Kishore Mahbubani, the former president of the United Nations Security Council, stated China will dominate this century. Mahbubani declared that the so-called “containment policy” against China would fail, leaving the U.S. isolated from other nations due to its military approach to the “contest” between the countries. He also detailed that China, India, and ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) will become the “growth engines” of the world economy.

Kishore Mahbubani: ‘This 21st Century Will Be the Asian Century’

China and other Asian countries will dominate the 21st century, according to Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani. Mahbutani, who served as President of the United Nations Security Council from January 2001 unit May 2002, believes that a bloc he calls CIA (integrated by China, India, and the ASEAN countries) will become the faster-growing economy in the world in the next decade.

The diplomat detailed that the U.S. is trying to suppress this information by spreading negative news about the state of the Asian economies, ignoring its growth over the last 20 years. In an interview with Global Times, Mahbubani stated:

They always keep telling you stories – why Asia is failing; why China’s economic growth is over; why the Asians will keep fighting each other. They’ll only give you negative stories about Asia.

Mahbubani explained that several countries understand this upcoming new world order, including the Global South and some European countries. However, there is resistance in the U.S. to acknowledging this fact.

The U.S. would like to believe that the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century should also be the American century, but that’s very unrealistic. The American century is over, and the Asian century is coming.

(Not) Containing the Dragon

For Mahbubani, the battlefield of the 21st century will be based on economic growth instead of on the military might of each country. This is why he points out the recent military expansion of the U.S. in the Middle East as a mistake, as the “contest” between these two countries will be solved in the economic arena.

In the same way, Mahbubani perceives the so-called “containment policy” on China (also referred to as “de-risking” ) will fail, leaving the country trying to regain its former position in world commerce. He declared:

I will make a prediction confidently that the containment policy will fail, because China has already integrated itself with the world, more than the U.S. has.

Furthermore, Mahbubani alleges that this policy will leave the U.S. “isolated from the rest of the world,” referring to the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement as a “bad decision.”

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