As China grows into a major regional and global power, there are many questions about what this means for the international system. Does China threaten the United States? Does Washington want to aggressively contain China? Are we really facing a “New Cold War”? And what does this mean for everyone else?

In Has China Won?: The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy (PublicAffairs, 2020), Kishore Mahbubani writes about the relationship between China and the United States: the structural reasons for tensions, the misconceptions and mistakes each side has made, and how further conflict can be avoided.

In this interview with Kishore Mahbubani, we discuss how those outside of the United States and China see this great-power relationship, and what a more multipolar world might look like.

Kishore Mahbubani is a veteran diplomat and academic, currently serving as a Distinguished Fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute and Coordinator of the Asian Peace Programme. He is Singapore’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, former President of the UN Security Council, and former Dean of the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS. You can follow him on Twitter at @mahbubani_k.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. In his day job, he’s a researcher and writer for a think tank in economic and sustainable development. He is also a print and broadcast commentator on local and regional politics. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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