Kishore Mahbubani is a Singaporean diplomat and scholar. A former President of the UN Security Council, his work examines the geopolitics of Asia's return to the global centre stage.
For centuries, Western powers dominated the global order and mistook that moment for permanence. Join Former President of the UN Security Council. Kishore Mahbubani, who argues the shift now underway is not upheaval but historical rebalancing. Asian and other non-Western societies are not “rising” but returning to their natural weight in world affairs. The danger lies in Western refusal to accept this reality. The West's clinging to primacy is distorting policy and fueling conflict.
"Arguably Asia's most influential thinker." - Martin Wolf
Foreign. Good morning everyone. This is my first time at the how the Light Gets in festival and my first speech. So you can see I'm very nervous. But anyway, as you know, in the west, especially in Americans and British, you start the talk, you make a joke. I come from Asia and in Asia we always begin with an But this is actually a genuine apology and I sincerely want to apologize to you all if my talk makes you feel uncomfortable. And the problem here is that if I don't make you uncomfortable and if I don't take you out of your comfort zones, you won't understand the world that's coming. The world that is coming is so far outside your comfort zones that you really got to, in a sense, suffer a bit of pain if you're going to understand it. So the way I propose to organize my remarks today is to try and give you a glimpse of the new world that's emerging. And I'll talk in the first part about how we are seeing firstly of course, the end of the era of Western domination of world history. The west has had a very good run, 200 years plus of global domination, which is fun, but that's over.
And it's important to understand why it's over, what happened, what did the west do wrong? And then the second part about basically what you're seeing is a new multi civilizational world where you're seeing the return of other civilizations. And that's of course going to change the texture and chemistry of our world significantly. And I'm going to focus, although in that section mostly on China, because China is now the leading edge of new world. And if you don't understand China, you don't understand new world is coming. Right? And then I'm going to talk about what you might see therefore as we move into this new world. What kind of scenarios can we expect? How will we stumble into this new world that's coming? So let me then begin by talking about why the west has lost its way. And I want to just begin by making a slightly provocative statement that the west has, in global terms become a lonely narcissistic civilization, self absorbed in itself, very happy with itself and therefore with this narcissism has blinded itself to the mistakes that it has made in dealing with, with the rest of the world.
And I want to begin the story in some ways with the end of the Cold War in 1990, because I mean, I'm sure you all remember how the west celebrated how happy the west was that it defeated the Soviet Union without firing a shot. And the west thought, hey, we have arrived. And you even believed, this is amazing. Almost everyone in the Best believed that you had reached the end of history. Hooray, we don't have to struggle anymore. We've made it. We made it to the top. We've achieved these liberal democratic societies, which are the best societies in the world. We succeeded. We have made it. The rest of you, the rest of the world, you got to struggle. We don't have to struggle. And one statistic that I'm surprised that so few in the west are aware of is that the west only makes up 12% of the world's population.
12%, 88% lives outside the West. And the west crazily assumed at that moment of history, when it reached the end of history, that the rest of the west would come and become replicas of the West. Copy you, follow you, and become like you. I'm sure you'll all agree that that's a somewhat arrogant assumption on the part of the west. But that arrogance dominated the worldview of all the Western intellectuals at that time. I know it so well because by an accident of history, I spent a year in Harvard in 91, 92, and I drowned in that arrogance that I could feel about how the west had arrived and succeeded. And the rest of you poor chaps, you know, get used to it, adjust to it, move on. So the reason why that arrogance at that point was a major strategic mistake, because that arrogance put the west to sleep at precisely the moment when the other civilization decided to wake up. So you close your eyes when the rest of the world was waking up. And remember, China had started its four modernizations program in 1979, and by 1989, 1990 was gaining a lot of momentum. And then India also woke up around the early 1990s as a result of crisis. By the way, in both cases, China went through major crisis and said, okay, enough is enough. Time for us to get sensible and do the right thing. India went through major crisis and said, enough is enough. Let's do the right thing. And of course, what you've seen since then, in the case of the Chinese, the Chinese civilization has been around for 4,000 years.
And the last 40 years of economic and social development in China have been the best 40 years in 4,000 years of Chinese history. And the west said, cannot be. They're not like us. They cannot be succeeding. Right, because you assume to succeed you must be liberal, democratic. So that clearly, that's why I think the end of the history moment was a disastrous moment for the West. Because they put the west to sleep at precisely the moment when the west was waking up. But there was another major strategic mistake that the west made once it felt that, okay, we are number one, we can run the world, we can do what we want to do. And of course the west, or west, many in the west believe that the most peaceful, law abiding civilization in the world is Western civilization.
But if you look at the data, the west became trigger happy and started getting involved in wars after wars, the last 30 over years. The west decided that the best way to spread liberty is to bomb cities. Bombing is the best way to spread democracy and liberalism and the rest of the world. Notice that this happened, that you had become trigger happy. Of course, it started in the late 1990s when of course you thought you were doing the right thing. You're trying to protect the people of the former Yugoslavia. And the way you do that is by bombing Belgrade. And incidentally, curiously, many in the west believe that. The west of course always abides by international law. The bombing of Belgrade was a violation of international law.
International law makes it very clear. This is Western International Law, 1945, UN rules based order, Western international law that says that use of force is justified when it's either an act of self defense or if it's authorized by the UN Security Council. The bombing of Belgrade was not an act of self defense, not authorized by the UN Security Council and therefore illegal. And it's interesting because the west always believes in the rule of law. I can tell you when a Western prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia tried just to say, should we ask the question whether the bombing of Belgrade was legal or illegal? The amount of pressure put on that prosecutor was phenomenal. Again, many in the west did notice this, but the rest of the world noticed this.
And that. Of course, that trigger happy strain didn't stop at Yugoslavia. It carried on with the Iraq war in 2003. And clearly that war was illegal. It was not an act of self defense, not authorized by UN Security Council. And by the way, I know perfectly well it wasn't authorized by the UN Security Council. Because I was a member of the UN Security Council myself personally, for two years. I watched the debates and I watched whether or not the United States and UK pushing very hard to get the rest of the world to agree that time had come to remove Saddam Hussein. The rest of the world said, no, this is not legal. And by the way, curiously, one interesting thing about the Iraq war that is worth noting and remembering is that two of the best friends of the United States and the United Kingdom, two countries called France and Germany actually opposed the war and did say to us and uk, this is a mistake, don't do this, this is a mistake. And of course they were shoved aside because there was total conviction that what the US was doing in spreading democracy was the right thing. What stunned me, by the way, sometimes the little stories that give you an indication of how people think. I thought that this desire for war was probably limited to the neocons, a tribe that's called the neocons in America, by the way, who always believed that the best solution is American military intervention.
But I happened to be in New York in 2002, attending a wonderful lunch in a very exclusive club in New York. And I was sitting next to a very successful American businessman. And as we were sat down for lunch, Feiu Ving served wine. And when the waiter came to pour wine, this gentleman asked the waiter, is this French wine? The waiter said, yes. He said, I'm not touching French wine. They're opposing our war in Iraq. That to me was a huge wake up call. Gosh, this desire for war is so deep, so entrenched in the West. But Iraq war, as you know, was not the last war. There could have been lessons learned. War crimes were committed in Iraq and at the same time, subsequently, when you intervene in Libya, right, that was also a major war crime.
I mean, Gaddafi was a dictator, let's be clear about that. There's no doubt that he was a dictator. But under him, the Libyan people had the best lives of anybody in Africa. They had guaranteed income, granted healthcare, granted education, granted peace, they led good lives. And then you bombed Gaddafi, the country collapsed, the west created a failed state and just walked away. And the rest of the world noticed. So, I mean, there's so little reflection in the west of how many people have you killed, how many lives have you destroyed by becoming so trigger happy after the end of the Cold War. But I can tell you that was a mistake that prevented you also from seeing what was happening. And of course, the third strategic mistake that the west made was to continue to try and dominate the world.
I think most ordinary citizens in the west are not aware of what your leaders, what your diplomats are trying to do in trying to preserve Western control of the world and in often using methods and principles that in theory go against Western principles. Okay? I mean, for example, you believe in meritocracy. You believe that if anyone should be chosen to run an organization, you should be the best possible person. It doesn't matter whether he's white or black or Asian or African. Doesn't matter if he's the best person, we pick him. Right now, two of the world's most important international economic organizations are the IMF and the World Bank. In theory, they serve the world. So anybody in the world should qualify to run the IMF and the World Bank.
And I can tell you at one moment when the west felt very vulnerable at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, when people in the US and Europe began to think, what's happening to us? What's happening to us? When you suddenly needed the rest of the world to come together to save the world economy, you had a G20 meeting in the UK chaired by Gordon Brown, and you sat at that meeting. From now on, the leaders of IMF and the World bank must be chosen on merit. 2008 is 18 years ago. 18 years have passed. Even now, to become the head of the imf, you must be a European. Become the head of the World bank, you must be an American. And 88% of the world's population don't qualify to run a world's institution. Now that is so unwise, so unwise. These are supposed to be global institutions. Why do you insist that only Westerners can run it? Why do you say only 12% of the world can run the world's institutions?
Clearly, these are decisions made by your leaders. And all these decisions will come to haunt you as the world changes now. So let me turn to part two and to talk about the new multi civilizational world and why the rest of the 88% who in many ways accepted Western domination, are no longer going to do so. And the first re emergence of a strong human civilization, of course, is Chinese civilization. And as I mentioned earlier, from the Chinese people's point of view, the past 40 years of economic social development have been the best 40 years of economic and social development. And one would have thought that the west would of course celebrate the fact, hey, the Chinese people are thriving, they are flourishing. We should celebrate instead.
The reality is that even though China is succeeding and thriving, if you pick up the Anglo Saxon media and read about China, you will just see the constant demonization of China as an evil communist regime running China. And there's no doubt that China is run by the Communist Party of China. But the goal of the Communist Party of China is not to revive Communism. The goal of the Chinese Communist Party is to revive the great Chinese civilization. But as you know, in geopolitics, what you need to do to justify what you have to What?
When you have to take stands against a competitor, you have to demonize the competitor. And that's why when the House of Representatives of the United States Congress set up a committee and said, this is a committee to manage the strategic competition between the United States of America and the Communist Party of China. But the real competition is not against the Communist Party of China. The real competition is with the Chinese civilization that has decided to come back at this moment. And again, what's amazing is that so few in the west are aware that Chinese civilization for most of human history has performed as well as the West. Again, it's only in the last 200 years that China, and also India, by the way, fell behind.
But that falling behind was an aberration. And it's interesting that many in the west believe that. Your job, of course, is to try and promote democracy in China. And you ask that and you say, why can't the Chinese accept this great Western gift of democracy to China? The reason the Chinese are suspicious is that when they were very weak and defenseless, you didn't try to feed democracy to them. You stuff their mouths with opium. You forced China to accept opium in return for Chinese tea. In 1842, the Chinese learned a very powerful lesson. When you are weak, the west will take advantage of you. Now that they are strong and successful, the west wants to export democracy to them. And if the Chinese are not suspicious, there will be something dramatically wrong with the Chinese. They know that whatever, that as China becomes stronger, it is perceived to be more and more as a threat to the West. And what the west will try to do is therefore try to weaken China rather than strengthen China.
And so at the same time, just to emphasize how this. What the forces that are driving this re emergence of China. And so maybe I should just give you one point of data so you understand how dramatically power is shifting in the world. By the way, in the year 2000, when the 21st century opened, the combined GNP of the European Union was seven times bigger than China. Seven times. Today they are about the same size. By 2050, the European Union will be half the size of China. Believe me, such major structural shifts of history don't happen that often. We just happen to be living at a time of major structural shifts that are happening. And remarkably, as that is happening, one would logically assume that the European Union would then learn to be a bit more modest in speaking to China.
Instead, it's for the rest of the world. It's absolutely amazing to see the leaders of the European Union, like Elizabeth, wonder Leyen, like Kaia Kallas, make these incredibly condescending dismissive remarks about China. I think just two days ago Kaya Kallas, the Foreign Minister of the European Union, called China cancer, cancer. And it's important to understand why do people behave like that in the west towards China? There are deeper roots and there's one thing that nobody wants to talk about, but which is a real factor in this new world. And this real factor is something that is deeply buried in the Western mind, the fear of the yellow pedal. Now you can say, oh come on, we are so rational and educated and we're not going to be subject to such fears of the yellow petal. But he's been around in Western literature, in Fu Manchu, in various other figures, and there's one statistic, one important historical fact I point out. 130 years ago the United States Congress passed an act and the name of the act was the Chinese Racial Exclusion Act.
130 years ago, why? Fear of the yellow petal. So as a result of all these factors, the west has decided to completely misunderstand China and not see what is emerging is just the re emergence of a great civilization returning to its normal place in the world and therefore creating the multi civilizational world that is coming. So what's going to happen over the next 20 to 30 years as we try to adjust to this new world that is coming? And as far as I see, as you guys know, no one can see the future. Okay, I mean just to give you just a simple example why you can't see The Future on February 28, that's about less than three months ago when the United States and Israel decided to bomb Iran.
Iran was completely defenseless, couldn't shoot down a single American plane, couldn't shoot down a single Israeli plane. And I thought game sat match, everything is over. Iran will collapse in three to four days and US and Israel will win. Right? That would be the logical, rational thing to anticipate. Isn't it hard to believe that the result today is almost the exact opposite? That this defenseless country, just by seizing one's traits, has now rebalanced the world order. Small example from a relatively weak defenseless country. But of course people forget the most important thing about Iran, which is important to bear in mind about this new world that's coming. At the end of the day, the Persian civilization is one of the greatest civilizations of world history. They've been around only for 3,000 years and they have suffered so many near death moments and overcame them. The mistake was to underestimate Persian civilization. And by the way, underestimating Chinese civilization, therefore, is a much, much bigger mistake. It's a different scale.
So where are we going to go? Well, number one, one possible outcome is that the west, led by the United States, will apply maximum pressure to try and stop the rise of China. This is not an illusion on my part. I go to Washington D.C. enough, and the Washington D.C. as a capital is deeply divided. The Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on anything. But the one thing they agree on. It's time to stop the rise of China. So one scenario which is quite possible is that the US and the west will step up its efforts to stop the rise of China. And that, as you can well imagine, will mean a very uncomfortable world for us. And that will lead to lots of consequences and so on and so forth.
But I hope that one note of caution that everyone in the west should be aware of is that unlike in the Cold War, when the United States carried out a successful containment policy of the Soviet Union, many countries joined the west in containing the Soviet Union. Including Third World countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Congo, all joined the West. This time around, the rest of the world is not going to join the west in trying to contain China. So I always tell my American friends, think twice. Your efforts to stop the rise of China are not going to succeed. But nonetheless, there's at least a 20% chance that this maximum pressure will continue. The most likely scenario, for which I give odds of 60%, is that in one way, the world will, as usual, muddle through.
That's how often happens. I mean, there's no question that the United States maybe after Trump. You know, the strange thing about the Trump administration is that the Trump administration is hawkish on China, but the least hawkish member of the Trump administration is President Donald Trump. His recent visit to China was amazing, how pragmatic he was in his behavior towards China. And he's actually created a better world. So for the next at least 6 to 12 months, we'll have relative stability thanks to his pragmatic policies towards China. And of course, I know in this room, no one ever gives President Trump credit for anything, but you have to acknowledge that his pragmatism has been very good for the US Good for China and good for the world, especially for countries in the neighborhood. By the way, I come from Southeast Asia, and for us to having relatively stable relations is good for us between US and China. And of course, the last scenario, for which I give another low probability of 20% is that the west will finally become enlightened and say, yes, let's admit it, the world has changed.
We in the west, we can no longer dominate the world. Why don't we form partnerships with other civilizations, treat them with respect, acknowledge that they are different from us, acknowledge that they will never be like us, but we can live in peace with them. So my hope is that all of you here in this room will spread the enlightened message to the rest of the world. Thank you very
