Khanna - The Future is Asian

Parag Khanna’s The Future is Asian (2019) asserts that anyone who fancies staying in the game in terms of economic or political influence needs to understand that U.S. domination is over and that a new multinational world order is the only way toward a prosperous future. He marks 2017 as the year in which the Asian-led world order began. May of 2017 was when “sixty-eight countries representing two-thirds of the world’s population and half its GDP” (p. 1) joined together in the Chinese-initiated Belt and Road Initiative.

While there is so much about Khanna’s book that was of interest, Chapter 9, “Asia’s Technocratic Future,” was of particular interest. This chapter proposes technocracy as a form of government comparable, or even superior, to democracy. As many people living in presumably democratic countries struggle with the failures that are now so prevalent, the principles of compassionate technocracy look pretty attractive.

“According to a twenty-five-country survey in 2017, India (53 percent) and China (49 percent) both ranked ahead of the United States (40 percent) as countries perceived as having a positive global influence” (p. 282). Khanna’s belief is that “Deregulation, deindustrialization, financialization, and politicization have combined to tear the American societal fabric” (282). The U.S. is no longer perceived to be an example of good governance, significantly influenced by the increasing deterioration resulting from special influences and corruption. The result is that Europe now offers a larger middle class, lower inequality across classes, and a higher overall quality of life. Pew Center surveys indicate that Asians view corruption and incompetence to be endemic to democracy and therefore of little interest to them. 

What is a technocratic government? It is one “built around expert analysis and long-term planning rather than narrow-minded, short-term populist whims or private interest” (p. 286). Technocratic expertise in Washington, D.C. used to be valued and lifted up as one of America’s strengths until politicians and pundits began to demean it as the “deep state.” Khanna points to Singapore as an example of the effectiveness of technocracy. Widely admired across the world, it boasts highly educated citizens, a high quality of life, great shared wealth, and efficiency in government resulting from compassionate and highly professional civil servants. By contrast, some political scientists have declared that the U.S. government is no longer based on expertise or merit but is a political oligarchy serving the few over many. Technocracy is particularly effective when it is data-driven and when public officials are cultivated for their high expertise, compensated accordingly, and are transparent to the public. This approach to providing for the public welfare is particularly aligned with Asia’s more collectivist and deferential cultures.

The chapters that set the stage for Chapter 9 relay important historic background and contemporary context. The details in these chapters paint a picture of growing unification throughout Asia, to some degree a shared reaction to the European colonialism that dominated the region prior to the 20^thcentury. Other details characterize West Asia (Middle East) as an increasingly fractured region lining up behind either Saudi Arabia or Iran. Competing West Asian countries compete against each other and with Europe as all turn east to China, India, and other countries for trade. All this is happening while the U.S. continues to push the “America first” protectionism which has done considerable “damage to U.S. workers and exports, with Europe grabbing every opportunity to capture markets that Americans have been closed out of through reciprocal tariffs” (p. 241).

Khanna does not portray a unified “Asia” in The Future is Asianbut instead highlights the vast differences across Asia as a strength. This huge area is getting stronger as various countries seek to partner with each other rather than depending on Western trade and political hegemony, creating a renaissance of sharing through rising wealth and reciprocal arrangements. Travel across Asia by Asians has exploded with rising discretionary income. Immigration and intermarriage are much more common in cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore. The new norms of interacting across what used to be formidable borders includes moving from Western atomism to Eastern holism, from humanism to scientific materialism, from freedom to harmony, and from democracy to technocracy. In his closing paragraph, Khanna notes that “Westerners prefer the phrasing ‘global rules-based order’ while Asians favor the Chinese phrase ‘community of common destiny.’ Tomorrow we will realize that they are two sides of the same coin” (p. 360)