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the mercada center at George Mason University Bridging the Gap between academic ideas and real world problems learn more at radis.org and for more conversations including videos transcripts and upcoming dates visit conversations withth tyler.com [Music] I'm here today with Bruno mashes who is senior adviser at Flint Global but also more prominently author of the dawn of Eurasia on the trail of the new world order one of my favorite books of the
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last few years Bruno thank you for coming it's a pleasure now to start on a a wide ranging basis is there a notion of liberalism prevalent today consistent with the idea of Adventure in politics well there was actually and maybe you
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know about this there was actually my dissertation I was trying to think along those lines uh I don't think there is uh back then I actually was trying to explain that liberalism is compatible and promotes Adventure now I'm more and
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more convinced that it doesn't um and that you have to go outside liberalism to find something like the ideal the practice and and the appeal of Adventure explain for us what is it in RWS that is wrong how is it that the idea of
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Adventure is lacking in RS too much control the idea of a life plan I haven't rolls in in now 10 or 12 or even 15 years but that is a very central idea to him it's everywhere that you plan your life uh that you make uh some
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choices of values and then you organize almost tactically how you get to those values and that never appealed to me so if the idea of Adventure is more prominent in your thought how would this make you different from contemporary
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liberalism what do you stress differently well I think we we would need to downplay the idea of choice we would need to downplay the idea of control certain openness to the unexpected and what I did back then when I was thinking
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about these things was we have to reframe rights and the idea of law all these Concepts have to be reframed in in in some substantial ways in order to get there is this why you love stendal so much as an author yes stal I think is is the best example of of of this ideal all his books are one way or another about Adventure uh and he thinks about it it's not there on the age but he thinks about it almost philosophically and how is it
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this idea of Adventure has been drained out of contemporary liberalism I think we now um first of all from a theoretical point of view we we think we know all the answers uh we think we know how to live and what you get today is in
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fact this uh attitude of of preaching of constant preaching of telling you what you should be doing and what life is for we we we have the answers and of course from a theoretical point of view Adventure is about about not knowing the
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answers looking around Adventure is fundamentally about being aware that there may be a completely different lifestyle that you're not aware of and and that is just passing you by because you're not looking for it and I don't find this anxiety present in contemporary liberalism at all so is early fukiyama the caricatured version of fukiyama that History either is over or will be over is that going to be right eventually or just never no never
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uh of course never and and the reason it can never be right is that actually human beings don't want it to be over uh and since history is a human Creation with chance mixed in it of course but it is fundamentally a human creation if
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human beings wanted it to be over they could do it but they don't want it they wanted to continue to be open how has Harvey Mansfield impacted your thinking on politics very much not not just his books which I read religiously when I
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was 23 24 25 but of course when I met him and I studied with him person personally uh he is a personality that that that attracts you uh every single conversation is memorable so I still remember those and what do you think is then the main ideological competitor against contemporary liberalism presumably not Islam in some form but something else what it has to be China uh doesn't mean that there couldn't be others and that we couldn't develop
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others in the west as well I don't see the energy the Vitality for that Russia certainly doesn't seem to present an alternative if China does U and I saw that in in the travels that are part of this book how all over the world people
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are getting more and more attracted to the Chinese model for for reasons we can discuss but essentially IT projects an image of State capacity of efficiency of getting things done and by Misfortune that's precisely the opposite of what
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the West is projecting right now I think that explains why China has become an appealing model if the Deep cultural Roots view of history is correct that Nations have traits which insist does this mean China is doomed to be unstable
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more or less forever and that the Chinese model it looks good today but examined over the last three or 400 years it looks pretty bad well I mean the crucial distinction here is that the Contemporary Chinese model is a model of
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modern society of technological society and that that changed everything their continuities their Transformations they transformed their cultural tradition into something that can be called modern but in the end you can't make judgments about what China was 200 years ago and and compare it to what it is today because there's been a fundamental break the um entering into modern society which we've done in the west and China
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has done as well now changes everything is the United States today capable of making a fundamental break with the past I think it is I it's present in my book and in almost everything I write that I I still think the United States is
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capable of this and that Europe isn't I'm open to changing my mind on this but I still see this Trump and and everything else that is happening here shows that that there is um a discontent a deep discontent and an attempt to look
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for other ways which may turn out and almost inevitably will turn out to be uh misguided at first but in the end it may work out in your basic model of the European Union what is it that the union actually can do well it can do a few
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things very well it introduces rationality almost a scientific Spirit into politics which sometimes may seem boring but I'm sure I would miss it if it wasn't there uh all the nonsense that you get in National Politics the
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European Union deludes it counters it and and gives you something that is actually more palatable more acceptable uh and and it does open borders it does make borders more or less Irrelevant in Europe and that's a very good thing so
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it is quite successful in the things it does my critiques most of the time are about the things that it doesn't even attempt to do the things it it attempts to do it does rather well how soon will the European Union disintegrate and if
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so over what issue it won't disintegrate I think what is possible is that it will become ineffective it will become a repetition of the Holy Roman Empire it will be around people will still pay tribute to it but it won't do anything I
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think that's a possibility but a a a fullscale disintegration I don't think that that can happen but isn't a kind of boring history what we should be striving for so if the EU lives more off Chinese and Indian tourism it grows say
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at 1.3% a year it has enough austerity that budget don't explode maybe two or three countries on the periphery peel away but lives continue people marry and die and have children isn't that a victory for fukiyama or how should we
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think about that no that would be fine I don't like the argument that uh that the scenario you described is something that kills human greatness and so that we have to disrupt it somehow if that's a scenario it would be fine I don't think
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it's possible there are people all over the world that that have their sides on Europe that think that people let us say in Brussels where I lived last year work five or six hours a day and and have very high incomes where people in Deli work 14 hours a day and have very low incomes and you know the idea that we have in Europe that everyone all over the world finds this acceptable or good is of course a great delusion it won't
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last this way of life that we have in Europe because of wage competition from other countries equally talented people yes because of all kinds of competition I think Europe still benefits from the wages of the past the fact that he was
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leading technological different technological revolutions and once that's no longer the case once let us say all the royalties and the licensing fees from our technology dry up that that will be felt that will be paid and
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I think it will happen because the impression now the experience now of going to China and other places is precisely to see that they are trying to overturn this situation so in the pessimistic version of of the scenario
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what happens to say the median wage in the European Union say you're right now a middle class worker in France 30 years from now what's your standard of living well if it stagnates if it continues to stagnate if people all over the world if
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the tourists arriving from China suddenly are the ones filling up the restaurants in Paris and young French uh men and women are serving them at the tables this is not exactly the European dream but it it's of course a very serious possibility now the last year the last two years have been better but still the predominant feeling in Europe is of stagnation of not going anywhere especially among the young where sometimes you have of course Social
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Security and health care and even a salary that allows you to to live decently but you have no dreams no opportunities of getting into the job that that you always wanted to get into that's the feeling in Europe now will Ukraine ever Prosper or does the carving up of parts of the country by Russia mean it will fail to achieve stable democracy yes I'm I've I've come to that to to that opinion slowly and reluctantly four or five years ago I
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thought that it was up to Ukraine but now I'm more and more convinced that if if if Russia is not stopped and if their interference is not stopped it's simply impossible it's beyond human power to make a country successful under those
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conditions just the budget that Ukraine devotes to the war effort makes it very difficult for a country that should be investing in education Healthcare infrastructure are there any countries on the Western frontier of Russia that
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you would be bullish about Georgia uh I think uh but part of that country is carved up right 20% of the territory is in a kind of limbo right uh I think on the one hand I don't see the same um destructive impetus coming from
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Moscow in relation to Georgia as as it is in relation to Ukraine probably because Georgia also didn't uh uh didn't attempt to become a a anti-russian bul workk on on the borders of Europe but I think they've been able to build an
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interesting experiment there of a country that is increasingly connected to Europe uh not breaking with Russia increasingly connected with China for my book it's a very interesting country and then of course aaran it's difficult to find others Beyond these two aeran is it Europe it was the easternmost part of the Roman Empire does it count is it EUR Asia what is it well that's why I like aeran so much it's h it's very difficult
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to tell what it is once you're convinced that really this is fundamentally a European country something happens that that proves otherwise and the other way around it is if you want to look for a country that truly combines East and
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West I would start with aaran in terms of social liberalism why is it so different from the other Shiite countries no it is of course a a very repressive dictatorship um but one one thing I I feel strongly about and that I
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would try to change in how we in the US and in Europe approach these things is there are different shades of authoritarianism I'm not even sure the word authoritarian is a good one because it projects our experience into other parts of the world but when you travel for example from azaran then Turkmenistan then Kazakhstan usbekistan you see that these countries are very different and and you you breathe an air of freedom in Kazakhstan that you
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certainly don't breathe in Turkmenistan we in the western to say they're all the same because they're not like us they're all the same and I think this is a big mistake what's the future of nagor kabach well I fear it is not a bright
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future uh the Dynamics all Point towards WS a uh a Reawakening of the military conflict in the future and every development uh in the region makes it more difficult um what is happening now with Armenia becoming less aligned with
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Russia could precisely be the trigger to a conflict uh if Russia removes the guarantees that it is offered to Armenia then I think aaran is going to be in a very good position to to try to recover that territory so I'm not optimistic
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about what what can happen there and what went wrong with turkey is it that we were too optimistic in the first place and what signal misread us what was wrong in our theory that caused us to overvalue the prospects of turkey
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becoming liberal and open and prosperous well this raises really deep philosophical questions and and political questions if you want turkey to become like Europe then you have to project European power across turkey if
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Europe no longer has that ability then you shouldn't be surprised that that turkey looks elsewhere it it's very simple I think I say in the book that in order to be loved you also have to be feared this idea that you find in Europe
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now that without projecting any kind of power other countries will will be attracted to the European model that's a form of utopianism just cannot cannnot see that happen so Europe lacks the spirit of Adventure that that that is is
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certainly the case I think you see that um one of the areas where the spirit of Adventure today is more relevant and important is technology and you see in Europe uh theide idea that um that technology is against us and that we
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should resist this rather than embrace it very negative Spirit which I think is a good example of how Adventure has disappeared from the European psyche and why did Europe turn its back on technology and push Adventure out of its
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psyche is it World War Two failures of imperialism the social welfare state was too comfortable all of the above what's your model many different things but I think my model would be the the fundamental factor is the the that we
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led the previous revolutions and we were successful and we got a lot out of them I think it's human nature applies to individuals but also to countries and even to continents if if you've been successful bringing about the last wave
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of change then you want to preserve things as they were you want to enjoy the fruits of what you did of all the work you had and then it will be up to others in other parts of the world to lead the next wave and then perhaps in a
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thousand or 2,000 years Europe will be back there again that's how I think about about the change in history what's the long run political equilibrium for Hungary and the visad Nations I think a little bit of what we've been seeing uh in the last decade uh not breaking with Europe but but being in an adversarial relation with the with the EU institutions uh also a problem of course for the EU because uh it's becomes much
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more difficult to have ambitious plans and to do things if inside the you you have a number of countries which is growing by the day that are are in some kind of adversarial relationship with you what are some of the hidden
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straussian messages in the dawn of your Asia if indeed there are any no there aren't any but I have to say that uh the the esoteric method uh I used to think when I was reading Strauss at 18 or 20 that it was too fanciful and I have to
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say in my political experience and and and now writing books it is helpful you have to be aware of different ways to communicate uh and the possibilities that opens that you can say something to to certain people without getting in
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trouble necessarily by being too open about your views I think that's helpful for everyone I doubt that any single good writer doesn't do a little bit of this is American exceptionalism correct how does the United States fit into your
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picture and are we just following in the complacent footsteps of Western Europe American exceptionalism is correct in its time uh I think it won't last forever the idea that you hear now and you heard it during John McCain uh funeral that uh America was always great it is still great and will always be great as a political message it may be helpful useful but of course as a philosophy of History it's uh it's Bonkers is your vision of the United
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States fundamentally Tok villian or not um my my I I'm I'm still very puzzled uh even though I lived here on the whole for maybe eight years I'm still very puzzled about what America is about uh I I I I don't I I cannot find a book or or
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or a particular understanding by any author that I'm entirely happy with about America America Still Remains a big mystery you were just in Silicon Valley what were your impressions of the Bay Area I think and and and people there
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told me the same people who have lived there for decades that the big changes came uh 30 years ago if you've been to the value 10 years value 10 years ago and you go now you don't see much difference there's a sense that things have slowed down I think that's very obvious and but not particularly good news if you were advising a young Western entrepreneurially minded individual who had some money and wanted to capitalize on the implicit
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predictions behind your worldview about EUR Asia or somewhere else what would you tell them to do I think maybe more immediately the book applies to political entrepreneurs people that want to create a new political order or at least to contribute to that business entrepreneurs I think there's also some some ideas there that are relevant connecting Europe and Asia is going to be both very critical and very profitable for those who manage how to
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do it for those who are able to connect different parts of Eur Asia I say in the first or second page that people that are really very successful in business today are people that are aware of the differences they don't try to reduce
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them and they work by connecting different cultural areas I think lots of people lose a lot of money because they think when they go and try to sell their products in China that China is becoming like the West that the wealthy classes
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are becoming like the West I had a talk that I gave to uh whiskey a famous whiskey producer my main message was if you try to sell whiskey to the Chinese wealthy classes don't think for a moment that they are or are becoming like the
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Western wealthy classes they are different so your advertising has to be different so I think there's opportunities to make a lot of money if you understand these Dynamics what are economists most wrong about well maybe
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about what we've been talking about at the beginning adventure maybe the idea of the unknown the idea of the unexpected all of this is very difficult for economists at the same time so important of course many economists have
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made a lot of progress on on the idea of innovation uh on the idea of newness and I've been always very interested in those u in those Reflections but it always feels a little less than what is needed a reader writes to me a question
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quote arguably the last writer to robustly conceptualize Eurasia was rard Kipling does Kipling matter today yes I love his books I think is treated very unfairly um I think we now put everyone in the same bag as a imperialist and
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racist and there were lots of people part of of the British Empire and its expansion that actually had a very finally attuned understanding of of different civilizations and Kipling I would include there uh another writer
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that comes out of that spirit that I that I love and that is important for this book is to be I think when we read those books we actually have the the very Vivid sense that that we've lost that we've lost that ability uh to
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arrive at a place without preconceptions and try to understand it on its own terms if Kipling was bad at that we're much worse Portugal Portugal today why is there no right-wing nationalistic movement as we see in so many other
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European countries there isn't even a rightwing there isn't even a center right um so we have to develop that before we developed a Far Right Movement if you ask me why not it is also and I hope the the listeners won't be disappointed that I use this this Escape Route too often but it's still a a puzzle and a mystery to me you could say it's because of the dictatorship reaction against that the 48 years of Salazar but you had very similar
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dictatorships in Spain and Italy and and now you have very self-confident uh center right and Far Right parties not in Portugal where it remains very difficult and my experience in politics was precisely of of how difficult it is to embrace ideas that everywhere else in the world are acceptable but not in Portugal was Portugal the first European country to lose its sense of adventure yes there's some interesting texts where
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where this is is described Portugal made a lot of money in in in in the early Century of the Empire and then there was always this idea that the point of of making all that money was to go back home and to build a small Palace or
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Villa and enjoy your life but again I said it before I think this is human nature applies to Nations and to countries the sort of the vital energy that is necessary to change the world doesn't last goes away and then it's
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someone else's turn if Portugal has systematically lower productivity gains than Germany is Euro membership sustainable I think so I think the the the the Euro crisis show that um that the adjustments could be done in inside
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the year and lots of economists that that thought it couldn't were proven wrong there but at very high employment costs yes which have been corrected in the meantime uh and some of the some of the problems that we have in Portugal
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are common or perhaps even more serious in Italy and and and and regions of Europe if you if you look actually at at the 10 poorest regions in the European Union five are in the UK so the problem is is a bit more delicate than that uh
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i' I'm more and more convinced that the problems we have in Portugal our problems that we have all over Europe several years ago I went to Porto and I was looking around in the central district and I saw apartment selling for
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about 60,000 EUR maybe not in perfect shape but still incredible real estate A+ location is that sustainable are those pric is too low or do you expect for Porto a kind of ongoing depopulation where $60,000 to live downtown plus a
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maintenance is actually about right yes I mean the reason was of course that people moved out of the city into the suburbs and and prices collapse in the center that's been corrected now as you'd expect lots of foreigners coming
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in I meet almost all the time people in London that have bought a house for 60 or 880,000 and that they they go there for the weekends and that has helped correct the prices a bit and helped the city is Brazil to Portuguese for its own good I think so I um I understand Brazil almost immediately because some of the virtues and some of the flaws are the same uh we we always say that Brazil is a is a giant Portugal uh if everything
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had gone well with Portugal then Brazil would have realized our historical Destiny but of course some of the problems that Brazil is going through are are similar to our own two recent uh prime minister and president of of
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Portugal and Brazil are of course under uh in jail and under uh investigation for corruption they were very good friends so we do seem to have a certain synchrony in our historical development for good and bad seems there are populated parts of Brazil where
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literally the government does not rule neither the central government nor a municipal or state level government is that the future of Brazil or will more of the Brazil end up looking like Southern Brazil which is reasonably
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well-run say CBA uh it's difficult to know I think there was a moment uh 10 15 years ago where people were more optimistic about Brazil than than they are now but the Democracy the Democratic institutions still work well the the
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courts work well uh we're going to have an election now which I think could be a moment to to rebuild some of the things that were lost so while that lasts I'm still going to be an optimist when when while the institutions actually resemble more the US institutions than some European institutions that are in worse shape uh I think we should be optimistic and how is the sense of adventure there in Brazil I don't think the predominant
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sense in Brazil is of Adventure the predominant sense in Brazil is of Dolce far of a certain enjoyment of life and the small things of Life uh when I first went to Brazil I was a a a a very uh you know the the urban depressive European
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who listens to Joy Division and when I landed in in uh Rio airport I looked around it it almost seemed like the the the very opposite of everything I believed in but after a month uh it had start to to get to me how sve people are
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how they live not in the moment but in the second without worrying too much about the future and this is true and I think it's a good thing to point out this is true of the upper classes in Rio which are almost the the the the perfect
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example of how to enjoy life in the world anywhere in the world but it's also true of of of everyone I think it's well distributed across Brazilian Society the sense of enjoying life from your Portuguese point of view what is
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best in Brazilian music uh I'm a I'm not a big music fan I should tell you but bosanova I think is almost irresistible for some of the reasons that I've been talking about it is a a musical form that is very closed to life in its
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simplest elements doesn't have have a very obvious message uh it is about life and it's and and the small things in life that we like and love what classic work of Portuguese literature should every American read well every American
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should read certainly pooa who died less than a 100 years ago but I think deserves to be called a classic certain one of the five greatest writers of the 20th century and I'd start with book of diset which is extraordinary book and
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will always remain so but then there's a new edition of that out in English that has parts that had been cut that is fantastic I think it's it's a book I've taught when I was teaching at University I made a point of teaching that and I
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think every young person under under 25 will love that book and learn a lot from it Russia why is Russia as a world power currently underrated well Russia has the the most impressive thing about Russia is is in fact something that you might
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not think at first the power of organization I think we have this image of Russia as a failed state in many respects but in order to keep that Empire in order to keep it together throughout the centuries uh in order to
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develop it to some extent in order to bring together so many ethnicities so many religions I think it's fair to say that Russia has done a better job of integrating its its Muslim population which is uh close to 15% than uh any
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other country I would argue certainly any other major country so uh the the power of the of the r State the ability to organize to dispose to connect uh I think uh is one of the great political stories of mankind uh really to to see
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how the Russian state was able to grow uh and and to extend itself and that's still there uh one way is that why aeran feels so open for women compared to other Shiite countries is that because of the Russian State absolutely that's certainly and and that when when you go to aaran or Kazakhstan which is the other example of that you really have to to to wonder how the Soviet Union in a short period of time was able to change
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these culture so deeply in a way that actually has continued after collapse of the Soviet Union it shows uh without making valid judgments about whether there was a a good or a bad thing but it shows the ability of the Russian state
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to penetrate life very very deeply and and and to organize it if President Obama underrated Russia as a world Force what was the underlying flaw on his worldview that caused him not to see that the underlying flaw with Obama is
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is always the same is that he he really took seriously this idea that history has a direction that it's going somewhere to the point where I think at at at some point he wasn't even trying to change reality he was trying to get
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out of the way of reality and that to me is almost impossible to understand how he could believe in something like that but if you read that interview he gave to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic uh that comes up on every issue I think on
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every issue doesn't matter if it's Vietnam or Russia or China his immediate answer would be well history is going in this direction let's get out of the way and let it work its wonders is the United States the country that
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understands Russia least well no I'm not sure of that actually I think uh tville said that United States and Russia had a lot in common and I think there's a certain ability that that both have to understand the other I mean the European
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Union I think has is uh does not understand Russia at all certainly the United States has trouble understanding the world as a whole but I don't think uh Russia may actually be a bit of an exception why has Russia never been a free liberal country or maybe very very briefly what is it in the history or their cultural roots that accounts for so much emphasis on State Control authoritarianism sometimes totalitarianism well but your your
30:46
question Tyler also also shows a little bit of the of the Obama disposition uh you are puzzled why they are not liberal because you assume that everyone should should be liberal uh and so what needs to be explained is why they're not liberal but maybe we can look at this a bit differently there's no strong reason why Russia should be liberal uh and in the absence of the forces that that make you go in that direction it didn't what
31:11
do you think the Russian economy will sell in 20 years time until Putin goes it will be very difficult to to do the reforms that Russia needs um I see them actually becoming more and more focused on on energy trying to expand to other
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regions trying to extend their control contr of energy sources in the Middle East in particular uh and also energy connectors pipelines in Syria so I don't see Russia being able I I don't even take seriously the statements that
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occasionally come from the Kremlin saying that they are developing an industrial park or a technology Zone that's not to be taken seriously anymore but after Putin who knows and you don't take it seriously because you think they
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don't have the talent they don't have the decentralization what is it they're lacking why can't they do it you you you have to change a lot of things you have to make a lot of people angry you have to move money from some sectors to other
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sectors you have to change the laws you have to break the power of oligarchs uh you have to let uh small startups have a chance uh all this takes a lot of political will which simply the current president and his uh his people don't have is it inevitable that Russia will become more and more Asian in some way yes it's already happening and what does that mean to you I think uh it is it is of course a shock for Europeans because
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the idea that Russia was trying to become like us was always very reassuring uh both psychologically but also politically and I think in some moments Russia was of incredible help to Europeans it did defeat Napoleon after
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all and helped reestablish a certain balance in Europe that gave us a century of of culture and and of economic growth and of technological revolutions the 19th century in Europe would have been uh very different and much worse without
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the Russian armies defeating Napoleon so that has always been very help for us to to have that sense of perhaps in the future having Russia join us and now we lost that and if we understand that Russia is never going to become like us never going to join us then suddenly we have a problem there when I go to Russia I'm struck by how much more sexual dimorphism I see than in the United States so men and women at least superficially they dress quite
33:25
differently they act different L there's a notion you should hold the door open for the woman why is Russia and also Ukraine so extreme in this direction yes you're absolutely right that's um that's a very good point um and by the way uh
33:38
Russian women will will tell you different things they will of course complain that they are not taken seriously in the workplace but they will also tell you that they like masculinity of Russian men uh which often just takes
33:53
the form of of of paying for everything uh which is another striking difference between Russia and the West uh that the man is supposed to pay for literally everything when he goes on a date this is perhaps one of the one of the areas
34:06
where you see that Russia has its own political will there's really no appetite to go in the direction that we in the west feel is is is obvious and inevitable there are some of course movements about uh the workplace but but
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not a lot in in terms of changing that dynamic between the Sexes and and by the way in a way I think in Europe This is perhaps becoming clear that some people are starting to get attracted to a certain Russian way of life and one of
34:37
the reasons they are start starting to get attracted is those people who don't like the changes that happen in the West in the last 40 years look to Russia and see a country where not only they haven't happened but they haven't
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happened because people don't want them to happen it's not seen as a failure it's more of a conscious active decision and class classic Russian literature what is of most interest to you of course all of tolto all of dovi even the
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the smaller 19th century writers more than 20th century Russia had a certain understanding of um of modern society and Modern Life uh that was in many cases deeper than the understanding in Europe because they were looking at it
35:18
from the outside and struggling with it you see that in all of 19th century Russian literature now in all of these conversations or many of them we have a segment in the middle underrated versus overrated feel free to pass but are you game sure overrated or underrated Charles deal uh overrated why he was he was essentially someone who who lived in the past who was born in a different world and never quite adapted to to the
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new world but his version of nationalism isn't it where Europe today will end up no I don't think so I think that's um you can try and some people are trying in Poland in Hungary but it's um yeah it doesn't have the ability to change the
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existing order vs Nall overrated or underrated uh I I would say uh underrated because I think uh it's never enough to to to love Nao you can't do enough of it I think people rate him very highly but if you can rate them
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rate him a little bit higher all the better most interesting work to you literally almost everything but I I will go with the masses and say that the best novel is a band in the river and then the three books on India non-fiction
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mixed with fiction I I always keep going back to Alfred Hitchcock again uh I I think he's he's he's more and more highly rated but but I would encourage to to rate him even higher yes a a brilliant filmmaker what is it implicit
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in Hitchcock movies about liberalism does he understand that we haven't pulled out yet well there's people not wanting liberalism that's a theme in Hitchcock I think yes well big theme in in H Co is the the the hidden pathologies of Modern Life the the psychoanalytical repressions and repetitions and obsessions of fixations which in fact destroy our life uh you you're caught in a pattern of repetition and you cannot get out of it while life
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passes you bu I think it's a big topic uh so I think yes it is a very promising idea to think that ich uh is thinking about the contradiction between liberalism and human nature that they don't quite fit well together best teacher Co movie or your favorite vertigo why I think it's a a perfect movie uh hcock movies because they are so ambitious always have mistakes very obvious and by the way he talks about them in for example in his interviews
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with trufo he talks openly about the mistakes he made in this or that movie and I would say vertigo is the one way where by chance or effort it's very difficult to find a mistake of structure or or script or acting or casting or
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anything soundrack yeah yeah visiting jouti overrated or underrated how good a trip is it well it is it is an extraordinary very unusual trip I have to tell you that the first week I hated it um why did you hate it it's a very
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tough Place uh it is um it is incredibly hot uh and uh there's nothing to do uh the country is built on volcanic rocks uh there's not a tree inside everyone is smoking cat and languishing on the streets under the the horrible heat the
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prices are extraordinarily High you would pay $500 for a hotel but you pay $500 for a hotel not knowing exactly what you're doing there or or whether you enjoying it but after a while you start to see that it is a strange and
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unique place at the very least and what about it interested you so much well there's the politics all the politics that is happening there uh all the geopolitics that is happening there uh then there are some extraordinary
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Landscapes if you can find them uh and there's this culture which is a combination of Africa and the Arab world was always um a place connecting different cultures uh and and in the end you know after two weeks you start to feel that
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finally you have a place that forces you to break from your habits uh you cannot carry your habits there because there's really no way to there's no way to go to your local cafe and read a little bit there's no way to eat the normal food so it forces you to break with with your normal habits and that's a good thing yeah what is it you eat there then Somalian food Yemen food I think would be the most promising uh there's a couple of very good
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restaurants there's of course Ethiopian food um but I would go to the Yemen uh restaurants uh Yemen food I fell in love with let's say you're designing a dream tour for someone who has two or three weeks to spend in your Asia and they
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come to you and say Bruno give me a tour where should they go to get the best overview of what you write about in your book it's difficult to pick one but maybe the best would be fly to to um kashar in China in Chiang Province and
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then um cross the border to Pakistan and perhaps go down all the way to laor and then Delhi uh that's uh first of all you will see the P mountains uh you'll see mix of of of of different cultures kges kazak um and uh I think you will make
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one of the classical trips uh which is to go from China to India by land many people have done it by sea but by land is a little more more Unique China your next book is on the one belt one road project you've argued on Twitter and I
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think elsewhere that Chinese foreign policy you know a year ago China so-called coming out party was actually a big disaster and not a Triumph for the Chinese rulers uh do you still think that and make your case yes it's so
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obvious and I think you know it's one of those cases where people a year ago were saying that China was brilliant because China was the anti-trump Trump has corrupted all our thinking about everything uh because you first think
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about Trump and then you think about whatever you're supposed to be thinking or talking about U and that was one example um and it was very clear to me that China was making lots of mistakes and now I think everyone agrees on this
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even the Chinese authorities which are openly talking about self-correcting and and and going in a in a slightly different path which if you know the Chinese regime you know it's a big deal when this is out there in the open they
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they made lots of mistakes in terms of pushing too hard in terms of not understanding the countries they were dealing with their culture uh and really creating problems almost everywhere from Australia to India to Europe to the US
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there isn't a single place where they are not in a worse position now than they were two years ago can one belt one row deliver without the Chinese Northwest being in good working order probably not by Northwest you mean chin
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Jang chin Jang right and will it be in good working order it seems to be many more arbitrary detention ions problems with the media talk of kind of detention camps where large numbers of people are being held yes I talk about that in the
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book I I talk about the contradiction between what has really become a surveillance state in Chang and I could see that myself um but it really doesn't matter because if you're a foreigner you're going to feel the brunt of it as
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much and I look uh let us say turky vly turkic so I could certainly be um from Central Asia I guess the Chinese would think that so I was stopped constantly and interrogated and my papers would be checked so I could see that uh
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personally I think I I I could look a bit wiger but uh the the problem is how do you build the connectivity that you want to build if you have this problem in chenang I think the Chinese are approaching it by breaking chin Jang in
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separate parts uh one in the South where the uger minority would be isolated and controlled and one in the north which is becoming less and less wigger more and more H and so in that sense it could be possible because the connection going through urumi to Kazakhstan are in working order simply because the Han have taken control over urumi and urumi feels like a city transforming itself growing very very fast not not at all
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abandoned by Chinese authorities and what's the chance that one belt one road ends up being seen historically as a big success similar to say settling the American West building the Panama Canal which in retrospect are obvious
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successes even though there were hitches at the time are we seeing a repeat of that experience or is it going to burn and crash the Chinese economy will slow down there'll be too much debt too many white elephants and the region will
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continue to be a kind of chaos no I think it's almost inevitable that we'll be seen as a success because this this the structural force of of of China's rise is so strong it will in one way or another change the world as we know it
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and then I think uh CH ping has set things up in a way that all those changes are going to be be attributed to the belon road even though we know very well that without the belon road they would be pretty much the same perhaps a
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little less organized but it is also a public relations and a marketing coup in the sense that the changes that are coming anyway are going to be attributed to his initiative uh and I think he's he's thinking about things in those
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terms but there is no way that that China is going to disappear or go back to its size and importance of of 40 years ago that's out of the question well China run Australian politics in the long run uh I think China will run
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the politics of a number of countries and now the question is who are the candidates for that uh I don't think Australia is top of the list uh but I think there will be countries that will be essentially run from Beijing but by
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the way I should say that that's of course what happened in the last 70 years with a number of countries that were run from Washington sure but say Cambodia and maybe La what else is on your list well we have to see about what
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is happening in Pakistan Pakistan is difficult to control control but in some respects China has really penetrated uh Pakistan in politics and society and the Civil Service uh then a number of countries in in Central Asia but perhaps southeast Asia is uh countries are are less uh conflict ridden and so in that sense perhaps easier to control by China and then of course a number of African countries where that is ongoing and and
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and becoming very obvious if you think of the traditional Chinese view that ethnic Chinese over overseas are almost like Chinese citizens even if they're not formally Chinese citizens at all and China now seems to be taking much
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greater care to mobilize them as a force for Chinese national interests what does the equilibrium to that process look like that the overseas communities Rebel and don't cooperate at all that they become a kind of fifth column where they
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live that China gives up on this effort what's going to happen that's that's one of the very good examples of why we live in a in a world that is um that is heading towards uh new and dangerous forms of conflict uh I think this is a very serious problem China will not give up on its overseas citizens they have obligations towards um the motherland uh on the other hand we see already a very strong reaction against this in the west
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which by the way will feed into xenophobic tendencies in the west itself very quickly people will start to assume that every Chinese is working for for the Chinese State uh I think by the way make a parenthesis is here there will'll
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see some of the same Dynamics in the case of India uh perhaps not as acute India is a democracy and has rule of law but what I found out in my recent visits to India is that India likes this way of thinking about the diaspora and is
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trying to apply it to its own diaspora so it's a world where borders are becoming very diffused where perhaps countries are becoming a bit foot loose like multinationals uh a country like Russia or like China in some respects doesn't
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stop at the borders anymore it has Stakes it has participations in other countries China has a 20% stake in jibuti and he has a 80% stake in the Chinese diaspora and when you look at a country it is a combination a diagram of
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of different Stakes all over the world and not an organized National Community within borders this is the world we're heading to which is World Bri for conflict of all kinds which is the best Chinese Regional Cuisine uh I would
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think there's a there's a I think a One Restaurant uh just around the corner when I was coming in uh that's I think that's uh that would be my choice it's certainly the one where I have uh where I can order almost everything and I'm
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going to like everything that doesn't happen with many Regional cuisines in China have China South Korea Japan possibly Singapore taking on Western technology and technological ways of living more thoroughly than we have ourselves in the west that's what's happening now they are taking new technological Transformations with an appetite that we no longer have in the West say self-driving cars I'm pretty sure they will be fully operational in
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China before they are here or in Europe uh in part because the strength of the Chinese state and its ability to go against the people who will suffer from this Transformations uh is much higher take European countries they are captured by special interest that will make sure these sort of Transformations don't come about uh we've seen that in Europe with Uber being banned everywhere increasing L and also there's a certain appetite
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that comes deeper from from the Chinese psyche and has to do with it's our turn it's our turn to use technology to change the world uh and they have uh they are entirely in love with that idea and we we don't have it anymore how
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creative is the Chinese Tech Community not just implementing using and copying but actually building new systems I I think my impression talking to them and and looking around in in Beijing and in Beijing Silicon Valley is that they are
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very creative you know don't assume that because Society is an authoritarian Society of some kind that that authoritarianism is present everywhere there are elements of Chinese life where the force of the Chinese state is not
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present at all I mean one obvious one that has been commented recently by critical voices in China is for example sexual life it's not true of every dictatorship that people are left alone to organize their sexual lives as they
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want but in China they are there's no kind of control over that which has helped uh the regime in some ways uh even an authoritarian regime has to give people freedom in some areas so that they can have rewarding lives without
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asking for more and I think technology is also an area where the state uh wants people to break rules to go ahead uh to improvise to be creative and I even wonder sometimes whether the fact that other areas are closed to human
49:51
initiative doesn't in fact uh increase the willingness as to to do new things in the areas where it is possible human effort is diverted to those areas and concentrated in those areas like having great chess players in the former Soviet
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Union exactly exactly I think we'll we'll see a bit of that in the case of of the Tech Community in China so going back to the United States which is the segment or part of American society that's still most adventurous least
50:18
complacent well the politics is wonderful uh for a European uh I have to say you know almost everyone in Europe would with with laugh or be shocked when I say this but in the end you want the Democracy to be rough and dirty and and
50:32
full of nonsense and as long as there's nonsense on the other side to counter it and I just see the openness of sort of an open field American politics whereas European politics everything is predetermined everything is preet it's
50:45
already been determined what you should say and how you should say it and in the end of course uh European commentators and politicians complain about Trump but then they are following Europe American politics perhaps spending two or three hours of their days watching American politics and they're not watching German politics so again tell me why why this is so bad so Washington DC is arguably more creative than Silicon Valley no I
51:09
was going to say I was going to say Silicon Valley next but you know the politics is important because if you don't have that at the center of a society which is in the end the state uh if you don't have that there you're not
51:20
going to have it anywhere else so you need a bit of there in politics and I would always start with that uh Silicon Valley I maybe I I I don't know enough uh in my recent visit I saw uh of course two or three very exciting companies uh
51:34
that are doing stuff that is not done anywhere in the world so I wouldn't I wouldn't be be critical of the valley just you don't see I I guess you don't see the same spirit that that you that was there 30 years ago and that created
51:47
the valley itself and and lots of people who know how it was 30 years ago tell me this what do you think you understand about Canada that maybe most most Americans do not about Canada Canada I I don't think I understand anything about
51:59
Canada Tyler uh Canada is one of those countries that uh uh that I have to confess I I find difficult to to fit in my in my play of world history uh I don't see what is the role that Canada is playing in Transformations we've been
52:16
talking about so some of the listeners can get back to me on that do you think of it as a cross- subsidized part of a broader North American political Empire the trades with the 50 States but in a sense in a world historical sense is an
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appendage something like that or maybe a sort of a of a of a critical voice of the US but it's a critical voice with which you you can relate almost like your Alter Ego um because it is in so many respects like you but but but
52:45
always always looking for the areas where it is not like you so maybe it plays a an interesting role in in that respect but then again you know my impression of Canada is that it changed so dramatically from political cycle to
52:57
political cycle because with with Harper you had in fact an extreme version of an American neoconservative but do any of those changes matter in the end I guess not a little bit like uh like the political changes in in some European
53:10
countries um there is an an organized system which is stable um and the changes are to some extent rhetorical how optimistic are you about East Africa uh I I am very optimistic I mean the numbers speak for themselves is some
53:25
countries there that are the fastest growing countries in the world uh there's an industrial revolution happening in Ethiopia that you've you've been talking about uh and in fact uh in terms of geopolitics there's a lot happening it may seem um that that could pose some risks but if you start from the presupposition that they have serious political problems that haven't been solved yet the fact that there's a movement in the relations between
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Ethiopia and arria or Somalia or possibly the recognition of somal land all that seems to me positive it just shows that there's energy there and there's finally an ability internal ability that doesn't come from the
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outside to solve some of the problems that go back uh to Colonial times if I may close with a few questions about the Bruno M production function you have an actual job is that correct yes so how do you find time to learn about new areas
54:17
how does your life fit together well you try to you try to get a job where where it doesn't feel like you're like you're not are you supposed to do if you actually uh get informed about Russia and China and what is happening all over
54:30
the world that's also part of my day job um and then I try to make sure that I have enough hours during the day to do the other things I like like write and uh and travel and talk to people uh I think those those two things would help
54:44
and at the margin what's the form or method of learning most undervalued by others is it travel talking to people reading books studying with Harvey Mansfield something else spending time on Twitter well looking at at my past experience um I I had a job for a few years in Berlin in a very unusual University where I could decide the courses that I would teach and so I taught Darwin I taught Copernicus uh I taught economics even though I don't
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have a PhD in economics that was wonderful and I think if universities could do that uh I think those three years were the three years I learned the most in my life just being forced to teach something where you are completely uncomfortable it's one thing to try to learn something where you're uncomfortable but think about teaching it so this very intense uh and productive time of my life and then uh more recently having been in government
55:33
does open some doors uh you can have some very interesting conversations with people who are actually in the rooms that also has been a a very formative experience for me uh especially in in in and you were in the Portuguese
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government in 2011 which years again 13 to 15 13 to 15 how do you choose which books to read Twitter actually plays a role now when people that I trust to recommend a book I I usually follow through uh I read less I reread a lot
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these days go back to books that I liked and try to understand them better uh and then keep an eye on on on the things coming out on the subjects that I'm particularly interested in so I'm sure I won't miss any any book that uh that is about China where China is going for example and then you know you make a selection it's pretty easy to do I think the great thing about having read a few tens of thousands of books is that and
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I'm sure you have this experience that you get pretty good at identifying buying a book that that you think is worthwhile so that you stop at page 10 and you are absolutely sure you have no regrets about it and last question what
56:32
are you planning for your future I'm trying to become a full-time writer and a very productive one I started late but I'd like to in the next uh 15 years let us say to write 15 books uh now whether this is going to work out you never know
56:44
something could come along but that uh that is sort of the default position right now and are there any topics you're willing to tip your hand on if only speculatively oh no but I would like to try I I I'm not I don't plan to
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write 15 versions of of this book I want to write on technology I want to write on America I want to write on the future of Europe I want to potentially try to write uh one or two novels that's the plan again I'm not sure it's going to
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work but that's the plan and the more pressure I have so the more I talk about it the more pressure I have the better and that's your sense of adventure Bruno thank you very much for coming here pleas thanks for listening to
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conversations with Tyler you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Stitcher or your favorite podcast app and if you like this podcast please consider rating it on iTunes and leaving a review this helps other people find the [Music] show