E-International Relations
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Oct 15 2025
Image by Kishore Mahboobani
Kishore Mahbubani devoted over 5 a long time of his life to public service, for which he was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Gold) by the Singapore Government in 1998. In his 33 years as a Singapore diplomat, Kishore took on many difficult assignments, serving for instance in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 1973-74 in the course of the Cambodian Civil War. He additionally served two stints as Singapores Ambassador to the UN (1984-1989 and 1998-2004) and held the place of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1998.
Kishore had an equally illustrious profession in academia. He was appointed the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in August 2004 and led the School till 2017. Despite his duties, as diplomat and Dean, Kishore is a prolific writer and has revealed ten books. His ninth e-book, The Asian twenty first Century, is an open entry quantity which has been downloaded over 4 million occasions. His newest e-book, a memoir titled Living the Asian Century, was revealed in August 2024. Kishore has been listed among the many worlds high 100 public intellectuals by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines and among the many Top 50 people who would form the talk on the way forward for capitalism by the Financial Times. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October 2019. More info might be discovered on http://www.mahbubani.net.
Where do you see essentially the most thrilling analysis or debates occurring in your discipline in the present day?
One thrilling space of debate is over the resurgence of Asia, particularly China. Chinas emergence has, for instance, considerably shifted the geopolitical steadiness in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia. Contemporary International Relations (I.R.) students are starting to realised that these energy shifts are among the many most vital in our world.
My buddy and colleague, Professor Yuen Foon Khong, and Professor Joseph Liow from the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, have just lately co-published an enchanting article in Foreign Affairs:Southeast Asia Is Starting to Choose: Why the Region Is Leaning Toward China.
Their examine of the alignments of the ten ASEAN international locations vis–vis the US and China confirmed that whereas Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand have been efficiently hedging between the US and China, 5 out of 10 ASEAN international locations are actually extra aligned with China, whereas just one, the Philippines, is clearly aligned with the US. Furthermore, 9 out of 10 ASEAN international locations have drifted extra in the direction of China within the final 15 years, every for a special mixture of causes.
China is a crucial supply of financial alternatives and is geographically shut. However, many are nonetheless involved about the way it will use its rising energy within the area. Meanwhile, the US has lengthy offered the area with safety and funding and has lengthy been seen as a trusted associate of Southeast Asia. However, it’s geographically distant; has begun stepping again on its army and financial commitments within the area underneath Trump; has imposed tariffs on all of the ASEAN international locations; and has denounced some ASEAN governments on points associated to corruption, human rights, and democracy. Its help of Israel within the Gaza battle has additionally angered and alienated the big Muslim populations in Southeast Asia.
I’ve additionally been having fun with the talk on the rise of the Global South. I had the pleasure of studyingThe Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competitionby Professor Jorge Heine of the Pardee School, Professor Carlos Fortin of the University of Chile, and Carlos Ominami, president of the Foro Permanente de Poltica Exterior. Its clear that the remainder of the Global South can be reshaping the world order. Global South international locations are legitimately calling for a larger say in shaping the brand new world order and to set themselves up for long-term success.
At the identical time, so as to form a brand new, hopefully extra inclusive world order, we have to perceive the historical past and ideological claims behind our present order. Amitav AcharyasThe Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the Westargues towards the concept that order, and the rules that underlie the order we now have loved for the previous a number of a long time, are uniquely Western. Actually, the rules of worldwide order additionally derive from different cultures. As Acharya wrote, We have forgotten that world order the political structure enabling cooperation and peace amongst nations existed lengthy earlier than the rise of the West, and that lots of the concepts we assume are Western innovations really originated in different civilizations. Mechanisms and values which are central to world order comparable to diplomacy, financial interdependence, freedom of seas, rules for the safety of individuals in battle and peace, preservation of the atmosphere, and cooperation amongst main powers, to call a couple of emerged over millennia throughout the globe (p. 2). Clearly, lots of the concepts and values that help our world order exist in different cultures, too. The world won’t all of a sudden collapse into dysfunction if we transition into a brand new system and away from a Western dominated world order.
But how ought to different nations navigate the pursuits of the US and China as we attempt to construct this new system? To what extent will the remainder of the world be capable to break previous the psychological colonisation that the previous 100 years of Western dominance has created as we predict by means of the tough query of how our world can operate higher for all of us? What would a extra equitable world order which takes into consideration not simply Western thought, but in addition African thought, Asian thought, Latin American thought, Middle Eastern thought, and so forth, seem like? Will it’s potential to implement? It shall be fascinating to see how all this performs out over the subsequent few a long time. Sadly, most American students, who dominate the discourse within the I.R. discipline, pay little consideration to and fail to check the deep wells of non-Western thought.
How has the best way you perceive the world modified over time, and what (or who) prompted essentially the most vital shifts in your pondering?
The three most vital academics I had within the discipline of geopolitics had been Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and S. Rajaratnam. They had been the three key founding fathers of Singapore. They overcame nice odds and led Singapore to its current success as a result of they had been keen to take daring and unconventional steps. They rigorously challenged standard assumptions. They had been equally open to differing views, as they had been inquisitive about discovering the reality.
Lee Kuan Yew was a unprecedented chief. His mental prowess, political acumen, and oratorical expertise had been unmatched by most world leaders. He taught me that an efficient speech ought to at all times be substantive and significant, devoid of superfluous components. He was a uncommon mixture of a robust freedom fighter in addition to an distinctive nation builder. Whenever he launched into a political initiative, he pursued a number of targets concurrently each home and geopolitical. He is the best politician I’ve ever encountered and will effectively be one of many biggest of all time. Henry Kissinger, who was a detailed buddy of Lee Kuan Yew,stated, As the a long time glided by, it was transferring and inspirational to see Lee, in materials phrases the mayor of a medium-size metropolis, bestride the worldwide scene as a mentor of world strategic order. A go to by Lee to Washington was a sort of nationwide occasion. A presidential dialog was practically automated; eminent members of the Cabinet and Congress would search conferences. They did so to not hear of Singapores nationwide issues; Lee not often, if ever, lobbied policymakers for help. His theme was the indispensable US contribution to the protection and progress of a peaceable world. His interlocutors attended to not be petitioned however to study from one of many actually profound international thinkers of our time.
Goh Keng Swee was each deeply mental and remarkably sensible. He contributed enormously to virtually each side of Singapores improvement, making transformational contributions to defence, training, the economic system, poverty discount, and finance. He was a real renaissance man. He was probably the most intellectually curious individuals I’ve ever encountered. I notably appreciated his behavior of asking large questions. He additionally understood energy very effectively and was ready to make use of his affect and standing to make highly effective and radical adjustments when vital. His contributions to Singapores progress, improvement, and success had been as essential as Lee Kuan Yews. He was the final word realist and pragmatist in I.R. points.
S. Rajaratnam was a remarkably heat and type individual. He was very beneficiant together with his compliments, even to us junior officers. He valued open dialogue and candid dialogue. At the identical time, he was a formidable debater, particularly when dealing with pro-communist teams in Singapore or confronting pro-Soviet forces on the worldwide stage, and he by no means backed down from a problem. From him, I discovered the significance of braveness and perseverance, even when the chances appear insurmountable.
All three had been paragons of integrity, upholding the best requirements of honesty and public service. They had been additionally unwavering realists in issues of geopolitics. While I used to be a pacifist in my college days, working with them essentially overturned my worldview. They taught me to carry no illusions concerning the nature of energy. Great powers will at all times put their pursuits forward of precept in coping with small states.
As I doc in my memoirs,Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir, my two years within the UNSC erased any remaining illusions concerning the nature of our world. It grew to become clear to me that energy at all times trumps rules in worldwide relations, and {that a} small state like Singapore can not afford to bask in idealist fantasies.
InThe Asian twenty first Century (2022), you argue that the period of Western dominance is ending. How ought to Western societies put together for a world the place their values and management not go uncontested?
Western societies mustn’t worry the rise of the Rest. The remainder of the world desires to work with the West, not dominate the West. However, Western societies can not proceed as if they’re the dominant energy on the planet.
As Bill Clinton in 2003, If you imagine that sustaining energy and management and absolute freedom of motion and sovereignty is necessary to your countrys future, theres nothing inconsistent in [the U.S. behaving unilaterally]. Were the largest, strongest nation on the planet now [] But in case you imagine that we needs to be attempting to create a world with guidelines and partnerships and habits of behaviour that we want to reside in when had been not the army political financial superpower on the planet, then you definately wouldnt try this. It simply relies on what you imagine. Sadly, this acutely smart recommendation by Bill Clinton has by no means been heeded by the US or by the West generally.
Western societies must create the circumstances for their very own future success within the coming multicivilizational and multipolar world. For instance, our present worldwide order offers many advantages to the West, which performed a dominant position in designing it. But to ensure that it to retain its legitimacy, its establishments must replicate the facility construction of todays world, not yesterdays. For instance, the everlasting members of the UNSC are the US, China, the UK, France, and Russia. The heads of the IMF and World Bank have at all times been from the US or EU. The international locations with the best voting shares within the IMF are: 1. the US, 2. Japan, 3. China, 4. Germany, and 5. France.
Yet, the international locations with the best GDPs (in present costs) are actually 1. the US, 2. China, 3. Germany, 4. Japan, and 5. India. If worldwide establishments dont serve the wants of newly highly effective and influential international locations, they are going to be incentivised to go away and arrange different techniques. This won’t be in the most effective pursuits of the West. Increasingly, the world is dealing with an increasing number of issues that we have to tackle collectively, comparable to local weather change, pandemics, and terrorism. We can not work in silos and hope for the most effective.
In an identical vein, the US wants to return to respecting worldwide regulation. It can not set a precedent of nice powers violating worldwide regulation and UN rules and but anticipate future nice powers to abide by these similar guidelines and norms.
InHas the West Lost It? (2018), you describe Western strategic blindness and ethical conceitedness. Have latest occasions such because the Ukraine battle or US coverage on Gaza prompted any significant self-reflection or change amongst Western states?
The Ukraine battle has revealed a paradoxical fact concerning the West. It has proven starkly the geopolitical naivete of the EU international locations and the geopolitical crafty of the US. If Europe is to develop into a robust, unbiased participant within the new, multipolar world, it must develop into equally crafty and calculating about its personal long-term geopolitical pursuits. It can not merely observe Americas lead in geopolitics. Firstly, the US, by electing Trump twice, has declared that its aim is to Make America Great Again (MAGA), not Make Europe Great Again (MEGA). Clearly, the US will at all times act in its personal pursuits, not in Europes pursuits.
The US has a lot to realize from prolonging the Ukraine battle: it has severely weakened Russia with comparatively little price to the US. The US has been sending its outdated stockpiles of weapons and kit to Ukraine, and used the funds appropriated for Ukraine help to interchange them with new ones. Nearly 70% of US assist to Ukraine thus stays within the US, boosting its economic system and strengthening its army industrial complicated. Things are completely different for Europe. The most necessary a part of the phrase geopolitics is just not politics however geo. Because the US is way away, Washington can provoke Moscow with little consequence. But Europe will nonetheless must reside with Russia for the subsequent 100 years, if not 1,000 years.
The greatest geopolitical mistake Europe made after the Cold War was failing to give you a constant, long-term plan for integrating Russia into the European order. If there was to be sturdy peace, Europe wanted to work out a brand new grand strategic discount with Russia, with all sides accommodating the others core pursuits, and with the aim of regularly creating strategic belief with one another. Russias most severe long-term strategic rival is just not the EU however China, with which it shares the worlds longest border. With Chinas energy now having elevated tremendously vis–vis Russias, Russia needs to be attempting to steadiness towards China. Yet, the failure of the US and EU to take Russias pursuits into consideration for instance, by increasing NATO into territories that had been as soon as a part of the Soviet Union has as a substitute pushed Russia into cooperating with China. This outcome exhibits the geopolitical incompetence of the EU.
Another main problem was that Europe by no means critically tried to know Russia. It embraced Francis Fukuyamas finish of historical past thesis and anticipated Russia to develop into a liberal democracy. That was full naivete. Its clear now that not solely Russia, but in addition different rising powers like China and India, won’t develop into carbon copies of liberal Western democracies anytime quickly. Europeans should now adapt to a world during which they belong to the minority and during which their worldview is that of the minority. In a multi-civilizational world, we have to work together with one another on the idea of mutual respect, not with the presumption that ones personal tradition is superior.
In the identical vein, the battle in Gaza has finished extra to decrease the standing of the West than every other latest occasion. We ought to all condemn the heinous assault by Hamas on seventh October 2022. Yet, the world is greatly surprised at continued Western help of Israel regardless of its disproportionate responses and disrespect for worldwide regulation. At the identical time, the battle has uncovered the EUs double requirements. As Josep Borrell and Kalypso Nicolaidiswrotein their latest article in Foreign Affairs, The EU can not impose an import ban on merchandise from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine and shrink back from imposing them on merchandise from unlawful settlements within the West Bank. Nor can the EU name on different states to honour the International Criminal Courts arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and announce that it’ll not implement the identical bodys warrant towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In quick, no. The Western states haven’t engaged in any significant reflection. One key aim of my writings is to encourage Western minds to interact in deeper reflection.
India is usually seen as a swing state in international geopolitics. Given its historic non-alignment and present strategic balancing act, how do you consider Indias long-term geopolitical alignment particularly within the context of USChina rivalry?
India is a rising energy. It is now the 4th largest economic system by GDP (nominal). In a couple of years, India will develop into the third largest. So far, India is managing its rise effectively. Its getting nearer to the West, however has not deserted its outdated ties with Russia and the Global South. India is each a part of the Quad on the one hand, and the BRICS and SCO on the opposite.
The important problem India faces is the troubled India-China relationship. The two international locations have a longstanding, unresolved border problem. While the connection was considerably steady within the 2010s, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in June 2020 alongside their restive border, resulting in casualties on each side. This conflict set relations again significantly over the previous few years. While the border settlement of October 2024 affords some hope of stabilisation within the bilateral ties, it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll see a full normalisation of ties between China and India. However, India won’t absolutely align itself with the United States both.
India will stay non-aligned (or, within the phrases of Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, multi-aligned) within the medium-term. In about 20 years, as Indias economic system rises above all the opposite international locations (aside from the US and China), India can even emerge as a 3rd pole on the planet order.
ASEAN diplomacy has typically been praised for sustaining regional stability, but its response to points like Myanmar has drawn criticism. Drawing out of your tenure as Singapores Permanent Representative to the UN, what position ought to ASEAN play in managing USChina tensions and intra-Asian crises?
ASEAN has to date finished a superb job in sustaining good ties with each China and the US. ASEAN is Chinas greatest buying and selling associate. The US invests extra in ASEAN than it does in every other a part of Asia. Both the US and China are ASEAN dialogue companions. For occasion, each Marco Rubio and Wang Yi attended the ASEAN overseas ministers assembly which happened in Malaysia on 8-11 July 2025. ASEAN ought to proceed to interact the US and China in its regional dialogues. It could on this approach function a key assembly level for US-China dialogues too.
ASEAN has additionally helped facilitate conferences between China, Japan and Korea at ASEAN+ dialogues and ASEAN-led East Asia Summit conferences in the course of the late Nineties and early 2000s, a interval when these international locations had been typically at loggerheads with one another and diminished bilateral dialogue with one another. In this fashion, ASEAN helped defuse tensions between different Asian international locations.
ASEAN has additionally performed a constructive position in defusing crises between ASEAN member states. In 2011, when Thailand and Cambodia had been at army loggerheads with one another over the Preah Vihear temple complicated, Indonesia, because the ASEAN chair, undertook a shuttle diplomacy (led by former Indonesian overseas minister, Marty Natalegawa). Indonesia engaged Bangkok and Phnom Penh immediately and succeeded in diffusing a possible army disaster.
However, with reference to Myanmar, owing to the inherent complexity of the scenario, ASEAN has determined that endurance is probably the most effective technique at current. In the I.R. discipline, there are lots of depraved issues that can’t be solved shortly. Myanmar is one in every of them. Yet, endurance and constructive engagement by ASEAN with Myanmar will finally ship constructive outcomes.
Singapore has masterfully balanced relations with each Washington and Beijing. What can different small and medium powers study from Singapores strategic pragmatism, particularly these caught in todays polarized geopolitical atmosphere?
Singapore has declared that it’ll do its finest to be mates with each the US and China. In an article revealed in Foreign Affairs in June 2020, then Singapore PM Mr Lee Hsien Loongexplained, Asian international locations see the United States as a resident energy that has important pursuits within the area. At the identical time, China is a actuality on the doorstep. Asian international locations don’t need to be pressured to decide on between the 2. And, he warned, if both makes an attempt to pressure such a selection if Washington tries to include Chinas rise or Beijing seeks to construct an unique sphere of affect in Asia they’ll start a course of confrontation that can final a long time and put the long-heralded Asian century in jeopardy. Former PM Lee Hsien Loong is true in highlighting that an untrammelled US-China contest might jeopardise the long-heralded Asian century.
Although Singapore has at all times labored onerous to strengthen our relationship with each powers, if the US or China determine to place strain on Singapore to take sides, it is going to be very difficult for it and different small and medium powers to withstand that strain. Fortunately, Singapore is a member of ASEAN. Being a part of a regional grouping provides Singapore extra leverage and negotiating energy with the nice powers, so long as the group can keep united. Small and medium powers must work onerous to steadiness the nice powers by deepening their ties with one another and reduce their dependence on the US and China, whether or not when it comes to economics or safety. Singapore also needs to work actively to strengthen ASEAN as a regional organisation.
In your debates and writings, youve referred to as for a reform of world establishments, particularly the UN Security Council. Do you continue to see practical pathways for such reform within the close to future, or is multilateralism stagnating?
The UNSC have to be reformed. It ought to home the nice powers of in the present day, not yesterday. For occasion, the UK ought to have given up its seat to India not in the present day, however yesterday. I’ve additionally proposed a 7-7-7 system inThe Great Convergence. This entails having seven everlasting members, but in addition having a rotation of seven semi-permanent members taken from 28 states. The Quincy Institute in Washington DC can be pushing an thought for UNSC reform, primarily based on the rules of my 7-7-7 system.
It is a undeniable fact that such reforms take time. Yet, the UNSC, particularly the 5 everlasting members, will quickly face a painful dilemma. If they hold the present composition of everlasting members, they’ll lose their credibility. Countries like India might ignore the UNSC selections. To keep away from shedding their credibility, the P5 ought to change the composition of everlasting members.
You wrote inThe New Asian Hemisphere (2008)that China is just not an expansionist energy within the conventional Western sense. How do you interpret present Western narratives about Chinas assertiveness within the South China Sea or its Belt and Road Initiative?
Chinas strategy within the South China Sea has largely been to cope with claimant international locations bilaterally. China has not sought to implement its claims unilaterally by means of violent army motion.
Ambassador Stapleton Roy, former US Ambassador to China, as soon as recounted an incident that I element in my e-book,Has China Won?: In a joint press convention with President Obama on September 25, 2015, Xi Jinping had proposed a extra cheap strategy on the South China Sea. Xi had supported full and efficient implementation of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties within the South China Sea, signed by China and all ten ASEAN members; had referred to as for early conclusion of the China-ASEAN consultations on a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea; and had added that China had no intention of militarizing the Spratlys, the place it had engaged in huge reclamation work on the reefs and shoals it occupied. Roy stated that Obama missed a possibility to capitalize on this cheap proposal. Instead, the US Navy stepped up its naval patrols. China responded by continuing with militarization (p.80)
Even although I cited a reputable American supply in saying that the US gave up a beneficial alternative to demilitarise the South China Sea, no Western journal or media channel has reported this necessary reality. This is a concrete instance of how the Western media can’t be trusted to be truthful and goal in its reporting.
Unfortunately, China is definitely changing into extra assertive because it rises. However, it isn’t changing into aggressive. There is a crucial distinction. As America was rising within the late nineteenth century, it grew to become extra aggressive. I illustrate the distinction between an assertive China and an aggressive America, utilizing Professor Graham Allisons evaluation, inHas China Won:
As China turns into an increasing number of highly effective, it’s going to, like all nice powers, assert its energy and affect. Just as Americas neighbors in Latin America needed to adapt and alter to American energy because it exploded within the late nineteenth century, Chinas neighbors can even must adapt and alter. But China won’t resort to army means as its first expression of energy. This is why Graham Allison correctly reminded his fellow Americans to watch out in wishing that China can be extra like us:
Americans get pleasure from lecturing Chinese to be extra like us. Perhaps they need to be extra cautious what they need for. Historically how have rising hegemons behaved? To be extra particular, how did Washington act simply over a century in the past when Theodore Roosevelt led the US into what he was supremely assured can be an American century? In the last decade that adopted his arrival in Washington, the US declared battle on Spain, expelling it from the Western Hemisphere and buying Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; threatened Germany and Britain with battle except they agreed to settle the disputes on American phrases; supported an revolt in Colombia to create a brand new nation, Panama, so as to construct a canal; and declared itself the policeman of the Western Hemisphere, asserting the fitting to intervene every time and wherever it judged vital a proper it exercised 9 occasions within the seven years of TRs presidency alone (pp.88-89).
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an initiative during which international locations are each free to hitch and free to go away. While it’s China-led and initiated, the BRI tasks are undertaken in collaboration with the host nation. It is just not enforced upon it. Professors Deborah Brautigam of Johns Hopkins and Meg Rithmire of Harvard have finished intensive analysis to come back to the conclusion that the BRI doesn’t entail any debt entice diplomacy. They are unequivocal when theywrite, Our analysis exhibits that Chinese banks are keen to restructure the phrases of current loans and have by no means really seized an asset from any nation. Sadly, the Western media has flooded the world with jaundiced narratives on the BRI. If BRI was actually so horrible, why have over 150 international locations voluntarily utilized to hitch the BRI?
What is a very powerful recommendation you might give to younger students of International Relations?
Young students of worldwide relations ought to transcend finding out simply worldwide relations, the topic and its theories, alone. They also needs to examine historical past, notably Asian historical past. A data of Chinese, Indian and Southeast Asian historical past will assist students view the return of Asia in its bigger context. Similarly, students also needs to examine philosophy, each Western and Eastern. This will allow them to view the world from various prisms: the Western, which frequently sees the world in black and white; and the Eastern, which frequently regards the world in a extra nuanced vogue.
Getting a grasp of Asian historical past and philosophy will allow students to make use of each Western and Eastern ideas to know our world higher.
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AsiaChinaDecolonisationGlobal Power RelationsGlobal SouthMultipolarity