The East Is the New West of the World

Kishore Mahbubani's book provides insights into forces shaping the world in the new millennium. That China and India, which together accounted for half the global economy three centuries ago, but declined to less than one fifth, may emerge once again, perhaps within fifty years, as two of the three largest economies in the world—the other being the US, the current economic super-power—is widely commented on. Mahbubani x-rays into seismic forces beneath the economists' view of global changes. Economic growth enables countries to manoeuvre power structures to suit their aims and protect their interests. Thus the West controls the organisations that determine the international rules of the game—in trade, international security, and conflict resolution. At an even deeper level, Mahbubani also focuses on the 'theories-in-use'—the mental models—about what is superior, and therefore what defines progress, that has been driving the changes in the world, including the West's hegemony over the East. It is at this level that he notices the first glimmers of change that will be most unsettling to the prevalent beliefs in the West.

Mahbubani points out that the global institutions imposed onto the world by the victors in the Second World War are, in practice, unfairly dominated by the West. "The great paradox of the 21st century is that this undemocratic world order is sustained by the world's most democratic nation states, the Western states", he says. He is particularly scathing in his criticism of the US which has undermined the one institution that, according to him, provided the basis for a more fair global order—the UN General Assembly. It was supposed to be 'the parliament of man'. However, the UN Security Council, a blatantly unrepresentative organisation, dominated by the US along with its two Western allies—Britain and France—rules whenever action has to be taken. The irony is that the US, thereafter, criticises the widely representative General Assembly as a...