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I was asked to write the following Editorial for Texas Institute of Science
http://www.txis.us/txis/about/press/NewsLetters/NewsLetter_May2010.htm
DECOUPLING FROM THE WEST
by: Dr. Da Hsuan Feng
In 1946, the year before India achieved independence, my father (who at the time was
stationed in New Delhi as a foreign correspondent for China’s Central News Agency)
interviewed the man who would go on to be the first Prime Minister of India,
Jawaharlal Nehru. During the interview, the future Prime Minister uttered twelve
insightful words to my father…“If India and China hold together, the future of Asia
is secured.”
What Nehru said nearly sixty five years ago is clearly just as relevant today. Last
August, I was asked to be the summary speaker for a conference in Taiwan organized by
the Asia Development Bank. The subject of the conference dealt with ‘Global Economic
Crisis: Impacts and Implications for Industrial Restructuring in Asia.’ Trained as a
theoretical physicist, I kept asking myself what I could say on the matter. What makes
this crisis different from all other economic crises in the past century?
Having experienced the petroleum crises of the 1970’s and early 80’s, and later the
dot-com burst and Asia financial tsunami in the late 90’s, it occurred to me that
this global crisis is fundamentally different. Unlike the other financial setbacks of
the last 40 years where China and India were merely showing signs of economic
greatness, this crisis is occurring at a time when both nations serve as two risen
world class economic powers. This fact is no more evident in that paper after paper
set forth at the recent conference seemed to generate a general consensus that if the
West is to recover from this current economic state, it is necessary that they fold
into their calculations the strengths of India and China, and to not do so will be
economic suicide.
It is realized that the rise of India and China may have an even more profound impact
on Asia itself. Throughout the 20th century, Asia was psychologically “coupled” to
the West, and understandably so. With superior economic and intellectual strengths, it
is quite natural that Asia viewed the West as the ‘standard of excellence.’ However,
after such a period as this with the West so palpably exposing its social & economic
weaknesses, this may be the first time in the modern global economy that Asia can
psychologically “DECOUPLE” from the West. This is not to suggest that Asia should
decouple economically and intellectually from the West; rather, I am talking about a
“psychological decoupling” to undo a sense of reliance on the West, without which it
is unlikely that Asia will develop a deep sense of inherent self-confidence and
without which the 21st century is surely not to be the “Asian Century.”
-Dr. Da Hsuan Feng |
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