Kishore Mahbubani was with the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004. He had postings in Cambodia, Malaysia, and Washington DC, and served two stints as Singapore Ambassador to the UN. He also served as President of the UN Security Council in Jan 2001 and May 2002. From 1993 to 1998 he was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry of Singapore. In 2004 he was appointed as the first Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
There was a time when the West could lecture the rest of the world about human rights, but everything changed after Guantanamo, says Mahbubani. The West still remains the gold standard for democracy and human rights, but unless it is honest about torture, it has no right to lecture the rest of the world.
The rest of the world looks at the West and says, "You are the problem," says Kishore Mahbubani. The balance of power has shifted, and it's time that the West gives up its domination of global institutions, from the IMF to the UN Security Council.
Asians are building on the Western "pillars of wisdom" says Mahbubani, the most important of which is meritocracy; and the good news is that the "march to modernity" is spreading across Asia and onwards to the Islamic world.
