A heady mix of emotions — admiration, nostalgia, pride and maybe even a touch of schadenfreude — probably caused a friend of mine, an Oxford and Cambridge alumnus (with a string of other degrees from American Ivy League colleges attached to his name) — to send me videos of the trip to Oxford by Japan's emperor and empress during their recent state visit to the United Kingdom.
"As I passed the Magdalene Bridge, and as the majestic streets and the iconic 'Dreaming Spires' came into view, I was vividly reminded of the days that I spent at Oxford," Emperor Naruhito was quoted as saying.
That was enough to cause my friend to utter "Viva la Oxford", probably to similar refrains across the globe from fellow Oxford alumni.
This friend, Gerald Leong, later observed that some 70 years after the eclipse of the UK by the United States at the end of World War 2, the gradual shedding of empire, the displacement of the pound sterling as the global reserve currency and latterly, messy post-Brexit politics, there is one thing where the country still reigns almost supreme: the soft power of its academic excellence exemplified by institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge.
Japan, alongside Germany, the clear loser of the last World War and forced to de-deify its emperor cult, nevertheless saw fit to send Naruhito, then heir to the throne, to Oxford. Empress Masako, born a commoner, went on the strength of her own academic merit.
It should be pertinent for those interested in the study of geopolitics today to ponder what may be the secret sauce that allows the sustained rigour of academic research to continue long after other commanding heights such as of commerce and industry are gone.
It may be argued that the UK's relative decline vis-à-vis the US stopped at the gates of the former's university campuses, with institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge remaining as peers of upstart US institutions in global rankings.
As well, with talk rife that we are now witnessing the days of America's relative decline amid the rise of China, we may want to extrapolate the continuing durability of UK soft power onto the US.
Even if the US decline is proven and inexorable, its eventual displacement may not be imminent without another cataclysmic global war in which it loses.
And even were the US to be displaced outright as a global hegemon, what are the chances of its soft power retaining supre-macy at or near the very top almost indefinitely?
In his 2010 book, Why the West Rules — For Now, historian Ian Morris summarises it thus: "May-be great men and women will come to America's aid, preserving Western rule for a few generations more; maybe bungling idiots will interrupt China's rise for a while. Maybe the East will be Westernised, or maybe the West will be Easternised.
"Maybe we will all come together in a global village, or maybe we will dissolve into a clash of civilisations. Maybe everyone will end up richer, or maybe we will incinerate ourselves in a Third World War."
Morris, who clearly is in the camp of "geography as destiny", cuts through all the above imponderables in his hopeful final paragraphs.
"The great difference between the challenges we face today and those that defeated Song China when it pressed against the hard ceiling a thousand years ago and the Roman Empire another thousand before that is that we now know so much more about the issues involved. Unlike the Romans and the Song, our age may yet get the thought it needs."
Distilling and publicising our vast historical records in great academic institutions may be our ultimate salvation.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times