meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Sinica Podcast

As the U.S. and China part ways, the Global South finds its own path, with Kishore Mahbubani

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8676 Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2023

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, Kishore Mahbubani, who served as Singapore's UN Ambassador and has written extensively on ASEAN and the U.S.-China rift, returns to the show to discuss his recent essay in Foreign Affairs, and to advocate for the pragmatic approach that's held ASEAN together for over five decades of continuous peace and growing prosperity.

4:36 – Kishore talks about Macron’s state visit to China and the controversy around his comments in media interviews

8:53 – How the Ukraine War has highlighted divisions between the West and the Global South

11:45 – Pragmatism: is this a euphemism for amorality?

15:26 – ASEAN as a template for multipolarity

19:38 – Cultural relativism, moral absolutism, and the shift in the American intelligentsia

24:56 – How does ASEAN handle specific issues of U.S.-China tension?

29:12 – Investment and trade: China and ASEAN vs. U.S and ASEAN — guns and butter

40:04 – The Belt and Road Initiative and American attitudes toward it

44:10 – Kishore’s “three rules” for U.S. engagement with ASEAN

49:49 – China’s recent diplomatic efforts: Saudi-Iran, and the Ukraine War

52:34 – How receptive has the American strategic class been to Kishore’s ideas?


A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.


Recommendations:

Kishore: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice

Kaiser: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan




See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with The China Project.

0:15.4

Subscribe to Access from the China Project. You get access to access to not only our great daily newsletter, but to all of the

0:22.0

original writing on our website at theChinaproject.com. We've got reported stories, essays, and

0:27.8

editorials, great explainers and trackers, regular columns, and of course a growing library of podcasts.

0:34.7

We cover everything from China's fraught-born relations to its ingenious

0:38.7

entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang

0:43.5

region to Beijing's ambitious plans to shift the Chinese economy onto a post-carbon footing.

0:49.7

It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world.

0:55.5

We cover China with neither fear nor favor.

0:58.8

I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

1:02.8

If I'm not mistaken, and yeah, I could be mistaken, but if I'm not mistaken, there has been

1:08.9

a palpable shift in the conversation we're having about

1:11.6

U.S.-China competition of late.

1:13.7

A growing number of voices seem to be pointing out, well, what many of us have long known,

1:19.2

that middle countries and countries of the global South just don't see things the same way

1:23.8

that Americans do when it comes to China necessarily.

1:26.3

More and more voices, it's my sense, are challenging the way that Washington has framed the

1:32.0

relationship just yesterday.

1:34.0

Just for example, I read two pieces.

1:36.4

One of them was in foreign affairs and one in foreign policy that tackle different facets

1:41.8

of that framing Bihari Kauskhan, the former permanent Secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

1:48.4

wrote a very ambitious essay in that magazine called Navigating the New Age of Great Power

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kaiser Kuo, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Kaiser Kuo and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.