Think Again: Asia's Rise

Don't believe the hype about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. It will be many decades before China, India, and the rest of the region take over the world, if they ever do.

BY MINXIN PEI | JULY/AUG 2009

"Power Is Shifting from West to East."

Not really. Dine on a steady diet of books like The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East or When China Rules the World, and it's easy to think that the future belongs to Asia. As one prominent herald of the region's rise put it, "We are entering a new era of world history: the end of Western domination and the arrival of the Asian century."

Sustained, rapid economic growth since World War ii has undeniably boosted the region's economic output and military capabilities. But it's a gross exaggeration to say that Asia will emerge as the world's predominant power player. At most, Asia's rise will lead to the arrival of a multi-polar world, not another unipolar one.

Asia is nowhere near closing its economic and military gap with the West. The region produces roughly 30 percent of global economic output, but because of its huge population, its per capita gdp is only $5,800, compared with $48,000 in the United States. Asian countries are furiously upgrading their militaries, but their combined military spending in 2008 was still only a third that of the United States. Even at current torrid rates of growth, it will take the average Asian 77 years to reach the income of the average American. The Chinese need 47 years. For Indians, the figure is 123 years. And Asia's combined military budget won't equal that of the United States for 72 years.

In any case, it is meaningless to talk about Asia as a single entity of power, now or in the future. Far more likely is that the fast ascent of one regional player will be greeted with alarm by its closest neighbors. Asian history is replete with examples of competition for power and even military conflict among its big players. China and Japan have fought repeatedly over Korea; the Soviet Union teamed up with India and Vietnam to check China, while China supported Pakistan to counterbalance India. Already, China's recent rise has pushed Japan and India closer together. If Asia is becoming the world's center of geopolitical gravity, it's a murky middle indeed.

Those who think Asia's gains in hard power will inevitably lead to its geopolitical dominance might also want to look at another crucial ingredient of clout: ideas. Pax Americana was made possible not only by the overwhelming economic and military might of the United States but also by a set of visionary ideas: free trade, Wilsonian liberalism, and multilateral institutions. Although Asia today may have the world's most dynamic economies, it does not seem to play an equally inspiring role as a thought leader. The big idea animating Asians now is empowerment; Asians rightly feel proud that they are making a new industrial revolution. But self-confidence is not an ideology, and the much-touted Asian model of development does not seem to be an exportable product.

AFP/Getty Images

 

Minxin Pei is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

BLAKE HOUNSHELL

3:57 AM ET

June 22, 2009

Test

Test.
 

CALCAL

4:48 PM ET

July 13, 2009

21st century Pax Sinica

The augument that Chinese society is becoming more volatile or unstable because of the Urumqi Riot or some ethnic falt lines (between Han Chinese and Uighur muslim thugs or tibetan monks) is utterly false. Quite on the contrary, the ughiurs thugs' barbaric butchering of (even a single) Han's family will be the rally cry that binds the Han Chinese society together -- just as the single barbaric tibetan attack on the handicapped Chinese athlete in Paris last year. An unjust, barbaric attack on a single Chinese will be taken as an attack on the entire Chinese Nation - it is the equivalent of the NATO Arcticle 5, multiplying by a billion times.

Yes, China is more diverse than many westerner think -- China is a continent that contains great diversity -- even among the 92% Han Chinese. For example, as a Chinese American fluent in Mandarin I could barely understand the dialects of southern Chinese. However, on the other hand, most westerners fail to understand that China is not a "nation state" in the traditional european sense, but a "civilization state". What has always bound the Chinese Nation together for the past 5000 years is the deep-rooted and irradicable sense of belonging to a "superior" civilization -- the Chinese Civilization.

Chinese society has its historically, highly distinctive position on race, where about 92 per cent of the population believe that they are of one race, and therefore, from which is the lack of a conception of, or respect for, difference that flows from other minorities. The deep sense of China as a unitary civilisation, together with a pervasive belief in Han superiority, leaves little room for the claims of other cultural groups. That is where most westerners fail to understand that Chinese draw our deep-rooted sense of belonging and identification not from some religions, nation states, dialects, founding father principles or universal human rights, but from our ancient history, culture and civilization. For the majority of Chinese, no matter where he is and what citizenship he has -- mainland, taiwan, hongkong, or european or American -- he is, first, last and always, a Chinese. Ask a New York Chinese restaurant dish washer who he thinks he is, he will probably tell you, proudly, Chinese.

Han Chinese Dynasty comes and goes every several hundred years or so for the past 5000 years. Chinese probably have endured more civil wars and internal turmoils than any other civilization. However, whenever faced with an existential threat, attack or challenge to the "superior" Chinese way of life, the entire Chinese Nation has always rallied around the flag of Chinese Nationalism. That is why no other unitary civilization state, except China, has survived the entire 5000 years' human history.

The witless, end-of-history triumphalism that shaped western attitudes in the post-Cold War era is always good for a belly laugh and is nowhere more misplaced than in regard to China. History is on the move again – and it is not the delusional, teleological, self-congratulating history dreamt up by either the dimwitted, self-righteous neocons on the right or the naive,self-glorifying liberal rationalists on the left, which somehow always meets with themselves as the winners in the middle. The 21st century Pax Sinica is the real thing, a world-changing event that marks the end of dominance of western civilizaton.

 

MIKE IN NYC

1:43 PM ET

July 14, 2009

Asian/Western Demographics

Minxin Pei ignores the demographic decline of the European-derived majority in the United States, with the attendant consequences for national political and economic well-being. The lack of ethnic and cultural cohesiveness, destined to intensity in the coming decades, is in stark contrast to the broad homogeneity of China.

 

EISENHOWER

5:35 AM ET

July 20, 2009

RE: calcal

Your reply raises some concerning questions;

"What has always bound the Chinese Nation together for the past 5000 years is the deep-rooted and irradicable sense of belonging to a "superior" civilization -- the Chinese Civilization."

This extract amongst others highlights one important issue, essentially it would seem that you are suggesting that a form of Chinese 'nazi' ideology, (this belief in a 'superior' Civilization) that is an innate part of their identity, will be responsible for the eventual premiership of the Chinese state during the 21st century - your line of arguement.

Writing a lengthy response to the article in which you effectively say little else seems to me a terrible waste of energy/time.

You further contend that "no other unitary civilization state, except China, has survived the entire 5000 years' human history."

How exactly has a unitary Chinese civilization survived 5000 years? perhaps you are referring to the genetics of the Chinese race, that truely has survived 5000 or so years but civilization... really? I won't even go so far back as 5000 years, lets instead look at the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1550BCE - ca. 1046 BCE) which marks the first recorded written history of Chinese civilization, which was followed by the Zhou Dynasty (1045BCE to 256 BCE), during which the Chinese culture and literature began to flourish, and in turn was followed by the Warring States period which was marked my disunity between several rival city states.

The historical consensus on Chinese history is that of several periods of unity and disunity as well as occupation by other asian races - majority of which was later assimilated in to the Han chinese population. This melange of asian cultures and politics on the back of numerous waves of warfare, and immigration served to create a modern chinese civilization.

Simply compare the Chinese civilization of the present day to that of the Shang or Zhou dynasty and you will realize that a cohesive civilization did not survive 5000 years. Rather as in Europe and the middle east, civilizations thrived, died, and developed over time - no single civilization has survived unperturbed or unchanged over the course of modern man's existence.

 

HMMMM

3:55 AM ET

July 21, 2009

Eastern Power

I have always been of the idea that historically China [the east] was always a power. It is possible that instead of becoming powerful, it is just simply processing a few 20th century set backs and achieving the status it has historically enjoyed....