Geneva Literary Aid Society

The GLAS HOUR – Meet the Author: Kishore Mahbubani (14.05.2020)

Could the US and China end up going to war?

That is one of the questions we will put to the distinguished author, academic and former President of the UN Security Council, Kishore Mahbubani, when we talk to him about his fascinating new book Has China Won? during this week’s GLAS Hour, which comes to you a bit earlier than usual.

How to join us

Thursday 14 May 2020, 15:00 CEST

You can join the event by clicking the link below before the event begins. It will enable you to download and install the Zoom application, which you can also use to submit questions to the author.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87856249295

We will also stream the event live on our Facebook page.

Since President Trump took office, the US has been battling with China over trade. COVID-19 has raised the stakes considerably in the rivalry between the two super powers who have long been trying to outdo each other in terms of both economic and military might. A new nadir in relations between the two has been reached with unproven accusations by Trump and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo that the virus came out of a maximum-security laboratory in Wuhan, China.

Stepping back from this morass, Kishore Mahbubani, author, academic, diplomat has written a guide to the faultlines in the relationship, an assessment of the risk of any confrontation, and a frank appraisal of their strengths and weaknesses, especially under their present leaders.

Photo: World Economic Forum / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

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 writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Washington Quarterly, Survival, American Interest, the National Interest, Time, Newsweek, the Financial Times and the New York Times.

What the critics said…

Prof. Mahbubani’s latest work ‘Has China Won?’ is certain to antagonize and even outrage American readers. But that is a good thing. For above all, it will force them to confront the unsettling probability that China will this century usurp the US as the world’s hegemon.” – Financial Times

Today, America is in a crisis caused by forces that may be intensified by the coronavirus but preceded it. Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean academic and former diplomat who has served as president of the UN Security Council, here delivers a blistering analysis of its fall from grace.” – The Times

And finally…

These events are free but we would ask those who can afford it to make a donation, however small, to the Edith Wilkins Foundation for Street Children in Darjeeling where the kids and staff are under lockdown and life has become just that bit more difficult. Bank details are below.

IBAN: IE48 AIBK 9343 4821 4390 06
BIC: AIB KIE 2D
Account number: 21439006