thank you for watching "state of the union" this sunday. i'm jim sciutto in washington. and fareed zakaria "gps" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com this is "gps," the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we'll start the show with two former united states treasury secretaries, one from each side of the aisle. larry summers on the left and hank paulson from the right. on the u.s. economy growth is back but there's a problem and it gets wider every year. on china, is it a friend or a

foe? also a pope and a politician trading tough talk. why is the president of turkey taking on the vicar of christ? what does it say about turkey today? then david brooks games out the 2016 presidential field. and jeffrey sachs tells us why 2015 is our last chance to act on climate change. but first here's my take. the obama administration's foreign policy energies are now fully engaged in the middle east. negotiating the iran deal sending special forces into iraq supporting saudi air strikes in yemen, working with the syrian rebels. whatever happened to the pivot

to asia? remember the basic argument behind the pivot was that the united states was overinvested in the middle east a crisis-prone region of dwindling importance to the american national interest. asia, on the other hand is the world's future of the world's four largest economies three are in asia if measured by purchasing power parity. as lee kwan yu often told me america will remain the dominant power in the 21st century only if it is the dominant pacific power. and yet the united states is once more up to its neck in the middle eastern morass. president obama and john kerry spent little time in asia. few new initiatives have been announced. the transpacific partnership, a trade deal that was at the heart of the pivot, faces a tough road in congress despite the fast track agreement reached this week. the opposition comes mostly from the president's own party.

the administration lobbied hard to get its closest allies to spurn china's new asian infrastructure investment bank only to be rebuffed by everyone including great britain. the future stability of the world will not rest on whether the houthi win or lose in yemen. yemen has been in a state of almost constant civil war since 1962. global stability will be shaped by how the world's established power handles the new rising one, china. as harvard's graham alison notes, since 1500 of the 15 cases where this transition of power has taken place, 11 times the result was a war. most of the attention of the pivot has been focused on deterring china. that's been a necessary component of maintaining peace and stability. but an excellent new academic volume "the next great war:spt

roots of world war i and the risks of the u.s.-china conflict" highlights that in addition to deterrence the united states also needs to work hard at cooperation, at integrating china into the global system. and on this front washington gets poor marks thus far. something we touched on last week. china is now the world's second largest economy. actually the largest one measured by purchasing power parity. and yet its voting share in the imf is equivalent to that of the netherlands and belgium combined. the united states congress mainly republicans, refuses to pass legislation that would change this. even though it won't affect america's voting share in this group at all. the obama administration's opposition to the asian infrastructure bank was quite simply dumb. the bank is just one more way to fund infrastructure projects in asia. if china can't set up a regional bank to finance bridge building what influence is it legitimately allowed to have? of course having chosen to oppose the bank the

administration then ended up with the worst of all worlds -- being defeated in its ill-chosen fight. washington has a strong hand. it remains the dominant rule-setting power in the world in a way that has never really existed in history. it's militarily in a league of its own. it has more than 50 treaty allies. china has north korea. but the obama administration needs to start believing in its own grand strategy. let the iraqis and the saudis feud. let yemen continue its now 50-year-long civil war. let iran squander resources in syria. washington should turn its energies attention, and effort to asia. for more go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column this week. and let's get started.

take a look at these satellite photographs. they show something physically small but geopolitically huge. china is bulking up and building up many disputed islands in the south china sea. here are some before and after photographs of china's work released just this week on thediplomat.com. admiral harry harris the commander of the u.s. pacific fleet, recently said that what china is doing in the area is "creating a great wall of sand." more than 1.5 square miles' worth so far. it raises questions about china, questions being asked more and more these days like is china an enemy? is it going to overtake america as a superpower? and what are the intentions of china's new leader xi jinping? to help us get to the bottom of all of this i have with me two of the sharpest people i know on the subject. hank paulson was the 74th secretary of the treasury and is the author of a great new book

"dealing with china: an insider unmasks the new economic superpower." and evan osnos was the "new yorker's" china correspondent for years and is the author of "age of ambition: chasing fortune, truth and faith in the new china." hank let me start with you. how could you answer that question? people say first you begin your book by saying china will likely overtake the united states as the world's largest economy. >> yes fareed. as you well know china is right now the second largest economy. it puts up more than half the buildings on earth. it consumes half the cement half the coal, half the steel. this is a company that's a new china. they've emerged as a formidable competitor. i think there's nothing wrong with competition. we just can't let it disintegrate into debilitating or destructive competition. and it's very very important.

it's in the united states's best interest that we look for wayses to get monitor things done with china because we have many shared interests. and again, i think we need to be a bit more strategic as we think about the u.s.-china relationship. >> evan what do you think of these foreign kols moves mean? because a lot of people say chinese government needs growth. this is what the communist party has promised to deliver. they know growth is slowing, so they search for alternatives and nationalism is the alternative, which means that they push their own boundaries and they push or bump up against their neighbors. >> the economy for them is priority one. they've got to re-energize what's going on with the economy. and knowing full well that over the next 30 years they're not going to be able to count on 10% growth a year the way they have for a generation. and so how do you energize people? how do you keep them together? how do you get people thinking about the country as a powerhouse in the world, a great power? one of the ways you do that is

by what the naval strategists in the u.s. are describing as facts on the water. building these reefs into islands in the south china sea. creating essentially the physical infrastructure for the day when china feels that its territorial claims can now be asserted. you know china believes that it has the right full claim to a vast portion of the south china sea which is claimed by other countries. at the moment china's not interested in provoking a conflict a physical military kinetic war with the united states. it knows that would be a doomed proposition. but what it is interested in doing is letting the world know that it's going to take a much more assertive posture in advancing its own interests, not just economically but also in terms of its physical security. >> hank, part of the fascinating thing in the book is you have met with every one of these chinese leaders including xi jinping before he was president. in conversations with them a lot of it is formal i'm sure but what is the sense you get in

terms of do they want to be number one? >> there is no doubt that xi jinping is going through a massive transformation as a country where reform has stalled. and it's not just the economy. it's the urbanization process. it's the military. it's the foreign policy. it's the media. so he's not waiting for people to declare china a major power. he believes they already are a major power. he's looking to influence on the global scene. you know, it's not surprising. it's whaefr other great power's done including the united states. now, he also wants and needs a good relationship with the united states of america. and so he -- >> he wants -- do you think he wants -- >> oh absolutely. he has got multiple challenges

on his hands. some of the things he's trying to do are not only very important to china. they're very important to the united states of america. >> hank, i have to ask you since i have you here. around the world everybody talks about the fact that the u.s. economy at the end of the day is the strongest economy, certainly among the major changes in the world. it's one of the economies that seems to be the engine of the world. what's your take on where we are today? >> you're right. that's the good news. the good news is we're growing, creating jobs property values are rising. the bad news is we're not growing quickly enough and there's tremendous income disparity. and to me and i'm going to turn this around with china again, the greatest threat to our long-term preeminence is not china. not at all. the greatest threat is our own political inability to deal with the sorts of things we need to

deal with to strengthen and revitalize our economy, and restore its competitiveness. and so to me what do we need to do to revitalize our economy? it's not just education and training. we need a tax system to allow our companies to be competitive. we need a federal income tax system that lets us raise the money we need. and while creating jobs. we need to be aggressive in terms of trade policy. china is leading in the trade area. and the last thing i would say is for all those that are rooting against china be careful what you root for because all of our economic issues become greater if you don't have china contributing to global growth. >> hank paulson, evan osnos, terrific conversation. thank you so much. next on "gps," another secretary of the treasury this time from the other side of the aisle. he will give us his take on the u.s. economy. larry summers when we come back.

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we just heard from the 74th secretary of the united states treasury. now let us hear from the 71st. lawrence summers was treasury secretary under president clinton. director of the national economic council under president obama. and was of course a president of harvard university as well. welcome back to the show larry. >> good to be with you, fareed. >> you have been writing a great deal and very concerned about something that you call secular stagnation. and it's important that people understand what this idea is. the idea is the economy is growing but jobs are not being created, productivity is not rising anywhere near what it

used to in the past because we have reached a point at which for some reason the economy's basic growth rate is just not going to be very high. is that fair? >> that's right. and what i'm emphasized that this is really a global phenomenon of the industrial world and what it's got to do with is that we seem to have a lot of savings. more savings because there's moreinequality. more savings because developing countries are building reserves. more savings because people are paying down debt. and we've got much less demand to put that savings to use. hardly any demand for investment. but all that saving all that forgoing spending and no investment imparts a basic sluggishness. >> and so what you're saying is because this is a kind of deep structural problem, not just about this cycle, not just about the banks being overleveraged

that what we need is an entirely new and aggressive government policy or maybe a return to something that was done in the '30s, which is really significant fiscal stimulus government spending. >> i think it's madness that at a moment when the interest rates are at a record low, when the non-employment of men is at a near high, that we are doing less investment in infrastructure than at any time since the second world war on a net basis. it is crazy that we don't take advantage of this moment to fix kennedy airport, to do something about 30,000 schools with chipping paint. but it's also about private investment. we need to figure out how to stimulate both public investment and private investment. that's really the priority for our children. people worry about the deficit and yes, the deficit is a concern. but we're borrowing money at 1%

or less on average to finance the federal government. that's not the real problem. the real problem is that we're not making investments that could be paying off with very high rates of return for our children that we're deferring maintenance and leaving them with a large liability. and that's what i think we ought to be worried about as a country. and i think if we worry about that we've got the prospect of doing what's most central and important, which is delivering for the middle class. >> delivering for the middle class is clearly going to be the centerpiece of hillary clinton's campaign. people say the democratic party has moved to the left. what does it mean? specifically what can a new president do to deliver for the middle class? >> investing heavily in infrastructure. take a burden off the future. put a lot of people to work.

expand the economy's past. raise the minimum wage. give unions a chance to organize in a way that they haven't really had a chance because of the way the labor law has been enforced or not enforced for the last quarter century. these things would make a difference over time for the middle class. move to a proper progressive tax system where we close tax shelters and use the results of closing tax shelters to provide benefits to middle-class people. these are all elements of a strategy that would accelerate growth in overall incomes and make sure that a larger share would go to the middle class. that's got to be the central priority for the country. my hope would be that the

presidential campaign will be about different strategies for doing that. but to start with we need to know what the fundamental objective is. and i believe that objective should be raising middle-class incomes. >> so when you look at all these republican plans, economic plans which focus very substantially on deficit reduction and also on tax reform what do you think of them? >> i don't think the deficit's our biggest economic problem. we've reduced the deficit from 11% of gdp to below 3% of gdp. it's lower now relative to the economy than it's been on average over the last 40 years certainly than it was when ronald reagan was president. that's not the deficit i worry about. the deficit i worry about is a huge backlog of deferred maintenance that we're leaving to our children. the deficit worry about is an educational system that's not meeting the needs of more than

half of the kids in american public schools. the deficit i worry about is in equal opportunity when the gap between rich kids and poor kids in terms of their ability to go to college has never been greater. i worry about providing enough demand to put everybody to work in our economy going forward. this is not the right moment for a lurch to austerity. this is not the right moment to cut the fbi or to cut further the irs, which is already losing the ability to keep the tax system honest by auditing tax cheaters. this is a moment of record low interest rates. that is a moment for us as a country to do what a business would do which is to take advantage of low borrowing costs to invest in our future.

and that's what i hope we will do increasingly in both the public and in the private sector. >> larry summers, pleasure to have you on as always. next up a president versus a pope. whom would you bet on? this week president erdogan of turkey condemned pope francis. what is behind it and what does it tell us about turkey? i'll explain when we come back.

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now for our "what in the world" segment. this week there was a serious war of words between turkey and the vatican. ♪ at a sunday mass the pope called the mass killing of over 1 million armenians in the early 1900s the first genocide of the 20th century. that's blasphemy to turkey's leadership, which ke niez that its forefathers, the rulers of the ottoman empire ever perpetrated such an organized malicious act. many scholars would accept the pope's characterization. in retaliation turkey summoned its ambassador back from the vatican. but turkey's prime minister ahmed davutoglu, went much further, reportedly condemning

pope francis and claiming he had joined a conspiracy of an evil front against turkey. this paranoid rhetoric is not an isolated case. a two-hour documentary called "the mastermind" which aired on a pro-government news channel and featured interviews with top officials from turkey's ruling party, claimed there was a vast international conspiracy against turkey. and last year turkish president reaccept tayib erdogan reportedly said so-called outsiders look like our friends but they want us dead. they want to see our children dead. what in the world is going on here? turkey is an ally of the united states and has been a member of nato since 1952. all of this nasty talk is a symptom of turkey's sad metamorphosis into a textbook illiberal democracy. in my 2003 book "the future of freedom" i pointed out that

while some governments may be democratically elected they can use their popularity to behave in very authoritarian ways. president erdogan's party has won election after election over the years. and things were hopeful at the beginning of its rule notes turkish commentator mustafa akiul. here was a group of moderate islamists who truly believed in democracy, a potential example for the entire middle east. but over the years, he says he power has corrupted the party and its reforms are a distant memory. the turkish government is now one of the strictest internet censors in the world. for a while it blocked access to twitter and youtube, and twitter said that in the last six months of 2014 turkey had more requested for content to be removed on its site than any country in the world. president erdogan has called social media the worse menace to society. the government recently passed a

controversial domestic security law that greatly expands the police's power. meanwhile, president erdogan has built a $600 million palace that is more than 30 times the size of the white house. to keep his grip on power he plays the victim with conspiracy theories that are as nasty as they are ridiculous. still, things could be a lot worse. president erdogan is no vladimir putin. akio points out he's demonizing his opponents, he's not killing them. and despite the ruling party's devotion to islam, turkey has not and will not impose any kind of sharia law and become saudi arabia anytime soon he predicts. turkey supports the nuclear deal with iran. it has taken in more syrian refugees than any other country in the world. in many ways it is still a responsible actor on the world's stage. but the upcoming elections expected in june could give erdogan's akp party even more power.

the party's sure to win, says akio and it might even get enough votes to change the constitution allowing it to create a super presidency with fewer checks and balances. it looks like turkey. there was once a promising model for moderate islamist democracy, will be an illiberal democracy for the future. which is sad for all of us who love that country and its people. next on "gps," david brooks gives us his take on the ever-growing 2016 presidential field. who does he think has the right stuff on the right? i think you'll be surprised.

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"the new york times" columnist david brooks has a fascinating book that i think might make you reevaluate your life. the book is called "the road to character." and in it he challenges us to think about what we call our resume virtues versus our eulogy virtues. in other words, what helps

propel our careers versus what makes for a life well lived. i'll talk to him in coming weeks about this book. but he's first and foremost a great observer of politics and i wanted to get his take on the burgeoning 2016 presidential field. david, pleasure to have you on. >> good to be on fareed. >> it feels like bush has an inevitable status because he's going to be able to raise money, he has so much name recognition. but there is a potential for a candidate other than bush. and will that be i'm guessing to the right of bush? because bush on immigration and education is pretty centrist. >> the way i look at it is this. i think at this stage in the campaign it's not useful to look at who's raising a lot of money. rudy giuliani was raising a ton of money. it's not even use tofl see who has big organizations. just think you're a baseball scout, you're at spring training and you're watching the pitchers work out. and they're throwing their curveballs their sliders, their fastballs. who's got the best stuff? who looks like a politician who's got skills? and if you'd done with that obama and clinton in '08 you

would have said obama's better. that's all do i at this stage. who's better? >> and what are you noticing right now? >> i think marco rubio's the best. just the best stuff. creative. on top of his game. very intellectually smart and going after interesting policies. scott walker very practical, very sharp, has got a great story because unlike the others he actually was governor, he actually did stuff. so he's got a great story. so those are my two, two aces. bush you can see he's been out of the game for a little while. sometimes puts in a great performance, sometimes extremely flat and soft around the edges. chris christie, he was so strong before. now he's trying not to be obnoxious, so he's so weak he's too self-conscious wrapped around the axle. but i think there are only three candidates at this moment who look plausible and that's rubio, walker, and bush. >> on the democratic side what does she do in terms of the change continuity? does she run for the third term as a democrat or does she say

no, i'm actually the change you're looking for? >> they seem to be leaning a little in the continuity side. i think they've taken a look at obama's ratings. one of the interesting pieces of data right now is when they ask people would you like experience or would you like something fresh? historically experience rating very highly these days. people they've just -- in a weird way that she's so temperamentally different from obama, she automatically has a bit of change. so if he was hope and change and high idealism she's not that. so stylistically she's sort of different and she's more managerial. so she might be able to run her way to the presidency as sort of a managerial person who just -- i'm just going to run the thing well. and i think a lot of people are sort of in the mood for that. she does have some strength. the other thing, we underestimate international trends in electoral tastes. tough people are winning. bibbi netanyahu's winning. angela merkel. maybe the most representative figure of our age. tough people are winning. and she sort of fits

temperamentally into that mold. so there seems to be sort of a global historical drift in her direction. >> does the fact that she's a woman, is that -- does it have the potential to scramble some of these political calculations? if 10% of republican women decide they'd rather vote for women, that's a big deal. >> yeah. and 53% of the electorate will probably be women. it's a definite plus. even if she's not fresh in anything she says it gives her the freshness of that. so i think it's a net plus. one of the interesting things is on foreign policy does she always have to be the toughest person? or is she worrying about some stereotypes there? but i think she naturally is the toughest person. we remember what she was like when she was in the senate. and she was not that far from john mccain on a lot of issues. i'm not sure she's going to run that way, but somehow one feels that's where a lot of her general intellectual bent is. >> when you look at all the people running for president and you think about your book which of them has cultivated the inner

virtues, the eulogy virtues you that admire? >> you look at some of the figures who really represent those, they had a deep inner voice. people like abraham lincoln. i have friends now, samantha power u.n. ambassador, i'm a great friend of hers, and i think she has deep inner passion, a good inner life and an external life. but the politicians right now, they are so busy all the time they are their own product. it's all me me me me me. they have very little time to cultivate. they're very ambitious. and if they did really step back and said i want to really be introspective, i want to have a good life they might not be able to take the awfulness of our campaign. so i would -- i think -- we both know a lot of politicians. i generally think they're good people. they're better in private than they are in public. >> but you're saying something important, which is that the system -- and it's not just the political system but the age we live in selects out for that

kind of inner life. you can't be successful on the resume if you have too much of that inner life. >> it's attention. and they're in a hypercompetitive business. when john hay was running, he was one of abraham lincoln's staff, and he was writing these press releases about how the civil war was going. and the press releases were all we're going great, the north is winning, we're trying for general mead he's awesome, and then he's also writing diary entries at the same time and the diary entries are all "cataclysm, we're all losing this is terrible we have no generals." i say that bays had a distinction between his outer voice which he had to say for politics and his inner voice which he knew was true. and a lot of people i cover don't have that distinction. they don't have that inner voice. they're all outer. so they haven't stepped back to say who am i, what's absolutely true that's separated from my own self-interest or my own party line? >> david brooks great and rare pleasure. thank you. >> thank you. >> next on "gps," a stark

warning from economist jeffrey sachs. he says 2015 is our last chance to act on climate change. why? well, he'll explain when we come back.

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[♪] wednesday is earth day. that day when we all seem to recommit ourselves to saving the planet only to forget that pledge by the 1st of may. but my next guest, the famous economist jeffrey sachs, says this is our last chance. sachs is the author of a new book "the age of sustainable development." he's also unabashedly an alarmist. but he says we really have only a matter of days to act, 256 days to be exact. why? well listen to him. >> so you come bearing some pretty grim news, particularly about climate change.

describe why you think this is sort of the last chance we have. >> we've known for decades about climate change despite prop propaganda to the contrary. the earth is becoming warmer and the climate is becoming more unstable. 2014 was the hottest instrument record and we felt continue only in high temperatures around the world but in floods in droughts, in extreme storms. and there's a lot more to come. and the world set this year as the time to change course because negotiations failed failed failed. they finally said 2015 this is it. and arithmetically if we don't do it this year we're not going to be able to stay safe in terms of climate system which -- it's going to run out of control. >> step back. in your book you describe just the nature of the problem historically. so in 1750 you point out there

were about 800 million people on the planet. there are know over 7 billion. and you say once we get to 8 -- the next 20 or 30 years are very dangerous. >> the point is not only has the world population increased roughly ten times but what each person does on average in terms of the resources that are used has also increased roughly tenfold. so the world economy arithmetically has grown 100-fold roughly speaking as macroeconomists would measure it. but what it really means is while the planet hasn't increased in size at all, what we're doing to the planet has just exploded. the pressures on the physical earth have reached thresholds that are very dangerous, unprecedented, and therefore ununderstood not part of our political, social cultural historical context.

so new that we're having a very hard time getting our hands around issues like climate change or the massive destruction of biodiversity the massive amounts of pollution that are being caused. these are new phenomena. >> what about the argument that a lot of people feel with greater efficiency recycling, technology can solve these problems and you will be able to have freshwater endlessly. >> there is some truth -- in fact i think it's a core truth that technology can solve these problems or at least can help us solve these problems. technology always cuts two ways. just take the technological advances in energy. solar panels which don't produce carbon dioxide emissions are clean energy and have become much more less expensive and are

spreading around the world. the fossil fuel industry has become much more productive because of modern technology. how to find deep reserves how to drill. hydro fracking horizontal drilling. we can produce a lot more. we can have ultradeep sea drilling arctic drilling. floating liquefied natural gas plants. the biggest ships in history to take up methane from the sea bed, natural gas, liquefy it on a floating vessel that can withstand a typhoon and ship it off for burning someplace for electricity. technology can accelerate the disaster or it can solve it. >> what is the path to sustainability? when you describe the problem and you talk about the world economy doubling in a generation the population getting much larger even it feels impossible. i think about china and india

developing and building a coal fire power plant every week. i wonder does it really make that much difference if i use a little more solar energy? >> no if china and india continue to completely depend on coal as they are. it's true the major parts of the world don't participate then. it doesn't matter what you and i do. that's why we need a global understanding and a global agreement and that you know very well better than anybody, how tough that is to get all parts of the world seeing eye-to-eye that we need to take a different course. not just the one that the market or that the short-term profits would lead us towards, but the one we need to take for safety. >> are you at the end of the day hopeful? >> this year is key. at least the world leaders, i'm seeing them all over the world week by week they know this is the year either it gets done or we have missed our generation's

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a week ago today, former secretary of state hillary clinton announced that she would be running for the democratic nomination in next year's presidential elections. that brings me to my question of the week. who was the last secretary of state to be elected president? james madison, james buchanan john quincy adams or martin van buren? stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. >> this week's book of the week is david brook's "the road to character." he makes very important points of life through ten richly told biographies. it's a wonderfully written book that will make you think deeply a must read. now for the last look. the secret service protects president obama.

the queen's guard safeguards britain's royal palace. the guard looks to keep pope francis safe. who would have thought a rhino needs similar protection? he is the last known male rhino and is under 24 hour watch by rangers. sudan and his two female companions are three of the last five members of this seesies in the entire world. this is especially tragic considering rhinos often called the last dinosaurs have been on the planet for 50 million years. the rangers are in place to stop poachers from killing sudan and his lady friends. with earth day just around the corner these rhinos are a stark reminder humans threaten the planet in many days. thanks to us sudan's cousins

the western black ryan goswickohino will never walk the earth again. saving these animals from extinction isn't about cute animals or tree hugging. biodiversity is considered crucial to human health from medical implications to providing food to air and water purification. the list goes on. the world wildlife fund says half the earth's wildlife has been lost in the past 40 years. as harvard university professor edward wilson says about ants we need them to survive, but they don't need us at all. the correct answer to the gps challenge question is b, all four presidents listed were former secretaries of state but james buchanan was the last one taking office in 1857. if hillary clinton takes office in 2016 she will be the seventh secretary of state to do so. thomas jefferson the country's

first secretary of state became america's third president and the one not mentioned so far was james monroe. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. happening right now in the newsroom. . >> the entire scene caught on a body camera. one officer's split-second decision saved another man's life. california residents forced to flee their homes as wildfires rage across hundreds of acres east of l.a. plus -- >> free