www.paragkhanna.com
IT IS a cliche that the Pacific Ocean is displacing the Atlantic,
China will replace America at the top of the world’s hierarchy of power,
and the East will surpass the West. We do not believe any of that for a
minute. The multipolar world we are entering will have no single
winner, and the three-pillared West of the European Union, North America
and Latin America remains a triangular zone of peace and the foundation
of global stability.
But a world of continued Western power is not a world of Western
dominance. Areas once considered the West’s eminent domain such as the
Middle East and Africa are now looking East for investment and exports,
and new models of growth, development and governance. It would not hurt
for the West to do the same.
We can all start by looking at Singapore, to which we are relocating shortly.
For the past generation, Eastern talent has been educated in the West
and stayed, rising to the top of professions from medicine to academia,
and founding over 40 per cent of Silicon Valley start-ups. But Asia’s
wave of economic growth, infrastructure spending, and improved
governance have been luring back Chinese ‘sea turtles’ and non-resident
Indians, among others, to shiny new corporate parks and research labs.
You do not even have to be Asian: China is launching a new scheme to
recruit the best and brightest talent from all races and nations on
permanent visas – call it a ‘red card’.
