The Future Is Asian

by Parag Khanna

  5 Ibid.

  6 Gustavo López, Neil G. Ruiz, and Eileen Patten, “Key Facts About Asian Americans, a Diverse and Growing Population,” Pew Research Center. Sept. 8, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/08/key-facts-about-asian-americans/.

  7 Pew Research Center, “Intermarriage across the U.S. by Metro Area,” May 18, 2017, http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/intermarriage-across-the-u-s-by-metro-area/.

  8 Pew Research Center, Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S.

  9 Pew Research Center, “Chinese in the U.S. Fact Sheet,” Sept. 8, 2017, http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/fact-sheet/asian-americans-chinese-in-the-u-s/; United States Census Bureau, “Los Angeles County a Microcosm of Nation’s Diverse Collection of Business Owners, Census Bureau Reports,” Dec. 15, 2015, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-209.html.

  10 López, Ruiz, and Patten, “Key Facts About Asian Americans.”

  11 Shalene Gupta, “Big Fat Indian Weddings Get Bigger and Fatter,” Fortune, Aug. 8, 2014, http://fortune.com/2014/08/08/indian-weddings/.

  12 Sari Horwitz and Emma Brown, “Justice Department Plans New Project to Sue Universities over Affirmative Action Policies,” Washington Post, Aug. 1, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-plans-new-project-to-sue-universities-over-affirmative-action-policies/2017/08/01/6295eba4-772b-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.808b27e06276.

  13 Vivek Wadhwa, “The Face of Success, Part I: How the Indians Conquered Silicon Valley,” Inc., Jan. 13, 2012, https://www.inc.com/vivek-wadhwa/how-the-indians-succeeded-in-silicon-valley.html.

  14 Ibid.

  15 Jane Ciabattari, “Why Is Rumi the Best-Selling Poet in the US?,” BBC, October 21, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140414-americas-best-selling-poet.

  16 Charles Lam, “The 115th Congress is History-Making for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” NBC News, Jan. 4, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/115th-congress-history-making-asian-americans-pacific-islanders-n703261.

  17 Statistics Canada, “Data Tables, 2016 Census: Citizenship, Place of Birth, Immigrant Status and Period of Immigration, Age and Sex for the Population in Private Households of Canada, Provinces and Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2016 Census—25% Sample Data,” January 16, 2018, https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/dt-td/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=0&PID=110525&PRID=10&PTYPE=109445&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2017&THEME=120&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=.

  18 Wanyee Li, “More Mandarin than Cantonese Speakers in Metro Vancouver: Census,” Metro News, Aug. 3, 2017.

  19 Joshua Bateman, “China’s Real Estate Investors on a $200B Global Spending Spree,” CNBC, June 16, 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/16/chinas-real-estate-investors-on-a-200b-global-spending-spree.html.

  20 Ibid.

  21 Institute of International Education, “Open Doors 2016 Executive Summary,” https://www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2016-11-14-Open-Doors-Executive-Summary.

  22 Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Chinese Students in America: 300,000 and Counting,” Foreign Policy, Nov. 16, 2015, https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/16/china-us-colleges-education-chinese-students-university/.

  23 Ibid.

  24 Pew Research Center, “Race and Social Connections—Friends, Family and Neighborhoods,” June 11, 2015, http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/06/11/chapter-5-race-and-social-connections-friends-family-and-neighborhoods/.

  25 Eva Li and Sarah Zheng, “Seeking Better Job Options, More Chinese Students Are Returning Home After Graduating,” South China Morning Post, April 17, 2017, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2088088/seeking-better-job-options-more-chinese-students.

  26 Cai Muyuan, “Hangzhou a Top Choice for Overseas Returnees,” China Daily, Sept. 5, 2016, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2016hangzhoug20/2016-09/05/content_26698859.htm.

  27 Cheng Li and Lucy Xu, “Chinese Think Tanks: A New ‘Revolving Door’ for Elite Recruitment,” Brookings Institution, Feb. 10, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/chinese-think-tanks-a-new-revolving-door-for-elite-recruitment/.

  28 Ka Ho Mok, “What Can We Learn from Returning Chinese Students?,” University World News, July 7, 2017, http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20170627134055924.

  29 Liu, Cecilia, “Chinese Universities Ranked Among Global Elite,” China Daily, May 31, 2018, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201805/31/WS5b0ef93ea31001b82571d42b.html.

  30 Jacob Passy, “Why Millennials Can’t Buy Homes,” MarketWatch, Oct. 30, 2017, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/student-debt-is-delaying-millennial-homeownership-by-seven-years-2017-09-18.

  31 Tamara Hardingham-Gill, “The World’s Most Liveable Cities in 2018,” CNN Travel, Aug. 14, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/worlds-most-liveable-cities-2018.

  32 Van Jay Symons and Suzanne Wilson Barnett, eds., Asia in the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Case for Asian Studies in Liberal Arts Education (New York: Routledge, 2015).

  33 NAFSA, “Trends in U.S Study Abroad: Study Abroad Participation and Demographics Data,” https://www.nafsa.org/Policy_and_Advocacy/Policy_Resources/Policy_Trends_and_Data/Trends_in_U_S__Study_Abroad/.

  34 Institute of International Education, “Open Doors 2016 Regional Fact Sheet: Asia,” 2016.

  35 Asian Development Bank Institute, “Labor Migration, Skills & Student Mobility in Asia,” 2014, https://www.oecd.org/migration/Labour-migration-skills-student-mobility-in-Asia.pdf.

  36 The US government is one of the few in the world that does not track its overseas citizens systematically, but estimates for the years 1999, 2013, and 2016, have been made by the State Department and are reported in the following sources, respectively: Jason P. Schachter, “Estimation of Emigration from the United States Using International Data Sources,” United Nations Secretariat, November 2006, https://unstats.un.org/unsd/Demographic/meetings/egm/migrationegm06/DOC%2019%20ILO.pdf; US Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, “Consular Affairs by the Numbers,” January 2013, https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/ca_fact_sheet.pdf; US Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, “Consular Affairs by the Numbers,” March 2018.

  37 HSBC, “Expat Explorer Report 2014,” https://www.expatexplorer.hsbc.com/survey/files/pdfs/overall-reports/2014/HSBC_Expat_Explorer_2014_report.pdf.

  38 Angus Whitley, “Chinese Airlines Wave Wads of Cash to Lure Foreign Pilots,” Bloomberg, Aug. 17, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-17/chinese-airlines-lure-expat-pilots-with-lucrative-pay-perks.

  6. Why Europe Loves Asia but Not (Yet) Asians

  1 Wilhelm Hofmeister and Patrick Rueppel, eds., “The Future of Asia-Europe Cooperation,” Konrad-Adenauer Stifung and European Union, 2015, http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_40559-1522-2-30.pdf?160317100039, p. 6.

  2 Max Bouchet and Joseph Parilla, “How Trump’s Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Could Affect State Economies,” Brookings Institution, March 6, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/06/how-trumps-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs-could-affect-state-economies/.

  3 “Countries and Regions: China,” European Commission, April 16, 2018, http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/countries/china/.

  4 European Central Bank, “ECB Completes Foreign Reserves Investment in Chinese Renminbi Equivalent to €500 million,” June 13, 2017, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2017/html/ecb.pr170613.en.html.

  5 German food companies are investing in deep-chill freezing techniques that would extend the shelf life of their goods by weeks, further expanding their offerings to far-off Asian markets.

  6 Feng Xin, “China Railway Express: Freight Network Facilitates Trade Between China and Europe,” CGTN, April 28, 2017, https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d55444f31597a4d/share_p.html.

  7 In 2018, Balkrishna Doshi became the first Indian to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize; his architectural projects have
long promoted sustainable and affordable housing.

  8 From 2015 to 2017, China invested 40 percent of its FDI in Europe, 24 percent in the United States, and 12 percent in East Asia.

  9 Aoife White and David McLaughlin, “ChemChina Gets EU Nod for Syngenta Deal One Day After US,” Bloomberg, April 5, 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-04/chemchina-wins-u-s-approval-for-43-billion-syngenta-takeover-j13z8ty8.

  10 Jamie Robertson, “Qatar: Buying Britain by the Pound,” BBC News, June 9, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40192970.

  11 “China Launches $11 Billion Fund for Central, Eastern Europe,” Reuters, Nov. 6, 2016, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-eastern-europe-fund/china-launches-11-billion-fund-for-central-eastern-europe-idUSKBN13105N.

  12 Mission of the European Union to ASEAN, “40 Years of EU-ASEAN Partnership & Prosperity: Trading and Investing Together,” 2017, https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/eu_asean_trade_investment_2017.pdf.

  13 World Travel & Tourism Council, Travel & Tourism Economic Impact 2017: Iran, https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/economic-impact-research/countries-2017/iran2017.pdf.

  14 The European Union already gives 20 percent of its science and research grants to non-EU entities, especially in Asia, leading to growing numbers of academic exchanges and knowledge-based collaborations.

  7. The Return of Afroeurasia

  1 The Gulf nations, however, clearly don’t coordinate their Africa policies. During the 2017 rift between the GCC countries and Qatar, countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia were caught in the diplomatic cross fire, forced to choose sides between Qatar, which has become a major political and aid donor across the region, and Saudi Arabia, which has been a major trade partner.

  2 Irene Yuan Sun, “The World’s Next Great Manufacturing Center,” Harvard Business Review, May–June 2017, https://hbr.org/2017/05/the-worlds-next-great-manufacturing-center.

  3 Yoon Jung Park, “One Million Chinese in Africa,” SAIS Perspectives, May 12, 2016, http://www.saisperspectives.com/2016issue/2016/5/12/n947s9csa0ik6kmkm0bzb0hy584sfo.

  4 Jacqueline Musiitwa, “Despite Slowdown, China’s Migrants Rooted in Africa,” This is Africa, March 30, 2016, https://www.thisisafricaonline.com/News/Despite-slowdown-China-s-migrants-rooted-in-Africa?ct=true.

  5 Tom Hancock, “Chinese Return from Africa as Migrant Population Peaks,” Financial Times, Aug. 28, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/7106ab42-80d1-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff.

  6 Lily Kuo, “China Now Owns More Than Half of Kenya’s External Debt,” Quartz Africa, June 15, 2016, https://qz.com/africa/707954/china-now-owns-more-than-half-of-all-of-kenyas-debt-2/.

  7 Pavithra Rao and Franck Kuwonu, “India, Africa Rekindle Trade Ties,” AfricaRenewal, August–November 2016, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/august-2016/india-africa-rekindle-trade-ties; “China, Africa Trade, Investment ‘Off to a Flying Start’ in 2017,” Reuters, May 11, 2017, https://af.reuters.com/article/africaTech/idAFKBN1870LJ-OZATP.

  8 “Data: Chinese Workers in Africa,” China Africa Research Initiative, January 2018, http://www.sais-cari.org/data-chinese-workers-in-africa/; Deborah Brautigam, Margaret McMillan, and Xiaoyang Tang, “The Role of Foreign Investment in Ethiopia’s Leather Value Chain,” PEDL Research Note, ERG Project 106, 2013, https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/08072-researchnote_brautigam_mcmillan_tang.pdf, p. 1.

  9 Rao and Kuwonu, “India, Africa Rekindle Trade Ties”; IOM Global Migration Data Analysis Centre, “Global Migration Trends Factsheet,” International Organization for Migration, http://gmdac.iom.int/global-migration-trends-factsheet.

  10 His granddaughter Ela Gandhi was elected a member of the first postapartheid South African parliament in 1994.

  11 Yun Sun, “Rising Sino-Japanese Competition in Africa,” Brookings Institution, Aug. 31, 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2016/08/31/rising-sino-japanese-competition-in-africa/.

  12 Wade Shepard, “India and Japan Join Forces to Counter China and Build Their Own New Silk Road,” Forbes, July 31, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/07/31/india-and-japan-join-forces-to-counter-china-and-build-their-own-new-silk-road/#563e3aeb4982.

  13 Amadou Sy, “What Do We Know About the Chinese Land Grab in Africa?,” Brookings Institution, Nov. 5, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2015/11/05/what-do-we-know-about-the-chinese-land-grab-in-africa/.

  14 Lily Kuo, “China’s Xi Jinping Pledges $60 Billion to Help Africa Solve Its Problems Its Own Way,” Quartz, December 4, 2015, https://qz.com/africa/565819/chinas-xi-jinping-pledges-60-billion-to-help-africa-solve-its-problems-its-own-way/.

  8. The New Pacific Partnership

  1 After the US withdrawal, the TPP was replaced by the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

  2 Rosalind Mowatt, “Trade Policy Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean: Views from Country Authorities and Current State of Pay,” International Monetary Fund, March 2017, https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/CR/2017/cr1766-ap-1.ashx, p. 11.

  3 A key ingredient of tofu and source of cooking oil, soy is also crushed into soya meal for chickens, pigs, and fish.

  4 Daniel Bellefleur, “Spanning the Economic Gap Between Asia and Latin America,” The Diplomat, March 16, 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/03/spanning-the-economic-gap-between-asia-and-latin-america/.

  5 Peter A. Petri and Michael G. Plummer, “US Must Get Back into the Game in the Asia Pacific,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, Oct. 23, 2017, https://piie.com/commentary/op-eds/us-must-get-back-game-asia-pacific.

  6 David Dollar, “China’s Investment in Latin America,” Geoeconomics and Global Issues Paper no. 4, Brookings Institution, January 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/fp_201701_china_investment_lat_am.pdf.

  7 Kevin P. Gallagher, “China Steps into the Latin American Void Trump Has Left Behind,” Foreign Policy, March 6, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/06/china-steps-into-the-latin-american-void-trump-has-left-behind/.

  8 “China Makes a Power Play in Brazil and Argentina,” Stratfor, June 2, 2017, https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/china-makes-power-play-brazil-and-argentina.

  9 Philippe Le Corre, Yun Sun, Amadou Sy, and Harold Trinkunas, “Other Perceptions of China: Views from Africa, Latin America, and Europe,” Brookings Institution, May 27, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2015/05/27/other-perceptions-of-china-views-from-africa-latin-america-and-europe/.

  10 Zhang Chun, “Latin America’s Oil-Dependent States Struggling to Repay Chinese Debts,” Chinadialogue, April 12, 2017, https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/9730-Latin-America-s-oil-dependent-states-struggling-to-repay-Chinese-debts.

  11 R. Viswanathan, “Trump Triggers Greater Latin American Interest in India,” The Wire, March 9, 2017, https://thewire.in/external-affairs/donald-trump-triggers-greater-latin-american-interest-in-india.

  12 Akio Hosono, “Asia-Pacific and Latin America: Dynamics of Regional Integration and International Cooperation,” UN ECLAC International Trade Series no. 132, 2017, https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/41813/1/S1700439_en.pdf.

  13 Antoni Estevadeordal, “How Trade, Investment, and Cooperation Between Japan and Latin America and the Caribbean Can Inspire Our Future Trade Relationship with Africa,” Brookings Institution, Dec. 22, 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2016/12/22/how-trade-investment-and-cooperation-between-japan-and-latin-america-and-the-caribbean-can-inspire-our-future-trade-relationship-with-asia/.

  9. Asia’s Technocratic Future

  1 “Dangerous World 2017,” IPSOS, June 14, 2017, https://www.ipsos.com/en/dangerous-world-2017.

  2 Justin McCarthy, “In U.S., 65% Dissatisfied with How Gov’t System Works,” Gallup, Jan. 22, 2014, https://news.gallup.com/poll/166985/dissatisfied-gov-system-works.aspx.

  3 Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics:
Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” Perspectives on Politics 12, no. 3, (2014): 564–81.

  4 John Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs, eds., World Happiness Report 2017, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2017, https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2017/HR17.pdf; Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, et al., eds., World Inequality Report (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2018).

  5 James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey & Co., has written that US criminal justice for white-collar crimes is nothing but a “system of organized impunity” in which the top twenty Western banks and the dozens of accounting and consulting firms colluding with them have perpetrated hundreds of large-scale financial crimes leading to $300 billion in fines between 1998 and 2017 but without a single firm losing its license to operate or a single senior official being imprisoned. On the contrary, perpetrators become regulators in the revolving door of the United States’ “bankster” system. See James S. Henry, “The Economics of the Global ‘Bankster’ Crime Wave,” The American Interest, Oct. 25, 2017, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/10/25/economics-global-bankster-crime-wave/.

  6 Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk, “The Signs of Deconsolidation,” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 1 (2017): 5–16.

  7 Woodrow Wilson, “The Study of Administration,” Political Science Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1887).

  8 I began making this argument well before moving to Singapore in 2012. For example, one chapter of my book The Second World (2008) is titled “Singapore: Asia’s First-World Inspiration.”

  9 Peter Ho, “The Challenge of Governance in a Complex World,” IPS-Nathan Lecture Series, Singapore, May 17, 2017.

  10 Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017).

  11 Chua Beng Huat, Liberalism Disavowed: Communitarianism and State Capitalism in Singapore (National University of Singapore Press, 2017).