Mark Leonard: U.S.-China Convergence as ‘Mimetic Doubles’ & the Age of Unpeace
Geopolitics & Empire
Geopolitics & Empire
4.2 • 568 Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2021
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
ECFR Director Mark Leonard discusses his new book “Age of Unpeace” and why having an open, globalized, “one-world” of connectivity is actually the source of problems today and how issues that bring us together (e.g. internet, migration, economy, health, climate) are being weaponized and providing new platforms for countries to hurt each other. The three empires of connectivity (U.S., China, EU) will define the new global order which in turn will impact the “fourth world”. He examines the U.S.-China relationship and how they are becoming ‘mimetic doubles’ of each other and converging, with the threat of the West becoming more like Beijing. He gives his thoughts on U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and reveals his “nightmare scenario” in the age of unpeace.
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Show Notes
The Afghan tragedy and the age of unpeace https://ecfr.eu/article/the-afghan-tragedy-and-the-age-of-unpeace
The fall of the Afghan government and what it means for Europe https://ecfr.eu/podcasts/episode/the-fall-of-the-afghan-government-and-what-it-means-for-europe
Websites
ECFR https://ecfr.eu
Twitter https://twitter.com/markhleonard
“Age of Unpeace” Book https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/144/1443237/the-age-of-unpeace/9781787634657.html
Mark Leonard’s World in 30 Minutes Podcast (SoundCloud) https://soundcloud.com/ecfr
Mark Leonard’s World in 30 Minutes Podcast (Apple) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-leonards-world-in-30-minutes/id340460705
About Mark Leonard
Mark Leonard is co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think tank. His topics of focus include geopolitics and geoeconomics, China, EU politics and institutions.
Leonard hosts the weekly podcast “Mark Leonards’s World in 30 Minutes” and writes a syndicated column on global affairs for Project Syndicate. Previously he worked as director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform and as director of the Foreign Policy Centre, a think tank he founded at the age of 24 under the patronage of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the 1990s, Leonard worked for the think tank Demos where his Britain™ report was credited with launching Cool Britannia. Mark has spent time in Washington, D.C. as a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and in Beijing as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences.
He was Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geoeconomics until 2016.
Honoured as a “Young Global Leader” of the World Economic Forum, he spends a lot of time helping governments, companies, and international organisations make sense of the big geo-political trends of the twenty-first century. He is a regular speaker and prolific writer and commentator on global issues, the future of Europe, China’s internal politics, and the practice of diplomacy and business in a networked world. His essays have appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, El Pais, Gazeta Wyborcza, Foreign Policy, the New Statesman, the Daily Telegraph, The Economist, Time, and Newsweek.
As well as writing and commenting frequently in the media on global affairs, Leonard is the author of best-selling books. His first book, Why Europe will run the 21st Century, was published in 2005 and translated into 19 languages. Leonard’s second book, What does China think? was published in 2008 and translated into 15 languages. He has published an edited volume on Connectivity Wars and in September 2021, his latest book on this topic “The Age of Unpeace. How Connectivity Causes Conflict” will be released.
*Podcast intro music is from the song “The Queens Jig” by “Musicke & Mirth” from their album “Music for Two Lyra Viols”: http://musicke-mirth.de/en/recordings.html (available on iTunes or Amazon)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Geopolitics and Empire is joined by Mark Leonard, who is the co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think-thank. |
| 0:09.5 | His focus is on geopolitics, geo-economics, China, EU, and institutions. |
| 0:14.3 | He's also the host of the podcast, Mark Leonard's World in 30 Minutes, and author of the new book, The Age of Unpeace, How Connectivity Causes Conflict. |
| 0:21.9 | Thank you for joining the podcast, Mark. |
| 0:24.0 | How are things in the UK in this age of unpeace? |
| 0:29.6 | Well, the weather's been pretty great the last few days. |
| 0:32.8 | So that's hiding a lot of the simmering uncertainty about the COVID world, about Britain's role after |
| 0:41.9 | Brexit, and also a lot of uncts that was unleashed by the withdrawal from Afghanistan. |
| 0:48.8 | It's funny. It seems most of the guests that I have that are from Britain always answered that |
| 0:53.0 | it's, you know, it's gray in Britain. |
| 0:57.8 | Before I get to my first question, then I just wanted to remind listeners to subscribe to the email list, |
| 1:03.4 | telegram, Twitter, and other platforms. |
| 1:05.4 | And as I'm doing this full time, your donations are very much appreciated. |
| 1:09.5 | Mr. Leonard, so in your book, which I just finished reading and which I enjoyed very much appreciated. Mr. Leonard, so in your book which I just finished |
| 1:12.8 | reading and which I enjoyed very much, you say networks or global connectivity have become |
| 1:18.4 | weapons. Connections that knit the world together are driving it apart. And the intro to your book, |
| 1:24.5 | you paint a picture of, for example, British food supply problems as a result of French border closures, Turkey using migration as a weapon against the EU, U.S. regulators banning Chinese companies, Iran seizing tankers in response to sanctions. |
| 1:39.7 | It all kind of makes sense. It's kind of like a chipper family gathering that can often end in argument. |
| 1:45.0 | It goes against the grain of the globalization story we have been hearing for decades. |
| 1:49.2 | You say we can't have a globalized planet or one world that having such an open world is causing |
| 1:54.6 | problems. Perhaps you can kind of lay out your main thesis and then we can drill down from there. |
| 2:00.7 | With great pleasure. I am somebody whose life has... your main thesis and then we can drill down from there. |
... |
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