Michael: By 2030, an estimated two-thirds of the global middle class will live in Asia. That’s a wild statistic on its own. But here's the real kicker: the story isn't just that Asia is getting rich. The real, more provocative story is that they might be building a better system to run the world than we are. Kevin: Whoa, hold on. A ‘better’ system? That's a huge claim. Everything we hear is that they're just catching up, or in some cases, playing by a different, more ruthless set of rules. The idea that their model is superior feels… counterintuitive. Michael: It absolutely is, and that’s what makes it so fascinating. This is the world that global strategy advisor Parag Khanna maps out in his incredibly ambitious book, Asia First: China and the Making of the New World Order. Kevin: Parag Khanna. I know that name. He’s a regular on the world affairs circuit. Michael: Exactly. And Khanna is the perfect person to write this. He was born in India, grew up in the UAE and New York, and now lives in Singapore. He’s personally lived the very "Asianization" he writes about. He argues that we in the West are fundamentally misreading the 21st century because we’re still looking at Asia through a 20th-century lens. Kevin: Okay, so what are we missing? What’s the big picture we’re failing to see? Michael: We're missing the great reconnection. Khanna's first major point is that we misunderstand Asia because we fail to see the massive, almost invisible, integration happening right under our noses. We see the conflicts, but we miss the connections.

Kevin: That’s a great way to put it. Because when I think of Asia, I think of friction. China versus India in the Himalayas, Japan versus South Korea over history, China’s moves in the South China Sea. It seems like a region of intense rivalries, not connection. Michael: And that’s the conventional wisdom. But Khanna opens with this beautiful story about the explorer Paul Salopek, who is walking the path of human migration out of Africa. When asked to describe Asia, Salopek calls it a "vast mosaic of microworlds, loosely knitted together by forces beyond my ken." Khanna’s argument is that those forces are no longer beyond our ken. They are infrastructure, trade, and a shared sense of destiny. Kevin: So what does that knitting-together actually look like on the ground? Michael: It looks like the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI. In the West, we hear about it almost exclusively as a form of Chinese neocolonialism. But Khanna reframes it. He says to think of it as the hardware for a new, integrated Asia. It’s the modern Silk Road—the railways, the ports, the fiber-optic cables—that are physically connecting the continent in a way it hasn't been for centuries. Kevin: But what about the 'debt-trap diplomacy' argument? That China is intentionally indebting these smaller countries to gain political leverage. Is Khanna saying that's just Western propaganda? Michael: He’s saying it’s an oversimplification that misses the bigger picture. From an Asian perspective, the need for infrastructure is immense and urgent. For decades, the West wasn't funding it on the scale required. China stepped in. And while there are absolutely risks and instances of bad deals, the primary effect is that it’s creating pathways for commerce that benefit everyone in the region. It’s less about China conquering these countries and more about them building the highways that everyone then uses to trade with each other. Kevin: That makes sense. If you build a road from China to Pakistan, it’s not just Chinese trucks that can use it. Pakistani businesses can use it too. Michael: Precisely. And the data backs this up. The book points out that between 2009 and 2016, intra-Asian trade—that’s Asians trading with other Asians—nearly doubled as a share of their total trade, up to 57%. That number is staggering. It’s like they’re building their own self-contained economic universe, and it’s pulling everyone into its orbit. Kevin: Everyone? Like who? Michael: This is where it gets really interesting. He argues this gravitational pull is reshaping the map. Take Russia. We see it as a European power, but its economic future is in Asia. China has replaced Germany as its biggest trade partner. He tells a story about the Silk Way Rally, a massive truck race from Moscow to Xi'an in China, starting in Red Square. Moscow is becoming a capital of the Northern Silk Road. Kevin: Wow. And it’s not just Russia, is it? The book talks about Turkey and the Middle East as well. Michael: Yes. Turkey, rejected by the EU, is pivoting east, building ties with Central Asian Turkic nations and even buying Russian missile systems, much to NATO’s dismay. And the Middle East, for so long a Western-dominated region, is now looking to Asia. Their biggest long-term energy contracts and infrastructure projects are with China, India, and Japan. The money, the investment, the future—it’s all flowing from the East. Even Australia, a staunch Western ally, is realizing its destiny is inextricably Asian. Kevin: Okay, so they're building the hardware for this new, integrated Asia. The roads, the ports, the trade deals. But that brings me to the really provocative part of your intro. What about the 'software'—the way they govern? You said their system might be 'better.' That's the part I'm really struggling with.

Michael: Right, and this is probably the most challenging idea in the book for a Western reader. Khanna argues that while the West is caught in cycles of political polarization and short-term thinking, many Asian countries are embracing a different model: technocracy. Kevin: Technocracy. That sounds a bit like 'rule by robots' or some cold, unfeeling bureaucracy. What does it actually mean in practice for a regular person living there? Michael: Khanna offers a sharp distinction: "Politics is about positions, policy about decisions; democracies produce compromises, technocracies produce solutions." A technocracy is a system where governance is driven by experts, data, and long-term planning, rather than by populist sentiment or ideological battles. The goal isn't to win the next election; it's to optimize for the best societal outcome over decades. Kevin: And the poster child for this is Singapore, I assume. Michael: Absolutely. He holds up Singapore under its founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, as the ultimate case study. Here was a tiny island with no natural resources, riven by ethnic tensions, that was transformed into one of the world's wealthiest, safest, and best-educated countries. How? Through a relentless focus on pragmatic, long-term solutions: investing in education, building world-class infrastructure, enforcing strict laws, and creating a meritocratic civil service that attracts the best and brightest. Kevin: But what about freedom? Isn't this just a nice word for authoritarianism? You can't chew gum in Singapore! It seems like a society engineered for efficiency at the cost of personal liberty. Michael: That's the classic critique, and it's a valid one. But from an Asian perspective, as Khanna frames it, the priorities can be different. The question they might ask is, what is freedom? Is it the freedom to have a dysfunctional government and crumbling infrastructure? Or is it the freedom from crime, corruption, and poverty? Many Asian societies have a cultural bias in favor of collective discipline and pragmatic government. Kevin: So the trade-off is... less individual freedom in the Western sense, but more collective stability, safety, and economic opportunity? Is that the deal? Michael: That’s the implicit bargain. And it’s one that seems to be generating high levels of trust. The book cites studies like the Edelman Trust Barometer, which consistently show that countries like China, Singapore, and India have far higher levels of public trust in their government than the United States or the UK. People feel the system, whatever its flaws, is delivering results. Kevin: And this isn't just a city-state thing. You're saying this applies to a behemoth like China too? Michael: Yes, he argues China has evolved its own form of technocracy. It’s a system of "political meritocracy," where leaders are promoted based on their performance at local and provincial levels. They are judged on concrete metrics: Did you grow the economy? Did you reduce pollution? Did you build the high-speed rail on time? It's a constant process of experimentation and adaptation, what Deng Xiaoping famously called "crossing the river by feeling the stones." Kevin: I see. It’s a results-oriented system. And he mentions India's Prime Minister Modi and his mantra of "minimum government, maximum governance." It sounds good, but does it actually work for a massive, chaotic democracy like India, or is it just a slogan? Michael: That's the billion-person question. Khanna presents it as an aspiration—a sign that even in the world's largest democracy, there's a powerful thirst for a more effective, less political, results-driven approach to solving the country's immense challenges. It’s a deep cultural shift. Kevin: Okay, this is a lot to process. A newly connected Asia with a different, and possibly more effective, model of governance. It feels like we're setting up a 21st-century clash of civilizations: the Democratic West versus the Technocratic East. Michael: And that’s where you’d expect the story to go. But Khanna takes a sharp turn. He argues the final, and maybe most hopeful, part of his argument is that this isn't leading to a clash at all. It's leading to a fusion.

Kevin: A fusion? After everything we've just discussed, that seems overly optimistic. How do you fuse two systems that seem to be built on such fundamentally different values? Michael: Because, Khanna argues, the "Asianization" of the world isn't a replacement of the West; it's a new layer being added to global civilization. And this process of cultural fusion has been happening for a long time. Think about it: The Beatles and Steve Jobs making spiritual pilgrimages to India in the 60s and 70s. Their experiences there profoundly shaped Western music and technology. Kevin: That’s a great point. The idea of mindfulness, which is everywhere in corporate America now, is a direct import of Buddhist practice. Michael: Exactly. Khanna uses this incredible quote from a Chinese scholar who said, "India had conquered China for two thousand years without ever sending a soldier over the border." It was a conquest of ideas, of philosophy, of culture, through the spread of Buddhism. Kevin: I love that. It's influence through culture, not coercion. So K-Pop, anime, and TikTok are the modern-day equivalents of Buddhism spreading along the Silk Road? Michael: In a way, yes! It’s the "soft" side of Asianization. It's the global popularity of Asian cuisine, fashion, and cinema. It's the fact that yoga is now a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. This isn't a political project; it's a cultural osmosis. And it’s enriching both sides. Kevin: Okay, I can see the cultural fusion. But what about the hard-edged political and ideological differences? How do you fuse those? When Khanna talks about the West's "global rules-based order" and China's "community of common destiny," they sound like competing slogans for how the world should be run. Michael: This is the final, brilliant synthesis of the book. He says we see them as competing, but we should see them as two sides of the same coin. They need each other. Kevin: How so? Michael: The Western "global rules-based order" provides the essential framework—the international law, the financial regulations, the maritime norms. It's the "rules" of the game. It’s the stable, predictable operating system the world has run on for 70 years. Kevin: Right, the system that, for all its flaws, has enabled global trade and prevented major power wars. Michael: But what Asia, and particularly China, brings with its idea of a "community of common destiny" is the vision, the momentum, and the collective will to build something new on top of that system. It’s the grand projects, the infrastructure, the shared economic future. It’s the "destiny." One provides the rules, the other provides the purpose. Kevin: Wow. So the whole "us vs. them" narrative is just the wrong way to look at it. The real story is about a messy, complicated, but ultimately necessary merger. It's about moving from a world run by one headquarters in Washington to a world with multiple, interconnected HQs in Washington, Brussels, and Beijing.

Michael: Exactly. The book concludes that a new chapter of global history is being written, and it’s not a solo project. It's being co-authored by Asian and Western civilizations. The future isn't one or the other winning. The future is a world where, as Khanna puts it, "both the rules and the destiny must be made together." Kevin: That’s a powerful and, honestly, a much more hopeful vision than the one we usually get. It’s less about a zero-sum game and more about finding a synthesis. It’s not about America declining or China taking over, but about both finding a new equilibrium in a world that is bigger than either of them. Michael: It completely reframes the conversation. And it leaves us with a really big question: Are we, in the West, ready to be co-authors of that future? Or are we still clinging to the idea that we should be the sole author? Kevin: That’s a huge question. It’s about whether we can adapt to being a vital partner in a multipolar world, rather than the single superpower. We'd love to hear what you all think. Drop us a comment on our socials—is this vision of a fused, multipolar world a terrifying future or an exciting one? Let's discuss. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.