Ted Talks: Parag Khanna maps the future of countries
（調解setting可顯漢字字幕）
(英文內容)
0:11 Do
we live in a borderless world? Before
you answer that, have a look at this map.Contemporary political map shows that
we have over 200 countries in the world today.That's probably more than at any
time in centuries. Now,
many of you will object. For
you this would be a more appropriate map. You
could call it TEDistan. In
TEDistan, there are no borders, just
connected spaces and unconnected spaces. Most
of you probably reside in one of the 40 dots on
this screen, of the many more that
represent 90 percent of the world economy.
0:46 But
let's talk about the 90 percent of the world population that
will never leave the place in which they were born. For
them, nations, countries, boundaries, borders still matter a great deal, and
often violently. Now
here at TED, we're solving some of the great riddles
of science and mysteries of the universe. Well
here is a fundamental problem we have not solved: our
basic political geography. How
do we distribute ourselves around the world?
1:13 Now
this is important, because border conflicts justify
so much of the world's military-industrial complex. Border
conflicts can derail so
much of the progress that we hope to achieve here. So
I think we need a deeper understanding of
how people, money, power,religion, culture, technology interact
to change the map of the world. And
we can try to anticipate those changes, and
shape them in a more constructive direction.
1:38 So
we're going to look at some maps of the past, the
present and some maps you haven't seen in
order to get a sense of where things are going. Let's start with the world of 1945.1945
there were just 100 countries in the world. After World War II, Europe was
devastated, but still held large overseas colonies: French West Africa, British East
Africa, South Asia, and so forth. Then over the late '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s, waves of decolonization took place. Over 50 new countries were born. You can see that Africa has been
fragmented. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South East Asian nations created. Then came the end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War and the
disintegration of the Soviet Union. You had the creation of new states in
Eastern Europe, the former Yugoslav republics and the Balkans, and the 'stans of central Asia.
2:31 Today
we have 200 countries in the world. The
entire planet is covered by
sovereign, independent nation-states. Does
that mean that someone's gain has to be someone else's loss? Let's
zoom in on one of the most strategic areas of the world, Eastern
Eurasia. As
you can see on this map, Russia
is still the largest country in the world. And
as you know, China is the most populous. And
they share a lengthy land border.
2:57 What
you don't see on this map is
that most of Russia's 150 million people are
concentrated in its western provinces and
areas that are close to Europe. And
only 30 million people are in its eastern areas. In
fact, the World Bank predicts that
Russia's population is declining towards
about 120 million people
3:17 And
there is another thing that you don't see on this map. Stalin,
Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders forced
Russians out to the far east to
be in gulags, labor camps, nuclear
cities, whatever the case was. But
as oil prices rose, Russian
governments have invested in infrastructure to
unite the country, east and west. But
nothing has more perversely impacted Russia's
demographic distribution, because
the people in the east, who never wanted to be there anyway, have
gotten on those trains and roads and
gone back to the west. As
a result, in the Russian far east today, which
is twice the size of India, you
have exactly six million Russians.
3:55 So
let's get a sense of what is happening in this part of the world. We
can start with Mongolia, or as some call it, Mine-golia. Why
do they call it that? Because
in Mine-golia, Chinese firms operate and
own most of the mines — copper, zinc, gold — and
they truck the resources south and east into mainland China. China
isn't conquering Mongolia. It's
buying it. Colonies
were once conquered. Today countries are bought.
4:21 So
let's apply this principle to Siberia. Siberia
most of you probably think of as
a cold, desolate, unlivable place. But
in fact, with global warming and rising temperatures, all
of a sudden you have vast wheat fields and
agribusiness, and grain being produced in Siberia.But who is it going to feed? Well,
just on the other side of the Amo River, in
the Heilongjiang and Harbin provinces of China, you
have over 100 million people. That's
larger than the entire population of Russia.
4:52 Every
single year, for at least a decade or more, [60,000]
of them have been voting with their feet, crossing,
moving north and inhabiting this desolate terrain. They
set up their own bazaars and medical clinics. They've
taken over the timber industry and
been shipping the lumber east, back into China. Again,
like Mongolia, China
isn't conquering Russia. It's just leasing it. That's
what I call globalization Chinese style.
5:20 Now
maybe this is what the map of the region might
look like in 10 to 20 years. But
hold on. This map is 700 years old. This
is the map of the Yuan Dynasty, led
by Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan. So
history doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but
it does rhyme.
5:38 This
is just to give you a taste of what's happening in this part of the world. Again,
globalization Chinese style. Because
globalization opens up all kinds of ways for us toundermine and change the way
we think about political geography. So,
the history of East Asia in fact, people
don't think about nations and borders. They
think more in terms of empires and hierarchies, usually
Chinese or Japanese.
6:02 Well it's China's turn again. So let's look at how China is
re-establishing that hierarchy in the far East. It starts with the global hubs. Remember the 40 dots on the nighttime
map that show the hubs of the global
economy? East Asia today has more of those
global hubs than any other region in the world. Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sidney. These are the filters and funnels of
global capital. Trillions of dollars a year are being brought into the region, so much of it being invested into China.
6:33 Then there is trade. These vectors and arrows represent ever
stronger trade relationships that China has with every country in the region. Specifically, it targets Japan and Korea and Australia, countries that are strong allies of the
United States. Australia, for example, is heavily dependent on exporting iron ore and natural gas
to China. For poorer countries, China reduces tariffs so that Laos and Cambodia can sell
their goods more cheaply and become dependent on exporting to China as well.
7:02 And now many of you have been reading
in the news how people are looking to China to lead the rebound, the economic
rebound, not just in Asia, but potentially for the world. The Asian free trade zone, almost free
trade zone, that's emerging now has a greater trade volume than trade across the Pacific. So China is becoming the anchor of the
economy in the region.
7:22 Another pillar of this strategy is
diplomacy. China has signed military agreements with many countries in the region. It has become the hub of diplomatic
institutions such as the East Asian Community. Some of these organizations don't even
have the United States as a member. There is a treaty of nonaggression
between countries, such that if there were a conflict between China and the United States, most countries vow to just sit it out, including American allies like Korea and
Australia.
7:50 Another pillar of the strategy, like Russia, is demographic. China exports business people, nannies,
students, teachers to teach Chinese around the region, to intermarry and to occupy ever
greater commanding heights of the economies. Already ethnic Chinese people in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are the real key factors and drivers in the economies there. Chinese pride is resurgent in the
region as a result. Singapore, for example, used to ban
Chinese language education. Now it encourages it.
8:24 If you add it all up what do you get? Well, if you remember before World War
II, Japan had a vision for a greater Japanese co-prosperity
sphere. What's emerging today is what you might
call a greater Chinese co-prosperity sphere. So no matter what the lines on the map
tell you in terms of nations and borders, what you really have emerging in the
far east are national cultures, but in a much more fluid, imperial
zone. All of this is happening without firing
a shot.
8:52 That's
most certainly not the case in the Middle East where
countries are still very uncomfortable in
the borders left behind by European colonialists. So
what can we do to think about borders differently in this part of the world? What
lines on the map should we focus on? What
I want to present to you is what I call state
building, day by day.
9:12 Let's
start with Iraq. Six
years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the
country still exists more on a map than it does in reality. Oil
used to be one of the forces holding Iraq together; now
it is the most significant cause of the country's disintegration. The
reason is Kurdistan. The
Kurds for 3,000 years have
been waging a struggle for independence, and
now is their chance to finally have it. These
are pipeline routes, which emerge from Kurdistan, which
is an oil-rich region.
9:39 And
today, if you go to Kurdistan, you'll
see that Kurdish Peshmerga guerillas are
squaring off against the Sunni Iraqi army. But
what are they guarding? Is
it really a border on the map? No.
It's the pipelines. If
the Kurds can control their pipelines, they can set the termsof their own
statehood. Now
should we be upset about this, about the potential disintegration of Iraq? I
don't believe we should. Iraq
will still be the second largest oil producer in the world, behind
Saudi Arabia. And
we'll have a chance to solve a 3,000 year old dispute. Now
remember Kurdistan is landlocked. It
has no choice but to behave. In
order to profit from its oil it
has to export it through Turkey or Syria, and
other countries, and Iraq itself. And
therefore it has to have amicable relations with them.
10:23 Now
lets look at a perennial conflict in the region. That
is, of course, in Palestine. Palestine
is something of a cartographic anomaly because
it's two parts Palestinian, one part Israel.30 years of rose garden diplomacy have
not delivered us peace in this conflict. What
might? I believe that what might solve
the problem is infrastructure. Today
donors are spending billions of dollars on this. These
two arrows are an arc, an
arc of commuter railroads and other infrastructure that
link the West Bank and Gaza.
10:56 If
Gaza can have a functioning port and
be linked to the West Bank, you can have a viable Palestinian state, Palestinian
economy. That,
I believe, is going to bring peace to this particular conflict. The
lesson from Kurdistan and from Palestine is
that independence alone, without infrastructure, is
futile.
11:16Now what might this entire region look like if
in fact we focus on other lines on the map besides borders, when
the insecurities might abate? The last time that was the case was actually a
century ago, during the Ottoman Empire. This
is the Hejaz Railway. The Hejaz Railway ran from Istanbul to Medina via
Damascus. It even had an offshoot running to Haifa in
what is today Israel, on the Mediterranean Sea. But
today the Hejaz Railway lies in tatters, ruins. If
we were to focus on reconstructing these curvy lines on the map,infrastructure,
that cross the straight lines, the borders, I
believe the Middle East would be a far more peaceful region.
11:53 Now
let's look at another part of the world, the
former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, the 'stans. These
countries' borders originate from Stalin's decrees. He
purposely did not want these countries to make sense. He
wanted ethnicities to mingle in
ways that would allow him to divide and rule. Fortunately
for them, most of their oil and gas resources were
discovered after the Soviet Union collapsed.
12:15 Now
I know some of you may be thinking, "Oil, oil, oil. Why
is it all he's talking about is oil?"Well, there is a big difference in
the way we used to talk about oil and
the way we're talking about it now. Before
it was, how do we control their oil? Now
it's their oil for their own purposes. And
I assure you it's every bit as important to them as
it might have been to colonizers and imperialists. Here
are just some of the pipeline projections and
possibilities and scenarios and
routes that are being mapped out for the next several decades. A
great deal of them.
12:45 For
a number of countries in this part of the world, having
pipelines is the ticket to becoming part of the global economy and
for having some meaning besides
the borders that they are not loyal to themselves. Just
take Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan
was a forgotten corner of the Caucuses, but
now with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline into Turkey, it
has rebranded itself as the frontier of the west.
13:07 Then
there is Turkmenistan, which most people think of as
a frozen basket case. But
now it's contributing gas across the Caspian Sea to
provide for Europe, and
even a potentially Turkmen- Afghan-Pakistan-India
pipeline as well.
13:23 Then
there is Kazakhstan, which didn't even have a name before. It
was more considered South Siberia during the Soviet Union. Today
most people recognize Kazakhstan as
an emerging geopolitical player. Why? Because
it has shrewdly designed pipelines to flow across the Caspian, north
through Russia, and even east to China. More
pipelines means more silk roads, instead of the Great Game. The
Great Game connotes dominance of one over the other. Silk
road connotes independence and mutual trust. The
more pipelines we have, the more silk roads we'll have, and
the less of a dominant Great Game competitionwe'll have in the 21st century.
14:01 Now
let's look at the only part of the world that really has brought down its
borders, and
how that has enhanced its strength. And
that is, of course, Europe. The
European Union began as just the coal and steel community of six countries, and
their main purpose was really to keep the rehabilitation of Germany to
happen in a peaceful way. But
then eventually it grew into 12 countries, and
those are the 12 stars on the European flag. The
E.U. also became a currency block, and
is now the most powerful trade block in the entire world. On
average, the E.U. has grown by one country per year since
the end of the Cold War. In
fact most of that happened on just one day. In
2004, 15 new countries joined the E.U. and
now you have what most people consider a
zone of peace spanning 27 countriesand 450 million people.
14:48 So
what is next? What is the future of the European Union? Well
in light blue, you see the zones or
the regions that are at least two-thirds or
more dependent on the European Union for
trade and investment. What
does that tell us? Trade and investment tell us that
Europe is putting its money where its mouth is. Even
if these regions aren't part of the E.U., they
are becoming part of its sphere of influence. Just
take the Balkans. Croatia, Serbia Bosnia,
they're not members of the E.U. yet. But
you can get on a German ICE train and
make it almost to Albania. In
Bosnia you use the Euro currency already, and
that's the only currency they're probably ever going to have.
15:26 So,
looking at other parts of Europe's periphery, such as North Africa. On
average, every year or two, a
new oil or gas pipeline opens up under the Mediterranean, connecting
North Africa to Europe. That
not only helps Europe diminish its reliance on
Russia for energy, but
if you travel to North Africa today, you'll hear more and more people saying that
they don't really think of their region as the Middle East. So
in other words, I believe that President Sarkozy of France is
right when he talks about a Mediterranean union.
15:55 Now
let's look at Turkey and the Caucasus. I
mentioned Azerbaijan before. That
corridor of Turkey and the Caucasus has
become the conduit for 20 percent of
Europe's energy supply. So
does Turkey really have to be a member of the European Union? I
don't think it does. I think it's already part of a
Euro-Turkish superpower.
16:14 So
what's next? Where are we going to see borders change and
new countries born? Well,
South Central Asia, South West Asia is
a very good place to start. Eight
years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan there
is still a tremendous amount of instability. Pakistan
and Afghanistan are still so fragile that
neither of them have dealt constructively with
the problem of Pashtun nationalism. This
is the flag that flies in the minds of
20 million Pashtunswho live on both sides of the Afghan and Pakistan border.
16:42 Let's
not neglect the insurgency just to the south, Balochistan.
Two weeks ago, Balochi
rebels attacked a Pakistani military garrison, and
this was the flag that they raised over it.The post-colonial entropy that
is happening around the world is accelerating, and
I expect more such changes to occur in the map as
the states fragment.
17:02 Of
course, we can't forget Africa. 53
countries, and by far the most number of
suspiciously straight lines on the map. If
we were to look at all of Africa we
could most certainly acknowledge far more, tribal
divisions and so forth. But
let's just look at Sudan, the second-largest country in Africa. It
has three ongoing civil wars, the
genocide in Darfur, which you all know about, the
civil war in the east of the country, and
south Sudan. South
Sudan is going to be having a referendum in 2011 in
which it is very likely to vote itself independence.
17:35 Now
let's go up to the Arctic Circle. There
is a great race on for energy resources under
the Arctic seabed. Who
will win? Canada? Russia? The United States? Actually
Greenland. Several weeks ago Greenland's
[60,000] people voted
themselves self-governance rights from
Denmark. So
Denmark is about to get a whole lot smaller.
17:57 What is the lesson from all of this? Geopolitics is a very unsentimental
discipline. It's constantly morphing and changing the world, like climate change. And like our relationship with the
ecosystem we're always searching for equilibrium in how we divide ourselves across the
planet. Now we fear changes on the map. We fear civil wars, death tolls, having to learn the names of new
countries. But I believe that the inertia of the existing borders that we have
today is far worse and far more violent.
18:26 The
question is how do we change those borders, and
what lines do we focus on? I
believe we focus on the lines that cross borders, the
infrastructure lines. Then
we'll wind up with the world we want, a borderless one. Thank
you. (Applause)
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