Kishore Mahbubani: A Nuanced View of Asia & China's Rise — #15

Kishore Mahbubani is Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. 

Kishore enjoyed two distinct careers: in diplomacy (1971 to 2004) and in academia (2004 to 2019). He is a prolific writer and speaker on geopolitics and East-West relations.

He was twice Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN and served as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. 

Mr. Mahbubani joined academia in 2004, when he was appointed the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School), NUS. He was Dean from 2004 to 2017.

In this episode Steve and Kishore discuss:

0:00 Introduction

2:52 Upbringing in Singapore and Asia's rise

11:35 How western thinking influences China-U.S. relations

23:05 Is China a threat to U.S. hegemony in Asia?

25:52 The United States' long-term strategy for China

32:13 How trade with ASEAN influences U.S.-China relations

40:58 Can ASEAN countries play a diplomatic role between U.S. and China

43:05 Xi Jinping's leadership and the zero-sum view of China

Links:

Can Asians Think? - https://mahbubani.net/can-asians-think/

The Asian 21st Century - https://mahbubani.net/the-asian-21st-century/

Has China Won? - https://mahbubani.net/has-china-won/

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.