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As
Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama mull over
how to make voters feel better about the future, they
might want to read Kishore Mahbubani’s new book.
The New
Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power
to the East has been described as an anti-Western
polemic. If the former Singaporean diplomat’s thesis can
be summed up in a phrase, it’s this: “We have reached
the end of the era of Western domination of world
history.”
Perhaps.
When you look at the mess President George W. Bush’s
administration made of Iraq, the fallout from the US
subprime crisis and the rise of ambitious developing
nations around the globe, it’s easy to wonder if the US
empire is going the way of the Roman one.
There’s
plenty of hyperbole here, too.
Asia optimists tend to discount the very real risks of financial
hiccups throughout the region and high poverty rates.
Arguments that
China
will dwarf the US economy in a few decades simply aren’t
credible. Yet, neither is the sense in Washington that
Asia’s rise is a big threat.
Here,
there is much to glean from Mahbubani’s take on the
future, and one can only hope the next
US
president pays close attention to such views.
Mahbubani is at his best when he highlights two dynamics
many seem to miss. The first is that Asia’s rise is
inevitable—get used to it. The second is that the world
economy won’t become a zero-sum game just because more
Asians get closer to prosperity.
‘Western
dream’
“For
centuries, the Chinese and Indians could only aspire to
it,” wrote Mahbubani, who is now dean of the Lee Kuan
Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. “Now, more and
more believe that it is within their reach. Their ideal
is to achieve what America and Europe achieved. They
want to replicate, not dominate, the West.”
It’s
about global wealth growing, not being spirited away to
Beijing or New Delhi. Asia’s rise is, in a way, the
spreading of what Mahbubani calls the “Western dream”
and should be seen as a plus. “Yet, many Western leaders
begin their speeches by remarking how ‘dangerous’ the
world is becoming,” he says.
To
Mahbubani, all this is code for the West not wanting to
cede its status to upstarts such as
China
and India. Look no further than the Group of Seven
nations meeting in
Tokyo
on the weekend. Did anyone care? How can the G-7 be
relevant when those doing the most to influence the
global economy don’t have a seat at the table? The
reluctance to welcome new members smacks of the elites
protecting their turf.
Obstacles
Again,
as much as the Mahbubanis of the world talk of what
could go right, lots could go wrong.
Yes,
China’s billion-plus population has never been freer or
more driven to become rich—communist government aside.
Yet, China faces a herculean task of creating millions
of jobs while censoring the Internet and, essentially,
hindering the forces of innovation. Pollution is another
massive obstacle for Asia.
The idea
of a benign Asia also is a hard sell to those looking at
how governments are spending untold billions of dollars
on military hardware and technology.
Political instability is another huge challenge for
Asia. This week’s assassination attempt on East Timor
President Jose Ramos-Horta by renegade soldiers is a
case in point. Recurrent conflicts between Pakistan and
India over Kashmir, civil war in Sri Lanka, North
Korea’s nuclear-weapons program, China’s Taiwan policy
and intermittent coup rumors in the
Philippines
also come to mind.
Bigger
pie
Even so,
Asia isn’t going away. Imagine if the folks at Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. are even slightly correct that by 2050,
three of the four biggest economies will be Asian. It’s
hardly a given that that outcome would be bad for the
West.
It was
Sheldon Adelson who explained this best to me a few
years back. I interviewed him in Macau in June 2004 as
he was christening Asia’s first US-style casino, the
970,069-square-foot (90,122-square-meter) Sands Macao.
“The
thing about Asia is that as Asians get richer, they will
buy more of the West’s goods,” he told me. “This is
about the pie getting bigger and everyone getting
richer—not about Asians stealing growth from us.”
That’s a
tough sell for US voters fretting about the rise of the
so-called Wal-Mart Economy—that race to the bottom with
bargain-basement prices and low wages. Until recently,
US politicians preached the gospel of open markets and
fought for fewer trade barriers. Now that developing
nations are competing with the United States, Senators
Clinton, McCain and Obama will be under pressure to
reconsider this whole globalization thing.
It’s a
safe bet that Asia will play an increasing role in the
US election. China’s currency policy and tainted goods,
India’s outsourcing industry and
Asia’s
cheap labor will come up often as politicians grapple
with solutions to worker insecurity. Here, a more
optimistic message may be just the thing.
“Too
many Western minds are looking at dangers,” Mahbubani
wrote. “Few are looking at the opportunities.” |
