Looking again at the twitterings of Mr Mahbubani, one comes away wondering why he is so patronising towards if not contemptuous of his fellow Asians.

Let’s assume the world is complicated and that running any sort of government structure and pursuing numerous different policy objectives requires ever-higher levels of sophistication and flexibility.

How can any society hope to achieve this?

Let me count the ways:

  • Avoid putting all society’s eggs in one political basket. Make sure that leaders do not stay in power too long. Make sure that society has a good say in selecting those leaders and removing peacefully those who lie or steal or just underperform. (Call these processes democracy).
  • Then also make sure that society has some good, fair mechanisms for arbitrating disputes and stopping the powerful abuse their power. (Call these things independent courts).
  • Finally, make sure that the natural inventiveness of the population finds fair expression and that good ideas flourish while bad ones tend to fade away. (Call this a market economy).

Some people might call the package of these basic requirements for any sort of rational government and rational society ‘Western democracy’. But perhaps that is too culturally loaded a phrase for Mr Mahbubani. So let’s call it instead Being Smart.

What about a country that tries the opposite?

Its leader stays in power for decades, and then when that leader finally keels over one of his (it is always ‘his’) relatives takes over. This system minimises flexibility and maximises the chances for maladministration and corruption; the mass of people are denied any real choices, including the core choice of all, namely to leave and try to find a country where they can make some free contribution. (Call this sort of rule dictatorship.)

Such a country also prevents independent courts from arbitrating disputes or checking abuses of power. (Call this arbitrary rule.)

And such a country bottles up the inventiveness of the people by curbing market mechanisms and stopping the free circulation of goods and ideas. (Call this state control.)

The usual name for this sort of thing is Communism, or Socialism. But that too is a bit … retro. So let’s call it Being Stupid.

The question for the Mahbubanis of the world therefore emerges.

If Asians are so increasingly well educated as he says, or even if they are not, why should they be denied Smart pluralism and the chance to run their own affairs which ‘Western’ populations enjoy?

If Asians are oppressed by their own governments, are they so psychologically broken and meek that they want to see other governments from the free parts of the world ignoring their suffering and fatly fawning up to these oppressors in the name of ‘dialogue’?

If Asians are denied free, independent courts, is that because in some unsaid, inferior Asian way they are not deserving of such institutions? 

If Asians are not allowed to engage in market mechanisms like most of the rest of the planet, is it because they are genetically too weak or feckless to be trusted with making free market choices?

In short, are Asians Stupid?

Come on, Mr Mahbubani.

Tell us. And tell them.