In the 19th century European powers came to dominate the planet. Europe was the center of the universe. The European century ended in 1914. With all the cross-border wars and civil wars, the revolutions, and the erosion of European economic power, Europe became eclipsed as the US emerged as superpower, hence the “American century”: the apogee came with victory in the cold war and the collapse of the USSR. For roughly a decade, the US was no longer “just” a superpower, but the global hegemonic power.
Developments in the first decade of this century – the catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the financial crisis five years later – rapidly eroded this position. In the meantime the sustained growth and dynamism of a number of East and South Asian economies, geopolitical trends, the decline of Europe, and the weakening power of the US have led some pundits to herald the arrival of the “Asian century”. Actually what we are witnessing is the fashioning of a multipolar world – as was the state of the planet for centuries prior to the 19th (European) century. What is true, however, is that whereas Asia was peripheral to globalization in the 19th century and still subjected to the West during much of the 20th, Asia has now moved to global center stage.
These seven perspectives define current transformations and Asia in 21st century globalization.
1 As the global narratives of the 19th & 20th centuries were written in Europe; the narrative of the 21st century will be primarily written in Asia. To cite one of myriad examples: war between Japan and China in 1894/95 had no major global consequences. A war between Japan and China today – a remote but not totally unfathomable possibility – would a most cataclysmic global scenario. Alternatively, if peace and reconciliation were to break out between China and Japan, prospects for the 21st century would immensely brighten.
2 Asia is huge, extending from the Red to the East China Seas; counting 60% of the world’s population, it covers multiple and highly diverse civilizations, very different levels of economic development, political regimes, etc; hence one cannot generalize about “Asia”. However during most of history until the 19th century trade and cultural exchange across Asian borders flourished. With the rise of Western imperialism, intra-Asian exchange virtually ceased as all Asian countries (except Japan) were either colonies or in other respects subjugated by the West. What is happening at present, however, is what might be termed the “re-Asianisation of Asia”. Intra-Asian flows of goods, capital, people, and ideas, right across the Asian continent, have intensified greatly since the beginning of this century. As the Chinese build the New Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Route, the intensification will deepen and broaden. This will include Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan that played such a fundamental role in the “old” Silk Road but that have been mainly relegated in modern times to the outer periphery of the global economy.
3 The most astonishing driver of Asian and global economic growth and transformation has been the breathtakingly rapid re-emergence of China as mega global economic, industrial, financial and increasingly geopolitical power. China’s global clout extends across all of Asia, East, South and West, across Africa, Latin America, Australasia, and also in Europe and North America. An anecdote to illustrate: in June 2014 the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang was due to pay a state visit to London. He expressed the desire to meet the Queen. He was told by British officials that this was contrary to protocol as the Queen meets with Heads of State (eg President Xi Jinping) whereas Li was “only” a head of government. In which case, Li said, he would not go. British protocol was rapidly adapted; he did go and met the Queen (see illustration). Queen Elizabeth is the direct descendant of Queen Victoria under whose reign was fought the Opium Wars thus precipitating China into its century of humiliation.
4 In contrast to the rise of China is the decline of Japan. Japan was the only non‐Western nation to have successfully emerged during the “European Century” as an industrial and imperial power. Whereas throughout history China, the Middle Kingdom, was the richest and most powerful power in Asia and Japan developed in its shadow, there occurred a dramatic reversal of fortune. From the mid/late-19th to the late 20th century Japan was far more powerful and richer than China. It waged three victorious wars against China. During Japan’s emergence as an imperial power in the European century, it invaded every East Asian country with the single exception of Thailand. Since the end of the 20th century Japan has been in economic, social, demographic and psychological doldrums. Japan is still the world’s third largest economy. For this and many other reasons its current economic weakness, political confusion, resurgence of nationalism and ambivalent role in Asia are destabilizing.
5 Though there are some concerns about the Asian economies, it is still a safe assumption that Asia will be an increasingly powerful locomotive of the global economy: a massive increase in the middle income group; massive urbanization; hence massive increases in consumption, and mammoth development of regional and global infrastructure. The last can be highlighted by a 15,000km railway project that would link the port of Shenzhen to Rotterdam, through Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. Asia, to coin a phrase, is where the global economic action will be for coming decades. These developments will obviously have tremendous environmental repercussions. Asia will remain at the center of the global climate change and environmental debate.
6 Not in spite of, but to a considerable extent because of all these profound transformations, Asia is a geopolitical cauldron, extending from ISIL in Syria/Iraq across the continent to the Orwellian state of North Korea. Fault-lines include territorial disputes (between virtually all Asian countries), religious and ethnic conflicts, and potential highly confrontational divisions over water, energy and food security. China and Korea are locked in bitter dispute over history with Japan. Asia has the biggest concentration of current (Israel, Pakistan, India, China) and possible future (Iran and North Korea) nuclear powers. Along with the chaos, it also needs to be stressed that Asia is bereft of the kind of institutional framework which has been a key instrument to peace in the Atlantic for the last seven decades. All this is not to engage in an Asian doomsday scenario, but certainly to insist that there is no room for complacency.
7 Last, but most emphatically not least, much of Asia is witnessing an ebullient cultural scene. It is extremely rich and varied, and far too much so to do it justice in a few lines. Mention can be made of scintillating musical activities, eg in India from the revival of Carnatic dance to Bollywood, and in parallel with the flowering of traditional folk music in China, the country’s love affair with classical “Western music”, with the annual (since 1998) Beijing Music Festival one of the great global musical highlights. There is of course the whole pop scene, including K-pop (Korean), Can-pop (Cantonese), Man-pop (Mandarin, etc). As a literature buff, I read Asian writers voraciously and find them among the outstanding literary figures of this age, a very short far from exhaustive list of which would include: Amitav Ghosh (India), Tahmima Anam (Bangladesh), Yu Hua (China), Vaddey Ratner (Cambodia), Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan), Kyung-sook Shin (South Korea), etc, etc, etc. Such books provide not only great literature, but also fascinating insights on their respective societies.
These seven perspectives provide a holistic vision of Asia. It is a complex, confusing, often contradictory picture. Simplification, generalization, and a mono-disciplinary approach should be eschewed. So far this century the Asian narrative has been fascinating. One of the few things we can be sure of is that it will remain fascinating for decades ahead. Asia is a space to watch closely.
