Document Code: SG-H-THINK-06 Full Title: Kishore Mahbubani — Asia's Advocate: The Intellectual Who Told the West Its Time Was Up: An Intellectual Profile Coverage Period: 1948–present Level Designation: Intellectual Profile Primary Sources Consulted:

Kishore Mahbubani, Can Asians Think? Understanding the Divide Between East and West (Singapore: Times Books International, 1998; expanded editions 2001, 2004, 2009)
Kishore Mahbubani, Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005)
Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008)
Kishore Mahbubani, The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013)
Kishore Mahbubani and Jeffery Sng, The ASEAN Miracle: A Catalyst for Peace (Singapore: NUS Press, 2017)
Kishore Mahbubani, Has the West Lost It? A Provocation (London: Allen Lane / Penguin, 2018)
Kishore Mahbubani, Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (New York: PublicAffairs, 2020)
Kishore Mahbubani, The Asian 21st Century (Singapore: Springer, 2022)
Kishore Mahbubani, Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir (New York: PublicAffairs, 2024)
Kishore Mahbubani, "The Dangers of Decadence: What the Rest Can Teach the West," Foreign Affairs, September/October 1993
Kishore Mahbubani, "The Case Against the West," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008
Kishore Mahbubani, "Qatar: Big Lessons from a Small Country," The Straits Times, 1 July 2017
Bilahari Kausikan, Facebook rebuttal of Mahbubani's small-states commentary, 1 July 2017
K Shanmugam, Facebook response to Mahbubani's small-states commentary, July 2017
Donald K. Emmerson, "Kishore's World," Journal of Democracy, Vol. 24, No. 3 (July 2013)
Munk Debates, China and the West (Toronto, May 2019), featuring Kishore Mahbubani, Huiyao Wang, H.R. McMaster, and Michael Pillsbury
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, records relating to Mahbubani's diplomatic service
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, records relating to the founding deanship
Mahbubani's articles in the Financial Times, New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Foreign Policy, The Washington Quarterly, Survival, The National Interest, American Interest
Interviews and transcripts from Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, Brookings Institution, Asia Society, Current Affairs, New Books Network, and TED

Related Documents:

SG-H-CS-10 | Kishore Mahbubani — The Provocateur Diplomat (Level 3 Profile)
SG-H-CS-01 | Bilahari Kausikan (principal intellectual antagonist)
SG-H-THINK-03 | Tommy Koh — The Great Negotiator (fellow diplomat-intellectual; full intellectual profile)
SG-F-17 | Tommy Koh — Fifty Years of Diplomacy (full biographical profile)
SG-H-CS-02 | Chan Heng Chee (fellow diplomat-academic)
SG-H-DPM-02 | S. Rajaratnam (founding Foreign Minister and intellectual predecessor)
SG-H-THINK-02 | George Yeo (another intellectually adventurous foreign affairs figure)
SG-F-18 | Singapore's Foreign Policy

Version Date: 2026-03-16

Part I: The Man and His Formation

1.1 Origins: A Sindhi Boy in Colonial Singapore

Kishore Mahbubani was born on 24 October 1948 in Singapore, to a Sindhi-speaking Hindu family that had been displaced from Sindh province during the Partition of India in 1947. He was the second of four children and the only son in the household. The family lived in a small terrace house on Onan Road in the Katong area of Singapore. His mother, Janki, was the emotional centre of the household; her mantra to the children was that even though they were poor, they must not reveal this to others or complain about it. His father, Mohandas, was a figure of instability rather than strength -- he could not hold a job for long because of drinking and gambling habits, and at home he had fits of drunken rage. When debt collectors came knocking, his father would dive under the bed. When Kishore was fourteen years old, his father was jailed for nine months for criminal breach of trust after gambling away some of his employer's money.

The poverty was not abstract. When Mahbubani started school at the age of six, the school weighed him and found that he was undernourished, and he was placed on a special feeding programme. This biographical fact -- a boy too thin to pass a school health check, growing up in a household where the father was an alcoholic gambler and the mother held everything together through sheer force of will -- is not incidental to his intellectual trajectory. It grounds Mahbubani's lifelong argument that economic development and good governance are not luxuries to be weighed against human rights, but the essential preconditions for human dignity. When he later argued that the West was wrong to prioritise civil liberties over economic development in its prescriptions for the developing world, he was not making an abstract philosophical claim; he was making an argument rooted in the lived experience of a boy who had been too hungry to thrive.

Mahbubani was a voracious reader from an early age. He attended Seraya School, then Tanjong Katong Technical School, and loved his time at St Andrew's School for his pre-university years. After St Andrew's, with no prospect of higher education in a family that could barely afford food, he began working as a textile salesman in a Sindhi store, earning $150 a month, all of which he gave to his mother. It was a life that seemed destined for modest commerce -- the typical trajectory for a young man from the Singapore Sindhi community in the 1960s.

1.2 The President's Scholarship and the University of Singapore

In 1967, Mahbubani was offered a President's Scholarship to study at the University of Singapore -- an award that came with a stipend of $250 a month, more than he had been earning as a textile salesman, and that carried a bond requiring him to serve the government after graduation. The scholarship transformed his life. He enrolled to read philosophy -- a choice that would prove significant, for it gave him the conceptual vocabulary and the habit of thinking in large civilisational frameworks that would characterise his later writings. Philosophy at the University of Singapore in the late 1960s was not the narrow analytical philosophy of the Anglo-American tradition; it encompassed the history of ideas, comparative civilisational thought, and the kind of broad intellectual inquiry that would later allow Mahbubani to move fluently between Western and Asian intellectual traditions.

At university, Mahbubani was already a provocateur. After Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew visited his campus in June 1969 and pushed aside the student moderator to take charge of the question-and-answer session, the young Mahbubani wrote an article protesting this act and suggesting that Lee could be heading toward dictatorship. It was a bold move for a scholarship holder bonded to government service, and it foreshadowed the willingness to challenge authority -- and to accept the consequences -- that would characterise his career. Lee Kuan Yew, as it turned out, was not the kind of leader who forgot such challenges. The encounter established a complex relationship between the two men that would last for decades.

Mahbubani graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Singapore in 1971. He would later obtain a Master of Arts from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, in 1976.

1.3 Entering the Foreign Service

Upon graduation in 1971, Mahbubani entered the Singapore Foreign Service, beginning what would become a 33-year diplomatic career. The Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs that he joined was still in its infancy -- the country had been independent for barely six years. The ministry was small, under-resourced, and operating under the formidable intellectual direction of S. Rajaratnam, Singapore's first Foreign Minister, whose vision of a globally engaged, multilaterally oriented Singapore foreign policy would shape the ministry's culture and, through it, Mahbubani's own thinking about the world.

The early years of Mahbubani's career coincided with some of the most dangerous and formative moments in Southeast Asian geopolitics. His first overseas posting was as charge d'affaires at the Singapore Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 1973 -- a city under daily shelling from Khmer Rouge forces. The young diplomat experienced war, instability, and the fragility of state order firsthand, at an age when most of his contemporaries in Western foreign services were attending cocktail parties in comfortable European capitals. This experience in Cambodia -- seeing a society disintegrate, watching the approach of one of the twentieth century's worst genocides -- left a permanent mark on Mahbubani's worldview. It reinforced what his childhood poverty had already taught him: that order, stability, and competent governance are not to be taken for granted, and that those who have never experienced their absence are poorly placed to lecture those who have.

He subsequently served in postings in Malaysia and Washington, D.C., gaining experience across the full range of Singapore's diplomatic concerns -- bilateral relations with its most important and most difficult neighbour, and relations with the superpower whose security umbrella was essential to Singapore's survival.

Part II: The Diplomatic Career

2.1 First UN Posting (1984-1989)

Mahbubani served his first stint as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1984 to 1989. This was the period when Singapore was actively building its multilateral credentials, participating in the General Assembly and the various UN committees, and beginning to establish the outsized diplomatic presence that would become one of the small state's most distinctive attributes. At the UN, Mahbubani encountered the full range of global diplomacy -- the posturing of great powers, the frustrations of small states, the gap between the rhetoric of international law and the reality of power politics. He also encountered, for the first time on a daily basis, the assumptions of Western diplomats and intellectuals about the superiority of their own civilisational model.

It was during this period that Mahbubani began to develop the arguments that would later make him famous. He saw, from the inside, how the United Nations was structured to preserve Western dominance -- how the five permanent members of the Security Council, three of them Western, controlled the agenda; how the international financial institutions were run by Americans and Europeans; how the discourse of human rights was deployed selectively to serve Western geopolitical interests. He also saw that many of his Asian and African colleagues shared these perceptions but lacked the platform or the language to articulate them to Western audiences. Mahbubani would eventually provide both.

2.2 Permanent Secretary of the MFA (1993-1998)

Mahbubani returned to Singapore and rose through the ranks to serve in senior positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1993 (some sources say 1994), he was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Ministry -- the apex position in the diplomatic service, the most senior civil servant in foreign affairs. As Permanent Secretary, he was responsible for the day-to-day management of Singapore's foreign policy during a period that included the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, the intensification of ASEAN cooperation, and the recalibration of Singapore's relationships with major powers in the post-Cold War landscape.

The Permanent Secretary role gave Mahbubani both authority and access. He was present at the highest levels of Singapore's foreign policy decision-making, interacting directly with Lee Kuan Yew (then Senior Minister), Goh Chok Tong (then Prime Minister), and the successive Foreign Ministers. This proximity to power -- and the insider's understanding of how Singapore actually made its foreign policy decisions -- gave his later writings an authority that purely academic commentators lacked.

However, the relationship with Lee Kuan Yew remained complicated. During his tenure as head of the foreign service, Mahbubani was sharply criticised by Lee for what Lee perceived as exaggerating his own influence after bilateral talks with his Malaysian counterpart. Lee Kuan Yew was famously intolerant of civil servants who, in his view, overstepped their brief or sought personal publicity. Yet Mahbubani has noted in his memoir that Lee was "not petty nor vindictive," which enabled Mahbubani to retain the self-confidence to express his views openly -- a trait that would define his post-government career.

In 1998, Mahbubani was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Gold) by the Singapore Government -- one of the highest civilian honours for a public servant.

2.3 Second UN Posting and Security Council Presidency (1998-2004)

Mahbubani returned to New York for a second stint as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1998 to 2004. This second posting was even more significant than the first, for it coincided with Singapore's election to a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Mahbubani served as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and again in May 2002 -- a role that placed him at the centre of global decision-making during one of the most turbulent periods in modern international relations.

The September 11 attacks occurred during Singapore's term on the Security Council, and Mahbubani found himself navigating the geopolitics of the War on Terror, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the lead-up to the Iraq War from a unique vantage point. His experience on the Security Council deepened his critique of the Western-dominated international order. He saw firsthand how the permanent members -- particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, and France -- used the Council to advance their own interests while claiming to act in the name of the international community. He saw how the elected members were marginalised, how the real decisions were made in informal consultations among the P5, and how the veto power allowed a single country to override the will of the rest of the world.

These experiences would fuel some of his most powerful arguments about the need for UN reform and the illegitimacy of a Security Council that reflected the power realities of 1945 rather than those of the twenty-first century.

When Mahbubani left the UN in 2004, the Foreign Policy Association in New York awarded him its medal with a citation that read: "A gifted diplomat, a student of history and philosophy, a provocative writer and an intuitive thinker."

Part III: The Academic Career and Public Intellectual Platform

3.1 Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2004-2017)

In 2004, Mahbubani transitioned from diplomacy to academia, becoming the founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) at the National University of Singapore. This was not a retirement; it was a strategic repositioning. The deanship gave Mahbubani an institutional platform from which to develop and disseminate his ideas to a global audience. Under his leadership, the school grew from a fledgling institution into one of Asia's premier public policy schools, attracting students and faculty from around the world and establishing partnerships with leading universities.

Mahbubani used the deanship not merely as an administrative role but as a bully pulpit. He was prolific in his writing, producing books, op-eds, and articles at a rate that would have been remarkable for a full-time academic and was extraordinary for someone simultaneously running a major graduate school. He accepted speaking invitations around the world, appeared at Davos, gave TED talks, debated Western intellectuals on their own turf, and built a personal brand as Asia's foremost public intellectual -- a man who could explain the East to the West, and who was not afraid to tell the West that its dominance was ending.

3.2 The Controversies and Departure

Mahbubani's tenure as Dean was marked by two major controversies that ultimately contributed to his departure.

The Huang Jing Affair: In 2017, one of the LKYSPP's senior academics, Professor Huang Jing, was identified by the Singapore Government as "an agent of influence of a foreign country" -- widely understood to be China -- and was expelled from Singapore, with his permanent residency revoked. The Ministry of Home Affairs revealed details of Huang leveraging his senior academic position to provide supposedly "privileged information" to a "senior member of the LKYSPP," intending for it to be conveyed to the Singapore Government to influence its foreign policy. The identity of the "senior member" was not publicly disclosed, but the implication hung heavily over the school's leadership. The incident was widely regarded as the lowest point in the LKYSPP's history, and it occurred on Mahbubani's watch.

The Qatar-Small States Controversy: On 1 July 2017, Mahbubani published a commentary in The Straits Times titled "Qatar: Big Lessons from a Small Country," using the Qatar-GCC diplomatic crisis to argue that small states must act as small states to ensure their survival. His central message was: "Small states must always behave like small states." He urged Singapore to "exercise discretion" and "be very restrained in commenting on matters involving great powers." The implicit argument -- that Singapore had been too forthright in its positions on the South China Sea and other disputes involving China -- triggered a firestorm.

The response was swift, coordinated, and devastating. It is discussed in full detail in Part VIII of this document.

In November 2017, Mahbubani announced that he would step down as Dean, citing a desire "to focus on a new career that involves more time spent on reading, reflection and writing," and noting that he needed to "rebuild his store of intellectual capital." He also referenced his double heart bypass surgery the previous year. The National University of Singapore announced his retirement as founding dean effective from the end of his term.

Whether Mahbubani's departure was genuinely voluntary or whether it was a managed exit following the twin controversies of the Huang Jing affair and the small-states debacle is a matter on which reasonable observers differ. The official narrative emphasised his personal choice; the timing suggested otherwise. What is clear is that by late 2017, Mahbubani's relationship with the Singapore foreign policy establishment had become strained in ways that were publicly visible, and that his continued tenure as dean of a school bearing Lee Kuan Yew's name had become uncomfortable for both the institution and its host government.

3.3 Post-Deanship: The Prolific Years

After stepping down as Dean, Mahbubani spent a nine-month sabbatical at various universities, including Harvard University's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. He then settled into a role as a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at NUS, freed from administrative responsibilities and able to write and speak at full capacity.

The post-deanship years have been among his most productive. He published Has the West Lost It? (2018), Has China Won? (2020), The Asian 21st Century (2022), and his memoir Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir (2024). He continued to write prolifically for international publications, give speeches around the world, and engage in high-profile debates. Freed from the constraints of institutional leadership, he became, if anything, more provocative and more direct in his arguments.

Part IV: Complete Bibliography and Intellectual Development

4.1 Early Essays: "The Dangers of Decadence" (1993)

Mahbubani's emergence as a public intellectual predated his books. His first major essay to attract international attention was "The Dangers of Decadence: What the Rest Can Teach the West," published in Foreign Affairs in September 1993 as a response to Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" thesis. The essay was remarkable both for its arguments and for the fact that it was written by a serving Singapore diplomat -- the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no less.

The essay's central argument was that the rest of the world feared the West even more than the West feared it, especially the threat posed by "a wounded West." Mahbubani argued that Western societies were exhibiting signs of decadence that should alarm their own citizens rather than prompting them to lecture the rest of the world: budgetary indiscipline, expensive social programmes multiplying with little heed to costs, low savings and investment rates leading to declining competitiveness, and the erosion of the work ethic. "Any politician who states hard truths is immediately voted out," he wrote, observing that Americans freely admitted that many of their economic problems arose from "the inherent gridlock of American democracy," yet American politicians and journalists travelled around the world "preaching the virtues of democracy."

The essay contained the demographic argument that Mahbubani would return to throughout his career: the West had 800 million people while the rest made up almost 4.7 billion, and in the national arena, no Western society would accept a situation where 15 percent of its population legislated for the remaining 85 percent -- yet this was effectively what the West was trying to do globally.

"The Dangers of Decadence" established Mahbubani's method, which he would refine over the next three decades: provoke Western audiences by holding a mirror up to their own societies, use demographic and economic data to demonstrate the shift of power, and argue that Asia was learning from Western best practices even as the West was abandoning them.

4.2 Can Asians Think? (1998/2001)

Mahbubani's first book, Can Asians Think?, published in 1998 by Times Books International in Singapore and subsequently in expanded editions in 2001 and 2004, was a collection of essays rather than a single sustained argument, but it established the provocative question-as-title format that would become his trademark.

Central Thesis: Contrary to the prevailing Western assumption that the 500-year dominance of Western civilisation demonstrated it to be the only universal civilisation, other civilisations may yet make equal contributions to the development and growth of humanity. The title itself was deliberately provocative -- it asked whether Asians could think not because Mahbubani doubted it, but because he wanted to challenge both Western condescension and Asian complacency.

Key Arguments:

The book explored several interconnected questions: Can Asians think? Is Western civilisation universal? Does the West promote human rights for altruistic reasons? Mahbubani argued that the answer to all three questions was more complicated than Western audiences assumed.

On the question of whether Asians could think, Mahbubani argued that the question itself was a provocation to Asians -- that the centuries of Western dominance had created a psychological condition in which Asians had internalised a sense of inferiority, and that the first task of Asian intellectuals was to overcome this self-doubt. He argued that the reason Asian civilisations had fallen behind was not intellectual inferiority but a failure of Asian societies to adopt the institutional and governance innovations that had made Western societies successful -- meritocracy, the rule of law, rational economic management. Asia's rise in the late twentieth century was proof that once Asians adopted these practices, they could match and eventually surpass Western performance.

On the universality of Western civilisation, Mahbubani challenged the assumption that Western values -- democracy, individual rights, free markets -- were the only possible basis for a successful modern society. He argued that Asian societies had their own values and traditions that were equally valid, and that the Western insistence on universalising its model was both intellectually arrogant and practically counterproductive.

On human rights, Mahbubani expressed what he described as his conviction that "the aggressive Western promotion of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press to the Third World at the end of the Cold War was, and is, a colossal mistake." He argued that human rights campaigns driven by national governments were often driven by national interests, leading to inconsistencies and double standards. He criticised Western human rights campaigns for "putting the cart before the horse" -- prioritising civil liberties over civil order and economic development, when the historical record showed that a high level of human rights was achieved at the end of a process that included economic development and the emergence of a middle class, not at the beginning.

4.3 Beyond the Age of Innocence (2005)

Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World was published in 2005 by PublicAffairs, timed to capitalise on global discontent with American foreign policy in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and the broader War on Terror.

Central Thesis: When the Cold War ended, America made a terrible mistake by starting to behave like a "normal country," ignoring the plight of others and being indifferent to the consequences of its decisions on the rest of the world. There was "no built-in coherence in American policy towards the world" because no major strategic initiative had been taken to achieve such coherence.

Key Arguments:

The book explained both the global enchantment and disenchantment with America -- how the United States had built enormous goodwill through its post-World War II leadership, its promotion of international institutions, and its cultural attractiveness, and how it had squandered that goodwill through a combination of arrogance, hypocrisy, and strategic incompetence.

Mahbubani argued that if America's use of power was not seen as legitimate, it would lose prestige and credibility in the world, and with that loss, it would abdicate moral leadership and ultimately become isolated. He pointed to specific examples: while the U.S. consistently purported to value human rights and democracy, a different reality emerged when its national interest was the motivating factor, leading to support for military despots and human rights abusers. Guantanamo Bay was damaging American moral authority in ways that Americans did not fully comprehend.

He argued that America had been "imprudent in its policy towards two large masses of mankind: the Chinese and Muslim populations" -- two groups that together constituted a significant proportion of the world's population and whose alienation from the United States could have catastrophic consequences.

4.4 The New Asian Hemisphere (2008)

The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, published in 2008 by PublicAffairs, was Mahbubani's most ambitious work to date and the one that most directly stated his central thesis about the decline of Western power and the rise of Asia.

Central Thesis: For centuries, Asians -- Chinese, Indians, Muslims, and others -- had been bystanders in world history. Now they were ready to become co-drivers. Western dominance was waning, Asia had adopted many Western best practices (from meritocracy to free-market economics), and the West must gracefully share power with Asia by giving up its automatic domination of global institutions -- from the IMF to the World Bank, from the G7 to the UN Security Council.

Key Arguments:

Mahbubani argued that Western minds needed to step outside their "comfort zone" and prepare new mental maps to understand the rise of Asia. The book identified what Mahbubani called the "seven pillars of Western wisdom" that Asia had adopted: free-market economics, science and technology, meritocracy, pragmatism, a culture of peace, the rule of law, and education. Asia's success, he argued, was not a rejection of Western values but an adoption and adaptation of them -- proof that Western best practices worked, even if the West itself was beginning to abandon them.

The book was adapted into a Foreign Affairs article, "The Case Against the West" (May/June 2008), which argued that the West was "reluctant to accept that the era of its domination is ending and that the Asian century has come." In the article, Mahbubani identified what he called a fundamental flaw in Western strategic thinking: "in analyzing global challenges, the West assumes it is the source of solutions to the world's key problems, when in fact it is also a major source of these problems."

He argued that the West had been transformed from being the world's problem solver into "its single biggest liability," and that Western short-term interests in preserving privileged positions in global institutions were trumping its long-term interests in creating a more just and stable world order.

4.5 The Great Convergence (2013)

The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World, published in 2013 by PublicAffairs, marked a shift in Mahbubani's tone from confrontation to optimism. Where his earlier works had emphasised the decline of the West and the rise of Asia in competitive terms, The Great Convergence argued that the world was witnessing an unprecedented convergence that was fundamentally positive.

Central Thesis: The twenty-first century had seen the rise of a global middle class that was bringing an unprecedented convergence of interests and perceptions, cultures and values. Eighty-eight percent of the world's population outside the West was rising to Western living standards and sharing Western aspirations. This was not a clash of civilisations but a convergence of them.

The Four Pillars of Convergence: Mahbubani identified four key pillars driving this convergence:

Environmental convergence: The shared threat of climate change and environmental degradation was creating common interests across all nations.
Economic convergence: Global trade, investment flows, and supply chains were linking economies in ways that made national economic isolation impossible.
Technological convergence: The spread of technology -- particularly information technology -- was connecting people across borders and creating shared experiences and expectations.
Aspirational convergence: People around the world, regardless of culture or political system, aspired to the same basic things: a decent standard of living, education for their children, healthcare, safety, and dignity.

Optimistic Data: Mahbubani marshalled data to support his optimism. The modern world had never been more peaceful, with a 78 percent decrease in deaths from major interstate wars since the late 1980s. Poverty numbers were plummeting worldwide at rates few had anticipated, with the world on track to surpass the UN's Millennium Development Goal of halving global poverty by 2015. At every level, from the international to the individual, the world was more interconnected than ever before.

Policy Prescription: Policymakers everywhere must change their preconceptions and accept that they live in one world. Power must be shared. The U.S. and Europe must cede some power. China and India, Africa and the Islamic world, must be integrated into global governance structures as full partners.

The book was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2013. It also attracted one of the most sustained critiques of Mahbubani's work -- Donald K. Emmerson's "Kishore's World" in the Journal of Democracy, which is discussed in Part IX of this document.

4.6 The ASEAN Miracle (2017)

The ASEAN Miracle: A Catalyst for Peace, co-authored with Jeffery Sng and published by NUS Press in 2017 to coincide with ASEAN's fiftieth anniversary, represented Mahbubani's most sustained argument about the success of Southeast Asian multilateralism.

Central Thesis: ASEAN had achieved something remarkable -- 625 million people from ten countries with vastly different histories, cultures, religions, and political systems living together in peace. Despite Southeast Asia's diverse and complicated colonial and postcolonial history, Southeast Asian countries had fought no major wars between themselves for the past half-century. This was a "miracle" that deserved recognition and study.

Key Arguments:

Mahbubani and Sng argued that ASEAN had created "conducive environments for the great powers to talk to each other" -- an "ecosystem of peace" that moderated "aggressive impulses." ASEAN's role as the hub of regional multilateral forums -- including the ASEAN Regional Forum, the Asia-Europe Meeting, APEC, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership -- demonstrated its capacity to convene, to mediate, and to provide neutral ground for great-power engagement.

The book contrasted ASEAN's inclusive philosophy with the European Union's more prescriptive approach. In ASEAN, the authors argued, the philosophy was: "Because we are different, we must come together in one organisation, then we can talk to each other." ASEAN welcomed differences rather than trying to impose uniformity.

4.7 Has the West Lost It? (2018)

Has the West Lost It? A Provocation, published in 2018 by Allen Lane (Penguin), was a deliberately short book -- under 100 pages -- designed to be a sharp, provocative intervention rather than a comprehensive scholarly treatment.

Central Thesis: The West's two-century epoch as global powerhouse was at an end, and a new world order was emerging in which China and India would be the strongest economies. Instead of the "end of history," there was "the rebalancing of history," with the West's share of world GDP being reduced to its historic share. A "great correction" was taking place regarding "the recent period of Western relative over-performance against other civilizations... a major historical aberration."

Key Arguments:

Historical Perspective: The rise of Western powers was a recent phenomenon. China and India had been the two largest economies until the 1800s and were now slowly regaining their natural positions.

Strategic Failures: The West had failed to produce a coherent and competitive strategy to deal with changing global dynamics, "flailing about, attacking Iraq, bombing Syria, sanctioning Russia and baiting China," while Western elites remained locked in hubris.

Loss of Trust and Governance: Western societies were losing trust in their governments and governance, precisely when people in Asia had newfound belief in rational and efficient government that was able to transform their society and deliver rising living standards.

Media Failures: Western media were failing to present an accurate picture of how rapidly the world was changing, as people remained preoccupied with internal problems while the economic centre of gravity was rapidly moving towards Asia.

Recommended Strategy -- "Minimalist, Multilateral and Machiavellian": Mahbubani recommended that the West adopt a strategy characterised by three M's: minimalism (an end to frequent, far-flung, and often violent intervention in the affairs of others), multilateralism (support for the United Nations and other international institutions), and Machiavellianism (strategic cunning to take advantage of economic opportunities presented by Asia's rise rather than trying to prevent it).

4.8 Has China Won? (2020)

Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy, published in 2020 by PublicAffairs, was Mahbubani's most controversial book and the one that most directly addressed the central geopolitical question of the twenty-first century.

Central Thesis: Mahbubani's paradoxical conclusion was that "a major geopolitical contest between America and China is both inevitable and avoidable." Rather than declaring a winner, he appealed to the deeper rationality of both great powers, arguing that the greatest challenge of our times would be to answer the question of whether humanity had won.

Key Arguments on American Strategic Errors:

Mahbubani argued that America had made a fundamental strategic mistake by launching its geopolitical contest with China "without having a comprehensive long-term strategy." He drew an explicit comparison with the Cold War: during the Cold War, America was "often supple, flexible, and rational in its decision making, while the Soviet Union was rigid, inflexible, and doctrinaire." He then argued that today, "we should replace the word America with China and the words Soviet Union with America" -- meaning that China had become the more strategically rational actor while America had become the rigid and doctrinaire one.

He argued that the most important strategic event of 2001 was not September 11 and the subsequent War on Terror, but China's admission to the World Trade Organization -- an event that America effectively ignored as it spent $3 trillion and two decades on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that accomplished nothing.

The American Plutocracy Argument:

One of the book's most provocative arguments was that the United States had functionally become a plutocracy -- a claim Mahbubani supported by citing Paul Volcker, Joseph Stiglitz, and Martin Wolf, all of whom had used the same term. Over the past thirty years, he argued, more than half the American population had experienced a declining standard of living, while in China, the past thirty years had been the best in the long history of the Chinese people. He characterised America as "becoming a society of lasting inequality" while China was becoming a meritocracy.

Key Arguments on China's Strengths:

Mahbubani argued that the Chinese Communist Party, unlike the Soviet Communist Party, was "not riding on an outdated ideology" but was pragmatically delivering results for its people. He characterised the social contract between the Chinese people and their government as follows: "As long as the Chinese government continues to deliver economic growth (with improvements in living conditions, including better environmental living conditions) and social and political stability, the Chinese people will accept the rule of the CCP."

He argued that China had no universal mission to promote its civilisation: "The long two-thousand-year record of Chinese history clearly shows that China is fundamentally unlike America as it is reluctant to use the military option first. It does not believe that it has a 'universal' mission to promote Chinese civilization and encourage everyone else in humanity to emulate it."

China's Mistakes:

The book was not entirely one-sided. Mahbubani acknowledged that China had made a "grave strategic mistake" when it alienated America's business community through forced intellectual property transfers, theft, cyber intrusions, and failure to abide by agreements. As a result, the American business community did not come to China's support when Donald Trump launched his trade war.

Philosophical Contrasts:

The book identified a series of philosophical contrasts between the two powers: America prizes freedom; China values freedom from chaos. America values strategic decisiveness; China values patience. America is becoming a society of lasting inequality; China a meritocracy. America has abandoned multilateralism; China welcomes it.

4.9 The Asian 21st Century (2022)

The Asian 21st Century, published in 2022 by Springer as part of the China and Globalization series, was a compendium of Mahbubani's essays and articles organised thematically into sections that represented his core arguments. The book was notable for being published as an open-access volume, making it freely available online -- a deliberate choice to maximise its reach.

Part One -- The End of Western Domination: Mahbubani argued that the major strategic error the West was making was refusing to accept that its era of dominance was ending. The West needed to learn to act strategically in a world where it was no longer number one.

Part Two -- The Return of Asia: From the years 1 to 1820, the largest economies in the world had been Asian. After 1820 and the rise of the West, great Asian civilisations like China and India had been "dominated and humiliated." The twenty-first century would see the return of Asia to the centre of the world stage.

Part Three -- The Peaceful Rise of China: Mahbubani developed the argument in favour of China's peaceful rise and condemned Western strategies designed to contain it -- undermining the Chinese political system, trade wars, the US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the containment of China, and the formation of Quad 2.0. He argued that, as opposed to the American plutocracy, China was "a true meritocracy," reflected in its highly competent government and the highest government approval ratings anywhere in the world.

4.10 Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir (2024)

Mahbubani's memoir, published in 2024 by PublicAffairs, was his most personal work and his most comprehensive account of his own life and career.

Scope and Content: The memoir traced Mahbubani's life from his childhood poverty in Singapore through his diplomatic career, his academic leadership, and his emergence as a global public intellectual. It wove together personal narrative with geopolitical analysis, moving between intimate family stories and accounts of high-stakes diplomatic negotiations.

Key Revelations:

The book revealed the full story of Mahbubani's early confrontation with Lee Kuan Yew as a university student, the professional tensions during his years as a senior diplomat, and his complex relationship with the founding Prime Minister. It provided a diplomat's-eye view of Singapore's foreign policy from the inside, including accounts of bilateral relations with Malaysia, the ASEAN negotiations, and the workings of the UN Security Council.

Reception: The memoir was widely praised for its candour and readability. A review noted that it was "a pleasure and an education to read" and praised its "unflinching honesty." Mahbubani himself acknowledged in interviews that he had "been misunderstood many times" and characterised critics of his views as exhibiting "fossilised" Western thinking.

Part V: The Core Intellectual Architecture

5.1 The Meta-Thesis: The Great Power Shift

Across all of his books and essays, Mahbubani has advanced a single overarching thesis with remarkable consistency over three decades: the world is experiencing an irreversible shift of power from the West to Asia, and the West must adapt to this reality or face decline. This thesis has several component arguments:

The Historical Aberration Argument: Western dominance over the past 200 years is a historical aberration, not a natural state of affairs. For most of recorded history, the largest and most sophisticated economies were Asian -- specifically Chinese and Indian. The "rise of the West" after 1820 was real but temporary, and the twenty-first century is witnessing a return to the historical norm.

The Adoption-of-Best-Practices Argument: Asia's rise is not a rejection of Western civilisation but an adoption and adaptation of Western best practices. The seven pillars of Western wisdom -- free-market economics, science and technology, meritocracy, pragmatism, a culture of peace, the rule of law, and education -- have been absorbed by Asian societies, which are now implementing them more effectively than the West itself.

The Western Self-Sabotage Argument: The West is undermining its own position through strategic incompetence, hubris, and domestic dysfunction. Western democracies have become gridlocked, their populations are losing trust in government, their media are failing to inform, and their politicians are unable to speak hard truths because doing so is electorally suicidal.

The Institutional Mismatch Argument: Global institutions -- the UN Security Council, the IMF, the World Bank, the G7 -- reflect the power realities of the mid-twentieth century, not those of the twenty-first. The West's refusal to reform these institutions to give Asia a proportionate voice is both unjust and strategically foolish, because it incentivises rising powers to create alternative structures rather than working within existing ones.

5.2 Western Hypocrisy and Double Standards

A persistent thread in Mahbubani's work is the argument that Western nations -- particularly the United States -- apply different standards to themselves than to others, and that this hypocrisy has been a central feature of the Western-dominated international order.

Human Rights Double Standards: Mahbubani has repeatedly pointed out that after the US Congress mandated the State Department to publish annual reports on the human rights performance of all states (except the United States), the reports condemned practices like "near drowning" and "submersion of the head in water" as torture in reports on Sri Lanka and Tunisia -- yet the United States itself used waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques after September 11.

The Torture Argument: In 2020, Mahbubani wrote an essay titled "The Hypocrisy of the West," condemning America's use of torture following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He argued that this contradiction of previous moral and legal positions was "undermining Western credibility and actively encouraging the use of torture by others."

The Democracy Deficit Argument: Mahbubani has argued that "the world's most democratic countries are responsible for the democratic deficit that harms the most important international organizations." The European Union constituted 7 percent of the world's population but Western European countries controlled 40 percent of the permanent Security Council seats. The West maintained 60 percent control of the UN Security Council and 100 percent control of the IMF and World Bank.

The 12 Percent Argument: A recurring rhetorical device in Mahbubani's speeches and writings is the observation that "only 12 percent of the world lives in the West, while the other 88 percent are getting tired of being talked to in a condescending fashion." After the Cold War in 1991, he argues, "the Western world was swept up by arrogance and hubris that hasn't gone away."

5.3 The Defence of the Singapore Model

Mahbubani has been one of the most articulate and internationally prominent defenders of Singapore's model of governance, which he has distilled into a framework he calls "MPH" -- Meritocracy, Pragmatism, and Honesty.

Meritocracy: "Meritocracy is the first reason for Singapore's success." Mahbubani explains meritocracy as the selection of the best and most capable individuals to lead and manage institutions, whether in government, business, or academia. Crucially, he argues, Singapore's meritocracy is genuinely multi-ethnic -- Singapore chose leaders like S. Rajaratnam, a Sri Lankan Tamil, based on competence rather than ethnic background. He has argued that "any state in the world that implements MPH brutally will succeed, without exception."

Pragmatism: "Pragmatism was about the willingness to learn best practices from any source anywhere in the world." Singapore did not commit to any ideology -- it borrowed from free-market capitalism and from state intervention, from Western management practices and from Asian cultural values, adopting whatever worked.

Honesty: This refers to zero tolerance for corruption and the insistence on transparency and accountability in government. Mahbubani has argued that the combination of high civil service salaries, strict enforcement, and a culture of integrity created a virtuous circle in which talented people were attracted to government service and remained honest once in it.

5.4 Democracy, Human Rights, and the Asian Values Debate

Mahbubani was one of the key intellectuals -- along with Lee Kuan Yew, Bilahari Kausikan, and Tommy Koh -- who articulated the "Asian values" position in the 1990s debate about the universality of human rights.

The Asian Values Position: Mahbubani argued that Asians "did not disagree about the values of democracy or the values of human rights, but rather disagreed about the way the West said it should be implemented." He identified Asian values as including "attachment to family as institution, deference to societal interests, thrift, conservatism in social life, respect for authority."

The Sequencing Argument: Mahbubani's most distinctive contribution to the debate was the sequencing argument: that economic development must come before political liberalisation, that civil order must be established before civil liberties can be meaningfully exercised, and that the Western insistence on democracy as a precondition for development got the causal relationship backwards. He argued that a high level of human rights was "achieved at the end of a process that includes economic development and the development of a middle class," not at the beginning.

Critique of Western Human Rights Promotion: Mahbubani criticised "the aggressive Western promotion of democracy, human rights and freedom of the press to the Third World at the end of the Cold War" as "a colossal mistake." He argued that Western-initiated human rights campaigns prioritised civil liberties over civil order and economic development, and that this was "putting the cart before the horse."

5.5 UN Security Council Reform and Global Governance

Mahbubani's decade of service at the United Nations, including his presidency of the Security Council, gave him a unique insider perspective on the workings of global governance -- and fuelled some of his most powerful arguments about its dysfunction.

The Anachronism Argument: The UN founders believed the Security Council should represent the great powers of today, not those of the past, but they failed to create a mechanism to update the Council's membership. The result was a Council that reflected the power realities of 1945 rather than those of the twenty-first century.

European Overrepresentation: The United Kingdom and France together accounted for 40 percent of permanent seats, while "the European Union constitutes 7 percent of the world population." Western European countries controlled 40 percent of the permanent Council seats despite representing a declining share of global GDP and population.

The UK-India Swap: Mahbubani has explicitly argued that the United Kingdom should relinquish its permanent seat to India, noting that "India is undeniably the third-most powerful country in the world today, after the United States and China," while Great Britain is "no longer 'great.'" The veto power should be in the hands of "today's strong countries," not "yesterday's strong countries."

The P5 Problem: Mahbubani observed that "only the P-5 members have a continuous record and memory of the Council's work over the years," giving them an informational advantage over elected members that further entrenched their dominance. The real decisions were made in informal P5 consultations, and elected members were effectively marginalised.

5.6 The US-China Competition: Mahbubani's Strategic Prescription

Mahbubani's analysis of the US-China competition, which reached its fullest expression in Has China Won?, constitutes perhaps his most important and most contested body of work.

The Strategic Irrationality of American Policy: Mahbubani argues that America is making a fundamental strategic error by confronting China without a coherent long-term strategy. He draws the comparison with the Cold War: during the Cold War, America had a clear strategy -- containment -- backed by patient, long-term thinking. Against China, America has no comparable strategy, instead lurching from trade wars to technology bans to military posturing without a coherent theory of what success would look like.

China's Long-Term Strategic Patience: In contrast to American impulsiveness, Mahbubani characterises China as displaying the strategic patience that comes from 4,000 years of civilisational continuity: "I think when future historians look back, they'll be puzzled by the Western expectation that a country like China, with 4,000 years of political history, could be changed by a country like the US, with a history of fewer than 250 years."

The Futility of Containment: Mahbubani argues that containment -- the strategy that worked against the Soviet Union -- will not work against China because China's economy is deeply integrated into the global economy in ways that the Soviet economy never was. The Soviet Union was a closed, autarkic economy that could be isolated; China is the world's largest trading nation, and any attempt to isolate it would damage the countries doing the isolating.

The Need for Cooperation: Mahbubani has expressed his position as follows: "I consider myself a friend of America and a friend of China. And I see these two countries rushing towards a complete head-on collision from which both will suffer. I believe that if the United States could put the well-being of 330 million people in America as the number one priority; and if China puts the well-being of 1.4 billion people in China as the number one priority; then both America and China can achieve the goal of improving the well-being of their people by working together, rather than working against each other."

5.7 ASEAN and Regional Multilateralism

Mahbubani has consistently championed ASEAN as one of the most successful multilateral organisations in the world, arguing that it deserves far more recognition and study than it has received.

ASEAN as a Beacon of Multilateralism: Mahbubani identifies the European Union and ASEAN as "the two beacons of multilateralism" and "the most successful regional multilateral organisations" when compared to other regional bodies like the OAS, GCC, or SAARC.

ASEAN's Record of Achievement: He argues that ASEAN has "demonstrated its commitment to multilateralism through its deeds," noting that "virtually all the larger multilateral organisations or processes active in the larger East Asian region have either been created or supported by ASEAN," including the ASEAN Regional Forum, Asia-Europe Meeting, APEC, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

The Neutral Platform Function: "ASEAN's role in providing a neutral geopolitical platform for great-power engagement is particularly valuable in the current context of major great-power shifts." ASEAN acts as "the hub, if not the leader, of regional multilateral forums for East Asia."

The Philosophy of Inclusive Diversity: In contrast to the European model of integration through convergence, ASEAN's philosophy is one of inclusion through diversity: "Because we are different, we must come together in one organisation, then we can talk to each other." ASEAN "actually welcome[s] differences."

5.8 India: The Gap Between Potential and Performance

Mahbubani has written and spoken extensively about India, and his views are characteristically provocative: deeply admiring of India's potential while sharply critical of its failure to realise that potential.

The Potential-Performance Gap: "No country has as great a gap between its potential and performance as India does." Mahbubani illustrates this by pointing to the success of Indians abroad, particularly in the United States, where ethnic Indians have the highest per capita income of any ethnic group. If Indians in India could achieve the same per capita income as the average Indian in the US (approximately $55,298), India's total GNP would be approximately $71 trillion, making it the largest economy in the world.

Embrace Globalization: Mahbubani argues that India must embrace globalisation and that "the Indian foreign ministry should make India the number-one champion of globalization." He believes India could become the world's largest economy by learning from its Southeast Asian and Chinese neighbours and opening itself to economic competition.

Geopolitical Sweet Spot: Mahbubani believes India is entering "its best geopolitical sweet spot since independence" and has the opportunity to position itself as "the world's only truly independent global power" -- a third pole between the United States and China.

The UNSC Seat: Mahbubani has argued that India should replace the United Kingdom on the UN Security Council as a permanent member, reflecting India's status as "undeniably the third-most powerful country in the world today."

Cultural Confidence: "Cultural self-confidence levels are rising decade by decade in India, and as they continue to rise, India's performance will continue to improve."

Part VI: Key Speeches, Articles, and Public Interventions

6.1 Major Foreign Affairs Articles

Mahbubani has published multiple articles in Foreign Affairs, the most prestigious journal of international relations, establishing himself as a regular interlocutor in the Western foreign policy establishment:

"The Dangers of Decadence: What the Rest Can Teach the West" (September/October 1993) -- his breakthrough essay, responding to Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"
"The Case Against the West" (May/June 2008) -- adapted from The New Asian Hemisphere, arguing that the West had become the world's biggest problem rather than its solution
Multiple book reviews and shorter commentaries throughout the 1990s and 2000s

6.2 Financial Times Columns

Mahbubani has been a regular contributor to the Financial Times, with notable columns including:

"Western capitalism has much to learn from Asia" (February 2012)
"Europe must be nicer to China if it wants its support" (November 2011)
"Forget the G8, the US needs a China-India summit" (May 2012)
"The calls for global leadership will be unanswered" (December 2011)
"The new Asian great game" (November 2011)
"Letter to Netanyahu: time is no longer on Israel's side" (November 2011)

Mahbubani was listed by the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential figures shaping the future of capitalism.

6.3 The TED Talk: "How the West Can Adapt to a Rising Asia" (2019)

In 2019, Mahbubani delivered a TED talk titled "How the West Can Adapt to a Rising Asia," in which he outlined a three-part strategy for Western governments to recover power and improve relations with the rest of the world. He argued that Asia had experienced three "silent revolutions" in recent decades: one in economics, one in outlook, and a third in improved governance. The talk emphasised that while global conditions had been improving -- a message of genuine optimism -- the West had become distracted and failed to adapt to Asia's rise.

6.4 The Munk Debate on China (May 2019)

One of Mahbubani's most high-profile public engagements was the Munk Debate in Toronto in May 2019, where he and Huiyao Wang argued against the resolution "China is a threat to the international liberal order," opposing H.R. McMaster (former US National Security Advisor) and Michael Pillsbury.

Mahbubani's key arguments in the debate included:

China was "the only major power in the world which has not gone to war in 40 years, and has not fired a single bullet in 30 years."
"The paradox of our global system is that the biggest threat to the liberal international order is not a non-liberal society like China, but a liberal society like the United States of America." He pointed to US withdrawal from multiple multilateral agreements, including the Paris climate agreement, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and various UN organisations.
"If the U.S. sets an example, seriously, of obeying international law, then I think that's the best way to persuade China to abide by international law."

Mahbubani and Wang won the debate by a narrow margin of 2 percent, with about 25 people out of 1,322 respondents changing their minds by the debate's end. The debate was subsequently published as a book, China and the West: The Munk Debates.

6.5 Other Notable Publications and Platforms

Mahbubani's articles have appeared across an extraordinary range of publications: Foreign Policy, The Washington Quarterly, Survival, American Interest, The National Interest, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Straits Times, South China Morning Post, and Project Syndicate, among many others.

He has given speeches and participated in events at, among other institutions: the World Economic Forum (Davos), the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, the Brookings Institution, the Asia Society, Columbia Business School, Harvard University, and the Nobel Prize Dialogue.

Part VII: Public Quotations

Mahbubani's rhetorical style is characterised by aphoristic formulations designed to provoke and to be remembered. The following is a collection of his most notable quotations, drawn from his books, speeches, interviews, and op-eds:

On the Rise of Asia and the Decline of the West

"The 21st century will be the Asian century. This also means that Asians will be expected to provide greater leadership to solve global challenges, including environmental challenges."

"We now live in a small, interdependent world where, apart from taking care of our own people, our number one priority should be protecting our planet, which is in peril."

"What is truly shocking is the lack of historical knowledge of many major American strategic thinkers."

On China and the United States

"The long two-thousand-year record of Chinese history clearly shows that China is fundamentally unlike America as it is reluctant to use the military option first. It does not believe that it has a 'universal' mission to promote Chinese civilization and encourage everyone else in humanity to emulate it."

"I think when future historians look back, they'll be puzzled by the Western expectation that a country like China, with 4,000 years of political history, could be changed by a country like the US, with a history of fewer than 250 years."

"I consider myself a friend of America and a friend of China. And I see these two countries rushing towards a complete head-on collision from which both will suffer."

"The primary goal of China's rulers is to preserve peace and harmony among 1.4 billion people in China, not try to influence the lives of the 6 billion people who live outside China."

"Since the world needs a new champion of globalization, China can step in and fill the void, and in many ways, China has begun doing so."

"So repression is not the sole reason why the Chinese middle classes are basically calm. Most of them accept an implicit social contract between the Chinese people and the Chinese government. As long as the Chinese government continues to deliver economic growth (with improvements in living conditions, including better environmental living conditions) and social and political stability, the Chinese people will accept the rule of the CCP."

On Geopolitics and Strategy

"Submarines are stealthy, but trade is stealthier."

"Sometimes you need a major crisis to bring people together."

"The key missing commodity in the China-India relationship is trust; both sides need to speak very frankly with each other."

On the Liberal International Order

"The paradox of our global system is that the biggest threat to the liberal international order is not a non-liberal society like China, but a liberal society like the United States of America."

On Being Misunderstood

"I've been misunderstood many times." (2024 memoir launch)

Part VIII: The Bilahari Feud — The Most Public Intellectual Clash in Singapore's History

8.1 Background and Context

The public disagreement between Kishore Mahbubani and Bilahari Kausikan, which erupted in July 2017, was arguably the most significant public intellectual confrontation in Singapore's post-independence history. It was significant not merely because of the arguments themselves -- which touched on the most fundamental questions of Singapore's foreign policy -- but because it involved two former Permanent Secretaries of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs engaging in open, heated, and personal disagreement. In a political culture that prized consensus, discretion, and the appearance of unity among the elite, the Mahbubani-Bilahari exchange was a shocking breach of norms.

The two men had known each other for decades. Both had served in the MFA; Bilahari had actually served under Mahbubani when the latter was Permanent Secretary. Both were recognised as among Singapore's most brilliant diplomatic minds. Both were prolific writers and public commentators. But they represented fundamentally different views of how a small state should navigate a world of great-power competition.

8.2 Mahbubani's "Qatar: Big Lessons from a Small Country" (1 July 2017)

The trigger was a commentary by Mahbubani published in The Straits Times on 1 July 2017, in which he used the Qatar-GCC diplomatic crisis -- in which Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates had broken off diplomatic relations with Qatar overnight -- to draw lessons for Singapore.

Mahbubani's central argument was: "Small states must always behave like small states." He argued that Qatar had brought its diplomatic isolation upon itself by believing it could "act as a middle power and interfere in affairs beyond its borders." The lesson for Singapore was to "exercise discretion" and to "be very restrained in commenting on matters involving great powers."

The implicit reference was unmistakable. In the years preceding the article, Singapore had taken public positions on the South China Sea disputes that had displeased China. Mahbubani was effectively arguing that Singapore should have been more cautious, more deferential, and less willing to challenge great powers on matters of principle.

8.3 Bilahari Kausikan's Rebuttal

Bilahari Kausikan responded within hours, posting a lengthy and devastating rebuttal on Facebook that was immediately picked up by Singapore's media.

Bilahari called Mahbubani's argument that small states must always behave like small states "muddled, mendacious and indeed dangerous." He wrote that he was "profoundly disappointed that Kishore should advocate subordination as a norm of Singapore foreign policy."

Bilahari's counter-argument was built on the legacy of Lee Kuan Yew:

"Mr Lee and his comrades did not earn respect by being meekly compliant to the major powers. They were not reckless, but they did not hesitate to stand up for their ideals and principles when they had to. But they never allowed themselves to be cowed or limited by our size or geography."

Bilahari argued that Singapore had survived and prospered precisely because its leaders had refused to behave as though they were merely a small state. Singapore's foreign policy had always been based on the principle that a small state could and must defend its interests, uphold international law, and stand on principle -- because to do otherwise would invite the very predation that Mahbubani claimed to be guarding against. A small state that accepted its own insignificance and deferred to great powers on all matters would be treated as insignificant by those powers.

8.4 K Shanmugam's Intervention

Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam added his own rebuttal via Facebook. Shanmugam argued that Mahbubani's assertion that "small states must always behave like small states" was "contrary to some basic principles of Mr Lee's which made Singapore successful." Shanmugam stated that "Mr Lee never advocated cravenness, or thinking small."

8.5 Other Responses

The controversy attracted responses from multiple other senior figures. Former ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong added his criticism. The phrases used by Mahbubani's critics included "questionable intellectually" and "muddled, mendacious and indeed dangerous."

Some commentators, however, defended Mahbubani. An Asia Times article titled "In Defense of Singapore's Chief Naysayer" argued that Mahbubani's core point -- that small states needed to be prudent in their dealings with great powers -- was not inherently wrong, even if his formulation had been clumsy. The Online Citizen argued that Bilahari's rebuttal was "unnecessary and exaggerated."

8.6 The Underlying Intellectual Divide

The Mahbubani-Bilahari exchange revealed a genuine intellectual divide within Singapore's foreign policy establishment on the most important strategic question of the day: how should Singapore position itself in the US-China competition?

Mahbubani's position, distilled to its essence, was: Singapore should avoid taking sides, should not provoke China, should be cautious about aligning too closely with the United States on issues that China considers matters of core interest, and should prioritise economic engagement with Asia's rising powers. He believed that the long-term trend was towards Chinese dominance in the region, and that Singapore would be foolish to position itself as an obstacle to this trend.

Bilahari's position, distilled to its essence, was: Singapore's survival depends on a rules-based international order in which small states have rights that great powers must respect. If Singapore accepted that it must always defer to great powers, it would have no defence when those great powers acted against its interests. The correct strategy was not deference but principled engagement -- standing firm on matters of principle while being pragmatic on matters of tactics.

The divide was not merely about China or the South China Sea. It was about the fundamental character of Singapore's foreign policy: whether it should be essentially accommodationist (Mahbubani) or essentially principled-realist (Bilahari). It was about whether Lee Kuan Yew's legacy was one of caution and pragmatism (as Mahbubani interpreted it) or one of courage and principle (as Bilahari interpreted it).

8.7 Aftermath and Consequences

The controversy had real consequences for Mahbubani. Within months, he announced his departure as Dean of the LKYSPP. The timing -- four months after the Qatar commentary, and during the same period as the Huang Jing spy scandal at the school -- strongly suggested that the controversy was at least a contributing factor. The Singapore government, while never formally censuring Mahbubani, had made its displeasure clear through the responses of Shanmugam and Bilahari, both of whom were widely understood to be speaking with at least the tacit approval of the political leadership.

The Bilahari-Mahbubani divide has continued to manifest in their subsequent writings and public statements, though never again with the same intensity as the July 2017 exchange. It represents the most important ongoing intellectual debate about Singapore's foreign policy orientation, and it has shaped how subsequent generations of Singaporean diplomats and policy thinkers approach the question of how a small state should navigate great-power competition.

Part IX: Controversies, Criticisms, and the "Pro-China Apologist" Label

9.1 The Pro-China Accusation

The most persistent criticism of Mahbubani is that he is, in effect, a China apologist. His 2020 book Has China Won? cemented this perception among his detractors. One commentator described him as "the most vocal non-Chinese China apologist today."

The accusation rests on several grounds:

His consistent characterisation of China's government as meritocratic and competent, while characterising America's as plutocratic and dysfunctional
His argument that China's rise is peaceful and that the Chinese Communist Party governs with the consent of its people
His repeated arguments that the West, and particularly the United States, is the greater threat to the international liberal order
His advocacy for accommodation of China's interests and restraint in challenging China on issues like the South China Sea
His winning of the Munk Debate against the proposition that China threatens the liberal international order

9.2 Mahbubani's Response

Mahbubani has consistently rejected the pro-China label. He has characterised the accusation as "the biggest misunderstanding" of his work, explaining that he is trying to "rebalance the global debate" which is dominated by "strong and loud Anglo-Saxon voices." He portrays himself not as pro-China but as pro-objectivity -- arguing that the Western-dominated discourse on China is distorted by ideology, ignorance, and self-interest, and that someone needs to present the other side of the argument.

In his 2024 memoir, he described critics of his views as exhibiting "fossilised" Western thinking, and said: "I've been misunderstood many times."

9.3 The Journal of Democracy Critique: "Kishore's World"

The most sustained academic critique of Mahbubani's work was Donald K. Emmerson's "Kishore's World," published in the Journal of Democracy in July 2013. Emmerson, a respected Stanford political scientist, offered a detailed analysis of Mahbubani's intellectual methods and concluded that they were fundamentally flawed.

Emmerson's key criticisms:

Manichean thinking: Mahbubani "reduces diversity and complexity to crude either-or stereotypes," using a "master narrative pitting 'the West' against 'the Rest.'" In accusing "the Western mind" of being able to think only in black-and-white terms, Mahbubani contradicted his own Manichean method.
Patronising Aung San Suu Kyi: Mahbubani's "prejudice against 'the West'" led him "to patronize Aung San Suu Kyi while distorting and deriding her motives as insufficiently pro-Asian."
Falsely portraying Chinese governance: Emmerson argued that Mahbubani "falsely suggests that the people of China are happily enjoying good governance."
Incoherent convergence thesis: The "great global 'convergence'" that Mahbubani claimed to have discovered was "incoherent."

The review concluded that Mahbubani's "widely hailed writings" revealed "a remarkably narrow and Manichean worldview" -- a striking indictment from a scholar who was himself sympathetic to Asian perspectives.

9.4 The Harvard Political Review Assessment

The Harvard Political Review published an assessment titled "What's Up With Kishore Mahbubani?" that placed Mahbubani in the context of the broader debate about China apologists in Western academia. The article explored the tension between Mahbubani's undeniable erudition and experience on the one hand, and his tendency to present China in an unrealistically positive light on the other.

9.5 The Jom Media Critique

Jom, a Singapore-based media outlet, published a review of Mahbubani's memoir titled "Kishore Mahbubani Tries to Be Undiplomatic," suggesting that even in his most personal and ostensibly candid work, Mahbubani remained selective in what he was willing to acknowledge and challenge.

9.6 The Dean Non-Renewal Question

The circumstances of Mahbubani's departure from the LKYSPP remain contested. The official account emphasised his voluntary decision to step down. However, the convergence of the Qatar commentary controversy, the Huang Jing spy scandal, and government displeasure with his public positions created a context in which "voluntary retirement" and "managed exit" were difficult to distinguish. The Times Higher Education headline -- "Singapore university dean to step down following controversy" -- captured the ambiguity.

What is clear is that Mahbubani's departure ended an era in which the LKYSPP had served as an independent platform for Singapore's most internationally prominent public intellectual. His successor would take the school in a less publicly controversial direction.

Part X: The Critique of American Foreign Policy

10.1 The Iraq War as Strategic Catastrophe

Mahbubani has been one of the most consistent and articulate critics of the Iraq War from the perspective of strategic rationality rather than morality alone. His argument is not merely that the war was wrong -- it is that the war was stupid.

He has characterised the invasion and occupation of Iraq as "a multidimensional error that could not be justified under international law." He argues that Western leaders were trapped in a mindset of believing their interventions could only lead to good, leading them to believe "invading troops would be welcomed," when in fact "the twentieth century showed that no country welcomes foreign invaders, and no Islamic nation would approve of Western military boots on its soil."

The Iraq War, Mahbubani argues, was "completely unnecessary, costing $3 trillion of blood and treasure while ultimately delivering a broken state."

10.2 The Moral Superiority Complex

Mahbubani identifies what he sees as a fundamental problem in American foreign policy thinking: "liberals believe they're morally superior, and when they drop bombs on countries, whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, it is considered a morally right thing to do because of this sense of superiority."

10.3 The Strategic Distraction

Perhaps Mahbubani's most original argument about the Iraq War is that it was not merely a moral failure but a strategic distraction of world-historical proportions. He argues that America's decision to launch wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after September 11 was a "strategic mistake" because "the most important strategic event of 2001 was actually China's admission into the World Trade Organization." While America spent $3 trillion and two decades fighting in the Middle East, China was quietly rising to become the world's second-largest economy. The War on Terror, in Mahbubani's telling, was the greatest strategic gift the United States could have given to China.

10.4 The "Minimalist, Multilateral, Machiavellian" Prescription

Mahbubani's prescription for American foreign policy is deliberately provocative: he urges the United States to adopt what he calls a "3M" strategy -- minimalist (stop intervening in other countries' affairs), multilateral (work through international institutions rather than acting unilaterally), and Machiavellian (pursue American interests strategically rather than ideologically). He argues that the combination of idealism and interventionism that has characterised American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War has been disastrous for both America and the world.

Part XI: Global Influence and Recognition

11.1 Rankings and Awards

Mahbubani's global profile is reflected in a series of prestigious recognitions:

Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers: Listed in 2010 and 2011, and has appeared multiple times in the magazine's global thinkers list
Prospect Magazine Top 50 World Thinkers: Listed in 2014
Financial Times: Named as one of the 50 most influential figures shaping the future of capitalism
American Academy of Arts and Sciences: Elected as a member in 2019
Foreign Policy Association Medal: Awarded in New York in June 2004
Public Administration Medal (Gold): Conferred by the Singapore Government in 1998
World Economic Forum: Regular contributor and Agenda Contributor

11.2 The Singapore Brand Ambassador

Mahbubani's most significant influence has been in shaping how the world sees Singapore. For an international audience, particularly in the West, Mahbubani has been the most visible and articulate representative of the "Singapore model" -- the argument that a small, resource-poor city-state can achieve developed-world living standards through meritocracy, pragmatism, honesty, and effective governance, without following the Western template of liberal democracy.

His willingness to engage Western intellectuals on their own turf -- writing in Foreign Affairs and the Financial Times, debating at the Munk Debates and TED, speaking at Davos and the Brookings Institution -- gave Singapore a voice in the global discourse that was far larger than the country's size would ordinarily permit. In this sense, Mahbubani has been to Singapore's intellectual projection what the Singapore Armed Forces is to its military projection: disproportionate to the country's size, carefully cultivated, and strategically deployed.

11.3 The Global South Voice

Beyond representing Singapore specifically, Mahbubani has positioned himself as a voice for the Global South more broadly. His arguments about Western hypocrisy, institutional reform, and the need for a more equitable global order resonate far beyond Singapore, and he has been embraced by audiences in India, China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East as someone who articulates their frustrations with the Western-dominated international order.

Part XII: The Relationship with Lee Kuan Yew

12.1 The University Confrontation

The relationship between Mahbubani and Lee Kuan Yew began in tension. As a university student in 1969, the young Mahbubani wrote an article suggesting that Lee could be heading toward dictatorship -- a bold act for a President's Scholar bonded to government service. Lee Kuan Yew was not a man who forgot such challenges, and the incident established a dynamic of wary mutual respect that would characterise the relationship for decades.

12.2 The Permanent Secretary Tensions

During Mahbubani's tenure as Permanent Secretary of the MFA, Lee (then Senior Minister) sharply criticised him for what Lee perceived as exaggerating his own influence after bilateral talks with Malaysia. Lee was famously intolerant of officials who sought personal publicity or who, in his view, allowed their egos to interfere with their institutional roles. Mahbubani's natural instinct for self-expression and public engagement -- the very traits that would later make him a global public intellectual -- were precisely the traits that Lee found most irritating in a civil servant.

12.3 Mahbubani's Assessment

Despite these tensions, Mahbubani has been generous in his assessment of Lee. In his memoir, he notes that Lee was "not petty nor vindictive," which enabled Mahbubani to retain his self-confidence and continue expressing his views. Mahbubani's admiration for Lee's governance achievements is genuine and runs through all his work -- Lee's Singapore is the principal example that Mahbubani uses to demonstrate the effectiveness of Asian governance, and the MPH framework (meritocracy, pragmatism, honesty) is essentially a distillation of Lee's governing philosophy.

The irony is that both men used each other: Lee used Mahbubani (and diplomats like him) as intellectual shock troops to project Singapore's worldview internationally, while Mahbubani used Lee's Singapore as the central case study in his argument for Asian governance. What Lee would have made of some of Mahbubani's later arguments -- particularly the advocacy for deference to China -- is a matter of speculation, but given Lee's own insistence that small states must never allow themselves to be bullied, it seems likely that Lee would have been closer to Bilahari's position than to Mahbubani's.

Part XIII: Assessment and Legacy

13.1 The Most Internationally Prominent Singaporean Intellectual

Kishore Mahbubani is, by any measure, the most internationally prominent public intellectual Singapore has produced. No other Singaporean -- not Tommy Koh, not Chan Heng Chee, not George Yeo -- has achieved the same degree of name recognition in the global discourse on international relations. His books have been translated into multiple languages, his articles have appeared in the world's most prestigious publications, and his name is recognised in foreign policy circles from Washington to Beijing, from New Delhi to London.

13.2 The Intellectual Method: Provocation as Strategy

Mahbubani's intellectual method is deliberate provocation. His book titles are questions designed to challenge Western assumptions: Can Asians Think? Has the West Lost It? Has China Won? He structures his arguments as direct challenges to the Western establishment, using Western data, Western sources, and Western logic to argue against Western positions. This method has made him both celebrated and controversial -- celebrated because provocation attracts attention and generates debate, and controversial because provocation can be confused with analysis.

13.3 The Blind Spots

Mahbubani's critics have identified several persistent blind spots in his analysis:

China's internal governance: Mahbubani's characterisation of China as a meritocracy with high public approval obscures the reality of political repression, censorship, and the absence of genuine political choice. His argument that the Chinese people have accepted an implicit social contract with the CCP begs the question of what would happen if the CCP failed to deliver growth -- a scenario he does not adequately address.
The "West vs. Rest" framework: As Emmerson argued in the Journal of Democracy, Mahbubani's tendency to treat "the West" and "the Rest" as monolithic entities oversimplifies the enormous diversity within both categories.
The accommodation question: Mahbubani's advocacy for accommodation of China's rise raises the question of where accommodation ends and capitulation begins -- a question that is existential for a small state like Singapore.

13.4 The Enduring Contribution

Despite these criticisms, Mahbubani's enduring contribution to global discourse is significant. He has consistently challenged the assumption that Western civilisation is the only possible model for a successful modern society. He has provided a voice for the perspective of the Global South in forums that were previously dominated by Western thinkers. He has used his diplomatic experience to offer insights into the workings of international institutions that purely academic commentators lack. And he has done all of this from a small city-state of six million people, demonstrating that intellectual influence is not proportional to national size.

His body of work -- nine books, hundreds of articles, countless speeches -- constitutes the most significant intellectual export Singapore has produced. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his conclusions, one cannot dispute that Mahbubani has forced the world to take seriously the proposition that the age of Western dominance is ending and that a new world order is being born. That proposition, which seemed radical when he first articulated it in 1993, now appears increasingly prescient.

Document prepared for the Singapore Governance Corpus. This intellectual profile draws on publicly available sources including published books, articles, speeches, interviews, and public records. Direct quotations are attributed to their sources.

SG-H-THINK-06 | Kishore Mahbubani — Asia's Advocate: The Intellectual Who Told the West Its Time Was Up

Part I: The Man and His Formation

1.1 Origins: A Sindhi Boy in Colonial Singapore

1.2 The President's Scholarship and the University of Singapore

1.3 Entering the Foreign Service

Part II: The Diplomatic Career

2.1 First UN Posting (1984-1989)

2.2 Permanent Secretary of the MFA (1993-1998)

2.3 Second UN Posting and Security Council Presidency (1998-2004)

Part III: The Academic Career and Public Intellectual Platform

3.1 Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2004-2017)

3.2 The Controversies and Departure

3.3 Post-Deanship: The Prolific Years

Part IV: Complete Bibliography and Intellectual Development

4.1 Early Essays: "The Dangers of Decadence" (1993)

4.2 Can Asians Think? (1998/2001)

4.3 Beyond the Age of Innocence (2005)

4.4 The New Asian Hemisphere (2008)

4.5 The Great Convergence (2013)

4.6 The ASEAN Miracle (2017)

4.7 Has the West Lost It? (2018)

4.8 Has China Won? (2020)

4.9 The Asian 21st Century (2022)

4.10 Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir (2024)

Part V: The Core Intellectual Architecture

5.1 The Meta-Thesis: The Great Power Shift

5.2 Western Hypocrisy and Double Standards

5.3 The Defence of the Singapore Model

5.4 Democracy, Human Rights, and the Asian Values Debate

5.5 UN Security Council Reform and Global Governance

5.6 The US-China Competition: Mahbubani's Strategic Prescription

5.7 ASEAN and Regional Multilateralism

5.8 India: The Gap Between Potential and Performance

Part VI: Key Speeches, Articles, and Public Interventions

6.1 Major Foreign Affairs Articles

6.2 Financial Times Columns

6.3 The TED Talk: "How the West Can Adapt to a Rising Asia" (2019)

6.4 The Munk Debate on China (May 2019)

6.5 Other Notable Publications and Platforms

Part VII: Public Quotations

On the Rise of Asia and the Decline of the West

On China and the United States

On the Chinese Social Contract

On Geopolitics and Strategy

On the Liberal International Order

On Being Misunderstood

Part VIII: The Bilahari Feud — The Most Public Intellectual Clash in Singapore's History

8.1 Background and Context

8.2 Mahbubani's "Qatar: Big Lessons from a Small Country" (1 July 2017)

8.3 Bilahari Kausikan's Rebuttal

8.4 K Shanmugam's Intervention

8.5 Other Responses

8.6 The Underlying Intellectual Divide

8.7 Aftermath and Consequences

Part IX: Controversies, Criticisms, and the "Pro-China Apologist" Label

9.1 The Pro-China Accusation

9.2 Mahbubani's Response

9.3 The Journal of Democracy Critique: "Kishore's World"

9.4 The Harvard Political Review Assessment

9.5 The Jom Media Critique

9.6 The Dean Non-Renewal Question

Part X: The Critique of American Foreign Policy

10.1 The Iraq War as Strategic Catastrophe

10.2 The Moral Superiority Complex

10.3 The Strategic Distraction

10.4 The "Minimalist, Multilateral, Machiavellian" Prescription

Part XI: Global Influence and Recognition

11.1 Rankings and Awards

11.2 The Singapore Brand Ambassador

11.3 The Global South Voice

Part XII: The Relationship with Lee Kuan Yew

12.1 The University Confrontation

12.2 The Permanent Secretary Tensions

12.3 Mahbubani's Assessment

Part XIII: Assessment and Legacy

13.1 The Most Internationally Prominent Singaporean Intellectual

13.2 The Intellectual Method: Provocation as Strategy

13.3 The Blind Spots

13.4 The Enduring Contribution

Referenced by (2)