The document discusses whether Asia is truly rising to surpass the West. It notes that while some Asian countries have achieved economic success, others have failed or stagnated. It also argues that viewing Asia or the West as single unified wholes can overlook important differences between individual nations. Ultimately, it questions whether predictions of Asia surpassing the West are guaranteed, given challenges countries like China have faced in expanding their influence globally in places like Latin America.

1. Is Asia Really Rising?
Beyond viewpoints, ability, and interest, will another
vision of the future surface instead?
Introduction
While sitting in our “Foundations of the World Order” class the other day, discussion
turned to this paper, which was to answer the question: What will Asia’s rise mean for
the U.S. position in the world? One of the students asked if he could focus his paper on
just certain countries in Asia, a good question because we had just finished reading a
book called How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic
Region. In it, the author takes us, like a swift and agile rickshaw runner who knows his
way through crowded streets, from soil to steel to strategies. And in so doing, he
carries us down a road that unravels the reasons why some Asian countries succeeded
while others failed. Clearly, I could see why this student was interested in just focusing
on those countries who truly have risen.
What is interesting is that the student who asked the question also happens to be of
Asian descent and, in fact, grew up in South Korea, one of Asia’s economic success
stories. Though this had not been my first thought, in light of his background, it made
even more sense to me that he should ask it. For someone like me, it is more natural to
see Asia as a whole rather than as a sum of its parts; for someone like him, it is more
natural to see the individual components that comprise it. I don’t know if asking him to
analyze Asia as a whole is akin to me analyzing the entire Western Hemisphere as a
whole, but if it is, I can see the difficulty. While the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and even
some countries in South America may, collectively, be seen as having achieved
economic success during its history, can the same be said of Central America? Is the
West’s Central America the East’s Southeast Asia?
In sociology, we talk about the fringes of society and how it is inevitable that society
will always have those fringes; in fact, they help us define what is considered “normal.”
Is it also then true that economies will always have its fringes? Whether it does or does
not, I suppose the saying, “A rising tide lifts all boats” lifts some boats higher than
others and Joe Studwell would say this is due, in part, to the flexibility or inflexibility
of a policy, but perhaps some are trying to eradicate the world of economic failure
through policy alone. What if we must live with the reality that some economies will
rise while others stagnate or decline, regardless of how good or flexible a policy is?
Are we wasting our time trying to fix a problem that will always be with us? Might it
be true that for some countries to succeed, others must fail?
The Parts vs. the Whole
As I read Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World, a socio-
psychological and humanistic treatise in three essays about how Western technology
was adopted by the East, I often thought about how others might think about Patrick

2. Smith’s conclusions on various groups covered in the book. I did so particularly after
reading “In our time, to see Asia as one is considered something uncomprehending
Westerners do” (p. 42). I found this comment ironic because, in the introduction to this
book, Smith does exactly the same thing to the West. He writes, “The remote past is
not so remote as we Westerners assume because of the way we imagine our own past
has unrolled – momentously, discontinuously, often abruptly. ‘Its history’ cannot have
in Asia the dismissive ring it has for Americans” (p. 13). Despite his Western
background, Smith sees the West as one. And if you were to grow wings like a bird and
fly through the thoughts conveyed in this book, you would fly away with the notion that
Asia also sees the West as one.
As I came to this conclusion, I asked myself, Is that really such a bad thing to do – see
something as a whole rather than its individual parts? Do we see a bird? Or do we see
each individual feather? And are either of those visions better than the other? Is it
better to see the parts first? Or better to see the whole first? An even bigger question
is this one: Without the restrictions an authoritarian government or some similar
structure1
would impose upon its people, “Are we even capable of seeing the parts
without the backdrop of the whole?” In a free society, aren’t we always conscious and
knowing of the whole?
In fact, I would argue that, in a free society, it is human nature to see foreign entities in
a larger category before it sees its individual parts. We don’t see things as a broken up
puzzle. We see things as the complete puzzle and then, when we become more familiar
with the whole, we can see the individual parts that make it up. From the readings, it
appears that others are all too ready to categorize the West as a single entity with
singular, all-encompassing, simple descriptions. If you were to read Smith and nothing
else, you’d think that the West couldn’t possibly be as layered in its complexity as
the East.
Regardless, even if we could just see the individual parts of a whole, wouldn’t that limit
our ability to understand a bigger picture? After all, though an individual segment of
something may be representative of a whole, history can show us examples of when it
has not been representative. When we intentionally attempt to study an evenly
distributed cross-section of a whole we sometimes find that it isn’t. Even the best
attempts to do this usually include an acknowledged error margin of  three percent.
To illustrate this further, have you really understood an entire book when you’ve only
read one excerpt from it? Even if you read a summary of the entire book, you really
cannot say you’ve understood the book. It’s akin to trying to understand The Art of
War from one sentence … even a good one like “Energy may be likened to the bending
of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of the trigger,”2
or “There are not more than
1
I write “similar structure” here because certain organizations even in those countries most would consider “free societies” sometimes have
such a monopoly on information that the view from which the vast majority are perched is as limiting as having only a piece or two of a larger
jigsaw puzzle.
2
Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Circa 500 B.C. Ed. James Clavell. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell-Delta, 1983, p. 22. Retrieved November 23,
2014 from http://books.google.com/books?id=hUrYp6lon-

3. five primary colors, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever be seen,”3
or even one as oft-repeated, well-known, and encompassing as “If you know the enemy
and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”4
To truly
understand The Art of War, each word of it must be read.
In this same vein, policies must be read in full to be completely understood. Even
recent history in places other than Asia can show us what can happen when a policy is
not fully understood. When a policy reveals itself to be a vision that the stakeholders
no longer recognize or see the benefits of, backlash of unforeseen magnitude and
breadth might be the result.
Is Asia Really Rising?
From the very first book we read for “Foundations,” (a book titled Why the West Rules
– for Now), and even before the reading of it, I have mentally bought into this idea that
Asia’s power is waxing while the West’s is waning. And until this morning, I never
thought to question it. Within a few minutes of waking on this dreary, rainy Sunday,
however, I saw something that did. I was watching CNN’S Fareed Zakaria on his show
GPS5
, which CNN describes as a “comprehensive look at policies shaping our world.”6
When I began watching, Zakaria was interviewing Andrew Roberts author of Napoleon,
who, after Jesus and Lincoln, is the most written about figure in history. In fact,
according to Zakaria, more books have been written about him than days since his
death.7
Napoleon is newsworthy of late because someone has discovered that he wasn’t
as short as everyone previously thought him to be and I am guessing that this new book
on Napoleon by Roberts shows us a side (or should I say, a few more inches?) none of
the other books has revealed to us … if you can believe it. During this interview with
Roberts, Zakaria mentions the following famous quote by the French general and
statesman: “China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move
the world.”
Why is any of this important? Well, for starters, it has dawned on me that this notion of
China’s “awakening” has been with us for a very long time and if Napoleon is as widely
read as he is published, then quite a few people are at least familiar with his prediction
for China. However, whether or not she has fully woken from her slumber or has only
made her first yawn is debatable.
Will China, or Asia for that matter, really move the world? China’s rise to super power
status has had its challenges. Its efforts to tap into the resources of Latin America and
Africa, for example, seem to have hit some stumbling blocks along the way. As early
as 1992, China has been looking to foreign shores for ways to increase her trading
MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22the+art+of+war%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lTVyVOCJN8rxiAKNyYHoBQ&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22t
he%20art%20of%20war%22&f=false.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid., p. 18.
5
GPS, as used here, is an acronym for CNN’s flagship foreign affairs show hosted by Fareed Zakaria which airs on Sundays. The full name of the
show is Global Public Square.
6
CNN Programming Schedule. Sunday, November 23, 2014. Cable News Network. Retrieved November 23, 2014 from
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/.
7
GPS. Cable News Network. November 23, 2014. Television.

4. capacity. While Latin America seems to be saying to China, “Whoa, not so fast,”
Africa seems to be saying, “We’ll take your money.” You won’t have to look very hard
to see articles that reveal how some Latin Americans feel about China’s newfound
interest in their region. In a word, I suppose it could be summed up as “exploitation.”
As for Africa, I didn’t see as many articles expressing a general African disapproval of
Chinese investment, but there are other issues to consider. In a New York Times article
a contributing op-ed author wrote this:
Africans are often reminded that Malaysia and Singapore had roughly the same
G.D.P. 40 years ago as Kenya and Ghana have today. What is less often noted
is that the Asian economic miracle was achieved by market-savvy rulers who
were nonetheless authoritarian in every sense. The counterargument is that
Africans will secure equitable economic growth only by replacing kleptocratic,
power-hungry rulers with the checks and balances that democratic
systems provide.8
Without the resources of either of those countries, China, and the rest of Asia may be
subject to global economic downturns as much as the rest of the world.
Furthermore, does China really want to be the world’s superpower? Does China and the
rest of the Asian countries realize what a thankless job it is? It seems to be a common
theme, worldwide, that those who have not been economically successful begin to build
hatred and resentment for those who have. But that isn’t all. For years the U.S. has
been the world’s police, even with a conglomerate of nations such as NATO, the world
looks to the U.S. when turmoil strikes in this world. If China assumes the position of
the world’s superpower, will it also then take on the role of super protector? Or will it
be expected that the U.S. continue to do so? What global policies might weaken the
U.S. to the point that it can no longer serve as the world’s police force? And is China
prepared to assume that responsibility?
All of that may provide some food for thought, but I still haven’t explained why
Zakaria’s Sunday show made me rethink this notion of Asia’s rise to power. It was
what he showcased at the end of his book segment that caused me to suspend my
spoonful of cereal mid-air. Instead of showing us yet another book about the rise of
China, he presented one called The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of
American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder. I have yet to read the book
and, as I’ve addressed in this paper, you can’t know the contents of a book from a title,
a sentence, or even a summary, but I have to admit it was refreshing to see a book that
wasn’t about the rise of Asia.
Coincidentally, The Accidental Superpower, at least based off of the cursory glance of a
summary I read of it, seems to suggest that, like Ian Morris in Why the West Rules for
Now, geography has a large part to play in what might turn out to be, in reality, the
“new world order” and one where China is not the global hegemon so many others are
predicting it will be.
8
Murithi Mutiga, “Africa and the Chinese Way,” December 15, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2014 from
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/opinion/mutiga-africa-and-the-chinese-way.html?pagewanted=2

5. Conclusion
Earlier I contemplated various aspects of how we view those things that are foreign to
us – do we see the parts or the whole and how important is it to see something in its
entirety? For example, when we sit down to a jigsaw puzzle, does it help if we know
what the full picture looks like? It most certainly does. Unlike a jigsaw puzzle,
however, we may not always know what the individual puzzle pieces of a society will
turn out to be, but few, if any, try to move the pieces without having some plan, some
vision of what it will look like in the end.
The thing is, if our vision begins to disintegrate, will the plans that were created for it
pigeonhole us into disaster and despair? Or are the plans created flexible enough to
morph into something that will either restore our vision or create something even better
than we had imagined? When we think about future policies we might craft, whether
they be for the East or the West, China or the U.S., we might want to think about not
just our final vision, but our exit plan, in the form of a flexible policy, that will allow us
to bail out of it if needed. That way, whether or not the status quo remains or Asia
takes the helm, we can ensure that we ride the tide to a successful destination for all.