Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

It is our great pleasure today to be joined by Kishore Mavagwani. He is a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore,

and he has had a distinguished career in both diplomacy and academia, having served as Singapore's permanent representative to the United Nations and also as the president of the United Nations Security Council.

Foreign Policy magazine called him one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world,

and the Foreign Policy Association Medal was awarded to him in 2004, where they called him a gifted diplomat, a student of history, philosophy, and a provocative writer, and an intuitive figure.

His many books include Living the Asian Century, his memoir, has the West lost it, a provocation, and has China won the Chinese challenge to American primacy?

Shor Mababani, welcome to current affairs.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

I want to start with the good news, because in the beginning of your book has the West lost it, which I think a lot of readers in America, in Britain, in the rest of Europe might find disquieting, disturbing.

You begin with good news.

You begin with the news that for all of the anxieties and fear that many in the West feel, actually the world has been

becoming a much better place in many ways, and that there are many places around the world

where people feel positive and excited about the human future, which may come as a surprise

to some Americans who see a future of never-ending doom and gloom.

So perhaps you could tell us, you chose to begin this book with good news, so tell us the good news.

Well, the good news is that the human condition has never been better.

More and more people are leading better lives, longer lives, more fulfilling

lives. And if you want to get a sense of how the explosion of human being, human well-being

has happened, let me just mention the statistics from three significant growth regions of Asia.

I mean, if you look at the 1.4 billion people living in China, the 1.4 billion people living

in India, and approximately 700 million people living in Southeast Asia, in ASEAN.

That makes 3.5 billion people, almost 40% of the world's population.

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