A dyed-in-the-wool white American male, I moved to China in 2007 for one very simple reason—I desperately needed a job. And because I was relatively old and had spent my career in the out-of-fashion world of smoke stacks and loud machines, no company in the US would touch me.
I have thrived in China, where there is still respect for factories (My factory has a smokestack but exports almost nothing to the US.) and even more respect for old executives like me. They don’t consider us unadaptable or out of touch here; they think of us as richly experienced. But I have learned even more while working here and one of the lessons I’ve learned is just how little the average American knows about China, or Asia in general. And given the current political climate that strikes me as even more true today than it was in 2007.
Parag Khanna is trying to change that. Sadly, however, he won’t succeed, for the simple reason that Westerners don’t really want to know the real Asia in my experience. They have their opinions and they’re stickin’ to ‘em. And the book is just too long and too full of actual facts, which is the only reason I didn’t rate it a six. There has to be balance in life.
The basic premise of the book is that while we’re all fixated on China, there is no China per se. The concept of sovereign land entities with fixed borders that can be drawn on a map is of European origin and was introduced to Asia through colonization. For thousands of years before that Asia had, to use a word I apparently didn’t use enough in my US job interviews, collaborated to a level few Western companies, despite the hype, have actually achieved. Boundaries were fluid and even disputing armies didn’t stand in the way of cultural and economic pragmatism and cooperation.
Speaking at the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations this past week, where Khanna also spoke, China’s President Xi Jinping said, “Being one of the earliest human settlements and a major birthplace of human civilization, Asia takes up one third of the total land on Earth, has two thirds of the global population, and consists of 47 countries and more than 1,000 ethnic groups.” And, he went on, “We should allow all civilizations of the world to fully bloom” and stressed the need to ensure openness, inclusiveness and mutual learning among civilizations, according to China Daily. (Contrast that with anything you’ve heard out of Washington in recent years.)
“The Future is Asian” for the simple reason that it is returning to its pre-colonial roots of tolerance and collectivism. China itself has 56 distinct ethnic groups, the rights of which are explicitly protected in the Chinese constitution. Every major religion in the world exists here and is tolerated, so long as the state perceives that the sovereignty of the Party and social stability is not threatened. (Yes, you can make the case that this is authoritarian but I can assure you that the Chinese government is far less authoritarian in total than the US government today. Barring threats to the state, China is one of the freest countries in the world.)
The point of Khanna’s book is that we live for the first time in a long time in a multi-cultural world, whether we are comfortable with that or not. And the West is struggling to adjust. Really struggling. Asia, however, has been here before and is re-adapting at lightning speed. And this book, more than anything else, is an encyclopedia of how and why.
As squeamish as this book will make any white Westerner feel, I believe that Khanna makes his point with unassailable research and open-minded perspective. The Belt and Road Initiative, which has received some very misinformed media coverage in the West, is but one example of the cross-border and cross-cultural economic investment and cooperation that is unfolding here. Asia is, in fact, far down the path to global economic domination. And it will depend not a twit on how President Trump’s trade war turns out or how illiberal and populist Europe becomes in terms of immigration and multi-culturalism.
If not a splendid book, as it is a bit of a slog to actually read, it is one of the most important books written in years. I do highly recommend it for the simple reason that it will open your eyes to the world we now live in and which most of us can make little sense of.
The research is impeccable and the writing is certainly professional, if not poetic. Asia is rising. But Asia is not China. Khanna notes: “Rather, with more neighbors than any other country, it [China] is deeply embedded in the Asian economic system in mutually dependent and beneficial ways. The future is Asian—even for China.” Japan, too, is part of the equation. As is Australia. Even Iran and Turkey. It’s a process that is accelerating and irreversible.
I’ll close with the reason I know that Khanna is right. I am a white American of French descent. I have round eyes and a big nose. And to the Chinese I am and always will be a foreigner. It matters little that I have lived here a long time or can speak a little Mandarin. A foreigner I will always be.
But the characterization is in no way pejorative. It is simply what I am. I sometimes make them laugh. But I never make them angry or arrogant. And they never assume that I am in any way less human than they are. I am just a foreigner. That fact says nothing about my character or my humanity.
And that, ultimately, is the perspective that will conquer the multi-cultural world. And that is the perspective that is, as Khanna so completely and convincingly explains, the foundation of Asia.
Please read it.
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