BOOK REVIEW Asia pushes, West resists The New Asian Hemisphere by Kishore Mahbubani
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
When world orders are on the cusp of change, ascendant challengers push for
acceptance as equals of dominant but declining powers. If the latter try to
stop the inevitable and cling to status quo-preservation, conflict is likely.
The guaranteed formula to avoid a costly clash with upwardly mobile aspirants
is for custodians of the old order to accept them rather than to squelch their
progress.
At this moment in world history, China and India are pushing for recognition
and status on the global stage. They are beyond the phase of suppression or
containment by the United States and its Western allies. Former Singaporean
diplomat Kishore
Mahbubani's new book describes an untenable situation in which Asia is growing
heavier in power scales while the West is obstinately unwilling to accede to a
bloodless transition to a fresh world order.
The author's thesis is that Western societies are apprehensive about Asia's
galloping modernization. Instead of celebrating Asian resurgence, Westerners
fear that the undemocratic world order built to sustain their domination will
be overthrown by it. The world could be safer and less violent if the West
could learn to work with, rather than against, Asia's renaissance.
The book opens by hailing the empowerment of hundreds of millions of Indians
and Chinese who are escaping poverty and its impact on global productivity and
creativity. To Mahbubani, Asia is marching ahead because its teeming denizens
feel that they can finally take charge of their own destinies.
The US and the EU are reacting to the Asian surge with counterproductive
protectionist barriers and subsidies. Far from enabling Asia's restless
ambitions, Western trade policy remains captive in the hands of producer
lobbies that wish to hide behind a wall of customs duties. Lacking the economic
robustness to compete with China and India, trans-Atlantic economies are
retreating into shells hostile to incoming goods and foreign investment.
Arrogance about the inherent moral superiority of Western values and selective
promotion of democracy deepen the gulf between levitating Asia and its
stationary former colonizers. Mahbubani takes the West to task for basking in
post-Cold War "End of History" triumphalism when Confucian, Hindu and Islamic
civilizations were "undergoing a revival of cultural confidence". (p 49)
Ironically, Asia's boom is founded on "pillars of Western wisdom" like free
market economics, science-driven technological innovation, meritocracy in
handling human capital, shunning of ideological rigidity, sanctity of contract,
property rights, and quality higher education. Indian and Chinese self-belief
that they, too, "can be world-class" comes from judicious adaptation of these
Western elixirs of enrichment.
Yet, in spite of the "clear presence of Western values in the rise of Asia",
Western material interests sense real losses from Asian competitiveness. (p
102) Be it in the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund or the
World Bank, Western interests militate against reforms that give proportional
weight to Asian powers. Regardless of which American administration is in
power, it abuses and instrumentalizes these multilateral institutions for
narrow selfish ends.
The West, home to only 12% of world population, jealously guards its control of
organizations that were intended to serve the whole of humanity. Mahbubani rips
apart propaganda in Western media outlets that participants in the annual Group
of Seven summit "are meeting global challenges, not promoting their selfish
national interests". (p 123) Newly energized Asians are consciously deciding to
disallow their lives from being determined by Western interests.
Mahbubani asserts that a turbulent era of de-Westernization has commenced in
Asia. With most Asians disavowing former beliefs that the West was the "most
civilized part of the world", the latter has lost appeal as an ideal in human
advancement. Chinese intellectuals, drawing on a history of insularity, have
decolonized their mind the furthest and fastest. Accompanying China's
accumulation of wealth and economic vitality is a popular rediscovery of its
glorious cultural heritage and pride.
De-Westernization is even more drastic in the Middle East. Hardly any Muslim
society, perhaps not even Turkey, is trying to demonstrate that it is Western
in spirit. Islamic publics view Westerners as immoral, greedy and insensitive
to the loss of Muslim lives. Mahbubani considers India to be a bridge between
the "West and the Rest". Indian thinkers do not see the West as the custodian
of the highest values, but they also appreciate their country's historic place
in constantly admitting and absorbing foreign influences. The author's
prediction is that India's natural propensity to keep both ears open and engage
with other civilizations will lead to equidistance between the West and the
rest of the East.
The book's later chapters ask whether Asian states are more competent at
solving regional and global problems than the ham-handed West. International
law is in tatters due to flagrant violation by the US and its allies. Trade
liberalization is in jeopardy as Americans and Europeans perceive themselves as
its "losers". The main roadblock to effective action for halting global warming
comes from the US, the most profuse emitter of greenhouse gases. Chinese and
Indian per capita emissions of pollutants are far below those of industrialized
Western countries. As the West is unprepared to bear its commensurate share of
responsibilities, the environmental crisis is deepening.
The nuclear non-proliferation regime is on shaky ground as the five
treaty-recognized nuclear weapon states have not eliminated or even reduced
their arsenals. The US and Russia are the biggest vertical proliferators of
nuclear weapons whose reckless actions have triggered horizontal proliferation.
Mahbubani wonders if Western incompetence in managing all these colossal global
concerns reflects a deeper structural malaise, wherein Western politicians are
prisoners of inward-looking "short-termism". The EU spends more time sorting
its arcane internal arrangements when it could have been enhancing its standing
in different parts of the world. Its partnership with Mediterranean neighbors
has not had the same impact that China's Free Trade Area with ASEAN
(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is generating. Europe's failure to
spread in influence beyond its Christian heartland is total.
The author's judgement is that sensible foreign policy options are being
defeated by the West's "hugely divisive and often dysfunctional domestic
political process". (p 214) In contrast, Asian states are adopting pragmatic
approaches to regional and global problems. Despite enormous tensions, the
Sino-Japanese relationship has not degenerated to the point of military
hostilities. By means of a unique flexibility, China is leaving large
footprints in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Islamic world.
Mahbubani rides on China's geopolitical success to infer that "Asians are
capable of delivering a more stable world order". (p 234)
The book concludes with a comparative analysis of which Asian power has the
qualities to take over the mantle of global leadership from the US and the EU.
China has a head start, but its "mind is always focused on developing Chinese
civilization, not global civilization". (p 239) India is more cosmopolitan, but
it is still mired in huge economic underdevelopment. Even if one of these two
countries were ready, a bigger hurdle preventing Asians from assuming world
leadership is obstructionism by the West (eg on International Monetary Fund
voting shares reform).
Mahbubani signs off by recommending that the West should abandon its
ethnocentric ideological baggage and allow Asia its due place at the table. For
this to happen, the US and the EU will have to find ways of unshackling their
foreign policies from retrograde domestic pulls and pressures. Although the
author's seasoned liberal beliefs do not permit him to gaze beyond
accommodation of Asia by the West, it is logical that violent conflict might
arise if the US and EU make no timely adjustments.
This book proves Western hypocrisy and cussedness in practically every sphere
of world politics. However, it loses coherence by trying to merge the Muslim
world with China and India and show the whole of Asia to be on a dynamic path.
Asia is no monolith, but Mahbubani's penchant to pit broad categories like
"Asia" and "West" against each other leads to collating a regressing and
internally fraught Islamic world with exuberant China and India. He uses the
example of glitzy Dubai to claim that Muslim societies are keen on modernizing
just like China and India. Had he picked Bangladesh, where religious
fundamentalism is at an all-time-high, or Lebanon, which is locked in eternal
sectarian strife, the picture would not look so rosy.
The other basic weakness of Mahbubani's account is sidestepping the China-India
rivalry. Though not erring by placing the two in the same anti-Western camp, he
fails to acknowledge the wariness with which the two Asian behemoths eye each
other. In a bid to paint China's rise as indeed peaceful, he brushes under the
carpet the strategic competition it is involved in with India. An "Asia versus
West" story can still be credible if a "China versus India" sub-plot is added
in for nuance. Mahbubani's otherwise enlightening book loses sight of this
crucial intra-Asian contest.
The New Asian Hemisphere. The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East
by Kishore Mahbubani. PublicAffairs, New York, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-58648-466-8.
Price US$26, 314 pages.
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The book opens by hailing the empowerment of hundreds of millions of Indians
and Chinese who are escaping poverty and its impact on global productivity and
creativity. To Mahbubani, Asia is marching ahead because its teeming denizens
feel that they can finally take charge of their own destinies.
