Is Asia the future? As we know, it’s hard to read an international newspaper or media source that discusses economics or politics without some mention of Asia within it. Whether it is about China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, or one of the other Asian countries, there is no doubt that Asia is a prominent force in international media. The question then becomes, how big of a force is it really? Will Asia take over the Western world? Will it come to the point that the Western world becomes obsolete? Honestly, that’s highly doubtful. The plethora of issues that still plague Asia are abundant and will not disappear anytime soon. On the other hand, the fact that Asia will be a dominant force of influence in the future is undeniable.

I recently read an article by a man named Guy Sorman, a French economist, that discusses the future of Asia - http://www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/1239. Instead of writing about the promising future of Asia, Sorman gives some very important facts as to why this won’t be a completely dominated Asian century. First, there is too much political turmoil and unrest, both internally and between different countries. Specifically, in the regions surrounding Pakistan and Malaysia, the political animosity amongst nations is high.  Internal unrest, in Thailand for example, can also not be overlooked. Second, there are different underlying economic systems. The system that has enabled China to grow exponentially is different from Korea’s and Japan’s growth, and even further different from the growth in Singapore or India. Third, many of these countries are still riddled with immense poverty. Although the major cities are fully developed, much of the countryside, especially in China and India, has some of the highest rates of poverty in the world. Before they are able to start tackling international economic and political issues, they must first fix the problems that plague their own respective nations. And lastly, there is no governing organization, like NATO or the EU, which can combine all f their future endeavors together into one unified voice. It is hard to tell if this is as pertinent an issue as the others, but the fact still remains that without one singular unified voice, Asia will continue to be different nations, with different views and different goals.

I believe, for the most part, that Sorman is correct, but I do think that he is being too cynical of Asian development. I don’t think that the turn from Western to Eastern leadership will happen in the next 5 or 10 years, but 20 to 30 years from now, that is not so unimaginable. Within that time, those issues can be diffused, and other problems can be squashed. After all, 30 years ago, Asia wasn’t even on the discussion board yet when it came to development. The question then is, what other countries will give Asia a run for it’s money? Will Africa turn around? Will South America also overcome crime and poverty to challenge Asia for future world leadership? Or is the more plausible answer, that there will no longer be a world leader? Will Western ideology and philosophy will be matched hand for hand by ideology from Asia, South America, or Africa? And in a world that every thought is challenged from different perspectives, how can progress be created? In that sense, maybe we need a world leader? Maybe their needs to be a dominant force that is able to influence economic and political decision making? I know that I don’t know these answers, but I do know that these are the questions that will continue to be asked as the world that we live in transforms into this new century.