Kishore Mahbubani - The Asian 21st Century

We live in hugely paradoxical times. We will see greater change in the twenty-first century than we have in any previous human century. Huge leaps in science and technology, accompanied by huge economic and social advances in many societies around the world, especially Asian societies, will mean that the texture and chemistry of the twenty-first century will be massively different from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

How will it be massively different? It will be different in three significant dimensions. First, we will see the end of the era of Western domination of world history. Second, we will see the return to the success of many Asian societies, especially the two most populous societies of China and India . Third, as a result of the rapid shrinkage of the world, through both technological leaps and growing interdependence, partly through global trade, humanity is no longer living on a vast planet. It is living in a small, densely interconnected global village. Indeed, when future historians look at the twenty-first century, they will marvel at how many big changes happened in the human condition in a small space of time.

In theory, the human species represents the most intelligent species on planet earth. One key test of intelligence is the ability to adapt to different circumstances. Sensible and intelligent adaptation and adjustment to changed circumstances explain how our human species has survived and thrived for thousands of years. Of course, some human tribes have performed better than other tribes in making these adaptations and adjustments.

Over the past 200 years, the best performing human tribe has been the Western tribe. Through their extraordinary performance, both in the fields of human organization and in science and technology, the Western societies outperformed the rest of the world. They didnt just outperform the world. They conquered the world.

Its not surprising that larger European societies like the British and French, were able to conquer territories around the world. Indeed, it was said in the nineteenth century that the sun never set on the British empire, as the British had conquered territories in all corners of the world. What was truly surprising was the ability of small European societies, like Portugal , to conquer territories all around the world. In the nineteenth century, the population of Portugal was only a few million. Yet, this small country, with a population of about the size of contemporary Singapore , was able to conquer territories in South America (like Brazil ) and in Africa (like Angola and Mozambique ). But what was truly astonishing was small Portugals ability to conquer territories in the sixteenth century from India (population 115 million) and China (population 160 million) in Goa and Macau , respectively.