Kishore Mahbubani, longtime Singaporean diplomat and academic, opens his new memoir with a provocative line: “Blame it on the damn British.” Kishore, who later served as Singapore’s ambassador to the UN and founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, was born to poor migrants in Singapore, studied philosophy on a government scholarship—and from there, somehow got roped into the foreign service.
Kishore was one of the first guests on the show when he joined to speak on Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy, all the way back in October 2020—and he joins us again to talk about his latest book, Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir.
Kishore Mahbubani is a veteran diplomat, student of philosophy, and celebrated author, he is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. His careers in diplomacy and academia have taken him from Singapore’s Chargé d’Affaires to wartime Cambodia and President of the UN Security Council (January 2001, May 2002) to the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2004-2017).
Source: Asian Review of Books Podcast