Away from a Western perspective, life looks good

Despite the rise of China and other emerging nations, most people still see the world through a Western prism.

This is a point made in a new book Has the West Lost It? A Provocation by Kishore Mahbubani, who I had the privilege of interviewing recently in Beijing.

The former Singapore diplomat, who is now regarded as one of Asia's leading public intellectuals, said that if you were to take your view of the world just from Western media outlets like CNN, you would get the impression that it is a very gloomy place indeed.