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| Will Asia rise and West decline? | | | Theo Sommer | 4/22/2013 10:37:16 PM |
| History never holds only one future in store for us; there is always
a plethora of possible futures. And as in all previous history, there will be surprises in the time ahead. The unforeseen and unforeseeable will shape the future as much as the expectable
THE topic I have
been given is:
"The Rise of Asia — the Decline of the West?" It's a question arising from the momentous power shift we are experiencing in the contemporary world. It is the third power shift in the past half-millennium. The first was the rise of Europe. Beginning around the year 1500, it produced the world we know - the world of science and technology, of capitalism and commerce, of the industrial and the agricultural revolutions. Until 50 years ago, of course, it was also the world of colonialism.
The second shift occurred at the end of the 19th century, when the United States entered the world stage and dominated it for a hundred years - politically, militarily and economically a superpower with global reach, challenged first by Hitler's Germany, then by Stalin's Soviet Union, but ultimately triumphant in both cases.
Half a century ago we applauded the demise of colonialism. But even without colonies, the West continued to dominate the world. During the past ten of fifteen years, however, we have the rise of the Rest, notably the rise of Asia's giants, China and India, belatedly but single-mindedly following in the wake of Japan and the smaller Asian tigers. We are witnessing the emergence of a new world order - a world order in which neither Europe nor the United States will enjoy supremacy, as the newcomers will energetically push for their places in the sun.
West to see a renewal
It would be quite premature, however, to count the U.S. and the EU out. For one thing, nations are resilient animals, capable of extraordinary effort and accomplishment. The West will see a renewal in the next three to five years. It will get its mojo back, to use a fashionable phrase. Take Germany. Called the "sick man of Europe" only ten years ago, it has once again become the Old World's economic powerhouse. The U.S. has weathered economic crises and political gridlock before. In the same vein, Europe has gone through many crises, but without fail it has come out stronger from each of them. America and Europe are going to work their way out of the current predicament. Both of them have a knack for self-correction.
Since many Asians - and particularly Indians - look at the world through British glasses, especially the spectacles of the Australian/American europhobe Rupert Murdoch, I am not surprised that they tend to sneer at Europe's potential for remedying its shortcomings. But they are wrong. We are more than a giant Switzerland leaving a steadily shrinking footprint on the world stage. We'll be back. There is an important kernel of truth to the old joke that the process of building Europe must be compared to the love-life of the elephant: Everything goes on at a very high level; a lot of dust is raised; and you have to wait years for results. It will be no different this time.
Let's not get inebriated by statistics. It is true: in 1980 the U.S. had a 25 percent share of the world economy, the EU 28 percent and China 3.5 percent. It is also true: According to current predictions, the gross domestic product of China will in the next 10years grow by 120 percent, that of the U.S. by 30 percent, and Europe's GDP by only 17 percent; but America's share of global GDP will slide to 18 percent while China's will grow to 18 percent. And by now it is conventional wisdom that China will soon be the world's largest economy, overtaking the US sometime between 2017 and 2027, with India following a decade or two decades behind to become the second largest. Already this year, the old industrial nations will produce less than half of global output. By 2030, Asia's economy will be larger than that of the U.S. and the EU combined.
India vs China
But we should not delude ourselves. India and China are developing countries and will remain developing countries for another two, perhaps three generations. With their per capita income - $5,500 in China, $1,500 in India - they limp far behind the developed nations of the West, ranking 85th (China) respectably 115th (India) in the world list. They rank just as low in the U.N. Human Development Index - China coming in 101st, India 134th out of 187. Transparency International's Corruption Index ranks China a poor 80th in the world, India 94th. According to a projection of the Carnegie Foundation, by mid-century China's per capita income will amount to merely one third of the American level, India's even less, namely one tenth. Both countries will be far behind the European level, too. In China as on the subcontinent, it is still a long way to "prosperity for all".
China and India face enormous social problems. Hundreds of millions live in abysmal poverty. The gap between the rich and the poor keeps widening. Moribund state owned enterprises are a drag on the economy. Environmental pollution gets ever worse. There is no social net to speak of that mitigates the destitution of the masses. Corruption is all-pervasive. And job creation for 10 to 20 million people every year presents a daunting task. China grapples with the problems of an ageing population, India with the problems of a nation half of whose population is younger than twenty-five. The drawbacks of dictatorship jeopardize progress in China, the deficiencies of democracy have the same effect in India.
Indo-Pacific century?
As a Westerner, I recognize that the rest of the world won't simply dock in our harbor. But the twentieth century has only just begun. Will it become the Indo-Pacific Century? My answer to this question is the same the former Chinese Premier Chou En-lai gave when asked what he thought about the French Revolution: "It's too early to tell". In rising Asia, bumps and bruises are certain to punctuate its future development. Asia's trees won't grow to the sky. Turning dreams into reality is not an easy exercise. Japan's example holds an important lesson. Circumstances may change; a seemingly irresistible momentum may suddenly lose its propelling force; the inability to reform in time and move on to new horizons can drastically diminish a nation's prospects.
A lot can go wrong for the ascending Chinese dragon and the growing Indian elephant. The ageing Chinese might get old before they get rich, while youthful India might fail to provide jobs, life-chances and hope for its teeming young generation. If the old industrial nations remain innovative and entrepreneurial, they have little reason to fear the rise of Asia, especially the rise of Asia's undoubted stars, China and India. Their emergence or re-emergence does not spell the imminent decline of the old West. It is only a relative, not an absolute decline. The West will have to scoot over to make space for the nations now soaring ahead, but it will not disappear.
And the fact that the days of Western hegemony are over does not mean that any of the newcomers will be able to become a global hegemon. We are entering a post-hegemonic world - "no one's world", as Charles Kupchan put it, neither the white man's nor the yellow, brown or black man's world. A balance of power between multiple poles is going to foil any hegemonial, imperial or expansionist aspirations. America and Europe will each be one pole, and they will want to make sure that none of the up-and-coming nations will get any ideas. If necessary, they'll have to establish a balance of power capable of thwarting any hegemonial ambitions. But rather than drifting into new big power confrontations, they will leave no stone unturned to engage China and India in order to make them responsible stakeholders of the international community.
'Problems without passports'
There won't be a world government in 2050 able to enforce global dictates, nor in the year 2100. The nations will remain the building blocks of the international order. But formerly nations had sovereign command over their territory, their economic life and their natural environment. In the meantime, they have lost control over at least two of these three areas that used to define their sovereignty: the mastery over their national economies as well as over their environment. The world of business does not recognize borders any longer; nor does acid rain. Climate change, air pollution, overfishing and pollution of the oceans, energy security, water shortage, epidemics and pandemics - they all call for transnational solutions. In the absence of a world government, this requires what has become known as world governance - rules, procedures and institutions to address all those "problems without passports", to pick up a phrase coined by Kofi Annan.
Let me add a word by way of conclusion. As hard as we try to penetrate the fog of the future, in the last analysis we cannot say anything much more precise than Yogi Berra, the legendary US baseball coach. He is famous for his malapropisms. For instance: "This restaurant is so crowded nobody goes there any more!" Or, when the waitress asked him whether he wanted his pizza cut into four or eight slices, he said: "Four, I don't think I can eat eight." Or, when asked what he would do if he found a million dollars, he said: "If the guy was poor, I would give it back." About the future Yogi Berra said: "It's like the past, only longer."
Whether we are going to enter a Davos world with an Asian tint, a revived Pax Americana, a New Caliphate or protracted cycles of fear, a world without the West, a bust-up of the BRICS - we just cannot know. None of our planning staff and think-tank gurus seriously predicted the break-up of the Soviet empire, the triumph of the computer and the Internet, the eruption of jihad terrorism or the recent upheaval in the Arab World. In the future, too, bolts from the blue - the known unknown and the unknown unknown - will surprise and shock us. Yet with a bit of luck we may also look forward to some unhoped-for positive events and developments.
Excerpted from Dr.Theo Sommer's.Rajendra Mathur lecture organised by the Editors Guild of India in New Delhi on March 20, 2013 |
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