Discussion at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum
Wed, 23 Jan 2008 05:00:00 -0600
DR. SCHWAB: Thank you, Madame Secretary. I may now ask our co-chairs to join and I will ask each of the co-chairs to
comment rapidly on the speech of Dr. Rice, to raise maybe an issue. And Madame Secretary, I hope that you will give us
the pleasure to respond rapidly afterwards to the issues raised.
So please welcome with me the co-chairs of the meeting: Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from ’97 to
2007 (applause); Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Executive Officer of JP Morgan Chase and Company, USA; Mr. Kamath, the
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank in India; I have to say my teacher 40 years ago, Dr. Henry
Kissinger; Indra Nooyi, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo; David O’Reilly, the Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Chevron; and Chairman Wang, the Chief Executive of China Mobile Communications Corporation.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, would you like to start?
MR. KISSINGER: We go always in alphabetical order. (Laughter.)
MR. BLAIR: Thank you very much, Klaus. And first of all, I should like to congratulate you, Condi, on what I thought was
a fantastic speech. I thought it was a great speech; I really did. (Applause.) I just have one reflection because,
obviously, spending a lot of time out in the Middle East at the moment, I think the Middle East is a region that is in
transition and the question is, where is it transiting to?
And I think you’ve got two competing visions. One is actually a vision very similar to the one that you outlined, which
is about opening up, which is about trying to bring the political and the cultural and the social into line with the
enormous economic power that that region now has right at the cutting edge of globalization. And I think, you know, this
is a region rich, as we know, in danger, but also rich in opportunity and possibility, and you’ve got a new generation
of leaders out there who are really trying to make those changes. And that’s one vision which is opening up.
And then I think you’ve got a second competing vision, which is that of the extremists, the people who want to define
themselves by difference and who want to close down. And all I would say – and this is why I very much welcome both what
you said and also your own personal commitment to the Middle East peace process – is that this is a struggle out there
in the Middle East that affects all of us. This is one of the great things that we now recognize. It’s one of the things
that’s important about this forum. This affects all of us.
What decision that region takes – opening up or closing down – is a decision that will affect the security and the
prosperity of all of us. And there is, in my view, nothing more important to empower the modern and moderate voices and
to disable the extremes than if we get peace between Israel and Palestine based on justice and fairness and democracy.
(Applause.)
DR. SCHWAB: Mr. Dimon.
MR. DIMON: Thank you very much. First of all, I also appreciate being invited to Davos. And I was once asked, you know,
what’s the most important thing to you personally, not as a corporate executive, and I answered that humanity is
obviously the most important. So I really applaud Madame Secretary, Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, for the work they’ve
done, you know, trying to make this a better world, which I think is the most important thing we do.
You know, as a corporate executive, one of the things that I think most – I think I probably speak for most corporations
here – they really do try hard to be great corporate citizens, whether it’s, you know, helping the disabled or getting
jobs or the homeless or charities or after catastrophes being helpful. And climate change – I won’t go through a lot of
it, but in terms of investing in technology, building green buildings, testing green branches.
But one of the things that is – I just think is so important it that – that’s helped this world a lot is globalization.
And globalization itself is being attacked from the left, it’s being attacked from the right, and there are legitimate
concerns and some legitimate losers in globalization that, you know, we should thoughtfully think about and talk about.
But if you talk about the poverty, you know, most economists say the last 20-30 years globalization has taken something
like 2 billion people out of poverty. And this also brought the world closer. You know, most of us now – you know, a lot
of people travel around the world. They have friends around the world. It’s made a big difference.
So I just urge that we continue to work not just as corporations but as individuals on things like globalization. And I
think, Klaus, like you said, they are things that take collaboration, that it’s not going to be determined by, you know,
a corporation or just even one country.
And the other – one last point is that there’s good policy and bad policy, and you know, the road to hell is paved with
good intentions There are a lot of people, I always hear, have these fabulous values – which I believe in the values –
but I think their policies may very well have the opposite effect. And so we have to be very careful at designing great
policies.
DR. SCHWAB: Thank you. Mr. Kamath.
MR. KAMATH: Thank you. An Indian point of view. Let me start by complimenting the Secretary for setting the agenda for
us of collaboration, of hope and optimism, because that’s what I took away from your speech, Madame Secretary.
You so eloquently outlined what collaboration can do. You also pointed out that 50 percent of the world is a world
where, you know, poverty exists and we need to alleviate this. Could you share with us your thoughts on what is it that
we could do in a collaborative context that would alleviate this hunger, this disease, this lack of access to education,
and the elevation of this mass into the world which has all the things?
DR. SCHWAB: Thank you. Henry.
DR. KISSINGER: First of all, let me congratulate Condi on her – on a powerful and noble speech. And let me make a
philosophical observation because I’m usually classed among the so-called realists against the so-called idealists, and
make the point that this distinction is really not a meaningful distinction. The task of any leader is to take a society
from where it is to where it hasn’t been. That takes idealism. If you confine yourself to the familiar, there is
stagnation. The problem is to – where is the limit to which you can take the society in any period of time. Prophets
have absolute values that they want implemented immediately. Statesmen have to adjust it to the toleration of the
system. And this, I think, will be the big debate in America next year and in the new administration, and this will
determine the degree to which we form a domestic consensus and are able to create an international consensus.
In particular, I would like to endorse what has been said about Iran. The issue of Iran is not a quarrel between America
and Iran. It is the challenge that proliferation almost inevitably will produce a nuclear catastrophe And in that sense,
we are acting in surrogate for universal values. And the challenge, as I understood you to pose is, to Iran, as a – will
it act as a cause or as a state? And if it acts as a state, if I understood you correctly, you were saying America will
accept yes as an answer. (Applause.)
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. Well, perhaps I could make just a few comments on comments that have been made. Let me start
with the Israeli-Palestinian issue. And first of all, Tony Blair and I are working together. He has kindly and
generously taken on the work of Quartet Representative and is doing a lot of work to do something that is very
important. We talk very often about the need for peace and indeed, the negotiations are important, but we talk not
enough about the importance of building the capacity of the Palestinians to govern themselves, to have a functioning
economy, to be able to provide for their people. And Tony is doing the work, the hard work of institution-building and
economic development. And it is an effort that deserves everybody’s help and attention.
The fact is that the – we’ve tried, from time to time, to try to do just the economic piece or just the political piece
and unless they go together, this enterprise is not going to succeed. But I fundamentally agree that for the Middle East
as a whole, the establishment of a Palestinian state is essential to the development of the kind of Middle East that we
want to see, one in which extremists are marginalized and in which moderate people win out.
You have to be able – Tony mentioned what can be done to empower moderates; well, you can’t just support them with
rhetoric. The Palestinian people have been told a lot that they’re going to have a state, that a two-state solution is
important. But unless they can see what that state is going to be – and I see my friend Jim Wolfensohn in the audience
as well, who worked very hard on this in 2005, 2006 – unless they can see what that state is going to be, which is the
purpose of the negotiations, to talk about what its borders will be, to talk about its viability, then you’re not going
to get the kind of support for the moderates and support from the region, which is also very important. So there are
really three tracks here: the political negotiations between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas, the building of
capacity that Tony Blair is working on, and then of course, the support of the Arab states.
I’d like to take the issue of corporate responsibility, globalization, poverty as a kind of set, if I may, because I’m
always very impressed, actually, by the willingness of corporate – the corporate community to act as good international
citizens. We have a lot of cooperation; State Department with global partners. I myself know from having been a part of
many nonprofit ventures how important corporate support is to education, to international education, but also to
education here in the United States.
And it seems to me that one of our reactions to globalization, if I could bring it back to a more narrow scale, is that
you mentioned that there will be some losers from globalization. And I think that our problem now is that we have no way
to say to people who believe that they are not going to be winners that there is a place for them. And it is driving a
kind of economic populism that I think is actually quite dangerous.
I believe, and this maybe comes because of my role as an educator, my past as an educator, that one of the most
important national security and international security elements is education, that if you can provide for people skills
if they need to be retrained, but education for their children so that they are prepared for the world that is coming,
you will have more confident people, you will have more forward-looking people, and they will not tend to turn inward.
And so I wanted to take this moment to applaud the corporate world because you have been really great partners in many
educational endeavors and I hope that you will keep it.
Let me say one other word about globalization and poverty. You asked about the terrible statistics on poverty. I think
we do know what works. We know that governments have to be responsible. We know that development has to be a two-way
street. We know that you can’t put development assistance in and have it all go into corruption. We know all of those
things. And I think sometimes there has been, frankly, a kind of patronizing attitude about governments in the third
world that somehow – or in the developing world – they just can’t quite get their act together. Well, of course, they
can.
Our challenge is that some of the developing countries that are also democratic are having a hard time delivering for
their people and making the argument that democracy works at the level where people want jobs and a better life. And so
the work with those young democracies is very important. But if I could focus on one thing in every developing country,
it would be women’s empowerment. We know that when women are better educated, we know that when women found businesses,
we know that they feed whole villages through their endeavors. And so if I could focus on one thing, it would be women’s
empowerment. (Applause.)
And finally, let me just say a word to my friend and really my mentor and somebody with whom I consult a lot, Henry
Kissinger. Henry was the embodiment of someone who believed not just the art of the possible in diplomacy but in
expanding what the art of the possible could be. And that’s really, I think, what you’re saying, Henry. If you just as a
diplomat think, all right, we have to deal within this little narrow square and we’re going to just talk until we find a
conclusion, you’re really not going to solve problems. You may manage them, but you’re not going to solve them.
If I take the example of your opening to China, this was, in fact, a revolution that we today are still benefitting
from. And the good thing is that American governments, American administrations time after time after time, continued to
expand on that opening and to realize that a productive relationship with China was in America’s interest and the
interest of the world. That is really very important to all of you for America, that then when there is an opening of
that kind that it is sustained in a bipartisan way throughout administrations after administrations after
administrations. And I hope that our debate this year as we move to the election of a new president will do precisely
that, which is to bring Americans together around what our interests and values say about what we will be for the world
in the future.
And finally on Iran, yes, I’m sometimes – I simply wonder not why won’t we talk to Tehran, but why won’t Tehran talk to
us. I’ve said that with the suspension of enrichment and reprocessing, which would be important so that Iran doesn’t
continue to perfect this technology that can lead to nuclear weapons material and ultimately to a nuclear weapon, I’ve
said if that suspension takes place I will meet my counterpart anytime, anyplace, anywhere to talk about anything. I
don’t know how to make a stronger invitation than that.
DR. SCHWAB: Thank you. (Applause.) Indra.
MS. NOOYI: It’s very hard to follow that great talk you just gave us, Madame Secretary, but let me just make a few
points. I come from the corporate sector. And what’s interesting is just sitting through the meetings today, then
listening to your speech, the meeting and the mood today has been overwhelmed by the financial crisis, or the financial
issues – it’s not even a crisis, just a downturn. And we are consumed by short-term issues, when you were talking about
long-term issues that have been addressed for a quarter of century and still are not yet fully addressed. So I think the
whole idea of Davos is really to talk about those big issues that will shape the world and I hope that’s how we view
Davos going forward.
Secondly, I think prosperity is the enemy of the terrorist, so it’s critically important that we
focus on economic development and push forward the idea of globalization Because if we don’t do that, I think all of the
issues we talked about – terrorism, all those issues – will rear their ugly head constantly.
The last point I’d make is the boundaries between state, business and civil society are blurred. And it’s critically
important that we use corporations as a productive player in addressing some of the big issues facing the world. And I
think all of those companies want to be the good companies, not just both from a commercial sense but (inaudible) from a
moral sense. We want to do our job to make society better.
So I hope that as you think about addressing these big issues, corporations are used as a valuable ally to help you
address these issues. Because if you look at the eighth millennium development goal, it talks about collaboration and
development. We want to do our part and I hope you call up to us to really shape the world so that it’s a better place
for all of us (Applause.)
DR. SCHWAB: Chairman Wang. (Applause.)
MR. WANG: Thank you. I’m also from business, so if I may, I’d like to talk about what contributions business people can
do to support the challenges. All of us know the world is facing challenges. One of them is climate change. In terms of
climate change, I think people from different countries have already reached consensus.
Number one, global warming now is an undeniable fact. Number two, global warming has severe impact on the natural
environment as well as human existence and development. Number three, apart from the factor in nature itself, climate
change has a lot connected with human activities, especially the emission of greenhouse gases. Number four, climate
change is a global challenge, which calls for joint efforts of all countries and all businesses. All companies, I think,
of different countries need to pay attention to climate change and take it as their responsibility. And the current
priority is the reduction of the emission of carbon.
To take an example of my sector, telecommunications, telecommunication is a sector with lower consumption of energy. But
because of the increase of the network capacity and the growth of subscribers, even telecom sector becomes (inaudible)
with regards increasing of consumption of energy. So now we are doing joint efforts with domestic and with the
international companies to energy conservancy and emission reduction. And we now use new equipment with low energy
conservancy. In rural area, we start to use solar and wind energy products and other clean energy products. All of those
steps may increase capital expenditure to companies, but we think they are worthwhile So I think on the issue of climate
change today, what we need is not only the consensus, but also the joint action. (Applause.)
MR. SCHWAB: David.
MR. DIMON: Well, Klaus, thank you. I – at the risk of sounding provincial as the energy person on this panel, I expect
that energy will be on the docket for this year’s Davos and I look forward to a lot of discussion about it because there
is a link obviously between energy, economy and environment, which we were describing even here this evening. You know,
energy demand has been growing in the past decade and rapidly, and it’s the result of good news. And the good news here
is that the developing world’s economic growth has been accelerating, which has required more energy to support that
economic growth. Now, that’s the good part.
The bad part or the challenge, I think, is that, as Secretary Rice pointed out, there’s still 3 billion people in the
world who aspire to improve their standard of living, who are seeking a higher quality of life, and that quality of life
is going to require energy. And the scale of the energy system is so large, the challenge of how we can support economic
growth, provide the energy so that the standard of living of these 3 billion people rises and provide that in an
environmentally sound way is indeed a big challenge. And it’s something that I think begs for the very theme of this
conference, which is collaboration and innovation.
So I’m looking forward to this conference this year. I’m looking forward to a vibrant discussion about this. And I hope
that we’ll come away from the conference with some actionable items for the private sector, for NGOs and for the public
sector. Because we have an opportunity here, we have a challenge, and I think this is the venue to take on that
challenge. Thank you.
DR. SCHWAB: Madame Secretary.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, yes. Let me just say on climate change, as I said in my remarks, the United States takes very
seriously this challenge and we want to be good partners in resolving it. I think that it will take a focus on the link
between energy, economic growth and the environment because, as you mentioned, Dave, not only are there 3 billion people
who want to improve their lives, but they’re growing and they intend to continue growing. A country like China, a
country like India, cannot afford not to grow. And one of the elements that President Bush has tried to bring into the
debate and I think that is now accepted is that any solution is going to have to include particularly major developing
economies and will have – that they will have to be able to access a new route to energy sufficiency that does not harm
the environment. And so it seems to me that these three do go together very closely and that this is the perfect place.
I wish I could stay for this conference to address it.
But I’d like to close, perhaps, on a note that you made about the long term and Davos in the long term. It is for all of
us who live very busy lives, and I’m sure lives where you come to your desk every day and you think, oh, my goodness,
what am I going to do about that problem today And it can be at times a bit overwhelming. And I try always to remember
that we are dealing in a long context, not just a short-term one. And the wonderful thing about a forum like this is
that it brings together people from business who can’t just think short term. Yes, there’s today’s earnings, but if
you’re going to have continuous business development and sustainability, you have to think about the long term. You have
to think about the challenges that are going to be there tomorrow, not just those of today. It brings them together with
people in civil society who are working on problems that are not going to be resolved tomorrow.
I see my good friend Anne Veneman out there who runs UNICEF. We have a responsibility to children who have a – should
have a future and should know that today is going to be – that tomorrow is going to be better than today, but it’s not
going to be resolved today. And of course, it brings together political leaders and diplomats and the like, all of whom
I think have a responsibility to remember one thing and it’s something I try to remember every day: Today’s headlines
are rarely the same as history’s judgments. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
MR. O’REILLY: Thank you again, co-chairs and thank you, particularly, Madame Secretary. I have again two wishes. The
first wish is that the ideas which you presented to us in the course of the next 12 months, you can implement them as
much as possible. And the second wish is when the 12 months are over, maybe we can welcome you as many times as possible
here. Thank you again, Dr. Rice and thank you co-chairs. The meeting is adjourned.
ends