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Bestselling author, columnist and CNN host Fareed Zakaria has used his access to the world's movers, shakers and policy thinkers to help him burrow beneath the surface of geopolitical developments patrolled by less ambitious pundits.

Mr. Zakaria's hope is that Americans will become less parochial and more open to the ideas and solutions that come from other parts of the world. But when he outlines his thoughts on some of the biggest global risks, his listeners could be forgiven for ignoring his essential optimism and sticking to their isolationist tendencies.

Here is a sampling, from an interview with Mr. Zakaria, 51, before he spoke last week at a private event staged incongruously in the shoe department of the pricey Holt Renfrew store for men on Toronto's upscale Bloor Street shopping strip.

On the Middle East turmoil

"What is unlikely is that this level of instability is going to drive oil prices much higher. [And] outside of oil, the Middle East is economically irrelevant. The 300 million people of the Middle East produce almost no merchandise exports. The last time I looked, I think they were equivalent to Finland's. The scenario that I would worry about is if the Saudis were to get more deeply militarily engaged in Yemen, and that would then start producing blowback in terms of attacks in Saudi Arabia. Instability in Saudi Arabia would worry me. I don't really see any signs of it yet."

On risks to the global economy

"At the end of the day, who rules Syria is not going to upend the global system. What upends the global system historically are great power actions. In Russia and China, you've got two global powers that are still not integrated into the global system. If Russia were to be able to flout a basic rule of the post-World War II era, which is that you don't change borders by force with no consent or negotiation, that would be a very bad outcome. And it is unclear so far that Russia will pay a price for what it has done."

On what China might learn from Russia

"It seems like the lesson [for China] from what Russia did in Ukraine is create facts on the ground, rewrite the rules the way you want to and just hold on. You might have some temporary costs associated with it, people will shout and scream; but if you just hold your ground and withstand that temporary heat, you'll be able to move on."

On China's economic transformation

"It's going to be much slower than Western economists want. That's always been the Chinese way. Every year, I go to China and every year Western economists say the whole thing is going to collapse because there's a property bubble, because there's a credit bubble, because there are the state-owned enterprises. The Chinese approach to reform I would describe as grow the denominator, the GDP. As long as you grow the denominator, all these problems – which are real – become a smaller part of the GDP and you deal with them incrementally and slowly. The Chinese seem to me to be absolutely confident on one thing, which is no shock therapy. No big-bang reforms.

On why Asian nations need the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The basic attitude of the Asian leaders I've talked to is: We want everything to be done multilaterally. Because if it's bilateral, it's us against an 800-pound gorilla. We know what the outcome of that will be.

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