Living the Asian Century by Kishore Mahbubani

The book chronicles the life of Prof. Kishore Mahbubani who was two time President of United Nations Security Council, Singapore's top diplomat, and a Professor and Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School), National University of Singapore.

As the author says, it is an 'undiplomatic memoir' of his life.

Author's childhood

The author talks about his childhood when he grew up poor and malnourished in a colony of British Empire in Singapore of 1950's and 1960's.

"It’s clear that while I lived with material deprivation, I was absorbing cultural richness. Unknowingly and unwittingly, I was inhaling the vapours of three of the most dynamic and resilient Asian civilisations: Indian, Islamic, and Chinese. This was an extraordinary privilege. Through this direct exposure, I could intuitively and unconsciously absorb the deeper thought patterns and cultural drives of these rich cultures, which together make up half of the world’s population."

The author stresses the need for "material deprivation" and "absorbing cultural richness" via cultural immersion in various cultures which contributed to his development.

Interesting stories

On psychological relief: "The arrival of the first flush toilet at 179 Onan Road was a transformational moment in my childhood. It wasn’t just about the physical experience, pleasant as it was. It was also about the sense of improved dignity. I had always felt ashamed of living in a house without a flush toilet. The psychological relief was as important as the material or physical improvement."

On books, reading, and concentration: "According to Jeffery, “Nothing could shake his formidable concentration on his book or his homework, be it TV blaring, loud Bollywood Indian music playing, sisters’ shouting or his mother’s constant attempts to lecture him about life.” My mother complained exasperatedly to Jeffery, “My son never listens to me. Whatever I say goes in one ear and comes out the other ear. When I get upset, he just says, ‘What, what did you say?’” In this, she was only partly right: in fact, her words never got as far as one ear and certainly did not escape the other. I just blocked everything out.

Jeffery was absolutely right about the books, though: during my childhood, I was completely absorbed in them. They provided a place of safety, a place to satisfy my curiosity and fire my imagination."

"The books transported us to magical places."

"The process of classifying five thousand books was a good learning experience. It made me aware of the breadth of knowledge that humankind had accumulated. My lifelong love of books became even stronger."

On role of community: "the Sindhi community was much more vital for my mother. It was the root of her resilience and gave her a sense of who she was. One reason was that it allowed her not to feel completely lonely and isolated in “foreign” Singapore."

"I ended up with ambivalent and conflicted feelings about my Sindhi identity. On the one hand, I carry some resentment over the local Sindhis’ lack of support in our family’s darkest moments. On the other hand, they provided an ecosystem that nurtured my mother’s belief in herself. Moreover, without the worldwide diaspora of her Sindhi relatives, many of whom supported us, we would have suffered much more."

On importance of aesthetics: "studying and working in beautiful buildings can enhance one’s sense of well-being."

On importance of values, integrity, and compassion: "the school had a value system of integrity and compassion that seeped into our veins."

"Hence, in addition to the aura of physical well-being that we received from the beautiful premises, we were blessed with a spiritual aura emanating from the values and kind personality of Francis Thomas. Looking back, I rate these two years as among the happiest of my life."

On Singapore's independence in 1965: "Since the leaders of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, Toh Chin Chye, Goh Keng Swee, and S. Rajaratnam, were convinced that the tiny island could not possibly survive without its natural Malayan hinterland, they had persuaded the then reluctant PM of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman, to accept Singapore into the federation, together with the distant states of Sabah and Sarawak."

"The main priority of the dominant Malay elite in KL was to preserve the Malay domination of the political system and particularly to ensure that the Chinese minority, who already dominated the economic system, didn’t take over the political system too. By contrast, the Singaporean political elite declared that they believed in the principle of a “Malaysian Malaysia” where all races were treated equally and the leader was chosen on the basis of merit, not race. There couldn’t have been two more contrasting visions. Hence, the whole experiment of Singapore joining Malaysia was doomed to failure almost from the beginning."

"I remember walking around aimlessly in my neighbourhood, seeing the depressed, even frightened faces of our neighbours. We all had a common feeling: Singapore was doomed after separation since a city couldn’t possibly survive alone without any hinterland. Many countries celebrate their independence with parades and massive fireworks. There was absolutely no sense of celebration on the day that Singapore became independent in 1965. The despondency was shared equally among all the ethnic groups."

On getting a break: "Then one of the greatest miracles of my life happened. The Singaporean government offered me a President’s Scholarship, offering to pay me S$250 a month to study at the then University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore [NUS]). To the best of my knowledge, I hadn't applied for this scholarship, nor had I applied to the University of Singapore since I couldn’t afford to study there. So when the scholarship came, I had to scramble and apply to join the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS). My mother encouraged me to go to the University of Singapore for one simple reason: the S$250 a month I would get from the President's Scholarship was more than the S$150 I was earning as a fabric salesman."

"It remains a mystery to me why or how I received the scholarship. My academic results were good —I got three As in my main subjects—but not outstanding. Since I had never succeeded in being accepted to Singapore’s premier school, Raffles Institution, it’s surprising that my academic results led to my getting an even higher honour, the President’s Scholarship."

On work: "In Singapore, in the first six years after gaining our precarious independence, Lee Kuan Yew continually emphasised that the only way for Singapore to survive was for its people to 'work, work, work.' The Australian attitude seemed to be “Why work?”."

On diplomacy and alcohol: "When I arrived in the office feeling the effects of a bad hangover, my personal assistant reminded me that I needed to write my weekly report on the latest developments in Cambodia, as the weekly diplomatic bag would leave for Singapore in a few hours. Even though my brain was hazy, I managed to scribble a report. I have no idea what I said in it, but a few days later, I received a cable from the Foreign Ministry saying that they had found my report illuminating and had sent it to the Cabinet. This episode confirmed that alcohol and diplomacy go well together."

On lesson in geopolitics:"small states can suffer enormously if they fail to understand the great power contests taking place in their neighbourhood."

The author quotes Greek historian Thucydides: "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

"This is why the three founding leaders of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and S. Rajaratnam, were die-hard geopolitical realists. They had no illusions about the nature of power. Great powers will always put their interests ahead of principle in dealing with small states."

On corruption and incompetence bringing down countries: "Like most military puppets installed by CIA coups, Lon Nol proved to be an incompetent ruler. In the space of three years, his government lost a massive amount of territory to the Khmer Rouge. There were many reasons for this failure. Corruption was one."

"Each week, brave US pilots flew into the dangerous Phnom Penh airport to deliver fresh supplies of artillery shells to Lon Nol’s generals. These generals would then drive truckloads of artillery shells out of the city to sell them to the Khmer Rouge for US dollars in cash. The shelling could thus take place continuously."

On Singapore's financial reserves: "Goh’s frugality helps to explain one of the most extraordinary miracles that Singapore has achieved. For a country with no natural resources, and indeed with so little land, it is extraordinary that Singapore’s financial reserves are among the largest in the world. The total reserves are a secret, probably because if the actual amount were known, it would stun everyone. None of our leaders have spoken about the size of our reserves except Lee Kuan Yew, who said in 2001, when he was senior minister, that we had over US$100 billion invested all over the world. He said that Singapore’s huge reserves make speculators think twice about attacking the Singapore dollar."

On building diplomatic and functional relationship between countries: "a certain degree of calm and rationality in the bilateral relationship."

On tools of diplomacy: "As ambassador to the UN, I would tell my staff in the UN mission that we, the Singaporean diplomats, had only three resources on which to draw: reason, logic, and charm."

"The other important lesson I learned in my first posting as ambassador to the UN is that people appreciate authenticity. It’s important to be oneself and not pretend to be someone else."

On United Nations: "The strongest criticism of the UN, which has even now taken hold in many Western minds, is that the UN, especially the UNGA, is a mere “talk-shop.” But that’s the whole point of the UNGA."

"In theory, the US government was committed to stronger multilateral institutions. In practice, it was always trying to weaken them, especially by starving them of funding."

"This was an undeniable truth. It was also an undeniable truth that the two great superpowers of the day at that time, the United States and Soviet Union, disagreed on almost everything but agreed that the UN should always have a weak secretary-general. "

"While everyone in the UN knew that the two superpowers agreed that only spineless individuals should be selected for secretary-general, no one could state this truth publicly."

On multi-lateralism: "As a small state, Singapore is protected by multilateral rules and institutions. As a great power, the United States is constrained by them."

"Hence, while Singapore wants to strengthen the UN, the United States wants to weaken it. This clearly means that the United States and Singapore start from opposing positions."

On Lee Kuan Yew: "This was one of the important secrets I learned about Lee Kuan Yew. While he didn’t react well to public criticisms (and often refuted them strongly), he was a very good listener in private."

"He never wanted us to sugarcoat negative feedback in private. He was strong and confident enough to hear it all."

On hard-truths: "It’s critical for Singaporeans to know that Singapore’s exceptional success was due to the fact that its founding fathers were remarkably tough-minded —indeed, even brutal—in their analysis of people and situations. They were not softhearted in any way and would view with total scorn the culture of political correctness that has swept the world of Western politicians today. They belonged to the group who insisted on calling a spade “a bloody shovel.” They didn’t mince their words, and they believed that Singapore would suffer if its leaders engaged in self-deception. They were interested only in hard truths."

"My many close encounters with these three founding fathers, Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and S. Rajaratnam, transformed my life. They fundamentally overturned my worldview. I went from being a “pacifist” (who was thrown out of the office of Goh Keng Swee) to a “hard-nosed realist” who saw that the world of international affairs was a jungle. Indulging in idealist fantasies could prove to be fatal for a small state like Singapore."

On geopolitics: "I learned that geopolitics is an art, not a science. Yet they also followed some key principles. Their key goal for Singapore, as a small state, was always to create more geopolitical space between it and its two large neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia. This would help to ensure that we were not bullied by them and that we could take independent foreign policy positions that differed from theirs, such as inviting the president of Israel to visit Singapore.

To do so, we had to deliver exceptionally good domestic governance, which we did. In addition, we had to have closer ties with the great powers that mattered to our region. In the 1980s, US power was clearly the dominant force in our neighbourhood. Hence, despite the ups and downs in our relationship with the United States, we always remained closer to the United States than to any of our neighbours."

On his insecurities: "The only boss of mine who had shared his criticism with me was Peter Chan, who had called me a deeply insecure person when I was his deputy secretary. Of course, I resented this description, but after I reflected on it, I realised that there was some truth to it. Given all the poverty, uncertainty, and insecurity that I had experienced in my childhood, and since I hadn’t had a privileged background, my insecurity was probably a normal reaction."

"Those insecurities had been concealed behind my very self-confident—at times excessively self-confident—outward personality. It was my mother who had taught me how to hide my insecurities. When I was a child, she had told me and my sisters that even though we were poor, we must not reveal it or complain about it. In her words, “Even if you are feeling hungry, don’t show it. Put butter on your lips and smile.” Implicitly, she was also saying, “Never be a beggar.” For a large part of my life, I walked around with deep insecurities while smiling with metaphorical butter on my lips to give the impression that all was well."

"I found myself wondering whether my ambition too was a defence mechanism against the poverty of my upbringing. I was a striver; I had had to be in order to provide for my mother since I was a boy. I had never lost the reflex because I had no wish to slide back towards the poverty of my youth."

"Having grown up poor, I also felt a deep moral obligation to take care of the people at the very bottom of society, as that was where I had come from. On the first day that I became permanent secretary, I took a lift down from my office on the thirty-eighth floor of the building in Raffles City to the lower levels (probably six to ten stories) where most of the officers were. I decided that I should meet everyone in the office, from the senior officers to the cleaners; from the heads of departments to the clerks. Whenever I could, I thanked them for being part of the team. I may have been the first permanent secretary who had done so. I was committed to improving the morale of all the staff who reported to me."

On training new diplomats: "It took years, probably a decade or more, to train a good diplomat. Little of this education could take place in a classroom. Instead, young officers had to be pushed off the deep end and sent to overseas postings. I had learned a lot from being posted to KL and Phnom Penh. Indeed, I was amazed that quite often, a shy and withdrawn young officer sent overseas would return home as a self-confident and articulate diplomat. The transformations could be dramatic."

On 'all of government' approach: "There was a good reason for sharing the Cabinet papers with the permanent secretaries: it made them aware that they should take an “all of government” approach to solving problems. They could only do this if they knew what other branches of the government were doing."

On importance of writing well: "My mind was truly blown by the brilliance of some of these Cabinet papers. The quality was amazing. The years of hard work put in by the first generation of political leaders, especially Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee, in emphasising the importance of good writing had paid off. As a young civil servant, I remember Lee Kuan Yew convening a meeting of civil servants and sharing with them a book called The Complete Plain Words by Ernest Gowers. This book emphasised the effectiveness of short, sharp sentences and the importance of brevity."

"The main goal of the paper was to weigh the pros and cons of each potential approach to solving a problem. All pages had to end with a clear and strong recommendation. We were never allowed to be two-handed economists, saying “on the one hand” and “on the other hand.”"

"It’s a real pity that none of these papers have been declassified and shared, especially with young Singaporeans, who are unaware of the depth of consideration that the first generation of Singapore’s political leaders gave to both the issues of their day and to planning for a future that would outlast them."

MPH, the secret to Singapore's good governance

MPH: Meritocracy, Pragmatism, and Honesty

"Pragmatism was about the willingness to learn best practices from any source anywhere in the world. Goh Keng Swee said to me, “Kishore, no matter what problem Singapore encounters, somebody somewhere has encountered it before. Let’s find out how they solved it. Then we can adapt their solution for Singapore.” As I told the students, Singapore had succeeded by becoming the best copycat nation in the world."

"Honesty was always the hardest principle to implement. As I had written in an essay titled “The Ten Commandments for Developing Countries in the Nineties” in 1990, “Thou shalt acknowledge that corruption is the single most important cause for failures in development.” The three founding fathers of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, Goh Keng Swee, and S. Rajaratnam, were exceptionally incorruptible. Hence, they set very high standards of probity that we were all expected to follow."

Singapore's success is not easy to replicate.

"High standards of honesty have served Singapore well. However, they are not easy to implement. I heard a sad story of what happened to a graduate of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy when he returned to his Central Asian country. He had decided to implement the principle of meritocracy in an organisation that he was chosen to lead. He promoted the best officers, and he released a few nonperformers. Unfortunately, one of the nonperformers he released was related to the country’s president. As a result, this graduate of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy lost his job because he had tried to implement the “secret” formula of Singapore's success in a society that did not recognise the core principles behind it."

Wars and geopolitics

"The experience of war in Cambodia instinctively taught me a lesson I came to grasp later in life: wars are a result of geopolitical incompetence, peace a result of geopolitical competence. Recent wars, like the Iraq war, the Ukraine war, and the Gaza war, all confirm this. All three could have been avoided if the leaders in question had paid attention to fundamental geopolitical realities."



"It has been my joy to live the Asian dream and perhaps contribute a little to the realisation of the Asian century.

It is truly heartening to realise that the path I have trodden from poverty to plenty, from ignorance to education and intellectual curiosity, will now be replicated by millions, if not billions, of fellow Asians. To have been a pioneer in this great Asian renaissance has been one of the greatest privileges, and fulfilments, of my life."







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