Understanding a multipolar world with Chandran Nair

Is the shifting global order heading towards conflict, or can the world's many civilisations and worldviews learn to coexist? In this episode, Chandran Nair, founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow and member of the Club of Rome, joins Nolita Mvunelo to unpack the tensions reshaping international relations.

Nair argues that today's flashpoints, from Ukraine to Gaza to Venezuela, stem from the West's difficulty in accepting the rise of other powers, and he challenges us to rethink what leadership, democracy and accountability mean in a crowded, unequal world. Tune in for a candid, provocative discussion on power, history and the search for a genuinely multipolar peace.

Transcript

Nolita: It is perhaps clearer than ever that the global geopolitical order is shifting. The question is, will this happen through force and disruption, or can we transition to a world where many civilisations and worldviews can coexist in mutual respect?

Today's guest is well-placed to explore these answers. Chandran Nair is founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow, a Pan-Asian think tank based in Hong Kong, focused on advancing a deeper understanding of global issues, including the shift of economic and political influence from the West to Asia, and the reshaping of the rules of global capitalism.

His books include "Understanding China," "Dismantling Global White Privilege" and "Consumptionomics: Asia's Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet." In our conversation, we discuss how different worldviews are influencing the global landscape today and possible pathways to a more peaceful multipolar world.

Chandran, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm going to jump straight into the first question. So last year, in 2025, you released a book on Understanding China, which is a report to the Club of Rome and you reinforced the idea of multiple worldviews. You speak about how the Chinese see an all-encompassing civilisational concept called Under the Heaven.

From this vantage point, how do you see the current relationship between existing civilisations and worldviews and what is standing in the way of reconciling those worldviews?

Chandran: What I mentioned in the book was simply to try and get people to understand that China and other large countries see the world quite differently in terms of its complexities and the relationship between countries than the West.

And if you're an objective observer of history and of Chinese, uh, China's relationship with the world, you'll see that by far, the Chinese have adhered to that to that sort of principle of coexistence, civilizational relationships, et cetera. That is not to say that some may interpret some actions of China, as some are doing, as a departure from that.

But broadly, if you're an objective observer, you will say the same. You would probably see the same of India as well.

I'd just like to make a point about this term civilisation. Everybody uses that. I sort of don't like it because it seems to imply that there are hundreds of civilisations around and depends how you wanna define a civilisation.

There's a lot of arguments of what is a civilisation. And then we can get into a rabbit hole of civilisations, right? And then this whole thing about, "well, which civilisation is older? Which civilisation is deeper? Which civilisation has absorbed all of these things?" And all of that. So I sort of don't like that civilisational term, though in the context of trying to explain China to the world, I do say that China remains very much a civilisational state. You could not say that the United States is a civilisational state. Question it has...

Nolita: What's the...

Chandran: Well, because it's too young. It has no underlying sort of long history of 10,000 years of a culture, civilisation, traditions, et cetera, born. So it's from all of the place. If the Native Americans had not been slaughtered, then you'd say there was a civilisation there.

So that's a point I would like to make. I think your second question was how do I see the current world order in terms of civilisational relationships. Am I correct?

Nolita: Yeah and worldviews. 'Cause, I mean, you mentioned that you wouldn't consider, necessarily, the US a civilisational state because of its age, but it also represents a very specific type of worldview versus the under the heaven worldview you were describing in the book. How do these, you know, interact and what does reconciling them look like?

Chandran: Yeah. I mean, the American worldview you could call it's a punk view, because it's the new punk in town who became very rich and through, as we know colonisation, I would say, I think it would be fairly said genocide, extermination of large amounts of flora and fauna particularly. But this is basically a modern warring state. Advanced technologically, but doesn't make it a civilisation.

So let's cut to the chase. What we're saying actually is today's tensions in the world, and some may disagree, are essentially the major tensions of the world. This is not to say there aren't badly governed countries in Africa, Middle East, in my region, et cetera. But if you look at global tensions, then these are all as a result of both the unraveling of the post-colonial era, right?

And then the desire for past imperial powers to retain supremacy. And the United States is essentially a creation of imperial powers, which is mainly Europe, right? And then it created this powerful nation, which because of its, you know, well-known sense of exceptionalism, which I argue is born out of a great, because of its birth, a sense of superiority and white supremacy, is unable to, because it has no civilisational roots, is unable to contend with the rise of others and, in this instance, China. But it'll soon find itself unable, if it survives its resistance against the rise of the others, the equity that others are striving for. Then it'll find itself, you know, opposing the rise of Africa opposing the rise of India perhaps first, and all that.

So global tensions at the moment are a function of the inability of Western powers, Europe and the United States, to deal with the rise of the others. So if you look at the biggest global geopolitical tension today, it's essentially China and the USA. And then you have in Europe, of course, the tension between the notion that there is this communist bloc, the Cold War mentality, this socialist country called Russia. And then there's all these freedom-loving people in Europe, or these governments who then have been exposed as being willing to support a genocide in Palestine, which is itself a creation of the last 100 years because of colonial exploits.

So you have to really understand where is the angst coming from. And I've been at pains to point out to you that a different- because some people say, "Well, you know, bad leaders exist in different parts." I want to acknowledge that. Bad governance exists. But when you then look at the world today, when you look at global tensions and if you look at the three tensions today, the big issues that we're all concerned about, the Russia-Ukraine war. Gaza. You look at what's happening in Venezuela, the intimidation of a country like cuba and you look at Iran, it's all Western-led. It's all Western-led.

Nolita: I want to talk about the today and the way forward, 'cause you're talking about the inability to deal with the rights of others. I think there's a part of it where, like, there's a type of leadership needed, as you're saying, like we have bad leaders in a lot of places and also very critical places where a different leadership is needed. I also listened to a podcast of yours where you spoke about intellectual honesty being like a key competence that's needed. If someone was listening and thinking what is a way forward that doesn't result in conflicts or the loss of rights or, you know, people just subsuming to the fact that maybe there's an order and we need to accept what the order is in order for there to not be conflict going forward, what is the leadership that's needed?

Chandran: Well, you know, I think the leadership is always, the leadership is always a reflection of where the society is at any one point, right?

You can't have a rational discussion with the current administration of the US. You simply can't. So then it's utopian to say, "Well, how do we do this and that?" You're gonna have to wait for this guy to move on.

Nolita: But he's one person and there's...

Chandran: Exactly.

Nolita: There's eight billion other people that are- He's not doing it alone. I think that's why I started with worldviews 'cause I think there's, there are mental paradigms that are driving a lot of these assumptions and acceptances of not accepting the rights or the movement towards more people having rights.

It's a long-held debate. I mean, the whole thing about limits to growth was also about more people are going to need to have their basic needs met, but it's going to be a challenge. How do we figure it out? And people are refusing to figure it out and now we're in these resource challenges also at the same time.

Chandran: All right. Let me, let me... I mean, I think we should not conflate these things, okay? What I was trying to say is, you were saying what are the pathways? Of course, the pathways are dialogue, understanding, respect. That's what we do. We can call it allowing nation states to self-determination, collaborating with self-determination in mind, righteous, might is not right, all of those things.

But you can't deal with people who are either supremacists, who are captive to the war industry, et cetera. That is the world we've created to the most powerful nations in the world. That's NATO, that's the USA. And all I wanted to say was that's why the world, the global tensions are arising out of this complex economics in which then leaders have risen.

Look at the swing to the right in Europe. And of course, the United States is a basket case in terms of... And I think most Americans who are not, you know, the rabbit type would agree, right? So the leadership is a reflection of what the state is. And it's not about eight billion people yeah.

But understand that because this one nation has accumulated so much power, then they can sanction Iran, kill half a million babies by not allowing them access to medicine, et cetera. The former secretary for state, I think it was Madeleine Albright, when asked, you know, tens of millions of people, children have died, she said, "Well, you know, tough stuff happens. That's how it is." Right? But they don't want to say it if they were white kids. So that's one part of it.

Now we're gonna talk you talked about development and leadership, right? So if political parties in the sort of democratic model are every four years fighting for power, et cetera, what we have seen is a complete erosion of values, of people with intellectual honesty and ability to lead.

Look at the UK, right? Uh, has declined and we don't even know who's the current prime minister's name and he may last another six months. So you've got this kind of sharp decline in terms of the quality of leadership because of the multi-party sort of electoral model, right? How are you gonna fix it? I don't know yet because we're in a new era.

In many other countries of the world, we're seeing different different models appear. But I think we'd be hard-pressed to say, "Uh, that's the model. That's the model." There are models and, you know, people look at, but they are in very safe, secure places of the world where there are no real tensions. And I'm always, I'm always bemused when people talk about Scandinavia and countries, but that's like, you know, you come from Africa, it's like five people live in Scandinavia.

It's kind of easy to manage and everyone can be just cool, right? And now a few migrants are coming. They're getting a bit heated up because it's getting a bit crowded, but still, it's an empty space and kind of space in terms of access to resources, et cetera. The problem lies in our leadership in the crowded parts of the world.

Your continent, my continent, et cetera. And the question is, which political system will allow, right, for the most competent leaders in accountable systems to rise? We have seen that democracy is not accountable. So that myth that democracy creates good leaders, it's accountable and you can change, is just been washed away.

You can change, but what you get is another dummy, right? Because the system is corroded so much that the most rapacious sort of individuals, it get into that system. And I think that's the big challenge about leadership. Which system allows you to essentially have the most, the best sort of quality leaders?

Not easy. If I look around, and I don't wanna mention China because then people will say, "Ah, he's pro-China," et cetera. But if you look around and you look, I mean, it's so difficult that you even have to make excuses for saying that's a great example, right? But you can read between the lines. But if you look there around the world, hmm, where?

But increasingly, and it's a small place, people look to places like Singapore and people say, "Oh, Lee Kuan Yew was probably one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century." Now, was Lee Kuan Yew a soft-pedaling democrat? No, he was hard-nosed. But it was a predominantly Chinese culture. Singapore itself is very young, but the civilisational roots are Chinese, Confucius.

So within that culture, people understood the need for a strong leader, but they also understood that he had to perform. And so long as he performed, he was not corrupt, he delivered, he was revered and he won. They had elections and those who are critical of it would say it was performative, but they had elections.

But he was tough as nails against his opponents as well. And, you know, in the early days when he was building Singapore in the '70s and '80s, the Western media called him a dictator, you know, and that it was not free and fair. But today, Singapore is much admired, right? So to your point, there is no formulae for this.

It is a function of where the society is, at what place, what leaders come to the fore and then which system allows it. I am sure there are very capable Americans, but they will never get into or they will not desire to enter the system, because the system is totally corrupt now. It's drenched in money and, you know, no good person wants to go through all of that.

The same in the UK. So what happens in Africa? You're from South Africa and, you know, there is a problem. There is a problem of not having good leaders spring to the fore. And even if good people turn up and just give me a minute, turn up, the democratic sort of process is so vicious that who wants to go through all of this?

And I think that's the big unknown. And I don't want to say, "What's the alternative?" Well, you might wanna look at the Chinese model.

Nolita: You are listening to the Club of Rome Podcast, the podcast that explores bold ideas from the experts and practitioners addressing global challenges through systems thinking. This conversation is part of our third season, where we've already spoken to thinkers like Yemi Keri on AI in Africa, to Jayati Ghosh on wellbeing economics and to Katharina Pistor on law and capitalism.

You can find our past episodes discussing themes like the universal basic dividend, climate resilience, feminism and peace on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to the discussion.

I've always thought, especially when it comes- I mean, I spend a lot of time thinking about Africa and I'm much less informed about Asia. But I always think that had people had time to figure these things out without the intervention of other people, you would find that, like, leadership systems would develop and they would be unique to that context.

Like, I always think to myself, okay, but Europe had like 1,000 years of trying to figure this out with no one intervening and so they have their different governance systems. And Africa just didn't get the same chance. And so when there are these conflicts, it's treated as like, oh, this is a hopeless situation.

And it's like, no, it's because we just didn't have the same thousand years to figure these things out on what leadership looks like. I mean, Nigeria has like dozens of different subcultures in there and then expecting that one strong man will lead it might be a bit of a problem compared to, again, like a country up north where 90 point something percent of the population looks and comes from the same culture.

It's, it's different.

Chandran: I mean, the historical sort of timeframes you mentioned are important, but don't forget that it's actually wealth and power. So Europe, having plundered the world, essentially became wealthy. Small population, that wealth trickled into the societies, so you built homes, you had roads, you had all of these things built, and you became wealthy and you were a small minority.

You know, you were a small minority who ruled the world and accumulated, you know? 90% of the wealth, which was then invested in the streets of London and all these cities, et cetera. So people had nothing to complain because life seemed to be improving all the time. Now, on the other side, then you had the poor Africans who, as you said then, "Who are these people taking all of this from us? Our whole way of living has been essentially altered."

And this happened in India as well. And we know we didn't belong to one country. We were different tribes. Of course, there were factions, et cetera. And so then the modern world, we were put in and we were told our borders are this, but we've already had been raped and pillaged.

And so what happens then is people start fighting. Civil wars, et cetera, as you know, in Nigeria, Biafra, all of those things happened. So then we're seeing the aftermath of all of that unraveling. So, you know, when you look at South Africa, how long was the apartheid era for? About 150 years?

When you have 150 years of that sort of oppression, you can't expect people to come out of that within the space of 25 years. No chance. It's like saying, "I've been hit by a bus, all my limbs are broken, I'm in ICU. And by the way, turn up to work tomorrow." You can't. So the thing that we have to understand is how will that society recover from that trauma, right?

So it's gonna take some time and then we can look at it. The last point I'll make is we also have to understand that, you know, this is not 100 years ago. This is a full world, as the club has said. So the pressures on humanity in every society are much more profound. So how do you create political systems and institutions that can even deal with it and have leaders who are good at it?

I suspect that if you put Lee Kuan Yew in, say, a large country like Indonesia today, which is, you know, in trouble, right? Huge amount of issues with close to 300 million people today. Someone who is thought of as being the most, one of the leading statesmen of the 20th century, I suspect he would struggle.

Very different time. Because when he became prime minister of Singapore, the world's population was only about three and a half billion and I think Singapore was less than a million people. Today it's 8 million. So you can see what I'm talking about. Everything is so complex and I think large countries in the developing world are caught in a really complex situation.

Their wealth has been taken away. They've still got a lot of wealth, but then it's all trapped in an old system. Their elites want to be like those who raped and plundered because that's all they know about, you know, neoclassical sort of economic theories and they don't have the wisdom to essentially bring their countries forward.

Nolita: An inability to deal with the rights of others. I think I'm gonna keep that one with me, 'cause I think we are transitioning towards the discussion of peace, justice and a way forward once again. Do you feel that there will be a path towards peace with all of these tensions, these also, I guess, lack of intellectual honesty, ability to lead and these challenges that you're highlighting?

What does peace and prosperity on a thriving planet also, 'cause that's always in the background, is like the things that are urgent right now, there's still this big picture that's happening in the background that's making things worse and creating more opportunities for conflict over resources and that sort of stuff.

What does that look like? Can we get mutual respect?

Chandran: I mean, I think we should be realistic and say there are parts to peace that have been created. Otherwise, the rest of the world, most of the world will be, you know, in mayhem, right? So in many parts of the world, we all coexist. We coexist. And again, we come back to the point when you say, you know, the parts of peace, et cetera, what are you referring to?

You're actually referring again to essentially a couple of countries at the moment who have essentially turned the world upside down. And that I'm not suggesting therefore that there aren't bad things happening in Sudan, et cetera, but all of this has historical linkages as well. But if you take away, if the most powerful countries, let's be very straight about this, if the most powerful countries, the United States was to be able to essentially, curtail the excesses of Israel, things would be very different in the Middle East.

Extremely different. Huge amount of prosperity it would create. That doesn't mean the Middle East would essentially become a haven of peace. But my God, it would change. Would there be some tensions within Saudi Arabia, Iran, et cetera? Yes. But it would not be a world churning sort of effect, right? And in fact, it could be a very different one.

Just two years ago, it seemed like something was gonna happen, Iran, Saudi Arabia, et cetera. And then if you said Iran, yhe United States and China were cooperating. And let's be very clear, and again, I don't want to be seen as someone who's saying China is all great. But when people talk about the US-China conflict, I said, "Hmm, you better be careful."

A conflict means that two people trying to get at...two sides trying to get at each other. The Chinese are not trying to get to the US. It's the Americans who essentially instigated all the anti-China stuff for whatever reasons, but mainly around their inability to share power with a rising superpower and therefore deeming many actions of the Chinese as breaking international law, et cetera, which have all fallen by the wayside given that the main culprit, the main propo- the main country that has broken most international laws is the United States.

But if the United States gave up its fear of sharing power with the eme- the power of China, imagine what the world will look like. So the answer is there is a path to peace, a global peace. There'll always be a few bushfires here, but if the two major powers work together, I think we would see a very different world.

And that's why I believe the onus is still on the Americans coming to terms with the new world order. And the time we live in now is essentially shrouded in the difficulties of Americans coming to terms with the rise of the others.

Nolita: I think that we are looking at the US, but there are also a lot of countries that are complicit. And what you might find is once you pull out the veil of the US, you'll find a lot of things underneath that are enabling what the, um, what is happening also. I don't know if it's that clean of an answer.

But because of time, I'm gonna go to our last question and now we're talking about the Club of Rome. Last year, we had the first conference in China and it felt like an important and intellectual and cultural milestone for the organisation. So what insights did you draw from the meeting of bridging, you know, between what is historically been a very Western organisation having its first meeting in China and bridging partnerships with universities and organisations in the country?

Chandran: Yeah, I think it was a very good effort of the club to have this first meeting in China and it should do more of that. You say the Club of Rome is historically a Western-dominated organisation. I would say it still is. Uh, that's not necessarily a criticism, but that's the reality of where it is.

But more importantly is the ideas, the ideas that the Club of Rome's committed to and I think that's the biggest challenge for the club.

The ideas are, because it's kind of Western-centric, they seem to be dominated by ideas emanating out of the West, which I have argued reflect a great lack of understanding about the rest of the world, but also reflect an inability to look at issues to do with politics, economics from a different lens, because they start to reshape how we see governance systems.

And I think it was so interesting for me that many members of the club had no idea where China was, and this is the 21st century. We're not living in the age of Marco Polo where you needed to take, you know, months to get on a boat and come to China.

And so I think that is a problem for the world, particularly in the West, not to understand the changes taking place in the other world. And so many people having the arrogance to assume they know and then pontificating about these things. So what I learned there is, even though I'm aware of these blind spots, that the blind spots are actually much deeper than I thought.

Second, it was pro- perhaps the obvious thing, people were unused to listening to the views of other people because the conference was organised in a way I think I contributed a little, to bring some Chinese voices in there that were not curated to just say what we all wanted to hear.

And I think this is actually an important breakthrough. There was some discomfort with what was said, et cetera. And finally, I would say that, it reinforced my belief that it's all right for us to live in a world in which there are extremely different viewpoints.

So I think for the Club of Rome, it was a great exercise, but it just showed we need to do this regularly and we need to do it in different parts of the world.

So get people to really wake up and say, "Oh, this is what the world looks like."

So I think it was a great move but it reinforced my views that there's so much learning to be done and reinforced my view that so many people talk about the world, but they've never been to really look and think. And I think going to China was a great thing for many in the club and I hope more people will go to really understand what's going on there. Both its strengths and weaknesses.

Nolita: Well, here's to building the capacity to deal with the rights of others. And I share that sentiment also and I hope we build more of those opportunities. Thank you so much for joining us today and we will end our conversation here.

Chandran: Thank you.

Nolita: And that was my discussion with Chandra Nair. You've been listening to the Club of Rome Podcast, where we unpack big ideas and global challenges with thought leaders from across the world. If you've enjoyed this episode, please do leave a rating or review and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can learn more about the Club of Rome and listen to more podcast episodes at https://clubofrome.org