After a relatively good run for almost five decades, ASEAN is now facing serious challenges that threaten its unity and cohesiveness. Increasing geopolitical competition between US and China could tear ASEAN apart. Rising domestic challenges are forcing ASEAN leaders to remain internally-focused. ASEAN is being ignored in the process.

The big question that ASEAN faces today is a simple one: is it on the verge of breaking apart, or can it hold together in the face of new challenges?

About the speaker

A student of philosophy and history, Professor Kishore Mahbubani has had the good fortune of enjoying a career in government and, at the same time, in writing on public issues. With the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004, he had postings in Cambodia, Malaysia, Washington DC and New York, where he served two stints as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN and as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002. He was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry from 1993 to 1998. He is the author of Can Asians Think?, Beyond The Age Of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World, and The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. His latest books are The Great Convergence: Asia, The West and the Logic of One World and Can Singapore Survive. The Great Convergence was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2013 and long listed for the 2014 Lionel Gelber Prize.

About the ST Lee Lecture on Asia and the Pacific

This Endowment was established by Dr Seng Tee Lee (ST Lee) of the Lee Foundation in Singapore. It supports an annual lecture that provides a chance for a distinguished figure from the Asia-Pacific to speak on developments or trends in the region.