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The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East | 
 enlarge | Author: Kishore Mahbubani
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 15715
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 1586484664
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.5
EAN: 9781586484668
ASIN: 1586484664
Publication Date: January 22, 2008
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Product Description
For centuries, the Asians (Chinese, Indians, Muslims, and others) have been bystanders in world history. Now they are ready to become co-drivers.
Asians have finally understood, absorbed, and implemented Western best practices in many areas: from free-market economics to modern science and technology, from meritocracy to rule of law. They have also become innovative in their own way, creating new patterns of cooperation not seen in the West.
Will the West resist the rise of Asia? The good news is that Asia wants to replicate, not dominate, the West. For a happy outcome to emerge, the West must gracefully give up its domination of global institutions, from the IMF to the World Bank, from the G7 to the UN Security Council.
History teaches that tensions and conflicts are more likely when new powers emerge. This, too, may happen. But they can be avoided if the world accepts the key principles for a new global partnership spelled out in The New Asian Hemisphere.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
Spoonfeeding Democracy Does Not Work September 10, 2008
Gunjan Bagla (Los Angeles, California, USA)
The challenge faced by U.S. policy in Iraq is an indication of Kishore Mahbubani's assertion that you cannot export democracy into countries that are not ready for it.
In his book "The New Asian Hemisphere" Mahbubani points to the limitations of Western leadership in such areas as free trade, global warming, nuclear non-proliferation, Middle East policy, and reticence to accept the rise of Asia.
The author discusses the gap between America embracing democracy and the rule of law for all nations while itself arguably playing bully in dealing with so called "enemy combatants." Because of these shortcomings, Mahbubani believes it is far better for third world populations to be modernized rather than Westernized.
While sometimes harsh on Western leaders the author is quick to give credit where credit is due by recognizing Western contributions such as science and technology, free-market economics, pragmatism, rule of law, education, culture of peace, and meritocracy. But that does not stop the author from pushing for changes in the institutions that govern the international and economic system to make room for Asia's return to global leadership, such as his call to add India and Japan to the UN Security Council.
In his book, the author calls for more partnering among East and West to help build a more stable world with more stable growth. I'll drink to that, since this is what I do for a living.
By Gunjan Bagla
Author of Doing Business in 21st Century India
 East, West neither the best August 13, 2008
Alex Tang (Malaysia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Kishore Mahbubani is the Professor of Public Policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. His previous books carry the interesting titles of Can Asian Think? and Beyond the Age of Innocence.
In this book, Kishore, a former diplomat explores the reaction of the West especially the United States towards the shift of global power to the east. By 2050, the world's three largest economies will be in Asia: Japan, India, and China.
Kishore's thesis is that the east like to replicate, not dominate. This was always so with Asian and Western countries. However much depends on the response of the United States. If the United States are willing to share and not dominate, then there will be much benefit to everyone. However if the United States decide to try to dominate the rising economies, there will be much chaos.
History unfortunately has shown that the Western response when threatened by the east was always a retreat into protectionism and attacks. The Japan-bashing of the 1980s, have been replaced by India-bashing of the 1990s (due to outsourcing) and now we have China-bashing in the 2000s. Looks like we in Asia are in a stormy ride.
 Helpful, with Refreshing Objectivity! July 22, 2008
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
By 2050, three of the world's largest economies will be Asian - China, Japan, and India, and America's domination of global institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, G-7, and the U.N. Security Council will be over.
The U.S. needs to take a broader view of morality than it has. The rise of Asia has brought more "goodness" (lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty) into the world in the last several decades; at current growth rates standards of living in China may rise 100X within a human life span, contrasted with Russia's 45% decline after following American advice to leap into democracy without reforming the economy first. Facilitating widespread acquisition of consumer goods removes the feeling of hopelessness and futility, increases sense of self-worth, lowers crime rates, encourages the teaching of history to become less ideological (eg. China's new texts mention Mao only once), and improves education standards. However, accomplishing this requires not freedom from authoritarianism (as most Americans think), but freedom from chaos and anarchy. (Part of the government's reaction to Tiananmen Square was supposedly due to their support for a Russian-style economic and political conversion.)
Mao's initial implementation of central planning was not a failure - thanks to his ending almost a century of political turmoil the first Five-Year Plan brought average annual increases in industrial and agricultural output of 19.6 and 4.8% respectively. The 1955 Great Leap Forward, on the other hand, was a failure.
The success of Chinese expatriates overseas and their low productivity on the mainland confirmed (along with initial small experiments that partially reversed collectivization of agriculture) Deng's suspicion that China had adopted the wrong economic system. Thus, he became a pragmatist ("It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white - as long as it catches mice it is a good cat."), calling for an end to name-calling, emphasizing responsibility, and stating that "To get rich is glorious." Regardless, China's development has now reached a need for a legal system that borrows from Western concepts, thereby decentralizing financial power and property rights (and further encouraging economic investment).
Asia had slipped behind Western scientific development because of a religious mindset that spurned the material world and a lack of critical questioning. Richard Smalley, Nobel Laureate in chemistry, predicted that by 2010, 905 of PhD scientists and engineers would be living in Asia. China's 200,000 returnees make up 81% of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, enticed by patriotism and growing opportunities, resistance to research in some areas (eg. stem-cell), and increased government funding. (China has increased from 0.6% in 1995 to 1.3% in 2005, vs. U.S. federal outlays declining over the past 30 years to 0.05% in 2003.
The China Central Committee's (CCC) average age in 2002 was 55; membership is based on merit, not seniority (eg. Russia's Politburo). Another lesson learned from Russia's implosion was to avoid an early overfocus on military development.
Arab Muslims make up on about 1/6 of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. Most live in Asia; throughout the world Islamist parties are gaining ground.
Hopefully, the Western nations will accept Asia's rise. America's star is not dimming, though it is shining relatively less brightly. In addition, our supporting Israel, Arab and other despots, speaking non-proliferation while silent on Israeli nukes, modernizing American weapons, and supporting India's nuclearization, supporting democracy, while punishing Palestinians for not voting the way we want, lack of leadership on global warming (includes insisting on too much, too soon from developing nations), name-calling and refusing to talk to Iran do not compare well with China's no-strings aid to eg. Africa, without dictating terms for economic and political reforms.
An excellent outside perspective!
The New Asian Hemisphere June 16, 2008
Patricia J. Hohnstein (Michigan USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Kishore Mahbubani presents an engrossing account, written with clarity and incite, detailing the shifting landscape of our human planet. He is able to comprehensively portray the changing forces - strengths and weaknesses, economically, politically, and culturally - affecting the dynamics of the interactions and changing powers of the world's civilizations. I became interested in the book after watching Mr. Mahbubani on an interview on UCTV in which he made a potentially boring-sounding topic sound potentially interesting. IT WAS FASCINATING!
Hail the March to Modernity! May 24, 2008
H. Schneider (wechselhaft)
27 out of 27 found this review helpful
First I noticed the controversy about this book in Hard Talk on BBC, where the host and the author did some very unsatisfactory pirouettes around the contentious issues, which are related to the Western reservations about current Asian progress. Then I read an even worse interview in Der Spiegel, where the interviewers excelled in stupidity while the author excelled in stubbornness.
Consequently I had to pick up the book and read it. KM expects to provoke 'us' Westerners, but he asks some pundits to write blurbs, which Summers and Zbig and others did.
KM's thesis is this: Asia rises, and that is good for the world. The Western leaders have trouble in adjusting their mental maps, which are trapped in the past. Asia has benefitted from the world system as established after WW2 and has no interest in endangering it. The current wave of optimism will enter West Asia as well and Pakistan, Iran and others will want to have the same progress as China and India etc...
The March to Modernity is good for all, and it is not just material, rather the escape from poverty has far reaching immaterial value for the masses of Asia.
In short, KM is a 'hopeless' optimist, and I do hope that his victorious scenario wins. My biggest doubts are over the Islamic world's ability to join the trend. Maybe KM knows better. I do hope so.
One surprise for me was that KM steps away from the old litany of Lee Kuan Yew and others, i.e. that Asian economic success is due to traditonal Confucian values. In the contrary, KM argues that China, India, and the others, are following Japan in adopting the '7 pillars' that were the basis of the West's surge forward some centuries ago. These 7 pillars are: 1. free economy (expect Adam Smith in the Asian pantheon of the future!), 2.science (enormous push forward; quote Rajiv Gandhi: better brain drain than brain in the drain); 3. meritocracy/equal opportunity, a trend which requires overcoming huge traditional obstacles, but which is clearly on the way; 4.pragmatism: possibly a euphemism for copying; 5.a culture of peace (maybe hard to believe for many in the West); 6. the rule of law: far from being an attained target so far; 7.education.
If KM is right, the adoption of Western values is going far beyond copying Gucci bags and Lacoste shirts. In that sense I would'nt be surprised if he got as much headwind in Asia as in the West.
The headwind in the West comes from his criticism of the exportation of democracy into nations that are not ready for it. And of course from his criticism of the way the West dominates the international institutions and applies double standards.
Why are we not happy with the Asians following our example? Because it means loss of power, plain and simple.
Can't say that I don't see his point. Equally I think he is right in blaming the current Western leadership for gross incompetence in critical issues such as Middle East policy (the Iraq invasion as the single worst case of bad judgment and terrible implementation), free trade, nuclear non-proliferation, global warming...
Incidentally, KM points out, at the time when Giordano Bruno was burned for heresy in Rome, the Muslim emperor Akbar the Great pronounced principles of a secular government in India. So much for Western conceipt.
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