Despite their competition, the US and China should ‘behave rationally’, says Kishore Mahbubani, former President of the United Nations Security Council

The geopolitical competition between the world’s two most powerful countries, the United States and China, is expected to continue for years, if not decades. China’s Xi Jinping shows no signs of retiring, while Americans will be heading to the polls in November to select either current vice president Kamala Harris or former president Donald Trump to be their next leader.

Regardless of November’s outcome, Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani believes that the US-China contest is too “baked in” and will be followed by an eventful decade he hopes to see.

“That’s why I’m trying my best to stay alive for the next ten years,” Mahbubani said, adding that he is now 75 years old.

Mahbubani, the two-time Singaporean Representative to the UN and two-time President of the UN Security Council, recently published his tenth book, Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir. While touring Hong Kong to promote his book, he spoke at the FCC alongside President Lee Williamson and commented on the ongoing power struggle between the US and China.

Standing at the FCC podium before an audience of correspondents, diplomats, and associates of various professions, Mahbubani first listed three strengths and two weaknesses each for the US and China when it comes to their ongoing rivalry.

China’s population of 1.4 billion people and their psychological motivation to overcome the Century of Humiliation (1842-1949) were two of the country’s strengths, yet it was China’s status as the world’s oldest and continuous civilisation that Mahbubani highlighted the most.

“This is not a contest against the Communist Party. This is a contest against a 4,000 year old civilisation,” he said.

From his experience, Mahbubani said he finds that many Americans are unaware of this fact, especially those in charge of US foreign policy.

This directly ties into what Mahbubani’s finds to be the first weaknesses of the US: lack of long-term strategy. China’s long history, Mahbubani believes, is able to outlast American diplomacy.

“As the United States applies pressure and imposes sanctions, imposes tariffs on China, the Chinese say, ‘Well, you’ve done this before. We understand what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to dominate us, and we’ll make sure that this time, you don’t succeed,’” he said.

However, Mahbubani believes there are weaknesses in China’s strategies as well. The central government’s alienation of the American business community has removed the country’s internal shield from aggressive US trade policies, said Mahbubani.

Also, China’s population is ageing in parallel with declining birthrates. Mahbubani believes the combination of these factors now forecast a further demographic drop in what was once the world’s most populous country (India now hosts the world’s largest population).

He also figures that the US, with a population of just over 300 million, could outshine China in its ability to attract professional talent from nearly every corner of the world — making this the first US strength that Mahbubani listed.

He noted companies like Google and Microsoft whose CEOs are both originally from India, and even joked about the ambiguous background of Elon Musk, leader of Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly known as Twitter).

These high-profile companies are also unique to the US, a place that Mahbubani described as “the most Darwinian society on Earth.” The consistent competition amongst Americans themselves is what Mahbubani believes leads to the other two strengths he believes that the US has over China: a culture of innovation, and ultimately, becoming the most powerful nation in human history.

Power and — arguably just as important — income are not distributed equally or fairly across the US.

The US’s final weakness, Mahbubani contends, is its metamorphosis into a “functional plutocracy” that has stagnated the financial status of the bottom 50% of Americans for several decades. The alienation of this group, especially the white working class and their “white-lash” against the rising power of racial minorities, is what Mahbubani believes has led to Trump’s election in 2016 and potential re-election in 2024 — which would then make Trump the No. 1 weakness of the US.

In further discussion with President Williamson, Mahbubani explained how Americans’ emotional responses to internal politics have also carried into US-China relations.

Noting past US legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and recurring themes of “yellow peril” in American entertainment, media, and various fictional characters, Mahbubani believes that it’s important to dig deeper into the American psyche and unroot the emotional aspect that continues to affect US policy towards China.

“I’m trying very hard to persuade the United States and China to behave rationally towards each other, but if you are driven by an emotional fear which is deep and dark, then frankly, you may do things that are crazy. That’s why I want to surface this emotional dimension. I want it to be understood, dissected, and analyzed so we can say, ‘Are you seriously being influenced by your emotion or your reason in this contest against China?’” he explained.

Many of Mahbubani’s critics label him as “pro-China” and “anti-US” for his various comments on US-China relations and China’s overall relation with the West. Given these comments and public feedback, Williamson also asked about whether or not Mahbubani believes in the “intrinsic value of democracy” in the current geopolitical climate.

His answer was a clear yes, but not without a few caveats.

“Western liberal democracies today are in serious trouble,” Mahbubani began to explain — another opinion of his that he admitted is not widely accepted by the West.

To him, Mahbubani believes that as society evolves and becomes smarter, people will want more of a say in their government’s decision-making, which will ultimately lead to democracy.

However, he finds the West has ignored warnings from over 2,000 years ago, from Greek philosopher Plato who ultimately rejected democracy due to its ability to usher tyrants and dictators into positions of power. It is precisely this concept that Mahbubani believes led to Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and his ongoing re-election campaign to become 47th President of the US.

“When the West goes through this worship of democracy, it is actually doing democracy a lot of damage because democracy is a very difficult political system to manage,” Mahbubani concluded.

To watch the full discussion between Kishore Mahbubani and Lee Williamson, which covers media, disinformation, and a range of political topics, please visit our YouTube channel: