Many in the West assume that a rising China will dominate the world as Europe and America once did. George Yeo, Singapore’s former foreign minister, reads China’s rise through a much longer history. In this conversation with ThinkChina, he explains why China has little appetite for empire, then names the weakness he believes matters most: corruption, and its roots in Confucian culture.
A long historical cycle
Yeo places the Asian century inside a cycle stretching from Columbus’s voyage in 1492 to Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978. Those five centuries of Western ascendancy left an imprint so deep that much of the world absorbs it without noticing. Asia’s return, in his account, is history resuming its longer course.
A universe unto itself
China, Yeo argues, has never seen much value in colonising or absorbing other peoples. It regards itself as a universe unto itself, large and self-sufficient. The danger he sees is hubris, the attitude that left the late Qing dynasty dismissive of the outside world just as Western power surged.
He sets India alongside China as a contrast in form. India is one civilisation spread historically across many polities, and Yeo draws on Hindu philosophy and the current debate over the name Bharat to show how differently it holds itself together.
Problems that start at home
Asked to rank China’s challenges, Yeo answers that its gravest threats have always been domestic. Leadership succession, a common Western worry, ranks low on his list. Corruption ranks first.
Corruption and Confucius
This is Yeo’s most original argument. Confucian ethics teach people to treat others according to their relationship: family first, then friends, then everyone else. That moral order builds strong loyalties, and it also makes favouritism feel natural. Yeo traces the pattern through everyday customs such as the red envelope and through the rise and fall of Chinese dynasties.
Because corruption grows from culture, he argues, it is extraordinarily hard to eradicate, and that understanding casts Xi Jinping’s long anti-corruption campaign in a new light. He leaves one question open: what becomes of Confucian society in the age of AI?
Why it matters for Asia
How China understands itself shapes how it treats its neighbours. If Yeo is right, Southeast Asian states can expect a China focused on economic weight and domestic stability, with little interest in territory beyond its stated claims. His argument also explains why Beijing treats corruption as a matter of regime survival, a lens that helps readers interpret purges and campaigns that often puzzle outside observers.
Can any campaign uproot a problem woven into a culture’s ethics? Watch the full conversation and judge for yourself.
Further reading
Henry Kissinger, On China
George Yeo, George Yeo on Bonsai, Banyan and the Tao
Source: ThinkChina Conversations (SPH Media). Interview by Chow Yian Ping.
