Living the Asian Century: A Book Conversation with Kishore Mahbubani

Distinguished diplomat, academic, and author Kishore Mahbubani needs no introduction. His decades serving in Singapore’s foreign service – during which he was president of the UN Security Council among other postings – were followed by his authorship of more than ten books charting the story of Asia’s rise, the West’s promise and peril, and ASEAN’s strength and endurance.

In his latest book, Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir, Prof. Mahbubani interweaves the dramatic transformation of Singapore, Southeast Asia, and the world with his own life story. Born in Singapore to working-class immigrant parents, Mahbubani tells us how he transcended a childhood of poverty and traversed his diplomatic and intellectual journey, shaping and being shaped by a fast-rising region, even as Singapore trailblazed a unique model of economic development and leadership in the Global South. Candid and insightful, the book reveals the many facets of the man and the geopolitics of his times.

Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute, will be in conversation with the author on February 12th from 8:30-9:30 AM Eastern Time (9:30 pm Singapore time).

Panelists

Sarang Shidore

Sarang Shidore is director of the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute, and a senior non-resident fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks. He is also a member of the adjunct faculty at George Washington University, where he teaches a class on the geopolitics of climate change. He researches and writes on the geopolitics of the Global South, Asia, and climate change. Sarang has more than 125 publications to his credit in journals, edited volumes, and media outlets in his areas of expertise, including in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Nation, South China Morning Post, Council on Foreign Relations, Energy Policy, Energy Research & Social Science and others. Prior to his current role, Sarang was director of studies at the Quincy Institute, senior research scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, and senior global analyst at the geopolitical risk firm Stratfor Inc. and previously also spent more than a decade in engineering and product management in the technology industry.

Kishore Mahbubani

Kishore Mahbubani is a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Mahbubani worked in the Singapore Foreign Service for 33 years (1971 to 2004). He had postings in Cambodia, Malaysia, Washington DC and New York, where he twice was Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN and served as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. He was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry from 1993 to 1998. Mahbubani joined academia in 2004, when he was appointed the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS. He was Dean from 2004 to 2017, and a Professor in the Practice of Public Policy from 2006 to 2019. In April 2019, he was elected as an honorary international member to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also selected as one of Foreign Policy’s Top Global Thinkers in 2010 and 2011. He has published seven books: Can Asians Think?, Beyond The Age Of Innocence, The New Asian Hemisphere, The Great Convergence, Can Singapore Survive, The ASEAN Miracle (co-authored with Jeffery Sng) and Has the West Lost It?.