Kishore Mahbubani

Kishore Mahbubani PPA
Mahbubani in 2012
President of the United Nations Security Council
In office January 2001 – May 2002
Preceded by	Sergey Lavrov
Succeeded by	Habib Ben Yahia
Singapore Permanent Representative to the United Nations
In office 1998–2004
President	Ong Teng Cheong S. R. Nathan
In office 1984–1989
President	Devan Nair Wee Kim Wee
Personal details
Born	Kishore Mahbubani (1948-10-24) 24 October 1948 Colony of Singapore
Spouses	Gretchen Gustafson ​ ​ (m. 1975, divorced)​ Anne King Markey ​ (m. 1985)​
Children	3
Alma mater	University of Singapore (BA) Dalhousie University (MA)
Occupation	Diplomat academic
Website	mahbubani.net

Kishore Mahbubani PPA (born 24 October 1948) is a Singaporean diplomat and geopolitical consultant who served as Singapore Permanent Representative to the United Nations between 1984 and 1989, and again between 1998 and 2004, and President of the United Nations Security Council between 2001 and 2002.

After stepping down, he remained serving as a senior advisor at the National University of Singapore while engaging in a nine-month sabbatical at various universities, including Harvard University's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute. In 2019, Mahbubani was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Between 2004 and 2017, he served as Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

Early life and education

Mahbubani was born in Singapore to a Sindhi-speaking Hindu family who were displaced from Sindh province during the Partition of India.

He attended Tanjong Katong Technical School and St. Andrew's School before he was awarded the President's Scholarship in 1967 to study at the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore), where he graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours degree in philosophy.

He subsequently went on to complete a Master of Arts degree in philosophy at Dalhousie University in 1976.

Mahbubani was conferred an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Dalhousie University in 1995.

Career

Public service

After his graduation in 1971, Mahbubani joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) as a foreign service officer. His earlier postings included Cambodia, Malaysia and the United States. From 1993 to 1998, he held the position of Permanent Secretary at MFA. Later, he served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. In that role, he served as President of the United Nations Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002.

Academic career

Mahbubani's academic career began when he was appointed as the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He is also a Professor in the Practice of Public Policy. In 2017, he stepped down as Dean. His term as Dean was also marked by controversies, most notably when one of the school's senior academics, Dr Huang Jing, was identified as "an agent of influence of a foreign country" by the Government and expelled.
Several months prior to his resignation, he also drew criticism from Law Minister K Shanmugam and senior diplomats including Ambassador at Large Bilahari Kausikan for one of his commentaries that was published in the Straits Times.
In addition, he was a fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University in 1991–92. He currently also serves on the board of the International Advisory Council at Bocconi.

In October 2024, African School of Governance Foundation (ASGF) appointed him a member of the Governing Board of the newly established African School of Governance (ASG) based in Kigali, Rwanda.

Author

Mahbubani is best known outside Singapore for his books Can Asians Think?, Beyond The Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World, and The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. His articles have appeared in newspapers such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Washington Quarterly, Survival, American Interest, the National Interest, Time, Newsweek, the Financial Times and the New York Times. His latest book, Has China Won?, was published in 2020.

In The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World, Mahbubani describes how the world has seen more positive change in the past 30 years than the past 300 years. By prescribing pragmatic solutions for improving the global order – including a 7-7-7 formula that may finally break the logjam in the United Nations Security Council – Mahbubani maps a road away from the geopolitical contours of the nineteenth century. The book was reviewed, including in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. The Great Convergence was selected as one of the Financial Times' books of 2013 and longlisted for the 2014 Lionel Gelber Prize.

Mahbubani also writes regularly for Singapore's The Straits Times. In the lead up to Singapore's 50th anniversary of independence, he began a series on "big ideas" that he hoped would help Singapore succeed in the following half-century.

Board memberships

Mahbubani continues to serve in boards and councils of several institutions in Singapore, Europe and North America, including the Yale President's Council on International Activities, Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, Indian Prime Minister's Global Advisory Council, Bocconi University's International Advisory Committee, World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on China, and Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize's nominating committee.

Mahbubani also spoke as part of Asian Institute of Finance's Distinguished Speaker Series in 2015 with the title "Can ASEAN re-invent itself?" to over hundreds of financial institution practitioners in Kuala Lumpur.

In 2019, Mahbubani was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Honours

• Public Administration Medal (Gold) (1998)

Mahbubani was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Gold) by the Singapore government in 1998. The Foreign Policy Association Medal was awarded to him in New York in June 2004 with the following opening words in the citation: "A gifted diplomat, a student of history and philosophy, a provocative writer and an intuitive thinker". Mahbubani was also listed as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines in September 2005, and included in the March 2009 Financial Times list of Top 50 individuals who would shape the debate on the future of capitalism. Mahbubani was selected as one of Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2010 and 2011 and one of Prospects top 50 world thinkers in 2014.

The secondary school library of the Tampines campus of the United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA) is named after Mahbubani. He is also a former chair of the UWCSEA foundation.

Personal life

Mahbubani was previously married to Gretchen Gustafson, a journalist and author on 21 June 1975.

Mahbubani later married Anne King Markey on 30 March 1985. When Mahbubani first met Anne, she was part of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and he was serving as the deputy chief of the Singaporean mission in Washington, D.C. The couple has two sons and one daughter.

Mahbubani said in an interview that he enjoys jogging as a way of relaxing and easing his mind. He also has a habit of writing while listening to the music of Mohammed Rafi which his mother often put on the radio when he was a child. He also has a Chinese name, being known as (Chinese: 马凯硕; pinyin: Mǎ Kǎishuò).

In April 2016, Mahbubani suffered severe chest pains while jogging. He later underwent a double heart bypass operation.

Books

• Can Asians Think? Understanding the Divide Between East and West., Steerforth, 2001, ISBN 978-1-58642-033-8; Times Editions; 3rd edition, 2004, ISBN 978-981-232-789-5
• Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World, Perseus Books Group, 2005, ISBN 978-1-58648-268-8
• The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, PublicAffairs, 2008, ISBN 978-1-58648-466-8
• The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World, PublicAffairs, 2013, ISBN 978-1610390330
• Can Singapore Survive?, Straits Times Books, 2015, ISBN 978-9814342971
• The ASEAN Miracle: A Catalyst for Peace, Ridge Books, 2017, ISBN 978-9814722490
• Has the West Lost It? A Provocation, Penguin Books, 2018, ISBN 978-0241312865
• Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy, PublicAffairs, 2020, ISBN 978-1541768130
• The Asian 21st Century, Springer, 2022, ISBN 978-9811668135
• Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir, PublicAffairs, 2024, ISBN 978-1541703049

External links

• Kishore Mahbubani's Official Website – (in English)
• Kishore Mahbubani's Official Website – (in Chinese)
• Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
• Podcast of Kishore Mahbubani discussing "the Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East" at the Shanghai International Literary Festival
• Transcript of interview on VPRO's Tegenlicht (Dutch Television)