与马凯硕谈他的书 | 活在亚洲世纪

与马凯硕谈书 | 活在亚洲世纪

AsiaSocietyHK 2024年9月9日 书谈

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0udD5zyjc

亚洲协会香港中心

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Asia+Society+Hong+Kong+Chapter+Ronnie+Chan%2C+Kishore+Mahbubani

亚洲协会香港中心很荣幸地为您呈现杰出外交家、学者和多产作家马凯硕与亚洲协会香港中心主席陈启宗之间的对话，内容是关于马凯硕教授的最新著作《活在亚洲世纪：非外交回忆录》。



你知道，在过去的 25 年里，也许你和我第一次见面是因为我们参加了同样的活动，你代表东南亚发言，我代表我自己发言，但通常都是关于香港和中国的话题，我们都相信亚洲有一个光明的未来，所以我们反击了很多怀疑论者，比如亚洲人无法思考之类的，所以我们在某种意义上就像康拉德·阿姆斯一样，只是当谈到亚洲人时，我和他意见不一，他认为亚洲人是自做母亲和苹果派以来最好的东西，我仍然是一个怀疑论者，至于亚洲的未来到底有多光明，但这并不重要，这并不能改变这样一个事实：基莎是地缘政治方面最聪明、最善于表达的人之一，我知道世界上任何地方，嗯，你知道，我很惊讶在新加坡，我很抱歉，基莎，我有个坏消息要告诉你你不是唯一一个才华横溢的人，多么令人震惊，多么令人震惊，我还能说出许多其他人的名字，汤米·科曾经经常参加亚洲协会的活动，包括在 90 年代定期来香港，甚至在 2000 年初，陈汉吉接替了你作为新加坡代表在联合国的职位，当我离开亚洲协会全球主席的职位时，他接替了我，我很荣幸亨吉同意接替我，然后还有其他人，比如乔治，他同样才华横溢，你提到过，不，我不知道，如果你提到巴哈里·基坎，他不幸在中国经历了非常可怕的悲伤个人事件，我不知道这是否与他对中国的负面看法有关，但一方面他，你和乔治和其他人，你知道，新加坡培养出如此多的伟大人才真是太神奇了，即使他们真的不同意彼此的观点另一方面，香港没有这样的人才，我们培养了很多其他类型的优秀人才，伟大的人，商业领袖，艺术家，什么的，但这是我们没有培养的，我能想到的原因是新加坡是一个国家，香港从来不是一个国家，香港永远只是一个城市，新加坡有梁宇作为领导人，然后你还有康和拉贾尔·拉特南，你也提到过，他们是上个世纪真正才华横溢的人，香港没有这样的特权向这些伟大的思想家学习，所以告诉我，为什么新加坡能在地缘政治方面培养出如此伟大的思想家，这个问题很好，嗯，我只是对阿桑做一个简短的补充，正如罗尼指出的那样，我们对阿桑有不同的看法，有一个统计数据是香港每个人都应该知道的，在200000年，日本是世界第二大经济体，你知道，当时日本比阿桑大8倍，现在日本大约是阿桑的1.2 1.3倍牙山，到 2030 年亚洲将超过日本，成为世界第二大经济体，我之所以这么说，是因为我知道香港有些人担心香港的未来，或者说香港未来可能有一个非常接近香港的增长领域，香港可以利用这个领域，欢迎香港，那就是牙山，所以我想说香港人现在应该关注牙山，为什么新加坡培养出了许多领域非常有才华的外交官，我认为关键的区别在于新加坡必须经历一场非常艰难的政治斗争才能达到今天的水平，所以如果你读过 Lewan 先生的回忆录，你就会知道 Lewan 先生的回忆录非常吸引人，我认为 Lewu 先生承认他所经历的斗争塑造了他成为怎样的人，你知道他经历了日本占领新加坡，那段时期非常残酷，你知道真的，你会读到他会告诉你一些关于他的精彩故事回忆录，然后他不得不在英国殖民地生活

还不错，但新加坡仍然在反抗英国殖民统治，然后我们在 1963 年加入了马来西亚，最终在两年内与马来西亚进行了非常激烈的离婚，是的，这是另一场斗争，当新加坡在 1965 年独立时，英国媒体一致表示新加坡将会失败，因为这是一个没有腹地的城市，正如你所知，新加坡的领导人哭了，当新加坡独立时，他们没有庆祝，他们没有说 heur，因为他们认为新加坡会崩溃和失败，包括 leanu

包括 leanu，所以你可以看到，这是一场巨大的斗争，这些与这三个创始人新加坡的领导人经历了艰苦的岁月，在斗争中他们形成了坚韧的精神，这真是太神奇了，我认识了这些人，我认为我写这本书的主要目标之一，我的回忆录《生活在亚洲世纪》就是要告诉你关于这三个人的故事，我想我见过很多伟大的世界领导人，我和罗纳德·里根、乔治·H·W·布什握手，就像你见过亨利·基辛格、新任大总统布拉津斯基一样，但新加坡的三位领导人与我见过的大多数世界领导人不相上下，甚至更好，这是非常了不起的，正是因为这些杰出的领导人，如果你以某种方式与他们共事，你就会受到他们的鼓舞，因为你从他们身上学到了很多东西，他们提升了我所做的所有地缘政治分析，以及所有 10 本书我写过，如果我没有拜倒在这三位地缘政治大师的脚下，我不可能写出这些文章，而他们也经历了许多地缘政治斗争，才获得了他们所取得的理解，所以，这是一系列连锁事件，导致了我们今天的处境，我们都知道你，但我们并不熟悉他，我有幸见过他很多次，即使是在很小的场合，但你和他很亲近，我是从 H 那里得知的，顺便说一下，女士们先生们，现在是亚洲协会的全球主席，也是陈大使 Chanan Chi 的联席主席，她告诉我，Leang Yu 曾经把三个人聚集在一起，从年龄上看，最年长的是 Tommy Cole，他是联合国海洋法公约的主席，他成为了美国，他成为了新加坡驻联合国大使30 岁，你告诉我的，然后 Changi 成为学者，转为政治家和外交官，而你 Leu 会花时间与你们三人在一起，他和你们做了什么，他在那里听你们说话吗，他在那里给你们讲课吗，你们从这个人身上学到了什么，嗯，我可以告诉你，我们确实学到了很多东西，顺便说一下，Tommy Co Chan hchi 和我，我们三人之间还有一件共同点，那就是我们都年轻，我们三人上大学时都批评过新加坡政府，所以你是怎么被压制的，我是怎么被压制的，你们三人是怎么被压制的，或者你被启发了吗，事实上，我们确实被骂了很多，事实上，如果你读我的书，你会发现每一个资深的

新加坡人都被骂过，每当资深的新加坡被制造出来时，都是

一枚荣誉徽章，你知道你知道吗，你骂我或不骂我，这就是为什么我很好，因为他从不责备我，所以我们，但新加坡最了不起的是，尽管我们三个都是知名人士，但政府意识到我们可能有用，所以他们邀请我们与政府合作，所以 Tommy Co 在 30 岁时从法律系讲师成为驻联合国大使，Ching 从政治学讲师接替我担任驻联合国大使，然后我最终因为新加坡总统奖学金而为政府工作，但你成为新加坡驻联合国大使时已经 34 岁了，大多数 34 岁的人我都不想这么说，但我仍然尿裤子，当我像他们那么大的时候，你当时尿裤子了吗，我实际上不知道，不知道没错，我当时不是 34 岁，我当时 35 岁，年纪大得多，呃，不，我的意思是，我呃，对我来说，这又是一个巨大的机会，你知道，当你被推上一个非常大的工作时，对我来说，困难的部分是，我接替汤米·科担任新加坡大使，他已经担任大使 13 年了，所以汤米·科是联合国的传奇人物，我被要求接替这位传奇人物，我学到的一个教训是，当你被要求接替一个非常非常成功的人时，无论你做什么，都不要试图取代他，不要试图，我没有，我不想模仿汤米·科，我说汤米·科有自己的说话风格，我会选择自己的风格，我不会试图模仿汤米·科说话的方式，所以我去发展我自己的性格，我自己的个性和我自己做事的方式，当然，尽管如此，我接替汤米还是有很大帮助的，因为汤米非常出名，一旦我自我介绍，说我是汤米的接班人，每个人都会向我敞开大门，所以，在某种程度上，我也写了，他成功的秘诀，当然，基沙有一种非常非常有效的风格，包括你的说话风格，你们很多人都知道我可能有点冲动，在过去的40年里，我一直在国际舞台上挑起争端。耳朵，很多时候 Kisha 会是坐在我旁边的绅士，我会跟着任何人，呃，而 Kisha 会坐在那里微笑，在我讲完之后，他会用最温柔的方式说一句简单的话来支持我，而另一个人并没有被我打败，而是被 Kish 和他的风格打败了，呃，我称之为温柔地杀死我，我不知道这是否也发生在你身上，但这不是我的事，我最好不要深入研究呃，但你的风格确实非常好，让它看起来不错。

Book Talk with Kishore Mahbubani | Living The Asian Century

AsiaSocietyHK

2024年9月9日  BookTalk

Asia Society Hong Kong Center is proud to present a dialogue between Kishore Mahbubani, distinguished diplomat, academic, and prolific author, and Ronnie C. Chan, Chairman of Asia Society Hong Kong Center, about Professor Mahbubani’s newest book Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir.

you know over the last 25 years maybe K

you and I first met because uh we showed

up in the same events and you spoke on

behalf of Southeast Asia and I spoke on

behalf of myself but on the subject of

Hong Kong and uh China usually and both of us believe that Asia

has a bright future and so we fought off

a lot of the doubters how that Asians

cannot think or something like that and

so we were uh Conrad at Arms in a sense

except that when it comes to aian then

he and I disagree he think that aian is

the best thing since motherhood and

apple pie and I am still a doubtful

person as far as really how bright the

future of aen is but doesn't matter it

does not take away from the fact that

Kisha is one of the most bright uh uh

articulate uh person on geopolitics that

I know anywhere in the world um you know I'm amazed how that in

Singapore I'm sorry Kisha I got bad news

for you you're not the only brilliant

guy how how shocking how shocking I can name many others Tommy Co

used to participate in asan society

events a lot uh in this part of the

world including coming to Hong Kong

regularly in the '90s and even into the

early 2000 Chan hangi uh who succeeded

you at the United Nation as a as a

representative of Singapore uh hchi

succeeded me when I left the

chairmanship of the global chairmanship

of Asia Society I was very honored that

hungi would agree to take my place um

and then you have other people like

George yo uh who is equally brilliant uh

you have people like uh you mentioned no

I don't if you mentioned Bahari

kikan who unfortunately had a very

terrible sad personal incident in China

I don't know if it has anything to do

with his negative views about China but

he on the one hand you and George and

others on the other um you know it is

amazing how Singapore produce so many

great brains even when they really dis

disagree with each other in Hong Kong on

the other hand produce no such people we produce a lot

of other kind of good people great

people Business Leaders right uh artists

what have you but that's one thing that

we don't produce and the reason I can

think of is Singapore is a state Hong

Kong is never a state Hong Kong is

always just a city and Singapore has

Liang Yu as the leader and then you have

Kang and rajar ratnam that you mentioned

also those are Tru trly brilliant people

in the last century and Hong Kong have no such

privilege of learning from such great

minds so tell me tell us why can Singapore produce such great

minds in geopolitics well great great question um

I'm just as a quick just a quick side

note on asan as he as Ronnie pointed out

we have different views uh on asan uh

there's one statistic that everyone in

Hong Kong should know in the year 200000

Japan was the second largest economy in

the world as you know and at that time

Japan was 8 times bigger than

asan now Japan is about 1.2 1.3 times

bigger than asan and by 2030 Asian be bigger than

Japan what was the second largest

economy in the world and I tell that

because I know some people in Hong Kong

are worried about Hong Kong's future or

where what your future might be one

growth area that is very close to Hong

Kong that Hong Kong can tap on that

would welcome Hong Kong is asan so

that's why I would say uh people in Hong

Kong should pay attention to asan now on

why Singapore has produced you know

you're right very very talented uh

diplomats in many areas I think the the

key difference is that Singapore had to

undertake uh a very tough political

struggle uh to get to where it is today

so if you read Mr Lewan's as as you know

Mr Lewan's Memoirs are fascinating I think Mr lewu acknowledges

that the struggles that he went through

Forge what how the man he became so as

you know he lived through the the

Japanese Occupation of Singapore which was brutal you know

really and you read he'll tell you some

amazing stories in his Memoirs and then

he had to live through a British colony

not too bad but still Singapore struggle

against British colonial rule and then

we joined uh Malaysia in 1963 and ended up having a very

acrimonious divorce with Malaysia within

two years yeah which was of so another

struggle and when Singapore became

independent in 1965 the British media unanimously said

Singapore is going to fail because this

is the city without a hinterland and as

you know the leaders of Singapore cried

uh when Singapore became independent

they didn't celebrate they didn't say

heur because they thought Singapore

would collapse and fail including leanu

including leanu so you could see

therefore for that it was an immense

struggle that these with the the three

founding leaders of Singapore went

through nanu gingu rajar ratnam and as a

result of that struggle they developed a certain

toughness of spirit you know which is

quite amazing I mean I got to know these

men I think one of the one of my key

goals with this book my Memoirs living

the Asian century is to tell you stories

about these three men and they were I think I I've met I've

met many great world leaders I mean I've

shaken hands with Ronald Reagan George

HW Bush I mean like you have uh Henry

Kissinger the big new brazinski but the

three leaders of Singapore or on par if

not better than most world leaders that

I have met which is remarkable true now

it is because of these remarkable

leaders then if you if you work with

them in some some way or another you

pulled up by them because you learn so

much from them and and they elevate so

all the geopolitical analysis that I do

and that and and all the 10 books I've

written I could not have written them if

I hadn't sat at the feet uh of these

three geopolitical Masters who in their

turn had to go through lots of

geopolitical struggles to achieve the

kind of understanding that they did so

it was a sort of a cascading series of

uh events and that sort led to where

where we are today well we all know um

leang you but we don't know him

intimately um I have had the privilege

of meeting him quite a number of times

um even in the small occasions but you

are very close to him and I was told by

um H who is by the way ladies and

gentlemen the global chair of Asia

Society right now the co-chair of Chan

Ambassador chanan Chi she told me that

leang Yu used to bring three people

together in ter by by from descending in

terms of age oldest is Tommy Cole who

was the the chairman of the law of the

sea convention for the United Nation uh

he became the US he became the

Singapore's ambassador to the United

Nation at the tender age of 30 you you

told me that and then Changi an

academician turn politician and Diplomat and yourself Leu would spend

time with the three of you what did he what did he do with you guys was he

there to listen to you guys was he there

to lecture you guys what do you learn

from this man uh well I can I can tell

you that we we did uh learn a lot and by

the way Tommy Co Chan hchi and myself

another thing that's common about among

the three of us is that we were at our

young ages we were also denters all three of us had been

critical of the Singapore government

when we were in University so how were

you suppressed uh how was I how were the

three of you suppressed uh or did you

get enlightened by well we we definitely

got a lot of scolding in fact and in fact if you read

my book you'll find that every senior

Singaporean has been scolded by

and whenever senior Singapore is made is

a badge of honor you know you know what

howu scolded me or not that's why I'm

good because he never sced

me and so we but the remarkable thing

about Singapore is that even though the

three of us were wellknown

denters the government realized that we

could be useful and so they invited us

uh to work with the government so Tommy

Co went from being a lecturer in the law

faculty to becoming ambassador to the UN

at the age of 30 Ching she went from

being a you know a lecturer in political

science to succeeding me as ambassador

to the UN you know and then I ended up

working for the government because of my

uh bond from the singap uh president

scholarship but you became the the

Singaporean ambassador to the United

Nation attend the age of

34 most 34 year old is I hate to say

this but still wetting in the

pants I was when I was their age uh uh

were you w in your pants were you well I

actually I no no I to be correct I

wasn't 34 I was 35 much

older uh the no I mean I uh it was it

was to me again a tremendous opportunity

being you know when you're thrust into a

very big job and for me the hard part

was that I was succeeding Tommy CO as

Singapore's Ambassador un who had

already been ambassador went for 13

years Al together so Tomo was a legend

uh in the United Nations and I was asked

to succeed a legend and the one lesson I

learned is that when you asked to

succeed someone who's very very

successful whatever you do don't try to

step into his shoes don't try to I

didn't I I didn't want to copy Tommy Co

I said Tomo had a certain style of

speaking I would choose my own style I

wouldn't try to what Tommy Co does in

the way that he spoke and so I had to

evolve my own character my own

personality and my own way uh of of of

doing things uh but of course

nonetheless it helped a lot that I was

succeeding Tommy because Tommy was so

well known once I introduced myself and

said I'm the successor of Tommy code

everyone will open their doors to me so

I in some ways I also wrote uh on the

coales of his success sure enough Kisha has a very very

effective style uh including your style

of speaking and many of you know that I can

be a little hotheaded and I go pick pick

a fight in the international arena for

the last 40 years and often times Kisha

will be the gentleman sitting next to me

and I would be going with whoever uh and

Kisha would just sit there and smile and

after I finish he would just speak one

simple word in my support in a most

Gentle Way and the other guy wasn't

defeated by me defeated by Kish and his

style uh I call it Killing Me Softly I don't know an if if that's what

happened to you too but it's not of my

business I better not delve into that uh

but your style is certainly very

good fore make it look good May back