Lecture

The Right Honourable David Mellor
The Threat to World Peace Posed by China, Russia, the US, and Europe

Monday 1.06.2020

Summary

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Chinese, Russian, US, and European governments have made choices that now threaten world peace in the present day. This discussion explores what those choices were and the potential danger to our society today and in the future.

Current Events 182 lectures

Geopolitics 462 lectures

The Right Honourable David Mellor

David Mellor was born in Wareham Dorset in 1949 and educated at Swanage Grammar School, Christ’s College Cambridge, and the Inns of Court School of Law. He was called to the bar in 1972, and practiced as a barrister until he joined the government. He became a QC in 1987. He was member of parliament for Putney from 1979 to 1997, and spent 11 years in government, four of them as Margaret Thatcher’s youngest minister. Since leaving politics, David Mellor has pursued a multi-faceted career as an international businessman, broadcaster, and journalist. He was the Variety Clubs BBC Radio Personality of the Year in 1994. As a journalist, he was once described by Sir David Frost as “having more columns than the Parthenon.” In September 2013 he was appointed chairman of the Elgar Foundation, responsible for the upkeep of the Edward Elgar Birthplace at Broadheath, Worcestershire, UK.

Do you still feel that the rest of the world can act as a kind of policeman led by the US?

Well, I mean I think so far as Syria is concerned, you know, why should it only be the Russians who dabble in Syria? At the end of the day, instability in Syria causes instability throughout the Middle East… and I just think that if we don’t deal with Syria in Syria, we have to deal with the Syrians out of Syria and that’s a much more difficult proposition.

Do you believe that that the next kind of battle for power will be in Africa?

I don’t know if it’s a battle for power, but there’s no doubt the Chinese think of Africa as being very useful to them. It’s a source of a great deal of mineral wealth and so on, and it’s a way to spread their influence around and yes, I think, you know, the Chinese will be there bearing gifts that might turn out to have rather more strings attached than any sensible African leader would want. But yes, I think they are interested in Africa and they do think it helps achieve their objectives to have a sort of client-state relationship with a number of African countries.

Trump has done his best to take on China, particularly around the trade imbalance. Where do you think he went wrong, given everything you've touched on about the Chinese aggression?

I think Trump’s done quite well with the Chinese. But you know, he started from a bad situation because Obama did nothing about Chinese grandissement and, you know, allowed them to militarise the South China Sea. And it would’ve been much easier to have dealt with the problems of the South China Sea before they had got these armed atolls. And before they effectively started to claim that the South China Sea was an inland sea of China and it ain’t nothing to do with the rest of the world at all so, you know, I mean, Trump is, I can’t, still can’t believe he’s president, you know, I think it’s a nightmare, we’ll wake up from it.

He’s incapable of making a speech to bind up the wounds of the nation. He’s impossible for him to be anything other than an appallingly divisive figure. I would be happier if I thought the next American leader would at least adopt one or two of his policies and his scepticism towards China and his desire to see the Chinese off is worthy of being emulated by his successor, though it won’t be.

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The Right Honourable David MellorThe Threat to World Peace Posed by China, Russia, the US, and Europe

Summary

The Right Honourable David Mellor

The Right Honourable David Mellor
The Threat to World Peace Posed by China, Russia, the US, and Europe