Asia Rising: The Return of History

Western media is becoming inundated with stories about the growth of China and India. Some of it is speculative hyperbole, some of it sensationalism and some of it is wide eyed optimism. However, one thing should be clear, Asia is rising.  Another thing should also be clear, we are living through a period witnessing a great historic shift.

 Some point to the rise of China and compare it to the rise of Germany, Japan or the United States in the late 19th century. However, China is not a new nation nor a new power. In other words, it has been there before. In fact, China is the oldest continuous nation state in the world, with a national identity that spans over 2000 years. Other empires have waxed and waned, but China has been ever present. When Rome rose and fell, China was there. When the Islamic Empire thundered out of Arabia and then fragmented, China was there. When the British empire ruled the high seas, then lost its colonies, China was there. It is this sense of history and permanence that allows Chinese strategists to determine policies that are shaped with the vision of 50 to 100 years into the future.

We are living through a great period of history where global power that has long been the monopoly of the Western nations are now shifting, nay, returning to where it has historically centered, Asia. In the late 19th century, the United States became the largest economy on earth. However, few people know that the nation it surpassed to reach that position was not Britain nor France, but was China. Up until the Industrial Revolution, China and India, with over 40% of the world's population were also the center of global wealth. Until the Renaissance, China, India and the Middle East were at the forefront of technology, economy and cultural sophistication. However, the cultural renaissance that took place in Europe and the fierce competition between rival European states for the riches of the New World drove Western innovation and eventually Western triumph over the old stagnant empires of Asia.

In the last three centuries, we have known only a world where Western states and Western culture is dominant. Asia has only existed on the fringes, often a place of war and poverty, its cultures insecure and filled with self doubt. However, after undergoing two centuries of self-diagnosis, reform and struggle, the societies of Asia are discovering how to succeed and thrive in the modern world. The first Asian nation to do so was Japan, which stood apart as the only non-Western nation to achieve modernity, wealth and power in this age. Japan was followed by a series of small Asian societies including South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore which became a series of wealthy oasis in a relatively impoverished region.

 However, with the now epic reforms unleashed by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China finally joined the game. In the early 90's, startled by China's success, India joined too and began major economics reforms as well. What has happened since then is the beginning of a shift too monumental to be summed up in a few sentences. China and India together represent 40% of the world's population. They are also two great centers of civilization, each spanning over 5,000 years in history. They are the two great pillars of Asian civilization and culture. If China and India remain poor, Asia will remain poor. If China and India become rich, Asia will be rich.  Success, which was once only a reserve of small Asian states, are now spreading through the two mammoth nation-civilization-states that have dominated Asia for countless millenia. These two great nations contain not only the vast landmass, resources and population size necessary to attain superpower status, they also have populations who are highly entrepreneurial, hardworking and value education.

Some claim that the rise of Asia is mostly a fad, and hyperbole. However, when the United States was rising, it encountered many setbacks such as the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II, but in the end, the US emerged an ever stronger, more powerful nation. China and India certainly still has their share of problems, but they will solve each problem as they are encountered. Both are continent sized nations with the resources and momentum to propel them forward along the tides of history. The long slumbering giants of Asia have awakened, and are forming dynamic energetic societies that are ready to seize the mantle of progress and development. There will be great challenges in the coming decades but these setbacks will be overcome just as the rise of the Western states overcame many challenges they faced.

The world we live in will change. The West would need to adapt. The first lesson that the West needs to learn is that it can no longer preach and lecture to Asia from a position of superiority. Asia's development will be shaped by Asians. The West can never understand Asia better than Asians themselves. Asia will develop it's own societies and institutions based on their ancient cultures and modern experiences, Western systems can not simply be transposed unto Asia. The West will need to learn how to treat Asia, and other non-Western states, as equals in formulating the kind of global structure that we live in.  The narrative and understanding of the world that is prevalent now in the societies of the major Western powers often contain a condescending and supremacist view towards non-Western nations and this attitude cannot continue, not just because it is offensive and wrong, but that reality now would not allow it.

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