Contents List and An Extract from 'An Asian Century Manifesto: Global Political Economy of the 21st Century'
ISBN 9781906844004 London 2008
The book is out of print at the moment. But its full text without notes or illustrations of this book is available on the web:
https://sites.google.com/site/atmasinghproject/home/strategic-thinking/an-asian-century-manifesto-global-political-economy-of-the-21st-century
Contents
'Action is eloquence’
William Shakespeare
Contents
Section 1
INTRODUCTION
Purpose
Asian Century
Defining Asian
Asians are the majority
History of Asia’s Role in the World
Section 2
The fundamental drivers of the Asian century
Driver 1 Asian Demographics
Driver 2 Rise of China and India in the world economy
Driver 3 Globalisation of Asian culture
Driver 4 Lack of a Middle East peace process
Driver 5 High value of Asian skills and education in the world market
Driver 6 Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market
The new moral universe in the Asian Century
Section 3 Four themes of the Asian Century
Theme 1
PROSPERITY
‘Chinindia’
An Asian and Global Meritocracy
Asia’s ecology and battle for animal, plant and environmental diversity
Theme 2
PLURALISM
Majorities and Minorities
Religion, Secularism and Modernism
Religious Totalitarianism
Theme 3
PEACE
India’s exclusion from the international system
Peace and diplomacy towards Asian unity
Terrorism
Theme 4
PROGRESS
Progressives Movements in the East
Progressive Movements in the West
Section 4 CONCLUSION
East and West Relations in the C21st
Role of Asian People in the West
A new age of progress: enlightenment and economic revolution
Section 5 RECOMMENDATIONS
Extract
Text Section 1 of the book
SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION
Advice to Indian children
‘…“I was born not for one corner. The whole world is my native land.” So said Seneca. I have always felt that connection and stewardship for earth and the universe…Material interests are not the only guiding light. Take the time to figure out how to get there. The quickest way may not necessarily be the best. The journey matters as much as the goal. Wishing you the best on your trek towards your dreams. Take good care of our fragile planet.’
Kalpana Chawla American Indian Astronaut killed on the Columbiamission (India Today interview February 17th 2003)
Purpose
The purpose of this manifesto is to address some of the key questions facing Asia, the West and the world and seek to provide a programme of ideas and actions for the way forward for Asia, the West and the world.
Unlike the philosophy of the east and west never to meet (in Rudyard Kipling’s well-known lines quoted out of context)[1], this manifesto has a philosophy about the merit of the east and west meeting and working out new solutions to world problems. We think it is possible to begin to eliminate the distorting prism of racism and colonialism through a new understanding. Asia itself, still facing huge levels of poverty and underdevelopment, will have to change in fundamental ways to modernise its thinking and renew itself politically, socially, culturally as well as economically, without discarding the fundamentally good and essential aspects of its ancient and modern past. It can achieve this in co-operation with the West and by judging the West critically and fairly.
This is a manifesto that could not have been written at the year of the dawn of the new century. The processes underway, even then, were too invisible to most opinion formers and policy makers. There is substantial corpus of evidence and empirical data today several years later to show that Asia is likely to increasingly dominate this century in terms of population and economics.
I have used the term ‘Asian century’. This a term coined by a former Indian Prime Minister and former Chinese President. The term is valid in terms of countering the negative perceptions or marginalisation of Asia and its people still prevalent today. Asian philosophical strength is still necessary to create a positive image of Asia and its people and to correct the racist images of Asia and its people around the globe – even if they are becoming more nuanced in modern times.
The new crop of ‘Asian’ experts (in the world’s media, think tanks, international institutions and government bodies) are merely catching up, a posteriori, after the Asian century was clearly visible to the world. These ‘noveau’ Asian experts still make fundamental mistakes with perspectives based on cold-war and even colonial assumptions about Asia. A classical example has been Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who after having successfully proposed ‘the shock therapy’ in the former Soviet Union which resulted in a fall in the life expectancy of Russian people, has become an expert of Asian and international issues. God save us from such experts!
The ‘noveau’ Asian experts still look at Asia with outdated analytical tools. Asia’s development has not been the work of the Western left or Western right, but essentially of Asia itself with its ancient wisdom buried by imperialism on a temporary basis. Deng Xiao Ping and Manmohan Singh (both of them born during imperialist days) were the inheritors of this wisdom by combining Asia’s needs to grow with the Western capitalist needs for high return investments. Asia’s development has been based on ignoring many Western recipes – from those of the International Monetary Fund after the 1997 Asian crises to its materialist school of analysis and those in the international non-government organisations (NGOs) who argued that too much attention was paid to the Asian tsunami in 2004 and that the attention should have been devoted to Africa.
There was also a presumption that was still alive and kicking at the end of the C20th and in the first few years of C21st that Asians could not write about Asia and the world with authority. Asians could not make judgements about global trends and be right about them. Now that presumption is being challenged by facts and raw reality. Asian people can be leaders of the Asian century as well as defenders and champions of Asian perspectives and knowledge.
When I produced a Black Manifesto in the UK for 1997 and 2003 General Elections, most of its demands became government policies, laws and even key aspects of the new government agenda – influential and far-reaching.
I have no doubt about the importance of this manifesto in its first version in influencing international institutions, governments and movements in the east and west of the world and also the cultural and intellectual arena occupied by the youth and educated populations. Ultimately, I believe that the manifesto is addressed to poor people in the world and its views are on their side. Asia’s success will be in the interests of the poor of the world. They need champions in this century who are untainted by cynicism of Western left. They need champions outside of the cynicism of the Asian rich elites and their acolytes. In this sense, this manifesto is in the tradition of the Mahatma (Ghandi).
I write as a British and European citizen by my citizenship – and I see myself as a full citizen with equal rights to all other people in Britain and Europe, and not as some second-class immigrant, who is a ‘guest’ of the West. I am an inheritor of Western rights inscribed by the English, French and American revolutions with their progressive outlook on humanity.
Like John F Kennedy, I want to proclaim myself in solidarity. He said:”Ich bich ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). He stood up against the division of the world created by the Iron Curtain.
I say: “I am an Asian”. I stand in solidarity with Asia and against the division of the world into the east and the west.
I was born in Asia – in a poor Asia arising like a phoenix from the ashes from European imperialism. My parents experienced brutal poverty and successfully rescued some of their children from the claws of early death. The manifesto is dedicated to them and their generation, who saw Asia at its lowest ebb.
I want to proclaim my opposition against the division of the world created by imperialism. I am Western and I am Eastern at the same time. I refuse to accept the historic division of humanity imposed by a temporary period of evil in human history known in the imperialist phase.
Above all, I am a human being. This planet is my planet.
The manifesto is a tribute to Asian progressives and their faith in Asia’s destiny and a tribute to the Asian ‘traditionalists’ who have defended the good in Asia when it was fashionable to deride Asia’s past achievements. It is also a tribute to the Western progressive and the Western traditionalist, who have defended the goodness of the West even when it was not fashionable. The Western crimes of colonialism and racism cannot blind the world to the tremendous progressive achievements of the West and the goodness of its past.
Asian Century
The manifesto is written in a world, where Asia, with approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, is in the midst of a historic industrial and technological revolution. The specific objective of this revolution is to take over two and half billion Asian people into the world inhabited by the advanced economies of the world.
Map 1: Population density in the world
It is a challenge of historic proportions: bigger than the successful challenge of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in C19th or the American Transformation in C20th into an industrialised global economy.
The first great Industrial Revolution during the C19th happened in Britain – with the help of an Indian Empire and other colonies – with its population estimated at barely 8 million in 1791 at the start of this process than the current vast scale of development in Asia.
The Industrial revolution produced a total transformation of Britainthrough the following key features:
Graph 1 Relative share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1950. Data from: Paul Bairoch, "International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980" JEEH 11
The USA was the second great economic transformation applied to a population of over a hundred million people:
The USA also saw a potential rival in the Soviet Union – but the Soviet Union had a lot more brutality in its economic growth as well as its political development. The Soviet Union was more to do with superpower status rather than an economic (consumer) or political democracy. The Soviet Union created many showcases of economic progress and social state advancement, but many of them disappeared overnight in the disintegration of Soviet state. It’s finest contribution was its role in the defeat of Nazism - its 20 million dead during this epic world struggle for humanity set the modern example for self-sacrifice.
Asia’s developments in the C21st will dwarf the magnificent achievements of the USA in C20th. They constitute a defining period in world history: the period of the transition of the globe from the situation where the majority of the world lives in poverty to a situation where poverty will have been conquered for the majority of the human race.
The Western accounts of post-WWII history place Asia either in the background or in discrete events such as the famines and floods of the Indian sub-continent, Vietnam and Korean wars, the tanks in Tiananmen Square of Beijing, the ‘Killing Fields’ of Cambodia, Asian Tsunami and other episodes of tragedy, death and helplessness. US Under Secretary of State for South Asia, Nicholas Burns, famously stated that ‘India did not register on our radar’.
Assumptions about Asia’s rise did not really exist amongst the top policy-making circles and think tanks of the West until fairly recently after the process had been underway for over a decade in India and two decades in China. Western assumptions were based on a world in which the military and economic dominance of the USA (under the title Project of the American Century) would hold sway - with a potential rival in the European Union on an economic level.
However, the outcome of Asia’s achievements in the 21st century will determine the future of humanity. Human development on a new level is at the heart of the Asian economic dream – abolishing real poverty and underdevelopment by achieving average living standards similar to those in the West.
This process does not necessarily have to be resource heavy provided the world’s critical imagination is used to create viable solutions to real questions of economic development including the deployment of technological innovations, using Asia’s knowledge bank of environmental issues to protect nature, sensible open immigration policies and raising the purchasing power of Asian labour in real terms.
The prospects for humanity are brighter through these developments. We are in the epoch of the transition to the ‘Asian Century’ – the epoch when the wasted human talent latent within Asia will be utilised as happened previously in the West. This will see in our view Asia being added to the West in terms of the global area covered by advanced economic development.
Graph 2 The economic position of Asia 2005 Source: www. imf.com 2005
It is possible that Asia will become the more important global economic centre than the West. This is not as important as the fact that Asia is economically developed and its people are brought out of poverty through this process. This is not a competition between the East and West, although a positive competition for greater economic productiveness is good. This is a positive sum game, a win-win situation. It is simply a competition for Asia to enter the domain of economic advancement with the majority of its people enjoying Western style living standards. These standards would mean taking on board the progressive, pluralistic and personal pleasure aspects of these societies as well as making moral advances in the fields of non-violence and environmental conservation – advancing on the most modern aspects of society and not making the same mistakes that the West made in reaching those standards.
There will be many Asian billionaires and millionaires in this process.[7] They are not as important as the ordinary billions of people and their general living standards. The billionaires and millionaires are not a problem for Asia, they are part of the solution to the poverty and unemployment affecting the majority of the people in China and India at the beginning of C21st. The billions of ordinary and rural people have to be given economic and political choice by making them into effective consumers in the market place of Asia.
A way forward for Asia is probably a way forward for the whole of humanity and certainly a way forward for the majority of humanity. In the best sense of the word, it is not a minority interest. The marginalisation of the majority of humanity is coming to an end.
Asia’s industrial and technological revolution will add to the progress already made by mankind and will change the fate of humanity into the realm of human hope. For the first time, the realistic prospects exist that the majority of the world’s people will no longer live in absolute poverty.
This will prepare the way for the final onslaught against global poverty faced by the minority of mankind. This will create a more urbane and cosmopolitan world with most people living in developed urban areas. The democratic challenge will be to make this an educated world of individuals freed from poverty who then can make free consumer and personal lifestyle choices - opposite to the world of poverty with its collective nightmares of enforced personal, family and community subjugation.
The majority of the world will have a stake against war and violence – which retards economic progress. Peace amongst nations and a peaceful global moral majority will be the norm. Only a tiny minority of nations will engage in wars and only a tiny minority will subscribe to the use of violence to impose their views on other people through terrorism and other such means. A clash of civilisations (from the left and right, from religious majorities and minorities) will remain a theory suited to tiny political forces that will not make progress - in a world where the majority will see prospects to end poverty amongst people all over the world and will want to achieve this noble goal in human history.
A clear call to change – in a conscious and courageous way – is the second intention behind this manifesto. People all over the world need to readily embrace the Asian century, as it is going to be a progressive event and in all probability a fact. The manifesto should motivate engagement between different peoples of the world towards the realisation of the potential human triumphs of the Asian century.
The world will benefit – not just Asia. A true global virtuous cycle of economic growth is on the horizon driven by the two Asian giants of China and India. The vicious cycle of economic depression and recession with human misery will be reduced in scope. Global engagement with Asia will benefit the world. There should not be a false protectionist or politically-driven racist hostility to Asia – for the sake of economic prosperity in the world as well as for the sake of humanitarian internationalism.
A positive case of the Asian century needs to be made in an organised and systematic way for the good of all humanity and to make the transition to the Asian century a less painful process for those in the West. The Western monopoly over economic growth and good living standards amongst ordinary people will come to an end.
The ordinary people of the West are benefiting from increased purchasing power through cheap quality products and services provided by Asian roaring economies as well as from the global economic expansion in the world driven by Asia’s economic growth. The youth of the West are revelling in Asian culture as part of the world’s new cultural scene. The elites in the West are already participating in the new business environment of Asia’s economic rise as part of the modern economic world. The USA, through the Iraq war, has realised that there are limitations to its massive economic and military resources.
Acceptance of change is possible and is happening. Western people are not inherently racist and neither are its elites. We should not make that assumption in the C21st. On the contrary, economic progress has enabled enlightened values to be part of the pattern of the West. Asia will adopt enlightened values in this process in a new phase of political and social modernisation.
Peace, prosperity, progress, pluralism, pleasure (or happiness) : these are the five ‘Ps’ of the Asia century – opposed to its endemic poverty, the sixth ‘P’, and the seventh ‘P’ of ‘Protectionism’ that can be a dangerous barrier erected to ‘stop Asia’s economic growth’ by reactionary forces. A new Asia is being born. A new world is being created.
ISBN 9781906844004 London 2008
The book is out of print at the moment. But its full text without notes or illustrations of this book is available on the web:
https://sites.google.com/site/atmasinghproject/home/strategic-thinking/an-asian-century-manifesto-global-political-economy-of-the-21st-century
Contents
'Action is eloquence’
William Shakespeare
Contents
Section 1
INTRODUCTION
Purpose
Asian Century
Defining Asian
Asians are the majority
History of Asia’s Role in the World
Section 2
The fundamental drivers of the Asian century
Driver 1 Asian Demographics
Driver 2 Rise of China and India in the world economy
Driver 3 Globalisation of Asian culture
Driver 4 Lack of a Middle East peace process
Driver 5 High value of Asian skills and education in the world market
Driver 6 Rise of Asian agriculture and ecological imperatives in the world market
The new moral universe in the Asian Century
Section 3 Four themes of the Asian Century
Theme 1
PROSPERITY
‘Chinindia’
An Asian and Global Meritocracy
Asia’s ecology and battle for animal, plant and environmental diversity
Theme 2
PLURALISM
Majorities and Minorities
Religion, Secularism and Modernism
Religious Totalitarianism
Theme 3
PEACE
India’s exclusion from the international system
Peace and diplomacy towards Asian unity
Terrorism
Theme 4
PROGRESS
Progressives Movements in the East
Progressive Movements in the West
Section 4 CONCLUSION
East and West Relations in the C21st
Role of Asian People in the West
A new age of progress: enlightenment and economic revolution
Section 5 RECOMMENDATIONS
Extract
Text Section 1 of the book
SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION
Advice to Indian children
‘…“I was born not for one corner. The whole world is my native land.” So said Seneca. I have always felt that connection and stewardship for earth and the universe…Material interests are not the only guiding light. Take the time to figure out how to get there. The quickest way may not necessarily be the best. The journey matters as much as the goal. Wishing you the best on your trek towards your dreams. Take good care of our fragile planet.’
Kalpana Chawla American Indian Astronaut killed on the Columbiamission (India Today interview February 17th 2003)
Purpose
The purpose of this manifesto is to address some of the key questions facing Asia, the West and the world and seek to provide a programme of ideas and actions for the way forward for Asia, the West and the world.
Unlike the philosophy of the east and west never to meet (in Rudyard Kipling’s well-known lines quoted out of context)[1], this manifesto has a philosophy about the merit of the east and west meeting and working out new solutions to world problems. We think it is possible to begin to eliminate the distorting prism of racism and colonialism through a new understanding. Asia itself, still facing huge levels of poverty and underdevelopment, will have to change in fundamental ways to modernise its thinking and renew itself politically, socially, culturally as well as economically, without discarding the fundamentally good and essential aspects of its ancient and modern past. It can achieve this in co-operation with the West and by judging the West critically and fairly.
This is a manifesto that could not have been written at the year of the dawn of the new century. The processes underway, even then, were too invisible to most opinion formers and policy makers. There is substantial corpus of evidence and empirical data today several years later to show that Asia is likely to increasingly dominate this century in terms of population and economics.
I have used the term ‘Asian century’. This a term coined by a former Indian Prime Minister and former Chinese President. The term is valid in terms of countering the negative perceptions or marginalisation of Asia and its people still prevalent today. Asian philosophical strength is still necessary to create a positive image of Asia and its people and to correct the racist images of Asia and its people around the globe – even if they are becoming more nuanced in modern times.
The new crop of ‘Asian’ experts (in the world’s media, think tanks, international institutions and government bodies) are merely catching up, a posteriori, after the Asian century was clearly visible to the world. These ‘noveau’ Asian experts still make fundamental mistakes with perspectives based on cold-war and even colonial assumptions about Asia. A classical example has been Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who after having successfully proposed ‘the shock therapy’ in the former Soviet Union which resulted in a fall in the life expectancy of Russian people, has become an expert of Asian and international issues. God save us from such experts!
The ‘noveau’ Asian experts still look at Asia with outdated analytical tools. Asia’s development has not been the work of the Western left or Western right, but essentially of Asia itself with its ancient wisdom buried by imperialism on a temporary basis. Deng Xiao Ping and Manmohan Singh (both of them born during imperialist days) were the inheritors of this wisdom by combining Asia’s needs to grow with the Western capitalist needs for high return investments. Asia’s development has been based on ignoring many Western recipes – from those of the International Monetary Fund after the 1997 Asian crises to its materialist school of analysis and those in the international non-government organisations (NGOs) who argued that too much attention was paid to the Asian tsunami in 2004 and that the attention should have been devoted to Africa.
There was also a presumption that was still alive and kicking at the end of the C20th and in the first few years of C21st that Asians could not write about Asia and the world with authority. Asians could not make judgements about global trends and be right about them. Now that presumption is being challenged by facts and raw reality. Asian people can be leaders of the Asian century as well as defenders and champions of Asian perspectives and knowledge.
When I produced a Black Manifesto in the UK for 1997 and 2003 General Elections, most of its demands became government policies, laws and even key aspects of the new government agenda – influential and far-reaching.
I have no doubt about the importance of this manifesto in its first version in influencing international institutions, governments and movements in the east and west of the world and also the cultural and intellectual arena occupied by the youth and educated populations. Ultimately, I believe that the manifesto is addressed to poor people in the world and its views are on their side. Asia’s success will be in the interests of the poor of the world. They need champions in this century who are untainted by cynicism of Western left. They need champions outside of the cynicism of the Asian rich elites and their acolytes. In this sense, this manifesto is in the tradition of the Mahatma (Ghandi).
I write as a British and European citizen by my citizenship – and I see myself as a full citizen with equal rights to all other people in Britain and Europe, and not as some second-class immigrant, who is a ‘guest’ of the West. I am an inheritor of Western rights inscribed by the English, French and American revolutions with their progressive outlook on humanity.
Like John F Kennedy, I want to proclaim myself in solidarity. He said:”Ich bich ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). He stood up against the division of the world created by the Iron Curtain.
I say: “I am an Asian”. I stand in solidarity with Asia and against the division of the world into the east and the west.
I was born in Asia – in a poor Asia arising like a phoenix from the ashes from European imperialism. My parents experienced brutal poverty and successfully rescued some of their children from the claws of early death. The manifesto is dedicated to them and their generation, who saw Asia at its lowest ebb.
I want to proclaim my opposition against the division of the world created by imperialism. I am Western and I am Eastern at the same time. I refuse to accept the historic division of humanity imposed by a temporary period of evil in human history known in the imperialist phase.
Above all, I am a human being. This planet is my planet.
The manifesto is a tribute to Asian progressives and their faith in Asia’s destiny and a tribute to the Asian ‘traditionalists’ who have defended the good in Asia when it was fashionable to deride Asia’s past achievements. It is also a tribute to the Western progressive and the Western traditionalist, who have defended the goodness of the West even when it was not fashionable. The Western crimes of colonialism and racism cannot blind the world to the tremendous progressive achievements of the West and the goodness of its past.
Asian Century
The manifesto is written in a world, where Asia, with approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, is in the midst of a historic industrial and technological revolution. The specific objective of this revolution is to take over two and half billion Asian people into the world inhabited by the advanced economies of the world.
Map 1: Population density in the world
It is a challenge of historic proportions: bigger than the successful challenge of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in C19th or the American Transformation in C20th into an industrialised global economy.
The first great Industrial Revolution during the C19th happened in Britain – with the help of an Indian Empire and other colonies – with its population estimated at barely 8 million in 1791 at the start of this process than the current vast scale of development in Asia.
The Industrial revolution produced a total transformation of Britainthrough the following key features:
- the process of urbanisation as a result of large scale rural migration;
- science and invention (of gigantic proportions);
- big ideas and great execution;
- a new national infrastructure including railway system, underground, bridges and other forms of world transport such as mass passenger ships;
- social revolution to eliminate horrific levels of human exploitation and misery in the towns and factories through legislation and campaigns with healthcare provision and education established through state schools;[2]
- world famous literature of the industrial revolution examining changes in the countryside such as Thomas Hardy, urban poor with Charles Dickens[3] and marginalised as well as the middle class winners of this early process such Jane Austen; and,
- mass democracy giving ordinary people a sway over government and political philosophical change.
Graph 1 Relative share of world manufacturing output, 1750-1950. Data from: Paul Bairoch, "International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980" JEEH 11
The USA was the second great economic transformation applied to a population of over a hundred million people:
- It was accompanied by great transport links with the railway link of C19th stretching across the continent as part of the industrial revolution;
- This saw the great Fordist assembly line production and the American management revolution;
- It saw the infrastructure of the New Deal with the Hoover Dam and other gigantic construction projects;
- In cultural terms, it saw Hollywood establish cinema as global cultural experience. In literature, it had its F. Scott Fitzgerald[4] and John Steinbeck[5] - the writers about the Jazz Age and the Depression;
- English and USA music became global music – symbolised by Elvis Presley and the Beatles;
- The USA black musical contribution led many trends in C20th;
- USA changed with migration from nearly all corners of the world, but specifically Europe;
- America saw its military power also expand to a superpower status. Post-Second World War America became firmly a global economic power – transforming its cities into skyscrapers and offering unprecedented consumer choice. America also conquered space (alongside Soviet Union);
- On a social level, it abolished racial segregation, introduced quotas to eradicate racism, gave rights to women including the right to choose over abortion, gay and lesbian discrimination was outlawed and gay and lesbian ‘marriages’ were sanctioned;
- There was also the student and youth idealism expressed in movement against the far-away war in Vietnam against the peasants fighting the most powerful military machine on earth;
- The recent environmental movement on the question of climate change and consequences of global warming is beginning to have a dramatic impact on American consumerism and US corporate social responsibility; and,
- The huge rise in the average living standards for its people, with a population of over one third billion, showed the scale of its achievement.[6]
The USA also saw a potential rival in the Soviet Union – but the Soviet Union had a lot more brutality in its economic growth as well as its political development. The Soviet Union was more to do with superpower status rather than an economic (consumer) or political democracy. The Soviet Union created many showcases of economic progress and social state advancement, but many of them disappeared overnight in the disintegration of Soviet state. It’s finest contribution was its role in the defeat of Nazism - its 20 million dead during this epic world struggle for humanity set the modern example for self-sacrifice.
Asia’s developments in the C21st will dwarf the magnificent achievements of the USA in C20th. They constitute a defining period in world history: the period of the transition of the globe from the situation where the majority of the world lives in poverty to a situation where poverty will have been conquered for the majority of the human race.
The Western accounts of post-WWII history place Asia either in the background or in discrete events such as the famines and floods of the Indian sub-continent, Vietnam and Korean wars, the tanks in Tiananmen Square of Beijing, the ‘Killing Fields’ of Cambodia, Asian Tsunami and other episodes of tragedy, death and helplessness. US Under Secretary of State for South Asia, Nicholas Burns, famously stated that ‘India did not register on our radar’.
Assumptions about Asia’s rise did not really exist amongst the top policy-making circles and think tanks of the West until fairly recently after the process had been underway for over a decade in India and two decades in China. Western assumptions were based on a world in which the military and economic dominance of the USA (under the title Project of the American Century) would hold sway - with a potential rival in the European Union on an economic level.
However, the outcome of Asia’s achievements in the 21st century will determine the future of humanity. Human development on a new level is at the heart of the Asian economic dream – abolishing real poverty and underdevelopment by achieving average living standards similar to those in the West.
This process does not necessarily have to be resource heavy provided the world’s critical imagination is used to create viable solutions to real questions of economic development including the deployment of technological innovations, using Asia’s knowledge bank of environmental issues to protect nature, sensible open immigration policies and raising the purchasing power of Asian labour in real terms.
The prospects for humanity are brighter through these developments. We are in the epoch of the transition to the ‘Asian Century’ – the epoch when the wasted human talent latent within Asia will be utilised as happened previously in the West. This will see in our view Asia being added to the West in terms of the global area covered by advanced economic development.
Graph 2 The economic position of Asia 2005 Source: www. imf.com 2005
It is possible that Asia will become the more important global economic centre than the West. This is not as important as the fact that Asia is economically developed and its people are brought out of poverty through this process. This is not a competition between the East and West, although a positive competition for greater economic productiveness is good. This is a positive sum game, a win-win situation. It is simply a competition for Asia to enter the domain of economic advancement with the majority of its people enjoying Western style living standards. These standards would mean taking on board the progressive, pluralistic and personal pleasure aspects of these societies as well as making moral advances in the fields of non-violence and environmental conservation – advancing on the most modern aspects of society and not making the same mistakes that the West made in reaching those standards.
There will be many Asian billionaires and millionaires in this process.[7] They are not as important as the ordinary billions of people and their general living standards. The billionaires and millionaires are not a problem for Asia, they are part of the solution to the poverty and unemployment affecting the majority of the people in China and India at the beginning of C21st. The billions of ordinary and rural people have to be given economic and political choice by making them into effective consumers in the market place of Asia.
A way forward for Asia is probably a way forward for the whole of humanity and certainly a way forward for the majority of humanity. In the best sense of the word, it is not a minority interest. The marginalisation of the majority of humanity is coming to an end.
Asia’s industrial and technological revolution will add to the progress already made by mankind and will change the fate of humanity into the realm of human hope. For the first time, the realistic prospects exist that the majority of the world’s people will no longer live in absolute poverty.
This will prepare the way for the final onslaught against global poverty faced by the minority of mankind. This will create a more urbane and cosmopolitan world with most people living in developed urban areas. The democratic challenge will be to make this an educated world of individuals freed from poverty who then can make free consumer and personal lifestyle choices - opposite to the world of poverty with its collective nightmares of enforced personal, family and community subjugation.
The majority of the world will have a stake against war and violence – which retards economic progress. Peace amongst nations and a peaceful global moral majority will be the norm. Only a tiny minority of nations will engage in wars and only a tiny minority will subscribe to the use of violence to impose their views on other people through terrorism and other such means. A clash of civilisations (from the left and right, from religious majorities and minorities) will remain a theory suited to tiny political forces that will not make progress - in a world where the majority will see prospects to end poverty amongst people all over the world and will want to achieve this noble goal in human history.
A clear call to change – in a conscious and courageous way – is the second intention behind this manifesto. People all over the world need to readily embrace the Asian century, as it is going to be a progressive event and in all probability a fact. The manifesto should motivate engagement between different peoples of the world towards the realisation of the potential human triumphs of the Asian century.
The world will benefit – not just Asia. A true global virtuous cycle of economic growth is on the horizon driven by the two Asian giants of China and India. The vicious cycle of economic depression and recession with human misery will be reduced in scope. Global engagement with Asia will benefit the world. There should not be a false protectionist or politically-driven racist hostility to Asia – for the sake of economic prosperity in the world as well as for the sake of humanitarian internationalism.
A positive case of the Asian century needs to be made in an organised and systematic way for the good of all humanity and to make the transition to the Asian century a less painful process for those in the West. The Western monopoly over economic growth and good living standards amongst ordinary people will come to an end.
The ordinary people of the West are benefiting from increased purchasing power through cheap quality products and services provided by Asian roaring economies as well as from the global economic expansion in the world driven by Asia’s economic growth. The youth of the West are revelling in Asian culture as part of the world’s new cultural scene. The elites in the West are already participating in the new business environment of Asia’s economic rise as part of the modern economic world. The USA, through the Iraq war, has realised that there are limitations to its massive economic and military resources.
Acceptance of change is possible and is happening. Western people are not inherently racist and neither are its elites. We should not make that assumption in the C21st. On the contrary, economic progress has enabled enlightened values to be part of the pattern of the West. Asia will adopt enlightened values in this process in a new phase of political and social modernisation.
Peace, prosperity, progress, pluralism, pleasure (or happiness) : these are the five ‘Ps’ of the Asia century – opposed to its endemic poverty, the sixth ‘P’, and the seventh ‘P’ of ‘Protectionism’ that can be a dangerous barrier erected to ‘stop Asia’s economic growth’ by reactionary forces. A new Asia is being born. A new world is being created.