Despite his admiration for China following its economic reforms under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, Mahbubani believes China is set to go through a “very difficult patch over the next 10 to 20 years” regardless of who wins the November election in the US.
In his interview on Saturday with This Week in Asia, Mahbubani said: “There’s a rock-solid consensus in Washington that the US probably has 10 to 15 years to stop China and so they will go all out. Many in the US have realised that if China becomes the No. 1 economy that they’ve in some ways lost the game.”
He added: “This will be a real test for China.”
Mahbubani, whose postings with the Singapore foreign affairs ministry included stints in Cambodia, Malaysia and the US, predicts that Asean will be “rocked” by this contest and feel pressure from both superpowers. The bloc can only protect itself by staying united, he said.
The veteran diplomat turned academic was Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations between 1984 and 1989, and again between 1998 and 2004. In his second stint, he was the President of the United Nations Security Council between 2001 and 2002.
Many wars, including the latest in Ukraine and Gaza, “could have been avoided if more attention had been paid to the underlying geopolitical stresses and strains in these areas”, he argues in his memoir, which was launched last Thursday at The Fullerton Hotel.
Asked about the Israel-Gaza war, Mahbubani said: “The wisest thing that Israel should do is go for a two-state solution and at least give the Palestinians some kind of home.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Mahbubani describes as having a cordial relationship with in his memoir, will not countenance the idea. “Bibi Netanyahu doesn’t want it. Bibi is a very suave politician. Verbally he says he is in favour of a two-state solution, functionally he isn’t.”
Despite these conflicts, Mahbubani still sees the US-China contest as the biggest challenge facing the world in the next decade.
“Gaza is not going to affect the world as much except insofar as it turns public opinion against the United States. The State Department diplomats know that this conflict is undermining the standing of the US in the world because the US is not doing anything to restrain Israel,” he said.
While reviews of his book have been largely positive, a scathing review by Wall Street Journal veteran British journalist Tunku Varadarajan says that “the very drive and ambition that propelled [Mahbubani] forward often leads him to capsize into pomposity”.
On Mahbubani’s observation that Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was hostile towards him after the veteran diplomat was named in a list of the world’s most influential public thinkers by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines three years before Lee, Varadarajan wrote: “Was the most powerful man in Singapore’s history envious of the highflying upstart? Who can really know? But for Mr. Mahbubani to think so tells us as much about his excess of self-regard as it does about his lack of self-awareness.”
Of these criticisms, Mahbubani said: “I feel sorry for [Varadarajan] because his mind is fossilised in the era of Anglo-Saxon supremacy. I think most Asians react with great incredulity that people from countries that elect Donald Trump and Boris Johnson don’t want to learn about countries that are producing good leaders.”
He has denied saying that Lee was jealous of him and said that he is merely questioning the timing of Lee’s public hostility towards him, which his peers have also pointed out.
“I confess I’m not a perfect human being, I do confess that I have flaws, they’re all in the book,” Mahbubani said.
In the memoir, he recalls the failure of his first marriage, “pages and pages of negative comments” by bosses in the foreign ministry, including one boss who called him a “deeply insecure person” and not getting into the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) despite being asked to join.
In his final interview with the PAP, which Mahbubani describes as a “shelling”, he recalls Lee asking him, “Why don’t you have any friends?”
Despite the multiple takedowns by Lee scattered throughout the book, which Mahbubani says is a badge of honour in Singapore’s public service, he speaks glowingly of Lee and the country’s other founding fathers, including Goh Keng Swee and S. Rajaratnam.
After Lee stepped down as prime minister, he called on Mahbubani and veteran diplomats Tommy Koh and Chan Heng Chee to lunch every two to three months to better understand the US.
Mahbubani recalls Lee’s big appetite for fruits over these lunches but more crucially the stark difference in his persona behind closed doors.
“When he was in private, he was in a learning mode and a very good listener. In fact, he wanted you to disagree with him because he wanted to know if you have a different point of view and could explain why,” Mahbubani said.
“Whenever I had a conversation with him, I felt like he’s two or three steps ahead of me. I knew that I was dealing with a geopolitical genius.”