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Kishore Mahbubani

Steven Okun

The ending of the American century is coinciding with an Asian renaissance.
America remains the world’s largest economy and will stay that way for another decade or two. But its economy no longer dominates the world. And its “America first” policy has partners and allies looking for alternatives for trade and investment – and for certainty. Simultaneously, everyone else is changing. The fastest-growing economies in the 21st century will be Asian.
Business leaders must wrestle with the paradox that while America remains the world’s most powerful nation, it no longer dominates the world order it built because it is drifting away. US and European businesses that do not understand the geopolitical and cultural shifts under way, and which still operate under an obsolete rule book for trade and investment, will find that their operations and strategy no longer match what their bottom line requires.
Already, we have seen significant shifts in the relative weightage of Asian economies, especially China and India.
Three forces drive the return of Asia. First, a return to form: until about 1820, China and India were consistently the world’s two largest economies.
Second, Asia owes the West a quiet thank-you: it absorbed to varying degrees the seven pillars of Western wisdom – free-market economics, science and technology, meritocracy, the rule of law, education, pragmatism and a culture of peace.


Third, an explosion of Asian cultural confidence has followed. Wealth and confidence have risen together across Asia. Western companies need to fully grasp and then internalise what that combination means for how the region negotiates, does business and sees its place in the world.
A crucial distinction sits at the heart of this shift, one many in the West struggle to see: modernising does not mean Westernising. A century ago, even Asia’s own thinkers believed otherwise.
In 1885, reformer Fukuzawa Yukichi was credited with urging Japan to “leave the ranks of Asian nations and cast our lot with civilised nations of the West”. Sun Yat-sen, speaking after Japan’s 1905 victory over Russia, cast that triumph as proof that an Asian nation could master Western methods on its own terms.
Now, few believe prosperity requires them to shed their Asian identities. For deal makers, the practical differences in approach matter. In the West, a signed contract secures a deal. In much of Asia, a trusted relationship matters at least as much.
Brand America once opened doors across Asia almost automatically, built on decades of trade, education and cultural exchange. Amid today’s tariff disputes, immigration bans, student visa rejections and political volatility, while goodwill towards America has not vanished, it no longer travels as powerfully.
We must understand the market in front of us and adapt to it. A region this diverse cannot be run off a single playbook designed in a Western headquarters – it requires as many strategies as there are markets.




Business leaders must watch and understand the new “CIA”: China, India and Asean. All three act in their own self-interest while doing their best to adhere to the rules-based order, even while it is fracturing.
Of the three, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is the hardest for outsiders to understand. The 11-member Asean governs by consensus across 240 million Muslims, 130 million Christians, 140 million Buddhists and seven million Hindus – a diversity so wide its progress compares to a crab walk: two steps forward, one back, one sideways.
Judged year to year, Asean looks stuck. Judged decade to decade, Asean’s durability bests the others. It has been remarkably resilient compared with Saarc, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Mercosur, the South American trade bloc, even the European Union, which could not keep Britain and struggles to respond collectively to China’s rise.
China has been Asean’s largest trading partner every year since 2009. China-Asean trade exploded from US$40 billion in 2000 to over US$1 trillion last year, primarily because China was Asean’s first dialogue partner to conclude a free-trade agreement.


India’s connections with Southeast Asia are as deep as China’s. From the turn of the Common Era, Indian traders and priests spread Hindu-Buddhist traditions that shaped how Southeast Asian kings ruled, how their subjects wrote, even what their cities were called – Singapore’s name comes from the Sanskrit for “Lion City”. Two thousand years on, that imprint runs through the region’s languages, systems of rule and maps.
Western businesses in Southeast Asia today are not writing on a blank page. They are joining a story well under way, and it helps to know what came before.
Business leaders must grasp three key new realities. First, that Asia is modernising on its terms. Second, that Asean’s pragmatism is a huge asset in a troubled world. Third, that the China-India-Asean triangle will provide major sources of global economic growth.
The businesses that adapt first and engage the new CIA won’t just avoid being left behind – they’ll help to draft the next chapter of Asia’s story and be best positioned to profit from it.
This is written from a fireside chat between Steven Okun and Kishore Mahbubani at the US-Asean Strategic Business Forum held in Singapore on September 4.


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The businesses that adapt early to engage China, India and Asean will help draft Asia’s next chapter and profit from it


The businesses that adapt early to engage China, India and Asean will help draft Asia’s next chapter and profit from it.


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Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


As the American century ends, Asia’s renaissance begins

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The businesses that adapt early to engage China, India and Asean will help draft Asia’s next chapter and profit from it

The businesses that adapt early to engage China, India and Asean will help draft Asia’s next chapter and profit from it