America shouldn’;t run away from new competition, Mahbubani says.

Kishore Mahbubani: No, I don’t think America in the decline at all. In fact, I try to emphasize the fact that while the relative shares of America and Europe in the growing global economy will decline, because it is unnaturally large, the absolute GNP of America, the absolute GNP of Europe is not going to go down. It’s going to grow, and I amazed that Americans and Europeans have stopped believing that they can compete in the world of tomorrow. How come? You have world’s best universities. You have the world’s best companies. You have very highly-educated workforce. Why you afraid of competition? Why do you allow new dogs to set the terms of the debate in America. It’s crazy. How can the world, for so long America used to preach to the rest of the world and say “open up your economies, compete, it’s good for you.” Guess what? They did it. They opened up. They want to compete. So why you are running away from the competition.

Recorded on: 2/28/08