By Kenton X. Chance
ABUJA, Nigeria (CMC) — A former member of the United Nations Security Council, Kishore Mahbubani, is urging Africa to remain neutral amidst the struggle between the United States and China for domination of the world economy.
Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, told the 32nd annual meeting (AAM2025) of the Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) that this is the stance of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
“We have made it very clear that we won’t take sides in this contest. We’ll be friends with the United States. We’ll be friends with China,” said Mahbubani.
Speaking on the topic “Charting the Path for Africa’s Economic Breakthrough Under Global Uncertainties”, the Singaporean academic and diplomat, said that from the year 1 to 1820, China and India were the largest economies in the world and that Western domination of world history over the last 200 years was “an aberration”.
Mahbubani, who spoke hours before Jason Miller, a communication strategist and former advisor to President Donald Trump, sought to woo Africa towards the United States, dangling aid and trade deals, said “all aberrations come to a natural end, and that’s why you’re seeing the return of Asia”.
Miller had described Africa as “the land of the future, the land of limitless growth”, saying that leaders in Africa are in a position to impact the balance of power globally, saying Washington “will make Africa great again”.
But Mahbubani described the United States as a plutocracy in which an “angry electorate” had elected “an angry president” and told the annual meetings that trade, rather than aid or political systems, is the driver of economic growth.
Mahbubani said that ASEAN’s position of remaining neutral is easy to say, but “in practice, it is hard to do.
“And psychologically, every government in the world must prepare for the pressures that are coming from this contest,” he said, noting that there are also opportunities as both Beijing and Washington would be looking for friends.
“And here, I believe, if there’s one area where you can have very strong collaboration, what is called Afro-Asian collaboration within Africa and Asia, it is in managing this contest, and if Africa and Asia combine, say to the United States and to China, ‘You want to have this contest? Go ahead, but don’t get us involved. We are not part of it.’”
He, however, told the gathering of African political and business leaders as well as the prime ministers of the Caribbean countries of The Bahamas, Grenada, and St. Kitts and Nevis, that Africa and ASEAN must understand the driving force of the US-China contest, saying it is “an iron law of geopolitics” that’s been around for 2000 years.
“… whenever the world’s number one emerging power, which today is China, is about to overtake the world’s number one power, which today is the United States, the world’s number one power will always push down the world’s number one emerging power.”
Mahbubani’s first “hard truth” was that the West “is lost”, noting that 100 years ago, Europe was in every corner of the globe, dominating the world.
“Today, that same Europe is completely lost,” Mahbubani said but cautioned that while this “changes the world”, it does not mean giving up on the West, “because the West still remains very strong, very powerful, but must learn to work with a different West”.
His second “hard truth” was that “Asia is rising, or more accurately, Asia is returning”, arguing that the 21st Century will be the Asian century, following Europe’s 19th Century and the Americans’ 18th Century.
“And this, I must emphasise, is going to happen, and that it will also hopefully provide new opportunities for Africa”.
Mahbubani’s third “hard truth” was that “even as we have to deal with the structural changes with the West getting lost and Asia keeping rising, we are having other structural challenges to deal with”.
He said Africa and ASEAN will have to contend with “the biggest geopolitical contest ever seen in human history between the number one power and number one emerging power, adding that it’s a given that that geopolitical contest will accelerate over the next decade.
And while these geopolitical shifts and struggles are taking place, Africa and ASEAN will also have to deal with a world that is shrinking and becoming more interdependent with common global challenges like climate change, financial crisis, pandemics and global terrorism.
“At a time when the world should be coming together, the world will be drifting apart. So I hope by now, I’ve given you a flavour of what a difficult, complex and indeed cruel world that is coming our way.”
Mahbubani said the West is “lost” because it cannot accept that it can no longer dominate world history.
“It has to adjust to a role which is smaller, and that’s psychologically very difficult now,” he said and illustrated, saying that in 1980 the combined gross national product (GNP) of the European Union was 10 times the size of China but they are about the same size today.
“… but by 2050, the European Union will be half the size of China,” Mahbubani said, claiming that Europe does not understand how the shift is taking place.
“Can you imagine that in one human lifetime, the European Union goes from being 10 times bigger than China to becoming half the size of China? And do you think the Europeans understand that?”
“And the tragedy here is that … 100 years ago, the Europeans could effortlessly run the world. Now they cannot even manage their own affairs and prevent disasters.”
He said that Europe today “is a very depressed place” and is “obsessed” about the war in Ukraine.
“It was one of the most eminently avoidable wars with a bit of wise statesmanship. There was no wise statesmanship,” he said, adding that the United States’ “greatest living strategic thinker” at the time, Henry Kissinger, lamented this to him a year before he died, in October 2022
Mahbubani said the other pillar of the West, the United States, remains “very robust, very strong, and you must never, ever underestimate the United States” even as he said the country is dealing with “a severe structural challenge.
“The United States has functionally become a plutocracy,” he said, adding that this was also the view of the late economist, Paul A. Volcker, when he was chair of the Federal Reserve of the United States, as well as Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz and Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator of The Financial Times.
“As a result of becoming a plutocracy, while the top 0.1% have seen their incomes rise dramatically, the bottom 50 per cent in America have not seen an improvement in their standard of living for several decades now, and so that creates an angry electorate in America.
“And what does the angry electorate do? It immediately elects an angry president, not once, but twice…”
Mahbubani said Trump’s election “is not a story about one person. His election is the story of a troubled, angry society that wants to express its anger”.
He urged African leaders not to believe that the West “is going to play a benign or benevolent role on the world stage,” saying “think twice, those days are gone”.