Fall Forum - 2020

The World Affairs Council of Hilton Head’s Fall Forum is a thought provoking and challenging series of group discussions based on an outstanding book focusing on international affairs.

Locally designed and facilitated by WACHH members, multiple small groups meet once a month, for four months beginning in October. The Fall Forum is free to WACHH members. Each group is limited to thirty people to allow for an excellent exchange of ideas. Each participant is expected to read the selected book which is available in hard copy, paper back and electronic versions. Registration for the Fall Forum is required. 

The World Affairs Council of Hilton Head’s 2020 Fall Forum is built around the ideas in Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy by Kishore Mahbubani

Abstract

The defining geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century is between China and the US. But is it avoidable? And if it happens, is the outcome already inevitable?

China and America are world powers without serious rivals. They eye each other warily across the Pacific; they communicate poorly; there seems little natural empathy. A massive geopolitical contest has begun.

America prizes freedom; China values freedom from chaos. America values strategic decisiveness; China values patience. America is becoming society of lasting inequality, China a meritocracy. America has abandoned multilateralism; China welcomes it.

Kishore Mahbubani, a diplomat and scholar with unrivalled access to policymakers in Beijing and Washington, has written the definitive guide to the deep fault lines in the relationship, a clear-eyed assessment of the risk of any confrontation, and a bracingly honest appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses, and superpower eccentricities, of the US and China.

About the Author

Kishore Mahbubani is a Singaporean academic and former diplomat. During his stint at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1971 to 2004, he served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and held the position of President of the United Nations Security Council between January 2001 and May 2002. https://mahbubani.net/