A few ambassadors offered their thoughts on collaborative investment for growth at the Meridian International Center’s Shaping Geopolitical Futures Summit on the morning of Oct. 18. Later that evening, more than a few ambassadors offered up their residences and embassies for the Meridian International Center’s popular annual ball so that revelers could take a break from the heavy talk that dominates Washington.
It’s a daylong affair that mixes business with pleasure and has proven to be a winning formula for Meridian, a nonpartisan, nonprofit center of diplomacy founded in 1960.
Ambassadors Lui Tuck Yew of Singapore and Svanhildur Holm Valsdottir of Iceland touched on climate change, economic inclusion, innovation and public-private collaboration at Meridian’s summit, held at the Gallup Building. While the summit preceded Donald Trump’s landmark presidential victory by several weeks, the discussion alluded to the shifting geopolitical dynamics around the world.
“Small countries don’t have the luxury of choosing size, nor choosing friends. So what we do is we try to be friends with everybody. And China is our largest trading partner, if you include Hong Kong. The US is our largest trading partner for services and by far the largest investor,” Yew said.
At the same time, he conceded that times have changed.
“I think we’ve fundamentally got to recognize that when it comes to trade and globalized world that we are familiar with, we are shifting from a paradigm of the past that was premised on fostering interdependence between nations, to a new paradigm where you are avoiding overdependence, and for the U.S., avoiding overdependence on China,” he said.
For Valsdottir of Iceland, “when you’re a small country, probably the most precious thing that you have is your voice, and we try to use that a lot. We try to speak up loudly for values that … are important.”
And in perhaps a prescient comment, she remarked on the value of hope in difficult times.
“I just wanted to say that one of the things that I think is important for us and for Icelanders and for the rest of the world is hope. It is hope. You have to have hope. And if you don’t have hope, if you don’t hope that things will get better, if you think that they’ll get worse, in a way that can be in itself a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I think that what we all should do is just hope things get better and do our best to make it so,” she said.
In the meantime, a little fun can go a long way as well. To that end, 31 embassies hosted dinners as part of the Meridian Ball, which was followed by some 650 guests converging on Meridian’s historic mansion for dessert and dancing.
Talk of politics could still be heard—this is DC after all—but the mood was light at the ball, which featured a ’70s disco theme.
“Thank you to our chairs, Deborah Lehr and John F.W. Rogers, for making this year’s Meridian Ball a resounding success,” Ambassador Stuart Holliday, the center’s CEO, told The Washington Diplomat.
“Meridian witnessed a meeting of diplomacy and the global phenomenon of disco. Cultural and music diplomacy reminds us that diplomacy today goes far beyond traditional government channels; it now thrives through the contributions of business leaders, governors, artists, athletes, scientists and many others,” he added. “We are grateful this record-setting Ball will allow us to do more to help build the next wave of diplomacy.”
