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.
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.
