I’ve just returned from a five-week working trip to Asia. I was fortunate to spend most of my time with business colleagues and new family members. As a result, I experienced Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, China and Japan as a partial insider. What I saw impressed me deeply.
The people in each of these countries are profoundly impressed with the American way of business and standard of living. They see no reason why they shouldn’t have what we Americans take for granted. And they are not afraid to work hard to better themselves.
There is no question in my mind about their eventual success. There is also no question that the growing economic development of Asia will profoundly change every public policy debate in the world.
Take global warming, for example. The Europeans are hopping mad that President Bush won’t ask the U. S. Senate to ratify the Kyoto treaty. But the president is right to insist that any treaty that doesn’t hold the developing world to the same standards as the rest of us is fatally flawed. All you have to do to understand the brilliance of his position is travel in Asia.
In Bangkok, Thailand, for example, you are immediately assaulted with a level of air pollution and traffic congestion unimaginable in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of two stroke motorbikes, three-wheel taxis and diesel busses spew tons of pollution into the air each day. And Thailand has only 60 million people.
China in is the midst of a massive economic transformation. Cities, villages, roads, ports, railroads are all being rebuilt at a staggering pace. At the rate they are transforming their country, I would not be surprised if China looks like America by the middle of this century.
Today, however, most homes, apartments and businesses are heated by coal-fired power plants. In the near future, hydro, gas and oil-fired plants will replace most of the coal stoves. This will result in a significant decrease in air pollution from China.
If 300 million Americans consume one-third of all of the world’s energy resources now, how much will 1.5 billion Chinese consume when they achieve our level of economic development later this century? Including China in a global warming treaty not only makes sense, but it also continues the effort to integrate the world’s most populous country into the community of nations.
Nothing is more impressive in Asia, however, than their commitment to education. In America, we are still debating whether “social promotion” makes sense. In far too many school districts, foreign language and music courses are being dropped because they are “too expensive.”
In Asia, every school child must learn English. Chinese and Japanese children have at least six years of English training by the time they graduate from high school. In one generation, every Chinese and Japanese citizen will be English fluent.
How will we be able to compete if we don’t demand the same level of foreign language competency of our children? How will we be able to compete if we worry about working our kids too hard while our Asian competitors worry about not working their kids hard enough?
As luck would have it, my new wife and I were in Beijing the night it was awarded the 2008 Olympics. I have never seen an entire country transformed into a state of euphoria before. If you think the decision to award Beijing the Olympics was just about sport, think again. What China craves more than anything else is respect. The decision to give Beijing the Olympics is a significant turning point in the history of China.
The Chinese are passionate people. But few of them have much exposure to foreigners. Once the decision to give Beijing the Olympics was announced, I sensed a profound difference in how the “average” Chinese person on the street reacted to foreigners. Suddenly, the Chinese felt that they had been accepted as a member of the community of First-World nations. And their reaction to foreigners went from distracted interest to intense pride in their country and a profound desire to share China with outsiders.
It has been a while since I’ve spent five weeks outside of the United States. I’ve been blessed to have worked in 21 countries and visited 41. Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America simply do not have the level of energy or commitment to robust capitalism as Asia.
The 20th century saw the emergence of America as a superpower. The 21st century will witness the emergence of Asia as the most powerful economic power in the world. The only question is how we Americans respond to the emergence of Asia as the world’s premier economic power.
