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US-China relations
OpinionComment
Tom Plate
Tom Plate

Opinion | The case for drafting in Barack Obama to help heal US-China relations

  • The former US president’s keynote speech at COP26 showed he still has the ability to unite and inspire a crowd to action
  • Obama can speak to the issue of Beijing-Washington relations as a special citizen of the world, and China should welcome the idea

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
Tom Plate

If fine oratory is a valuable art form, it is nonetheless becoming a lost one. Beware the mere glitter of charisma alone. In a politician, it is often no more than wrapping paper around a thin gift box of costume jewellery, but true orators can move mountains and nations.

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It might even prove a propellant of winds for reform in otherwise seemingly hopeless political storms. This takes us to former US president Barack Obama’s remarkable keynote address on climate change last week in Glasgow.

In thinking back on a life of listening to political figures making their pitches, few stand out even though the finest wines of historic oratory hit you quickly from first sip to last.

In my memory lives Nelson Mandela, who to my ear deserves the lifetime achievement award for oratory. Then there are lesser-known figures such as the late Tory politician Iain Macleod, who packed a powerful British punch.
From Asia, the best oratory in English I ever heard came from Lee Kuan Yew, whose stylised Britishism never blurred his “Asian values” message. From America, Martin Luther King’s aide Jesse Jackson – not to mention King himself – understood that only oratory that came from the heart as well as the mind could keep hope alive.

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COP26: Obama calls out China, Russia for ‘dangerous’ lack of urgency about cutting emissions

COP26: Obama calls out China, Russia for ‘dangerous’ lack of urgency about cutting emissions

Then came Obama. The impact of effective oratory includes public persuasion to a new and important idea or core consolidation of a growing consensus over an existing one. Obama’s Glasgow star turn was more of the latter. What was new was his fine-tuning to the ears of the young, as the oldest among us will not live to see the darkest days of the climate reckoning.

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