The Resurgence of Asia?

It’s always interesting to read articles or books which remind us that the world order was not always as it is; that the might didn’t always lie with the West and that Asia was once at the forefront of civilisation and development.

Yet, it also always begs the question – what happened to make it all change?

Just some paragraphs from Predicting the Unpredictable (The Diplomat, 23 Dec 2011), by Jason Miks:

After all, in the middle of the 18th century, Asia accounted for 58 percent of the global economy, a share that gradually slid as the West underwent its Industrial Revolution. Rapid development in the West saw Asia’s share of GDP tumble to around 15 percent by 1952.

So is the rapid development that economic reforms have unleashed all thanks to a Communist Party master plan? Gordon Chang, in our first essay, thinks not.

“The world credits the diminutive Deng Xiaoping for the startling transformation of Chinese society.  We believe, according to the universal narrative, that his dictatorial state first debated, then planned, and finally decreed change,” Chang writes. “Yet reform, in reality, progressed more by disobedience than design.”

“China has enjoyed an ‘economic miracle’ largely because desperate peasants and frustrated bureaucrats openly made themselves into plucky entrepreneurs.  By ignoring central government decrees, they built large and small private businesses and changed the Chinese economy beyond recognition.”