2014 Conference proceedings

09:15 – 10:00 | Opening session

Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

We aim to contribute to improving all aspects of local and regional governance, with a view to promoting a world that is more open, more prosperous, fairer and more respectful of the diversity of states and nations.

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Park Geun-Hye

President of the Republic of Korea

I believe that building a framework of trust and cooperation on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia will be crucial for a more peaceful and secure future for our world.

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10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 1

“Security governance in East Asia and in Europe”

Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Jean-David Levitte

Distinguished Fellow, Brookings Institution

In my view, the US, both in Europe and Asia, has to play the role of balancing power, like the UK did in the 19th century in Europe.

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Richard Haass

President of the Council on Foreign Relations

Asia is a much more complex geography than Europe with much less institutionalism and it is much more about territorial and other kinds of disputes.

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Han Sung-Joo

Former Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs

With its rebalancing policy, the US appeared to be placing more weight on its Asia policy and presence, but it now finds itself with problems elsewhere around the globe from which it cannot easily pivot away.

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Igor V. Morgulov

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

In the time of a fundamental transformation of the system of international relations, the world faces growing number of conflicts and challenges.

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Shotaro Oshima

Chairman, Institute for international Economic Studies (IIES) and Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo

One of the most important elements in East Asia is obviously the rise of China, and it is creating certain instabilities in the region.

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Debate

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11:30 – 13:00 | Plenary session 2

“Prospects for the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia”

Introduction by Choi Young-Jin

Professor at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies; former Ambassador to the US; former Head of the UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire.

The rise of East Asia will be recorded in history as the most significant phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century, along with the Cold War.

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Thomas Bagger

Head of Policy Planning, German Federal Foreign Office

I think the German/Korean relationship is far broader than the rather superficial similarity of having a history of division, but it is quite interesting that we come back to this issue of division and unification on the Korean Peninsula.

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Ju Chul-Ki

Senior Secretary for Foreign Affairs and National Security, Office of the President of the Republic of Korea

Unification can be the silver bullet to resolving many of the key challenges that plague the Korean Peninsula such as the nuclear issue, human rights abuses, and North Korea’s social economic challenges.

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Thierry Mariani

French Member of Parliament for French Citizens Abroad (Asia, Russia, and Oceania)

The economic dynamism of Northeast Asia except, of course, North Korea, has enabled them to carry weight on the international stage. South Korea is an example.

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Marcus Noland

Executive Vice President and Director of Studies, Peterson Institute for International Economics

The first scenario is one side conquers the other one militarily. The second one is that the peninsula experiences a peaceful, gradual consensual unification that is measured in decades […] The third possibility is […] an abrupt German-style collapse of the North and its absorption by the South.

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Anatoly Torkunov

Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations

The Korean Peninsula remains the hub of bilateral, regional and global problems.

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Debate

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13:15 – 14:45 | Lunch debate

Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Lee Hong-Koo

Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea

The most crucial requirement is to bring the major powers together to guarantee the peaceful coexistence of two Korea working together towards an eventual unification.

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Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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15:00 – 16:30 | Plenary session 3

“Inequalities and globalization”

Introduction by Susan Liautaud

Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society; Founder of Susan Liautaud & Associates Limited (SLA)

Our topic for this 90‑minute session is vast and it is inequality and globalisation. It is indeed a topic that Christine Lagarde and others have called one of the most important stories of our time.

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Mari Kiviniemi

Deputy Secretary General of OECD; former Prime Minister of Finland

Inequality is not only bad socially, ethically and on a human level, it is also bad economically.

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Rhee Changyong

Director, Asia and Pacific Department, IMF

We have to be very careful when we talk about inequalities. It is not about inequality in general; it is more about inequality in opportunities, and excessive inequality is quite detrimental to growth.

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Richard Cooper

Professor of International Economics at Harvard University

The Gini coefficient is a very clever coefficient, but it is a single number, and inequality is typically much more complicated than can be captured in a single number.

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Il Sakong

Chairman of the Institute for Global Economics; former Finance Minister of Korea

Income and wealth inequality have been rising throughout the world during the last three decades or so, particularly in the advanced economies.

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Jean Pisani-Ferry

General Commissioner for Strategy, Office of the Prime Minister, France

The WTO and the IMF are increasingly concerned about inequality. Paradoxically, the EU, which is a political institution with a mandate in the treaties of improving the whole of society, has proved relatively indifferent to these issues of inequality.

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Debate

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16:30 – 17:15 | Plenary session 4

Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

H.R.H. Prince Turki Al Faisal

Chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)

Governance in Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria is in such a tenuous condition, and the perfect conditions for terrorist cells to take root […]. This is something that will continue to happen as long as we do not treat the illnesses and continue to treat the symptom. The main disease in that area is the failing states.

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Debate

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17:15 – 17:45 | Coffee-break

17:45 – 19:15 | Plenary session 5

“Africa in a global context”

Introduction by Marie-Roger Biloa

CEO, Africa International Media Group

Nowadays, conversations about Africa no longer tend simply to vilify it as hopeless, but instead highly praise its economic progress and golden business opportunities.

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Wu Jianmin

Executive Vice Chairman of China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy

Asian countries have been very active in Africa’s rise, and in the 21st century, Afro-Asian solidarity will play a very important role.

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Lynda Chalker

Founder and Chairman of Africa Matters Ltd; former UK Minister for Overseas Development and Africa

We are beginning to see a real combination of experience being shared from Asia into Africa, and with third countries too.

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Nathalie Delapalme

Executive Director, Research and Policy, Mo Ibrahim Foundation

There is no doubt about the narrative of the African rising, but I still think that the economy is not the only measurement; we should be careful not to be overly optimistic, but should take into account the early warning signs of insecurity, domestic unrest, inequality and jobless growth.

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Youssef Amrani

Chargé de mission, Royal Cabinet, Morocco

Africa must take its future in its own hands, overcome the barriers to its socio-economic development and create jobs for its youth, who are the continent’s real driving force.

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Elisabeth Guigou

President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the French National Assembly

Europe must become more aware that its security depends on what happens in the Sahel.

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Debate

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20:00 | Dinner debate

Introduction by Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Yun Byung-Se

Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs

A reunified Korea will be nuclear weapons-free; a beacon for human rights and democracy; at peace with neighbors; an engine of global economic growth; and a promoter of regional and global peace and prosperity.

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Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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08:30 – 11:30 | Parallel workshops

Workshop #1 – The state of the world economy and finance

Introduction by Jean-Claude Trichet

Former President of the ECB

We’re still living in the shadow of the deepest economic crisis since the Second World War. It might have been even worse had central banks and governments not taken extraordinarily bold, swift steps.

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Jeffry Frieden

Professor of government at Harvard University

There are major political and economic blocks to a resolution of the crisis in Europe, which causes concern both in Europe and around the world.

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Yutaka Aso

President, Aso Group

The strong intention of Governor Kuroda of the Bank of Japan is working. He says the bank will do whatever it can to overcome the deflation that has long undermined Japanese economy.

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Daniel Daianu

Member of the Romanian Academy; former Minister of Finance of Romania

Extreme events keep us under constant pressure. All this is very bad because there are economic, institutional, social, and political entailed costs; these costs show up in individual mindsets and in the collective psyche of people.

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Debate 1

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Jun Gwang-Woo

Former Chairman of Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC)

In general, older people tend to have a low risk tolerance and not aggressively engage in venture type investment. So, the result is: saving more, spend less and prefer safer assets.

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Bozidar Djelic

Partner, Lazard; former Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia

There is no commonly agreed model, where all the banks would in the same way use the same model.

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Marek Belka

President of the National Bank of Poland

I do not think that we have really experienced a full-blown currency war which some of the colleagues, say, from Brazil, were quite concerned about.

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Debate 2

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Workshop #2 – Energy, climate change and environment

Richard Cooper

Professor of International Economics at Harvard University

I will give my own pessimistic view about the COP process we are involved in. I do not see how 193 countries with a huge diversity of interests can reach a meaningful agreement – the word ‘meaningful’ is important – by a process of consensus.

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Laurent Fabius

Action is possible. Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut; that’s where energy comes in. We must reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, save more energy and use more renewable sources.

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Vuk Jeremic

Former President of the UN General Assembly; former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia

Global problems require global awareness for global solutions […] It is an illusion to believe that negotiations on post-2015 agenda and climate change can take place in isolation from general international trends.

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William Ramsay

Senior Advisor of the Center for Energy, Ifri; former Deputy Executive Director, International Energy Agency (IEA)

We cannot emit any additional CO2 from 2040 if we want to achieve the two-degree target, which is not particularily realistic.

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Debate 1

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Bertrand de la Noue

General Representative of Total in China

Energy companies have for a long time been quite mute on the climate debate. […] Total has been over the past years at the forefront of a profound change in industry response.

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Tatsuo Masuda

Professor at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business Graduate School, Japan

Energy and environmental challenge is symbolically seen in Asia, where some 60% of the global increment of energy demand growth up to 2040 will take place.

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Luigi Colantuoni

Group Representative of Total in Japan and South Korea

Climate change and energy transition are considered major issues for the world economy and for the sustainable future of humankind.

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Debate 2

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Christian Bréchot

President of the Institut Pasteur

Eco-epidemiological impacts are extremely important. There will be increasing health risks from natural disasters and increasing health challenges linked with human displacement.

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Sverre Vedal

Professor, University of Washington (UW) School of Public Health; Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences (CRAES)

While most air pollutants are climate warming, some important ones are climate cooling, and that complicates mitigation strategies.

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Debate 3

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Lee Seung-Hoon

Professor emeritus of the Seoul University; former Co-Chairman of Green Growth Committee of the Korean government

With tools energised by fire, greedy mankind has built up astounding prosperity on the one hand, and degraded the environment to the level of destruction on the other.

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Anil Razdan

Former Power Secretary of India

The OECD said in 2010 that seven out of ten world cities most exposed to climate change are in developing Asia.

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Debate 4

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Workshop #3 – Agroindustry in Africa and Asia

Introduction by Jean Yves Carfantan

Senior Consultant, AgroBrasConsult

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Suresh Kumar

Chief Editor of Africaindia.org; former Head and Director of the Department of African Studies, University of Delhi

Agriculture extension is an important component of agriculture universities throughout the world, which will help Africa Agriculture Education System to strengthen in rural areas.

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Khalid Meksem

President of the University Mohammed VI

The pre-colonial part of agriculture in Africa was sustainable, local and harmonious. […] people who are interested in sustainability today will fly to remote locations in Africa and learn from the locals.

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Debate 1

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Krishan Jindal

CEO, NABARD Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd.

NABARD has been able to facilitate credit flow to agriculture and also helped in adoption of technology by small farmers to operate in a profitable and sustainable way.

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Debate 2

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Rod A. Wing

Professor, University of Arizona

The greatest challenges that we face in plant breeding is to be able to link genome sequences to functional traits that could be used to create superior and sustainable varieties.

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Philippe Chalmin

Professor, Paris-Dauphine University

Debate 3

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11:30 – 11.45 | Coffee-break

11:45 – 13:15 | Plenary session 6

“The geopolitics and geo-economics of Eurasia”

Introduction by Fen Osler Hampson

Director of CIGI’s Global Security & Politics program; Co-director of the Global Commission on Internet Governance; Chancellor’s professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada

I think that it is important to note that the Eurasian region has witnessed a number of cooperative governance initiatives in both the economic and security spheres.

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Michel Foucher

Chair of applied Geopolitics at College of World Studies; former French Ambassador to Latvia; former Director of the policy planning staff of the French Foreign Ministry

The reference for the Eurasian economic union is the European Union. It’s cut-and-paste in formal and institutional terms.

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Dong Manyuan

Vice President, China Institute of International Studies (CIIS)

President Xi Jinping proposed a cooperation initiative through the Silk Road economic belt cooperation initiative. It brings about new opportunities for economic cooperation on the Eurasian continent and has been welcomed by the majority of countries that lie alongside the continent.

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Alexander Panov

Member of the Advisory Board of the Security Council of the Russian Federation

There are a number of projects in which Moscow, Seoul and Pyongyang are already involved in, particularly those in the transport and energy sectors.

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Justin Vaïsse

Director of the policy planning staff, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

If the European Union and the Eurasian Union discussed common economic projects and trade, we’d see that as something very positive, because it would add to South Korea or China’s efforts to develop the region.

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Yu Myung-Hwan

Chairman of Sejong University; former Republic of Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs

South Korea’s Eurasia Initiative is still at a very nascent stage […] and is trying to implement the Eurasia Initiative with forward-looking and creative thoughts.

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Debate

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13:30 – 15:30 | Lunch debate

“What about American leadership?”

Part 1

Americans never had full hegemony. There is a bit of a myth about the past, that there was a period when the Americans could do anything and now we can do nothing, and the truth is somewhere in between.

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Part 2

Giving more resources to Ukraine is a good idea in principle, but the problem is that in practise, there is zero evidence that more resources will be used well.

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Part 3

I do not think we are on the verge of a great détente with Iran, because there are too many interests where there is divergence.

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Part 4

China quite simply does not use the influence it has to rein in either North Korea’s nuclear programme, or more broadly, North Korean behaviour. There is a sense that China could and should do more, not to control North Korea, but to influence it.

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15:30 – 17:00 | Plenary session 7

“Trade and politics”

Introduction by Patrick Messerlin

Professor of Economics and Director of the Groupe d’économie mondiale (GEM) at Sciences Po Paris

Many people tend to believe, and yesterday we had this impression, that trade and politics are a source of increasing conflicts and interactions.

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John Manley

President and CEO, Canadian Council of Chief Executives

The world is increasingly complex, and our political economies are all engaged in dealing with a myriad of very deep and difficult issues.

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Alejandro Jara

Senior Counsel, King & Spalding; former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Chile, WTO

The trade agenda is increasingly intrusive and touches upon very sensitive domestic political issues in many countries.

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Bark Taeho

Professor at Seoul National University; former Minister for Trade, Korea

The current consensus-based decision making mechanism of the WTO faces serious limitations. We have to discuss honestly how to save the Doha Round with all options open.

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Pascal Lamy

Honorary President of Notre Europe; former Director-General of the WTO

The relationship between trade and politics, whether domestic or international, is fundamentally changing as we are transitioning from an old world of trade into a new one, and we are somewhere in between these two worlds.

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Debate

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17:00 – 18:30 | Plenary session 8

“Middle East in a global context”

Introduction by Dominique Moïsi

Special Advisor at Ifri

I would say there are three words that characterise the ‘new’ new Middle East: fragmentation, […] radicalisation, […] and expansion.

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Hubert Védrine

Former French Minister of Foreign Affairs

Turmoil and problems have been rocking the Middle East for 50, 70, even over 100 years!

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Ribal Al-Assad

Chairman of the Iman Foundation

We saw the rise of the Islamic State as ISIS in 2006, but it came to Syria because there was a certain atmosphere that allowed it to prosper, that allowed it to grow.

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Meir Sheetrit

Member of the Knesset; former Minister of Internal Affairs of Israel

Many countries at last understood that Israel was standing alone in fighting terror, and now we are fighting together against radical Islam.

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Sergei Karaganov

Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the non-governmental Council on Foreign and Defense Policy of Russia

Stop exporting democracy or socialism or whatever, and, by the way, stop ostracising Israel. It is the only beacon of stability there, and we see more and more ostracising of Israel.

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Miguel Angel Moratinos

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain

I think the Middle East deserves all this time, because it is the quintessence of the new challenging world, where all traditional security concerns, traditional military intervention, energy and trade converge in the new challenges of today’s world, which are global terrorism, food security, water scarcity, and culture division.

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Debate

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19:15 | Cocktail

20:00 | Gala dinner

Report

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09:00 – 10:00 | Reports from parallel workshops

Jeffry Frieden

Professor of government at Harvard University

There have been some notable steps forward in cooperative measures among the major financial and economic centres, especially with respect to the harmonisation of financial regulation. At the same time, the global macroeconomic situation remains quite troubled and quite troubling, with Europe being the most worrisome cause for concern.

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Marie-Claire Aoun

Director of the Energy Centre at Ifri

To be successful, the fight towards climate change should reflect local, regional and global alliances, including private sector, and civil society and should be driven by a strong and sustainable political will.

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Jean-Yves Carfantan

Senior Consultant, AgroBrasConsult

In the small group that was present at the workshop, we did believe that increasing production in the farm sector in Africa is one of the main challenges the world is faced with in the coming years.

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Debate

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10:00 – 11:30 | Plenary session 9

“The economic and political consequences of the revolution of Big Data”

Nicolas Barré

Managing Director, Les Echos

In 2000, that is less than 15 years ago, only a quarter of the existing data in the world was digital and today it is almost 100%.

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Chang Dae-Whan

Chairman of Maekyung Media Group, Republic of Korea

Now that we are entering the world of IoT, Internet of Things, our everyday lives will change. The Internet of Things is a new, emerging power.

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Luc-François Salvador

Executive Chairman for Asia-Pacific, Capgemini Group

We should see the impact of the big data revolution from different aspects and in different areas, touching all domains of our private, professional lives as well as citizens.

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Ben Scott

Senior Advisor, Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation; Program Director, European Digital Agenda, Stiftung Neue Verantwortung

We have to convince people that the Internet offers more benefits than risks. Not just today, but tomorrow and in 15 years and, to do that, we need to establish legitimacy at least for democratic governments and their conduct online.

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Joseph Nye

University Distinguished Service Professor, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School

When you have the capacity of computing power doubling every 18 months, the ability to analyse data has outgrown our social mores and norms and laws, which set limits on this in the past.

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Debate

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11:30 – 12:00 | Coffee-break

12:00 – 13:00 | Plenary session 10

“The US and Asia in the 21st century”

Robert M. Gates

Former Secretary of Defense of the United States

People talk a lot about the emergence of China, when I think it is more accurate and provides greater historical context to talk about the re-emergence of China.

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13:15 – 14:45 | Lunch debate

Conclusion by Thierry de Montbrial

President and founder of the WPC

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Mehmet Ceylan

Deputy Minister of Development of Turkey

The rise of Turkey’s economy is much admired because of the fact that it goes hand in hand with democratic and modern values.

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Debate

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15:00 – 17:00 | Plenary session 11

« General debate »

Introduction by Dominique Moïsi

Special Advisor at Ifri

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Mohamed Laichoubi

Former Minister of Labor and Social protection of Algeria

The reorganisation of the world and the emergence of new players have made it clear that new instruments are necessary. Defining a new multilateralism has become an absolute necessity.

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Jeffry Frieden

Professor of government at Harvard University

Global governance is only really justified if there are global public goods that cannot be supplied by national governments.

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Liu Chen

Professor, China’s Foreign Studies University in Beijing

Thanks to the overall positive economic and political effects of the Reform and Opening up, the smoke has cleared in the state-market battle in China and there is an increased tendency toward connecting China with World.

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Kunihiko Miyake

Research Director, The Canon Institute for Global Studies, Japan

The most important element is the rise of nationalism on the planet. Nationalism is back and I think that we should focus on how to control it.

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Tobby Simon

Founder and Chairman, Synergia Foundation, India

Global warming and rising waters, caused by climate change is a major threat. Another consequence of global warming is the spread of diseases and emergence of multi-resistant strains.

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Carlos Pérez-Verdia

Head of the Private Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico

In Latin America we have no significant religious, ethnical or cultural rivalries and no significant border disputes. We are therefore more or less absent from the debate on spheres of influence.

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Michael Yeoh

Founder and CEO of Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute of Malaysia

Southeast Asia will continue to play a key role in the regional architecture of Asia and the hope is that we will become a middle power in the years to come.

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Conclusion by Dominique Moïsi

Special Advisor at Ifri

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Debate

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17:00 | Closing

Envoi

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