Who will run the world in 20 years?

03/31/23 • 49 min

1 Listener

At the end of a friendly meeting in Moscow, President Xi of China told President Putin of Russia that they are driving changes in the world the likes of which have not been seen for a century.

Meanwhile this week President Biden kicked off a Summit for Democracy with $690m funding pledge to democracies all over the world and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, called on Europe to reassess its diplomatic and economic relations with China before a visit to Beijing next week.

So what changes are President Xi talking about? Who will be running the world in 20 years time? Is conflict between rival powers inevitable? And is the model of western liberal democracy in decline?

Owen Bennett-Jones is joined by:

Evelyn Farkas - an American national security advisor, author, and foreign policy analyst. She is the current Executive Director of the McCain Institute, a nonprofit organisation focused on democracy, human rights, and leadership. Evelyn served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia under President Obama

Martin Wolf - chief economics commentator at the Financial Times and author of The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

Professor Steve Tsang - political scientist and historian and Director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London

Also featuring:

Henry Wang - founder and director of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a think tank with links to the Chinese Communist Party

Nathalie Tocci - director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and an honorary professor at the University of Tübingen

Photo: Russia's Putin holds talks with China's Xi in the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023 / Credit: Reuters

Produced by Rumella Dasgupta and Pandita Lorenz

At the end of a friendly meeting in Moscow, President Xi of China told President Putin of Russia that they are driving changes in the world the likes of which have not been seen for a century.

So what changes are President Xi talking about? Who will be running the world in 20 years time? Is conflict between rival powers inevitable? And is the model of western liberal democracy in decline?

Owen Bennett-Jones is joined by:

Martin Wolf - chief economics commentator at the Financial Times and author of The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

Professor Steve Tsang - political scientist and historian and Director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London

Also featuring:

Henry Wang - founder and director of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a think tank with links to the Chinese Communist Party

Nathalie Tocci - director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and an honorary professor at the University of Tübingen

Photo: Russia's Putin holds talks with China's Xi in the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023 / Credit: Reuters

Produced by Rumella Dasgupta and Pandita Lorenz

Previous Episode

Imran Khan and Pakistan's political turmoil

Clashes this week between police and supporters of former cricketer-turned-Prime Minister, Imran Khan, show once again the deep divisions within Pakistani politics.

Mr Khan was ousted as prime minister last April in a no-confidence vote but has kept up pressure on his successor, Mr Sharif, with demonstrations calling for early elections and blaming him for an assassination attempt - an accusation the government denies. Mr Khan faces multiple court cases, including terrorism charges, but has cited a variety of reasons for not showing up to hearings.

Meanwhile Pakistan is in the middle of one of the worst economic crises ever seen. The country is awaiting a much-needed bailout package of $1.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund - a loan that has been delayed over issues related to fiscal policy. The security situation is also deteriorating with a spate of deadly attacks on police, linked to the Pakistan Taliban.

So what, if anything, might resolve the political stand-off? What impact does ongoing instability have on Pakistan’s economic situation and could this all play into the hands of Pakistan’s Taliban? How much support does Imran Khan really have from the military - or could the army’s longstanding hold on Pakistan finally be challenged?

Owen Bennett-Jones is joined by:

General Muhammad Haroon Aslam, a retired army general. He was a Corps Commander in the Pakistani army and served in the military for 40 years Hammad Azhar, a former finance minister for Imran Khan's party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf

Atika Rehman, London correspondent for Dawn newspaper

Also featuring:

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, senator for the The Pakistan Muslim League, part of the ruling coalition, and a former prime minister Shuja Nawaz, Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington Khurram Husain, business and economy journalist based in Karachi Ahmed Rashid, journalist and author of Descent into Chaos and Pakistan on the Brink

(Photo: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks with Reuters during an interview in Lahore, Pakistan 17 March, 2023. Credit: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)

Next Episode

Can we control Artificial Intelligence?

Last month a company in San Francisco called OpenAi released an artificial intelligence system called GPT-4 - a successor to its hugely popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. The latest version can respond to images, write captions and descriptions - processing up to 25,000 words at a time. Researchers claim GPT-4 shows “sparks of artificial general intelligence” - in other words it can match or exceed human capabilities in tasks a person can do.

But there are concerns this latest technology could be used to spread disinformation alongside worries over privacy, jobs and even society itself if more rules aren’t quickly introduced. Key figures in the tech industry - including Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, and Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak - have signed an open letter asking for a pause on “giant AI experiments” so that policymakers can catch up.

There are potentially wide-ranging benefits to these advances. In recently published guidance on the responsible use of AI, the UK government described it as one of the "technologies of tomorrow” contributing £3.7bn ($5.6bn) to the UK economy last year alone.

So what might the social impact of these increasingly powerful AI systems be? If greater regulation is needed, who is responsible? And, if we don’t control it, is there a chance that one day these machines will outsmart and replace us?

Celia Hatton is joined by:

Prof Yoshua Bengio - professor at the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the Université de Montréal

Boaz Barak - the Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University

Lindsay Gorman - a former advisor to the Biden administration on tech strategy. She's currently a Senior Fellow for Emerging Technologies at the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy in Washington DC

Also featuring:

Greg Clark – a Conservative MP and chair of the UK government’s science and technology committee Stuart Russell - Professor of Computer Science at the University of California

Photo: Ai-Da Robot poses for pictures with a self portrait in the Houses of Parliament in London before making history as the first robot to speak at the House of Lords / Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Produced by Pandita Lorenz and Ellen Otzen