NEW BOOK SPELLS OUT HOW GLOBAL POWER IS SHIFTING TO THE EAST – AND HOW THE WEST CAN BEST COPE
January 18th 2008 21:08
Leading intellectual Kishore Mahbubani's latest book, ‘The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East,’ documenting the rise of Asia, will hit bookstores in February.
The book synopsis says that Mahbubani, whom the Foreign Policy Magazine included among the top 100 public intellectuals in the world, describes how for centuries the Asians have been bystanders in world history, reacting defenselessly to the surges of Western commerce, thought, and power. That era is over. Asia is returning to the centre stage it occupied for eighteen centuries before the rise of the West.
Will the West resist the rise of Asia? This scenario will be disastrous. Asia wants to replicate, not dominate, the West. But the West must gracefully share power with Asia, by giving up its automatic domination of global institutions from the IMF to the World Bank, from the G7 to the UN Security Council.
History teaches that the rise of new powers almost always leads to tension and conflict. This, too, may happen. But this can be avoided if the world accepts the key principles for a new global partnership spelled out in The New Asian Hemisphere.
Kishore Mahbubani is the author of two previous books: ‘Can Asians Think?’ and ‘Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World.’
He served for 33 years as a diplomat for Singapore and has written many articles on world affairs. He served two stints as Singapore’s Ambassador to the UN and as President of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002.
In 2005, Foreign Policy magazine included him among the top 100 public intellectuals in the world.
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