. That becomes key to success in globalization. So you can have a country which has no natural resources but that country can become extremely powerful of it has right strategy and you can have a country with a lot of excellent cards in hands but that country can become a loser. A success story would be Singapore. Singapore is a very small country with no natural resources but it was able to use its brainpower to have an effective strategy to deal effectively with globalization. And increase its power and income for its citizens. So that becomes something to focus a lot of your attention on how to come up with the strategy so that globalization will be something good for us and not something that would hurt us. And another concept to always keep in mind is the concept called KBE which means we are in the Knowledge Based Economy and it's through education, it's through thinking especially lateral thinking that we can win. And if we don't have that in our pocket-then anything else that we have whatever assets we have if we don't have the ability to understand globalization and have an effective strategy we talk about the global scene. You have probably received reports about WTO and the Seattle meeting and the headlines about failure-failure to realize an agreement etc. A lot of demonstrations maybe but we should look at that from another angle-maybe it wasn't a failure because what happened in Seattle was that developing countries with lesser power, so to speak decided that they would put up the stand against domination. There was a tendency for certain countries to dominate the agenda and to press its position on other countries. So developing countries got together and tried to put a stop to that. And that was described as a failure of Seattle but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it is the progress of globalization in two-way globalization and network. Smaller countries are realizing that they have a lot of power if they have a strategy, a unity strategy to stand together. And maybe the bigger countries, so to speak, will have to revise their strategy and make sure that what they do will be for the benefit of everyone as they are supposed to. So that's a lesson to look at and if anything the core answer comes back to knowledge, strategy, education, understanding of the world and how you are doing is so important. When you sit back and use the internet, that's also important. That is no substitute for travelling and meeting other people. The classic concept of networking, when you meet other people you can expand your idea, exchange your experiences and in the future you can coordinate and work together, help even others think and you can work with one another to make sure that globalization will be of mutual benefit for all of us.
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