Abstract
Asian Re-emergence is not just a political dream; it is also a philosophical alternative. For centuries, the West has dominated in civilisational aspects, be it as a leader of science and technology or as an epitome of modern society. But the growth and success of Asian countries such as India, China and Japan both in purely economic terms and as a cultural alternative has been recently acknowledged. Kishore Madhubani’s latest work represents this acknowledgement, through yet another scholarly attack on the western hegemony and its inevitable collapse. The book is a collection of various essays in the form of commentaries which were previously published in multiple editorials. It is a compilation which has one central argument, that is, the inherent failure of the West and the rise of the Asian countries.
The book can be divided into two politically significant parts. The first part comprises a systematic display of essays trying to argue why the West can no longer carry on its global hegemony. One of the essays entitled ‘Democracy or Plutocracy? America’s existential question’ explores how the American society has lost its legitimacy as the flag bearer of ‘equality of opportunity’. It has transformed into what can be equated with crony capitalism or plutocracy as argued by Madhubani. The western ideas which were supposed to celebrate equality of opportunity, justice and liberty have created a plutocratic society which works for the top 1% of the society and works for its survival. Western societies have claimed to defend human rights but have kept silent on their actions in the dark Camp V detention tales of Guantanamo Bay. Madhubani gives a strong political critique on this internalised ‘hypocrisy’ of the western society and questions the ethos of American democracy, where the bottom 50% of the American population has a declined income between 1980 to 2010, which is contrary to the American Dream.
The essay entitled ‘Trump, Macron and the Poverty of Liberalism’, has a Rawlsian critique of the American democracy. Madhubani argues that a democratic society does not just guarantee social stability. A society where it is clear, that unfair disparity and inequality will be the cause of its demise. And he seems to warn the West multiple times about this political inconsistency, through his previous works as well (Madhubani, 2020). He quite interestingly draws a parallel between the storming of the US Capitol and the high death rates of COVID-19, as one of the heavy costs of pursuance of liberty without regard to moral responsibility. He argues that with this mishandling of the pandemic and also the nature of systemic racial oppression showcased by the George Floyd Protests, the Trump administration has raised the stature of China, as a more competent country.
The second part of this book explores Madhubani’s strong anti-thesis of the West, that is, the ‘return’ of Asia. Madhubani has written extensively on China, even before this book. This book, however, does not just talk about China but provides the high degree of economic and political resilience shown by countries like India and particularly South-East Asian countries. He presents a strong picture of regional cooperations like the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Essays such as ‘Why “the Indian Way” Maybe the World’s Best Bet for Moral Leadership’, ‘ASEAN’s Quiet Resilience’ and ‘Can Asia Help Biden?’ explore how ASEAN centrality will become one of the key equalisers between the US and China. Madhubani cites his personal experience when he was serving as the Singapore Ambassador to the United Nations, where he witnessed how the US tried to reduce the budgets of the UN and its agencies. Trump Administration and his attack on World Health Organization was another messy state of affairs. Madhubani argues that the Asian share of the Global GNP is rising, and this can be the most opportune moment for the Asian countries to take a lead in making the UN more financially independent from the US and make the global burden more equitable. In this part of the book, Madhubani is promoting a multilateral world order, but the key to unlocking it will be coming from Asia and not the West.
The most crucial aspect of Madhubani’s analysis of the Asian re-emergence was largely the emergence of the Asian Identity, which had been invisible under the Western template of Liberal Democracy. The book is also remarkable because of its timing. Post-COVID, the entire world entered a renewed arena of power dynamics with Asian countries having greater and more proactive responses in tackling the pandemic, as compared to the disastrous culmination of the US and its COVID-related deaths. Madhubani argues that as a rational country, the response to a new variant breaking out in China should have been greater preparedness. But the reluctance of the Trump Administration and the sheer denial of any such outbreak was the reason why the United States faced such high death rates. Asian countries, on the other hand, have not only tackled the crisis in a better manner but have also initiated global humanitarian assistance to other countries like the Vaccine Maitree Initiative of India (Singh, 2021). The political structures of Communist China and Asian countries such as India, South Korea, Japan and Singapore are drastically different from each other, with one shared commonality, that is, respect for strong institutional government. This is how the outcomes were different in the West and the East. It is important to mention here that Madhubani in an interview with the Institute of New Economic Thinking had acknowledged the positive leadership of the United States in coming out with vaccines like Pfizer in record time, but his argument in this book was not to delegitimise western contribution in technological advancements like the vaccines but to point out the sheer lacunas in their political reality.
Kishore Madhubani’s The Asian 21st Century is an essential and unique take on the changing power dynamics between the global west and the emerging Asian economies. The book also paints a vivid picture of the contemporary failures of western capitalism and wants to present a cultural alternative through the ‘Asian Example’. Madhubani’s arguments can simply be defined as bold, strong and elegantly crafted on various levels of analysis. This comes quite naturally considering the rich diplomatic career he has had before he became a celebrated name in the academic circle as well. One of the powerful features of the book is the selection of the essays and the candid, unapologetic style of writing. The book is a must-read for any social science student who wishes to engage in the field of International Politics and Diplomacy. One of the areas where Madhubani could have explored further was the question of the internal rivalries between Asian Giants such as India and China and their consequences on this dream of the Asian world order. In one of the essays entitled ‘On the Dawn of the Asian Century’, he does mention the rise of China and its perception among its neighbours as being indeed challenging. But the recent Galwan Valley escalation between Indian and Chinese troops, and how the relations between these two nations have deteriorated even after the Wuhan Summit of 2018, between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping, should have been explored further (Ramachandran, 2019). The rivalries within Asian nations should have been a major concern for the author, as both internal and external balancing of a region is detrimental to its peace and stability (Buzan, 2011). Ultimately, the book provides a concluding touch with a possible road map to ensure multilateral diplomacy with international rules-based order, which might have been born out of the western soil but needs the Asian leadership for its survival.