US Policy Towards Asia: An Asian Leader's Advice for the Next American President
NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2008 - The spectacular rise of China and India has created new geopolitical realities with far-reaching implications for US foreign policy.
Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Singapore and former Singaporean Ambassador to the United Nations, visited the Asia Society to discuss these realities as they are laid out in his new book The New Asian Hemisphere (PublicAffairs, 2008) and to offer advice to the next American President.
In discussion with Asia Society President Vishakha N. Desai, Professor Mahbubani provided his expert analysis on how the US must engage with Asia given the region's remarkable growth and increasing prominence—politically, militarily, economically, and culturally. Arguing that the US-China relationship will be the single most important relationship of this century, Professor Mahbubani urged the US, in often unsparing terms, to resist insular, protectionist thinking and develop pragmatic and long-term strategies to reach out to Asia.
The conversation also touched on international perceptions of the US presidential candidates, the need for stronger multilateral institutions, and ways the US can improve its moral standing in the world, particularly within Asia's Islamic communities.
Listen on Demand (1 hr., 27 min.)
Kishore Mahbubani's The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East is available from the AsiaStore.