The Future Is Asian

by Parag Khanna

  We are only in the early phases of global Asianization; hence we must continue to explore how the coming decades will transpire. How will Asia manage the current wave of geopolitical, economic, social, and technological transformations? Will mixed capitalism, social conservatism, and technocratic governance remain a magic formula, elevating those societies that have not yet adopted it? How will Western and other powers respond to Asia’s rise, and what adjustments will Asians make to those reactions?

  A new chapter of global history is being written before our eyes, one in which Asian and Western civilizations, the North American and Eurasian continents, all play profoundly important roles. Today Westerners prefer the phrasing “global rules-based order” while Asians favor the Chinese phrase “community of common destiny.” Tomorrow we will realize that they are two sides of the same coin—and that both the rules and the destiny must be made together. That is where we are on the wheel of global history.

  Acknowledgments

  Moving to Singapore in 2012 was the beginning of a wonderfully deep immersion into contemporary Asia. Despite two decades of traveling for long stretches across the region, finally I have spent these past years seeing it—and the world—from the inside out. The result, I hope, is a prism in which all Asians are both comfortable and inspired.

  I would like to thank my highly respected colleagues from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy for their marvelous support and insights for this project, especially former dean Kishore Mahbubani and professor Kanti Bajpai, director of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, whose generous financial support enabled valuable research assistance for this book. Danny Quah, Razeen Sally, Yuen Foong Khong, Tan Kong Yam, Siddharth Tiwari, James Crabtree, Francesco Mancini, Blake Berger, Byron Chong and numerous other colleagues have been an outstanding sounding board for the ideas presented here.

  The next generation of scholars has also been invaluable source of research and fresh ideas. Adnan Ahmad and Ian Reinert, both Lee Kuan Yew School graduates, were superb in gathering and analyzing data related to trade patterns and fiscal policy. Allen Cho masterfully pieced together the Northeast Asian industrial landscape. Aditya Ramachandran’s fluency in Asian and American worldviews reminded me just how global the next generation of Asians truly is. I owe extra special thanks to Xiao You Mok, a Singaporean native with a degree from Japan and now earning a PhD in the United States, whose pan-Asian aesthetic sensibility, meticulous research skills and effortless intellectual grace made a genuine imprint on this undertaking. These Asian millennials give me great hope for the region’s future.

  Friends in Singapore, who always have their finger on the pulse of Asia, have been a regular souce of insights across the board: Pavel Bains, Beh Swan Gin, Alexander Bernard, Umej Bhatia, Ernesto Braam, Chan Chun Sing, Sangeet Paul Chaudary, Calvin Cheng, Eng Cheong Teo, Brooks Entwistle, Shaokai Fan, Nick Fang, Mark Fogle, Amol Gupte, Peter Ho, Tarun Kataria, Ron Kaufman, Gaurang Khemka, John Kim, Joshua Kuma, Ann Lavin, Frank Lavin, Lien Chen Lien, Joseph Liow, Kevin Lu, Eddy Malesky, Aaron Maniam, David Marx, Law Chung Ming, Daniel Lee, Adam Levinson, David Mann, Sopnendu Mohanty, Vignes Sellakannu, Caesar Sengupta, Satvinder Singh, Michelle Tan, Yinglan Tan, Sudhir Vadaketh, Sriram Vasudevan, Michael Vatikiotis, Ravi Velloor, Karsten Warnecke, George Yeo, and Mikhail Zeldovich. Special thanks to Aussie tech entrepreneur Philip Lutton for his wide-ranging thinking on how exponential technologies will unfold in the Asian domain, Neeraj Seth for his inexhaustible knowledge of Asian economies, and Ravi Chidambaram for his big-picture thinking on what makes Asia tick. For their counsel on how Latin America views Asia’s rise, I am grateful to Flavio Damico, Mauricio Baquero-Pardo, Braz Baracuhy, Federico Barttfeld, Manuel Talavera Espinar, Fredesman Turro Gonzalez, Alfredo Toro Hardy, Alfonso Murillo, James Sinclair, and Natan Wolf.

  A great many experts on the history, philosophy, politics, and economics of Asia and global thinking about Asia have provided very useful information and insights: Graham Allison, Arjun Appadurai, Zubaid Ahmad, Richard Allen, Ali Aslan, Genevieve Bell, Karan Bhatia, Penny Burtt, Cliff Coonan, Patrick Cordes, Jack DeGioia, Prasenjit Duara, Jack Dwyer, Casper Ellerbaek, Andrew Field, Gordon Flake, Spencer Fung, Mishaal Gergawi, Alison Gilmore, Brad Glosserman, Martin Gray, Michael Green, Steve Grubb, Guoliang Wu, Blair Hall, Nat Hansen, Jonathan Hausman, Rupert Hoogewerf, Ann Julian, Kosmo Kalliarekos, Robert Kaplan, Gerry Keefe, Kevin Kelly, Claudio Lilienfeld, Peggy Liu, Manish Kayshap, Suat Kiniklioglu, Udai Kunzru, Wolfgang Lehmacher, Scott Malcomson, Anna Marrs, Avinash Mehrotra, Simon Milner, Pankaj Mishra, Siddharth Mohandas, Yascha Mounk, Alexandre Parilusyan, Safdar Parvez, Chris Patten, Joseph Phi, Kai Poetschke, Noah Raford, Julia Raiskin, Laurent Ramsey, Sean Randolph, Rahul Reddy, Gideon Rose, Dan Rosen, Jim Rowan, Manuel Rybach, Richard Samans, Rana Sarkar, Jonas Schorr, Elliot Schrage, Chris Schroeder, John Seely Brown, Reva Seth, Clara Shen, Philip Shetler-Jones, Lutfey Siddiqui, Ben Simpfendorfer, Sarita Singh, Lauren Sorkin, Shantanu Surpure, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, Richard Threfall, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Hal Varian, Andy Ventris, Steve Walt, Wang Gungwu, and Justin Wood. Scott Malcomson once again deserves special thanks for his intellectual and editorial counsel.

  During the research and writing of this book, I enjoyed an invigorating semester-long sabbatical at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, and wish to thank for their warm hospitality the wonderful team of Sandra Breka, Jannik Rust, Korbinian Bauer, and Madeleine Schneider. I’m also grateful to the roundtable participants they assembled to discuss Europe’s relations with Asia, as well as other German dignitaries and experts with whom I spent time during my stay: Thomas Bagger, Laurence Bay, Bjoern Conrad, Patrick Donahue, Wolfram Eilenberger, Mark Hauptmann, Sebastian Heilmann, Julian Hermann, Hanns Guenther Hilpert, Wolfgang Ischinger, Josef Janning, Alex Kugel, Undine Ruge, Eberhard Sandschneider, Ulrich Sante, Wolfgang Schmidt, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Tan Tah Jiun, and Jan Techau.

  I would also like to thank other Europe-based experts for their thoughts and analysis: Valerie Amos, Giovanni Andornino, Ricardo Borges de Castro, Peter Burian, Carlotta Clivio, Norbert Czismadia, Peter Eigen, Theresa Fallon, Enrico Fardalla, Alex Fox, Giuseppe Gabusi, Thomas Geisel, David Giampaolo, Christoph Goeller, Nik Gowing, Jan-Friedrich Kallmorgen, Sebastian Kaempf, Daniel Korski, Taavi Kotka, Leah Kreitzman, Christin Kristofferson, Mark Leonard, Bruno Macaes, Stanislav Matejka, Ann Mettler, Helmut Morent, Martina Poletti, Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, Jeremy Shapiro, Kristin Shi-Kupfer, Francesco Silvestri, Pawel Swieboda, Irene Tinagli, Paul Unschuld, Taleh Ziyadov, and Felix Zulauf.

  Every visit to Japan is special, and most recently I have learned a great deal from time spent with Shiro Armstrong, Tetsuro Fukunaga, Yoichi Funabashi, Daisuke Iwase, Tadashi Maeda, Gen Miyazawa, Hiro Motoki, Sachio Nishioka, Kazumi Nishikawa, Teru Sato, Akihisa Shioaki, Makoto Takano, Tatsuya Terazawa, Hirotaka Unami, and Takashi Yokota. During an auspicious visit to Mongolia, I had the pleasure of gaining the wisdom of friends old and new: Ariunaa Batbold, Khaltmaagiin Battulga, Lundeg Bayartuul, Zorigt Enkhbat, Tsetseglen Galbadrakh, Tuvshinzaya Gantulga, Dulguun, Nomin Chinbat, Ganhuyag Hutagt, Ben Moyle, Ogi Moyle, Baatar Navaan, Lundeg Purevsuren, Erdenebold Sukhbaatar, and Ganzorig Vanchig. I was also honored to participate in the Crawford Leadership Forum in Canberra in 2017 and wish to thank the organizers, participants and other friends in Australia who have provided the view from “Down Under”: Stephen Bartos, Gareth Evans, Michael Feller, Evelyn Goh, Allan Gyngell, Greg Hunt, Sung Lee, Martine Letts, Jason Yat-Sen Li, and Peter Singer. And for hosting me (and my adventurous daughter) in the enchanted kingdom of Bhutan, I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Chewang Rinzin, Sigay Dem, and Adrian Chan.

  As my travels have taken me many times to China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Central Asia, the Gulf, and all ASEAN countries, I have acknowledged many friends and contacts from these countries in my previous books. Here I would like to particularly thank the following people for more recent conversations that directly contributed to this book: Rashid
Amjad, Aluf Benn, Daniel Bell, Bing Song, Azam Chaudhry, Brahma Chellaney, Alisher Ali Djumanov, Dong Wang, Michael Eisenberg, Hassan Fattah, Yasar Jarrar, Angelo Jiminez, Mishaal Gergawi, Karl Gheysen, Mallika Kapur, Anusha Rehman Khan, Nasrullah Khan, Eric X. Li, Mersole Mellejor, Afshin Molavi, Antonio Morales, Roland Nash, Ramon Pastrana, Lubna Qassim, Abhijnan Rej, Jorge Sarmiento, Irina Schwarzburg, Jen Zhu Scott, Shahbaz Sharif, Aditya Dev Sood, Dmitry Suslov, Mudassir Tipu, Dmitri Trenin, Antonio Ver, Chris Weaver, Brian Wong, Tarik Yousef, Saadia Zahidi, Artem Zassoursky, and Taleh Ziyadov.

  I can no longer imagine books without maps and infographics, and for producing another crop of insightful imagery I am ever so grateful to Jeff Blossom at Harvard’s Center for Geographical Analysis as well as Tanya Buckingham and Casey Kalman at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

  By now Jennifer Joel at ICM knows I would never make a strategic decision without her. That is because she is not only an agent but also a true friend. With her characteristically strategic deftness, Jenn guided me through a publisher transition that brought this book into the very capable hands of Ben Loehnen at Simon & Schuster, who, as fate would have it, has known me since my very first literary foray. Ben and his team have been absolutely delightful, utterly professional, and remarkably efficient.

  Each subsequent book does not become any easier to write, but the effort provides plenty of fresh fodder for dinner table discussions with family wherever they may be. I’m ever grateful to my parents, Sushil and Manjula Khanna, my in-laws Javed and Zarene Malik, my brother and sister-in-law Gaurav and Anu Khanna, and of course my beloved wife, Ayesha, and our kids, Zara and Zubin, with whom I’m grateful to be building our Asian future.

  About the Author

  © HART TAN

  Dr. Parag Khanna is the Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data-driven scenario-planning and strategic advisory firm that works with some of the world’s most innovative governments, cities, and companies. He has been a fellow at the Brookings Institution, New America, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, and an adviser to the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030 program and US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of The Second World, How to Run the World, Connectography, Hybrid Reality, and Technocracy in America. Born in India and raised in the UAE, New York, and Germany, Parag holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has been honored as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in Wired magazine’s “Smart List.”

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  ALSO BY PARAG KHANNA

  The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order

  How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance

  Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization

  Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization

  Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State

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  Notes

  Introduction: Asia First

  1 Only the African Group in the United Nations has more members with fifty-four. Asia is home to 2,301 spoken languages, and Africa ranks second with just over 2,100 languages.

  2 Branko Milanovic, “Global Income Inequality by the Numbers: In History and Now—An Overview,” World Bank Policy Research Paper no. 6259, November 2012, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/959251468176687085/pdf/wps6259.pdf.

  3 Kishore Mahbubani, Can Asians Think? Understanding the Divide Between East and West (New York: Steerforth Press, 2001).

  4 Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific, 2015 (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 2015), https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/175162/ki2015.pdf.

  5 Homi Kharas, “The Unprecedented Expansion of the Global Middle Class: An Update,” Global Economy & Development Working Paper no. 100, Brookings Institution, February 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/global_20170228_global-middle-class.pdf.

  6 Since most ancient cultures thought of themselves as the center of the world, Asian civilizations had names for one another but no word for “Asia.” To this day, Chinese use the word “Yaxiya” and Japanese “Ajia” for the region.

  7 The scholar of geography Harm de Blij presented a global cartography of twelve realms, half of which are explicitly Asian: Southwest Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific Islands. Russia was defined as a separate realm, though it lies mostly within Asia.

  8 North and South America together have a similar number of large states: Canada, the United States, Brazil, and Argentina.

  9 As the scholar P. K. Basu argued in Asia Reborn, “The umbrella of colonialism and its post-colonial and Cold War effects masked the underlying unity of the Asian continent,” Prasenjit K. Basu, Asia Reborn: A Continent Rises from the Ravages of War and Colonialism to a New Dynamism (New Delhi: Aleph, 2017.)

  10 Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (London: Oxford University Press, 2000).

  11 The United States is the top trading partner of Canada and Mexico, but for the United States, the European Union and China rank ahead of Canada and Mexico.

  12 Yoichi Funabashi, “The Asianization of Asia,” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 5 (November–December 1993): 75.

  13 “GCC Trade with Asia Growing and Diversifying,” The Report: UAE: Dubai, Oxford Business Group, 2015, https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/analysis/gcc-trade-asia-growing-and-diversifying.

  14 Xi Jinping, “New Asian Security Concept for New Progress in Security Cooperation,” remarks at the Fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, Shanghai, May 21, 2014. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. Retrieved from http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1159951.shtml.

  15 “Kevin Rudd, Toward an Asia-Pacific Union,” Asia Society, June 4, 2008, https://asiasociety.org/kevin-rudd-toward-asia-pacific-union.

  1. A History of the World: An Asian View

  1 Sebastian Conrad, What is Global History? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).

  2 The Eastern Zhou Dynasty, by contrast, was more dispersed, with kings still dependent on feudal lords and rival fiefdoms to maintain power.

  3 Another prince of the same period, Vardhamana Mahavira, also undertook journeys of self-sacrifice and meditation that inspired the system of nonviolence and spiritual liberation known as Jainism.

  4 In search of manpower for their global colonial empires, the Portuguese and Spanish, together with the Arabs, expanded the existing slave-trading routes across the Sahara Desert, through Egypt and Ethiopia, across the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and soon after across the Atlantic Ocean from the Caribbean to Brazil. This sixteenth- and seventeenth-century slave trade morphed into rivalries among European powers to subjugate and partition Africa.

  2. Lessons of Asian History—for Asia and the World

  1 “The 112th Canton Fair Closes with US$30 Billion Turnover, Showing Stable Overall Trade Situation,” PR Newswire, Nov. 12, 2017. http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/the-112th-canton-fair-boosting-trade-with-asia-pacific-marke
ts-170463406.html.

  2 By 2050, Islam’s world population is expected to match that of Christianity, with more than 2.5 billion believers each.

  3. The Return of Greater Asia

  1 KinLing Lo, “US Take Note: Chinese, Russian Militaries Are Closer than You Think, China’s Defence Minister Says,” South China Morning Post, April 4, 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2140301/us-take-note-chinese-russian-militaries-are-closer-you.

  2 The largest foreign group in Russia is Ukrainians, whose remittances make up 5 percent of Ukraine’s GDP.

  3 Margaret Coker, “Hoping for $100 Billion to Rebuild, Iraq Got Less than a Third,” New York Times, Feb. 14, 2018.

  4 For the same reasons, Israeli start-ups have made Singapore their regional hub to access the growing Southeast Asian market for advanced technologies.

  5 Niv Elis, “Private Ashdod Port Building Ahead of Schedule, Says Ports Company,” Jerusalem Post, April 12, 2016, https://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Private-Ashdod-port-building-ahead-of-schedule-says-ports-company-451039.

  6 Benjamin Netanyahu, “Full Text: Netanyahu’s Speech on Iran in Munich,” Feb. 18, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/full-text-netanyahu-s-speech-on-iran-in-munich-1.5826934.