Death to feudalism, unleash the brain power

Kishore Mahbubani, the dean of LKYSPP, writes in “The New Asian Hemisphere” about the reluctance and difficulties on the part of the West to accept the rise of Asia today. With China about to host Asia’s third Olympiad, the entire world’s attention is once again on this part of the world - the home of more than 60% of world population and where the economic growth rates have consistently outstripped those of major Western countries for decades.

As the countries of Asia gain ever greater political, economic and social clout, international relations scholars and policy makers around the world have been trying to find out how the newly empowered Asian nations can take advantage of such opportunity and how can they claim a stronger position in defining and managing global affairs (Read "Is Asia ready for a bigger role" by Ann Florini, CAG Director).

In his latest lecture delivered at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta last week, Kishore Mahbubani shares his blue print on how an emerging, resource-rich country like Indonesia can take part in the great transformation China and India are going through now, and Korea decades before. "Asia always had the world's largest pool of brainpower. But it also had the world's largest pool of unused power. The simple reason why Asia is taking off now is that the unused brainpower is finally being used, " Kishore said. Expanding on this, he added, "China and India are succeeding and taking off because they are finally finding the right means of igniting the hundreds of millions of brains that they always had. After China and India, the third largest pool of brainpower is in the ASEAN region. The success of ASEAN will be determined by whether we follow China and India's pattern and unleash the brainpower of the masses or whether we follow the Latin Amercican path of nurturing the interests of the elite classes." Read Kishore Mahbubani's lecture. [Sung]