The Asian Century

The Asian Century

1. FOR

   • Social
     • Demography
       • The average increase in working population will be in the order of 40 to 50 %
     • Education
       • The progress of education is bound to have a large impact on GDP developments
       • Their culture of frugality
       • Improved literacy and numeracy
     • Rising living standard
       • Has climbed to only 20% of the U.S. level
       • Treatment of the elderly
   • Political
     • Openness to structural reforms
       • Reforms to address economic overcapacity and imbalances, bureaucratic rigidity, declining competitivness, and worsening corruption
     • Political leaders have sufficient wisdom
       • To not let border disputes jeopardize trade and growth in any long-lasting way
       • Improvement of the quality of policymakers and policy making
   • Economic
     • Modernization program
       • When China decided to open her borders and welcome the assistance of the global business community
     • Higher % of Global GDP
       • 52% by 2050
     • Its cost advantage
     • Open regionalism
       • Increasing integration without discriminating
     • An Asian Union will emerge, perhaps accompanied by an Asian dollar
   • Military
     • Due to the improvement in technology
     • Economic strenght means military might
     • China's scale already providing the resources to challenge U.S. military dominance in the region
     • Belligerent and nuclear-armed North Korea

2. AGAINST

   • Political
     • Today world is politically stirring, volatile and not subject to anybody's control
     • Asia faces political unrest
     • No entity called Asia
     • Compartmentalized
     • India lacks potential for global leadership
     • Lack of appropiate institutions
   • Economic
     • GDP is not an accurate measurement of primacy
     • Asia is not an economic association
     • Will depend on Middle East for its energy supply
       • Water stress and other resource crisis
     • Asian economies are integrating but not integrated
       • Asia's economy is inextricably integrated with the economies of the West
     • Economic stagnation
       • As long as the "leadership of the Party" cannot be challenged
     • japan's economic weight in the world is declining
   • Military
     • U.S. military dominance
       • The U.S. is likely to remain much more powerful on a global basis than China
   • Social
     • There is no such thing as "Asia"
       • Not in any sense a cohesive entity or possibility for alliance
     • Trouble increasing China's soft power
     • Income disparities within societies
     • Its largest member is non- Eurpean Russia
     • Mutual mistrust among countries
     • The continent is aging rapidly
       • The product of its sustained "one-child policy"