good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight first a conversation about how china's rapidly expanding middle class mega cities may pose a threat to the world's natural resources with all elizabeth economy and michael levi. your latest home is called by all means necessary. how china's resource quest is changing the world. then we'll turn to a conversation with malaysian-born singer-song wrirlt yuna whose second album "nocturnal" has earned her a devoted following in the u.s. those conversations coming up right now.

♪ >> by contributions to your pbs station by viewers like you. thank you. ♪ >> over the past three decades china has transformed itself into an economic power with an expanding middle class and mega cities. in doing so china's demand for natural resources has provoked some pushback on what's being seen as a consumption appetite for the world's resources. tackling the subject is a new book titled by all means

necessary how china's resource quest is changing the world by elizabeth economy. yes, that is her maim. and michael levi, both senior fellows. i couldn't avoid that. good to have you on the program. good to have you on as well, michael. let me start by asking how worried -- i expect there's going to be a resource grab. should i be worried about that is this. >> i should have 1.3 billion people. they seem like six billion people. you're right. right. >> you know, to your point, one of the things that we discovered as we were looking at this issue was that every major rising power throughout history has gone outside its borders dating back to ancient athens. the united states certainly and most recently japan. in fact, if you look at jap fees consumption, they were in the early 197 0z, early 1980s a consuming 10%, 11% of the

world's oil. that was only 120 million people, and you look at china today with 1.3 billion people, they, too, are consuming about 11.7%. it's important to look, you know -- you seem to get a different picture. yes, china's resources -- >> regardless of whether china's intentions are good or bad, that kind of massive consumption particularly, you know, outside a country's own borders has enormous consequences. some are very good. they boost incomes. they create challenges of labor and with the environment. you have to weigh each of the pieces by itself and understand what's good, what's bad, what can be dealt with, what do we need to accept? >>. >> i think it's really land. as china goes out in search of land overseas for crops, as its

own land becomes so degraded and polluted, it seems to provoke the most concern globally. that provokes the most nationalist backlash in the countries that we looked at. you see countries like brazil and argentina, actually passing laws and regulations, in part -- in good part in response to this chinese coming out. there's something very sensitive about that. china is really only the third largest wroer seas land purchaser. number one is canada. number two is the united states. nonetheless, something about china's state-owned enterprises going out provokes a lot of concern. >> when you say land purchases, what are they purchasing land for? >> oh, they want to grow crops. you know, soybeans in particular. china produces 27% of the world's soybeans. as their water becomes, you know, constrained, as their land becomes constrained, you know, about a quarter of china's land now is desert, and that's increasing at the rate of 1700

square miles, they need to go out to get land to grow crops to bring back to china. >> it's happening in kazakhstan and the philippines and australia. although different countries are trying to find new ways to prevent the chinese from coming in to buy land. >> that's land. ma about water? >> water is in a really special category. when it comes to oil or when it comes to copper, you can trade that around the world. even sigh beans you can trade around the world. water you can't. when china goes and tries to acquire water, basically by controlling water upstream of other countries, right, the water runs through china in rirz, on its way to india, to

southeast asia, to other countries in the region, when china tries to control that for hydroelectric power or for irrigation, that causes big challenges for countries down streete stream and also causes fear even bigger than the realed world challenges. you know, some of those are enormously hyped up. there's talk in india that china could dry up important rivers. when you dig down to the technical level, that's not particularly plausible. then there are worries that could cause hav abbing for growing patterns and aing consult. there's a lot more truth to that. you immediate to be able to work through those. >> what's the worst case scenario if the grab is unmitigated? >> i think the worst case scenario is that we don't develop the tools, right, sort of conservation tools, the efficiency tools, the resource

substitute for some of these resources. you know, china today consumes over 40% of the world's copper, zinc, iron ore. is an enormous consumer of many of the world's resources. it can be good. it can force us to be more efficient in our own use. you get significant price rises. something that we've seen at points in time for oil, for example. i think that's worst case scenario. >> i'll ask you this -- i ask you the political person on this question. the first that i'll ask the economic version of this question. how concerned are you about what this resource grab means for our relations state to state? >> i don't think that our relations, you know, have -- are affected significantly in terms

of china's resource grab globally. i think china has to deal with the grab for china itself. meaning that, you know, what china does at home oftentimes does abroad. when china goes domestically and causes problems with the environment or with its labor practices or corruption and it goes abroad and exports those practices, then it has, you know, its own problems. probably on a security front there are some reasons for concern. you know, as we see china sort of spreading its wings in the east and south china seas, some of that is tied into potential for oil and gas reserves and for the fisheries. far more than that is driven by nationalism within china. it's important to disentangle those issues.

how are we going to respond to? >> strategically there's things the u.s. has to deal with. >>. >> we thought we found the biggest impact -- where we saw the biggest impact or the impact on crisis. we've seen enormous increases. particularly in the price of oil. if you asked most analysts, they would have said $20 a barrel. now $100 a barrel is normal. we've seen enormous increases in the price of iron ore, copper, food, and when you get those prices going up,en only does it hurt consumers around the world,

but it makes the security challenges associated with resources all that much more acute because the resource costs are such a bigger part of people's budgets around the world. disruptions to resource trade become all that more challenging, and so there's spillover effect from the economic side that make things even tougher. the response to that is to make sure we can serve, to make sure that we and china become more efficient. also make sure that the markets work well. right? as bad as the challenges are because of pressure on resources, they would be much more difficult if countries all had to go to one another and do political deals to make sure they got their oil. s make sure they got their gas and their copper. i'm trying to get a sense of how you stop the resource grab if they have the resources to do the grabbing?

that is, say economically. if they have resources to dot grab and the countries where they're spending the money need those resources, how do you stop it? again, to think that every major country has gone outside its borders to secure resources, and so china is really just following in a long-held tradition. i think the issue is really how to make china do it in a responsible and sustainable way. >> china does not have the equivalent of a for corrupt practices act that's monitored or enforced. what we really want to do is to get china on board with best practices because i think once that happens, then really what we're seeing is china behave no differently from other multi-nationals. >> it's a huge question.

everybody knows that china has been going really aggressively into africa. in certain african countries, do you all care about that if they're spending billions of dollars? do i care about that? >> you want it to be done right. it's important for a lot of these countries. it helps their economies. it has to be done properly. the chinese government itself has challenges in a lot of cases getting its own companies to behave well. we're working on the book, and i visited zambia. the chinese coal mining company that's had enormous challenges in labor every few months either a chinese worker or zambian worker would get shot. i went in to vis the chinese ambassador there. after talking for a bit i decided i would bring up a sensitive issue. he says to me i called on the guys who run this coal mine. they refuse to take a meeting. i can't even tell them that they got to sort things out. we saw something last summer in ghana. gold miners -- private gold miners. not allstate-owned companies.

causing a lot of problems after going in there. asking the heinze to daily with it. they couldn't. they kicked the miners out. you know, if this is done right, if the countries have the right capacity, you find consistently that they are able to bring these chinese activities and other multi-national activities township a higher standard. if the governments don't have the capacity, then that stashed gets dragged down. >> what is -- with regard to trying to encourage them to engage in best practices, what's the best role that we, the us of a ought to take in this regard? >> i think two things. number one is to work with the chinese company, to work with beijing, and we are doing some of that. there are partnerships that have been established. i think, too, and even more importantly, is to help the host countries, the resource-rich countries to develop their capacity to manage the chinese investment in a responsible way.

>> by all means necessary, how china's resource quest is changing the world. they are both together on the counsel of foreign relations. more to come. stay with us. yuna is a household name in her country of or gen, malaise wra. she's now working for pharrell and produced her first single "live your life." s produced her second album "nocturnal" with musicians that help bring a different influence to her sound. let's take a look at a cut from that cd title the "rescue." ♪

♪ she couldn't handle it ♪ things were bad but now she's back ♪ ♪ can't you tell she's walking on air ♪ ♪ >> that's probably right. >> so many colors, and they're so beautiful. >> thank you.

>> he got into music really early, and i tried everything. i auditioned for tv shows and stuff like that. to be able to, like, move to los angeles and then, you know, my first single being able to work with pharrell, and now i'm working, you know, with david foster. it's an amazing opportunity for a girl like me. >> tell me more about -- everybody who is an artist, you know, locks for the day when they can work with great producers. tell me how a girl from malaysia ends up making her way here and having access, gaining access to the top tier of producing talent like a pharrell, david foster? tell me your back story. >> i -- you know, like back home in malaysia i was already a musician. i'm already an artist. i write all of my songs, and i

had my own, you know, company, and i was assigned to any label in malaise wra. i have this habit of just, like, putting out, like, all the music upon my my space, and i think myspace was -- my space music, especially, i think for a couple of years ago that was, like, the place to look for. you know, new music. i got really luck where i, i guess. my company brought me out here to record, and i got signed to the label which -- gave me this amazing opportunity to work with pharrell, and now i'm with verb records, and, yeah, from there i guess everything just kind of like came into place. sfwroo we know what pharrell can

do for a record. certainly of late. everybody is happy. we know what pharrell can do. i've said this a number of times. he is one of the most gifted arrangers. his melodys are beautiful. pharrell and david foster both talented, fwif you two different sounds. what are you hoping to get out of the association with david foster? >> well for "nocturnal" which is my first album with verse david actually -- he did not produce any songs from there. i think it was really cool because he kind of, like -- he gave me the creative freedom to, you know, really do what i really want to do and, you know, he was a huge fan of, you know, a lot of my acoustic stuff from, you know, like le, four years

ago. >> the sornkz that i recorded for nocturnal, everything was kind of like, ah, besides having me just kind of, like, be a fan of my music. i also wanted to make sure that -- he is kind of like my advisor on -- he is really awesome. i see him all the times at my shows. >> what does an audience at a yuna concert look like? the yuna concert goers, who do you see in your audience? >> all kinds of people. i'm just so happy. music is truly -- it's borderless, i feel.

i'm being me, i guess. you know, i have a crowd consisting of people from different walks of life. from different backgrounds. i would see obviously i'm malaysian, so i would see my malaise wran people and then, you know, there's people from different backgrounds. different races and different ethnicity. i'm just accident like, really happy to be able to pull that crowd to my show. >> what would you say i feel like for me personally it's a coming of age kind of like album because i recorded a bunch of albums back home, and i recorded

my ep's, and the album that came out two, three years ago, and this one is, you know, something that more solid to me, i feel, and it's more mature. loofr the songs i wrote are based on being here, and, you know, maybe being away from my family or, like, returning home to my family and becoming a woman. i think nocturnal is kind of the scene for it. what i wanted to do was having all of these thoughts in my head that i can't sleep at night. you know, just writing it down and making it -- turning it into this -- >> what is your family in malaise wra think about the success you're starting to have over here? >> they're really excited.

they get so excited when i work with people like obviously, you know, pharrell and david foster and then when i continue working on like projects with -- for example, like i recorded a cover song for savages, and so as well as the cruz. it's a dreamworks project. and, you know, they get really excited. i'm just doing, like, all of these things. >> if an individual goes on-line tonight and they wanted to sample your stuff before they downloaded the entire album, if they're going to download one or two to sample their stuffefore they bought union yuna's entire album, what would you want them to download to give them a sense

what you do some. >> i'm going to tell them, you know, i love all of the songs on the album, but i probably "mountains,", and "i want you back." >> tell me why mountains and i want you back? >> well, mountains was more of a very folky, acousticy side. it's about, you know, just waiting for a change. like, it's waiting when mountains. waiting for the mountains to fall. it's like, you know, you're just waiting for this change to happen, and it's, you know, like it's so -- it's almost unreal because, you know, they're waiting for a mountain to fall. well, i guess i was writing that out of, you know, like thoughts about relationships and, you know, waiting for something to

happen. >> we've all this had that experience. and i want you back? >> it's a really -- i think it's a fun song that i wrote with this girl jenna andrews, and we wanted to write about something. also very personal, very, you know, like relationships based. it's a fun song. i feel like, you know, whenever i perform at shows, you know, that's one of my favorite songs to perform live. >> i couldn't wait. i had to pump it in. i looked at it, and i look at the song titles. i got to pop this in because i said you guys covered the jackson five? how is she going to do that? how is she going to cover the jackson five by yourself? no, this is the one you wrote. all by yourself? >> i do. i prefer writing -- first and foremost, i'm a writer and then a singer, i thin you know, i don't -- i never

really considered myself as a great singer. you know, i just like kind of just like sing my own words, you know what i mean, in my own way. yeah, i mean, i write. >> who better to interpret than you. you wrote it, so you might as well do it. yuna, it's a name you love. start hearing it over and over again. i'm getting use to it. the new project is called "nocturnal." , and it's fwood to have you on this program. congrats on all your success. >> thank you so much. >> that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time and take a deep dive into what is grabbing the country's attention in the next week. that's coming up next time. see you then. zeerchlts by

contributions to your pbs stations from viewers like you. thank you.

>> charlie: welcome to the program. i'm jon meacham sitting in for charlie rose. we begin this evening with a discussion about politics is representative jim cooper and senator joe manchin. >> such acrimony. we're behaving like a parliament. my colleagues 99% of time with their party political. we sometimes break with our party. no party has a monopoly on wisdom. i'm a proud democrat. we want to make sure we're doing the right thing for the country. >> we continue with david brooks of the, no times and historian michael beschss. >> if you have a sense of your own rightness and you think politics is generally a competition between half truths, you're going to need the other people on the other side and value the similar later of tastes. yay