Today, we heard the Singapore Minister of Foreign Affairs who came for a lecture to INSEAD. After the US and French ambassadors, it is the third time that we are hearing about the top three problems threatening the world today. Interestingly, Irak and weapons of mass destructions were high on the US agenda but nowhere today. The three main sticking points were
- North Korea
- India and Pakistan over Cashmere
- Taiwan and China over the independence of Taiwan

The talk was absolutely excellent. The Minister was truly acidic "the problem with the Japanese is that they tell the world that they want to participate more on the international political scene but they don't have a clue about what their stance is: - "The common security policy of the European Union is a joke". He gave a very balanced view of the forces at work in the world - and painted a very accurate pictures of the various motivations agitating world leaders. According to him, despite the fact that we were taught that China really did not matter on the world scale because it was just a poor country with a lot of people - each day China adds the population of Australia: 20 million heads - he believed that in the future, it is potentially the only country who could counter-balance the current hegemony of the United states.