Pepe Escobar — Get over it: Asia rules

The greatest merit of Parag Khanna’s new book, The Future is Asian, is to accessibly tell the story of a historical inevitability – with the extra bonus of an Asian point of view. This is not only a very good public service, it also blows out of the water countless tomes by Western “experts” pontificating about Asia from an air-con cubicle in Washington....

Good backgrounder.

Asia Times
Get over it: Asia rules

Pepe Escobar

See also

The American Conservative
Beltway Warriors Target China as the Next Global ThreatLeon Hadar

Zero Hedge — China Launches Massive Combat Drill In Hainan As War With Taiwan "Becomes More Probable"

On another front tack.

Zero Hedge
China Launches Massive Combat Drill In Hainan As War With Taiwan "Becomes More Probable"

Tyler Durden

Gideon Rachman — The rising power of China will create new political fissures in the west

Trump’s vision of an America in precipitous decline is all-encompassing. At home, he points to falling living standards for many Americans and the disappearance of well-paid manufacturing jobs. Overseas, he claims the world is laughing at the US and laments that “we don’t win any more”.

Many in Europe are tempted to see Trump as an “only in America” aberration. Yet the fear of economic and geopolitical decline that Trump is capitalising upon is widely visible across the west. The coalition of frustrated working-class voters and nostalgic nationalists that the Republican has put together is uncomfortably reminiscent of the alliance that voted for Brexit in the UK. Trump’s “make America great again” mantra has an echo of the Brexit campaign’s winning slogan – “Take back control”. Nor is this is just an Anglo-American phenomenon. Across the EU, including in France, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland, protectionists and nationalists are gaining ground.

As Trump might put it: “Something’s going on.” That something is a historic shift in economic and geopolitical power that is bringing to an end a 500-year period in which western nations have dominated global affairs. This erosion of the west’s privileged position in world affairs is creating new economic, geopolitical and even psychological pressures in both the US and the EU.

The driving force of this change is the extraordinary economic development of Asia over the past 50 years.…

The Guardian
The rising power of China will create new political fissures in the west

Gideon Rachman

Economy Watch — IMF Says Global Economic Growth Powered by Asia

Many may think that the United States or Europe, as the location of most of the world’s most developed nations, would be driving global economic growth. Asia, however, is actually the area driving global economic growth this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Although a lagging Chinese economy slowed economies around the world—and Asia in particular—the Asian economies are still powering most of the world’s growth. "Asia is impacted by the still weak global recovery, and by the ongoing and necessary rebalancing in China," Changyong Rhee, Director of the Asia-Pacific Department at the IMF, said in a statement. "But domestic demand has remained remarkably resilient throughout most of the region, supported by rising real incomes, especially in commodity importers, and supportive macroeconomic policies in many countries."

The IMF predicts that the Asia-Pacific region will grow at a fairly impressive 5.3% this year. That growth accounts for almost two-thirds of global growth. Unfortunately, that still represents a slight downturn in overall global economic growth, down from 5.4% in 2015.…

Economy Watch
IMF Says Global Economic Growth Powered by Asia
EW News Desk Team

Economy Watch — Switzerland Joins Chinese Alternative to World Bank

Advantages of being an early adopter.

Economy Watch
Switzerland Joins Chinese Alternative to World Bank

Peter Drysdale — The problems for Asia’s growth

The middle income trap.

… there’s a whole literature out there that warns that middle income countries like China and a number of other emerging Asian economies, such as Malaysia and Thailand, face a number of major hurdles in the transition from middle to higher incomes, and others, like India and Indonesia, have still to break through to upper middle income. Over the past half century or so, many countries have committed to promoting economic development and catching up to the income and productivity levels achieved in advanced industrial economies. These emerging economies were the great hope for global growth. But the remarkable fact is that only 13 of 101 countries across the world which have made it to middle income status have been able to complete the transition from lower or middle income levels to high income levels since 1960, and catch up to the technological frontier. This is the so-called ‘middle income trap’.

David Dollar points to the strong empirical relationship between the quality of institutions (as measured by the World Governance Indicators’ Rule of Law index) and economic growth. Yet institutional quality does not change very much from year to year or sometimes even from decade to decade, so it is hard to explain why countries have periods of high growth followed by low growth (or vice versa).

The resolution of the puzzle, says Dollar, maybe that institutions which are well-suited to one phase of economic development may be ill-suited to another.…

East Asia Forum
The problems for Asia’s growth
Peter Drysdale

Sandhya Jain — Rise of a multi-polar Asia – a view from India

Moscow straddles a multipolar world and a multipolar Asia. Given that the bulk of its vast territories embrace the Asian landmass, it would be a mistake not to think of Russia as an Asian power. 

The reality that it is already a multipolar Asia would not have escaped Beijing, which in recent years is expanding its global footprint while seeking a commanding presence in its Asian neighbourhood. Given its deep economic and strategic ties with Moscow, Beijing obviously recognises that Russia will pursue its interests in Central Asia, Europe, Iran and the Islamic world, with India, and elsewhere....

The interests of all four nations [Russia, China, India, and Iran] converge in many areas. 

In fact, China’s One Belt One Road, India’s Cotton Route and Project Mausam, and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), are all complementary projects based on the old land and sea-based trade routes of the ancient world. Even in the centuries BC, the land and sea commerce between India, Persia, Egypt, up to the African coast, was protected by different dynasties; China joined this trade only under the Han dynasty, but expanded it exponentially...

The Vineyard of the Saker
Rise of a multi-polar Asia – a view from India
Sandhya Jain

Saker — Listening to Lavrov giving up on the West

Yesterday, I watched with interest a talkshow called "The Right to Know" which featured an hour long interview with [Russian Foreign Minister] Sergei Lavrov (those who understand Russian can watch it here). It was an interesting exchange between Lavrov and five Russian reporters. It was not important enough to warrant translating it all into English, but I want to share with you something which I had noticed in the past but which was powerfully expressed during this conversation.…

The Vineyard of the Saker
Listening to Lavrov giving up on the West

Vineyard Saker

Robert Farley — Asia's Greatest Fear: A U.S.-China War

How does the unthinkable happen? As we wind our way to the 100th anniversary of the events that culminated in World War I, the question of unexpected wars looms large. What series of events could lead to war in East Asia, and how would that war play out?

The National Interest
Asia's Greatest Fear: A U.S.-China War
Robert Farley
(h/t Brad DeLong)

Zachary Keck — US Swears Asia Pivot Isn't Dead

Despite the Ukraine crisis and ongoing civil war in Syria, the U.S. swears that the Asia pivot is still on.

That’s the message that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is trying to project ahead of a 10-day trip to Asia that begins today with the U.S.-ASEAN Defense Forum in Hawaii.

The Diplomat
US Swears Asia Pivot Isn't Dead
Zachary Keck

Encircling Russia and China.

His meetings in Tokyo are expected to focus on the current talks about redefining the terms of the U.S.-Japan security alliance, which is likely to result in giving Tokyo a larger and more independent role in Asia.

Read permitting the re-arming of Japan.

Kishore Mahbubani — America’s Blinders

Americans need to be told a simple, mathematical truth. With 3% of the world’s population, the US can no longer dominate the rest of the world, because Asians, with 60% of the world’s population, are no longer underperforming....

This deep social and intellectual transformation underway in Asia promises to catapult it from economic power to global leadership. China, which remains a closed society in many ways, has an open mind, whereas the US is an open society with a closed mind.

Project Syndicate
America’s Blinders
Kishore Mahbubani | Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore

Noah Smith — The Secret to U.S. Growth in the 21st Century: More Asians

Agree.

The Atlantic
The Secret to U.S. Growth in the 21st Century: More Asians
Noah Smith

Capitalism with Asian characteristics

Many speakers pointed out that with economic crises in Europe and the U.S. still unresolved, following the western capitalist model blindly is not the right development path for Asia, which should instead develop its own model, utilising traditional practices.

This was a theme reflected in a keynote speech given by Ho Kwong Ping, whose Banyan Tree Holdings has developed a chain of luxury hotels across the world based on Asian tastes and standards.

Still, he warned that Asia’s rise is not predetermined and argued that the continent must produce a basket of intellectual solutions to address Asia’s chronic social inequality.

"China has a deficit of democracy (while) Indian leaders have realised that democracy is not reducing inequality" and both are unable to "move beyond capital reforms," he noted.

"As Asia continues its dynamic growth we need to delve into our own history and culture for inspiration to develop Asian values of capitalism. One resource could be the webs of mutual obligations which are present in virtually all civilisations of Asia," argued Ping. "It is possible for Asia to develop this communitarian capitalism, if properly nurtured and developed, as an alternative to the highly individualistic model of American capitalism."

Ping singled out India’s Tata model of capitalism, which benefits from being "stakeholder driven and not shareholder driven."

Tata’s Gopalakrishnan told IPS that most Asian businesspeople have been reading books written by Westerners and adopting their ideas only because there are hardly any books written about good practices by Asians.

"The West is…saying we must become conscious capitalists (though) many people in Asia are saying we have always been doing that," he said.

Read it at IPS Inter Press Service
India’s IT Elite Could Shape New ‘Asian Capitalism’
by Kalinga Seneviratne

The Asian Century

By 2050, Asia will have more than five billion people, while the European Union’s share of the global population will decline from 9% to 5%. Annual economic growth in Asia over the past 30 years has averaged 5%. Its GDP is projected to increase from $30 trillion to about $230 trillion by 2050. The balance of power in the twenty-first century is shifting – in social, economic, and, arguably, political terms – from west to east.

Read the rest at Project Syndicate

The Impoverished “Asian Century”

by Chandran Nair
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

Nair argues that the East cannot emulate the consumption model of the West owing to resource constraints and pollution concerns. This will involve modifying adoption of the Western liberal tradition in the East. Pursuit of maximum utility by individuals is not a human right in this view, even though it is a cardinal tenet of Western neoliberalism.