This link has been bookmarked by 11 people . It was first bookmarked on 30 Jun 2009, by Clay Burell.
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15 Jul 09
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Sustained, rapid economic growth since World War ii has undeniably boosted the region's economic output and military capabilities. But it's a gross exaggeration to say that Asia will emerge as the world's predominant power player. At most, Asia's rise will lead to the arrival of a multi-polar world, not another unipolar one.
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Even Asia's much-touted numerical advantage is less than it seems. China supposedly graduates 600,000 engineering
majors each year, India another 350,000. The United States trails with
only 70,000 engineering graduates annually. Although these numbers
suggest an Asian edge in generating brainpower, they are thoroughly misleading. Half of China's engineering graduates and two thirds of India's have associate degrees. Once quality is factored in, Asia's
lead disappears altogether. A much-cited 2005 McKinsey Global Institute
study reports that human resource managers in multinational companies consider only 10 percent of Chinese engineers and 25 percent of Indian engineers as even "employable," compared with 81 percent of American engineers. - 2 more annotations...
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Even when you look at autocracies credited with economic success, you find two interesting facts. First, their
economic performance improved when they became less brutal and allowed
greater personal and economic freedoms. Second, the keys to their
successes were sensible economic policies, such as conservative macroeconomic management, infrastructural investment, promotion of savings, and pushing exports. Dictatorship really has no magic formula for economic development. -
Dictatorships are good at concealing the problems
they create while democracy is good at advertising its defects.
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09 Jul 09
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08 Jul 09
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07 Jul 09
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Asia
is nowhere near closing its economic and military gap with the West. -
More
than 20 percent of Asians will be elderly by 2050. Aging is a principal
cause of Japan's stagnation. China's elderly population will soar in the middle of the next decade. Its savings rate will fall while healthcare and pension costs explode. India is a lone exception to these trends-any one of which could help stall the region's growth. - 3 more annotations...
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Pollution is worsening Asia's
shortage of fresh water while air pollution exacts a terrible toll on
health (it kills almost 400,000 people each year in China alone).
Without revolutionary advances in alternative energy, Asia could face a
severe energy crunch. Climate change could devastate the region's agriculture. -
The
current economic crisis, moreover, will lead to huge overcapacity as
Western demand evaporates. -
Political instability could also throw Asia's economic locomotive off course. State collapse in Pakistan or a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula
could wreak havoc. Rising inequality and endemic corruption in China
could fuel social unrest and cause its economic growth to sputter.
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dan maertens21ste eeuw, wordt mulitpolaire eeuw, niet die van Asië!
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its per capita gdp is only $5,800, compared with $48,000 in the United States.
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only a third
that of the United States - 11 more annotations...
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it
will take the average Asian 77 years to reach the income of the average American. -
And Asia's combined military budget won't equal that of the United States for 72 years.
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China's recent rise has pushed Japan and India closer together.
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it does not seem to play an equally inspiring
role as a thought leader. -
and reward producers by subsidizing
capital (typically through low bank lending rates). -
The region's hierarchical culture, centralized
bureaucracy, weak private universities, and emphasis on rote learning
and test-taking will continue to hobble its efforts to clone the United
States' finest research institutions. -
that human resource managers in multinational companies consider only 10 percent of Chinese engineers and 25 percent of Indian engineers as even "employable," compared with 81 percent of American engineers.
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Even when you look at autocracies credited with economic success, you find two interesting facts. First, their
economic performance improved when they became less brutal and allowed
greater personal and economic freedoms. Second, the keys to their
successes were sensible economic policies, such as conservative macroeconomic management, infrastructural investment, promotion of savings, and pushing exports. Dictatorship really has no magic formula for economic development. -
For complex reasons, China's rise has inspired fear and unease, not enthusiasm,
among Asians. Only 10 percent of Japanese, 21 percent of South Koreans,
and 27 percent of Indonesians surveyed by the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs said they would be comfortable with China being the future
leader of Asia. -
Sixty-nine percent of Chinese, 75 percent of Indonesians, 76 percent of South Koreans, and 79 percent of Japanese in the Chicago Council's surveys said that U.S. influence in Asia had risen over the past decade.
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Another, perhaps more important, reason for the enduring American preeminence in Asia is that most countries in the region welcome Washington as the guarantor of Asia's peace. Asian elites from New Delhi to Tokyo continue to count on Uncle Sam to keep a watchful eye on Beijing.
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01 Jul 09
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30 Jun 09
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emphasis on rote learning
and test-taking will continue to hobble its efforts to clone the United
States' finest research institutions. -
Although these numbers
suggest an Asian edge in generating brainpower, they are thoroughly misleading. Half of China's engineering graduates and two thirds of India's have associate degrees. Once quality is factored in, Asia's
lead disappears altogether.
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