Why Asia is the center of the world (again) | Parag Khanna | TEDxGateway
nobody thinks I'm Indian when I get in a taxi in Istanbul the driver thinks I'm Turkish in New York everyone just assumes I'm Mexican even in New Delhi people tell me they think I'm from Iran but the good people of Uzbekistan they know an Indian when they see one whenever I land in Tashkent I'm usually greeted with this and yes they even know the words so I sought to get to the bottom of this mystery why do so few people think I'm Indian to get the answer I turned to science I took a q-tip q-tip a swab of saliva from my cheek and I mailed it off to the National Geographic genotype project when you participate in one of these large-scale global ancestry studies you learn that none of us is as racially or ethnically homogeneous as we tend to think or we're told instead each of us is the product of large-scale genetic collisions that have been occurring regularly over hundreds of thousands of years as mankind has wandered and migrated across the continents well here are my results I am 50% Southwest Asian 22% Mediterranean 17% Southeast Asian and 10% northern European so in my DNA I have the arjen invaders Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan's marauding Mongol hordes and so do most of you so whether you think of yourself as Indian or Chinese or Iranian the truth is you are most definitely Asian so why don't we think of ourselves or refer to ourselves as Asian the way Europeans do European the reason is that for the past 500 years of colonialism and the Cold War Asians have been forgetting that we have so much more in common than what divides us but indeed over the past 4,000 years of history most civilizations in the world have been Asians now early empires such as from the Indus Valley or Eastern China were smaller more sedentary but over time as Asian empires grew and expanded and became more sophisticated they spread from east to west and west to east south to north and north to south for centuries prior to the mid colonial era commerce conflict and culture were the dominant way of life along Asia's great Silk Roads even today it's impossible to understand the genuine essence of Asian societies without taking into account the flows of people and ideas across this great Asian space show me the boundaries between Asia's great civilizations they don't exist now is the time after 500 years for Asians to rediscover our Asian nests after all Asians are the majority of the world population more people live inside this circle than in the entire rest of the world and as the world population actually begins to plateau at about 10 billion people there are more than 5 billion people across the great Asian geography interestingly though around the world when people talk about Asia they tend to just have one thing on their minds China China China China China China China China China China did I mention China of course China is the largest and most powerful country in Asia today but it does not singularly represent all of Asia itself in fact there are three point five billion age who are not Chinese the correct way to understand how Asia is evolving is not in discrete blocks of one Empire dominating over others but rather in waves of mutually reinforcing growth and Asia's modern growth story actually begins with Japan out of the ashes of World War two Japan resurrected itself rapidly modernizing and industrializing and becoming an economy that is today valued at five trillion dollars its industrial model inspired the tiger economies of South Korea Taiwan Hong Kong and Singapore today their GDP is also about five trillion dollars now each of those countries and together were the largest investors driving China's economic miracle over the last 40 years propelling it to a GDP of 11 trillion dollars today so is that it is that the end of the Asian story this history stop there no of course not the greatest wave of Asian growth is just getting going the 2.5 billion people across South and Southeast Asia stretching from Pakistan through India Bangladesh Myanmar Thailand Indonesia in the Philippines young and dynamic societies whose GDP collectively is already six trillion dollars and if they grow at only half the rate that China has in the past 40 years they will equal China's present GDP within the next ten years let's take a closer look at how this next Asian growth wave is unfolding just as Japan and Hong Kong and Taiwan and Singapore were the leading investors sponsoring China's economic miracle today those same countries and China are the leading drivers of the next wave of Asian growth this is embodied in the belt and road initiative the largest coordinated infrastructure investment program in the history of the world for many people it hearkens the dawn of a new golden age of Silk Road but for others it's a plot by China to dominate Asia here's how I think it's going to play out infrastructure is the essential platform for countries to grow and modernize and not only is India spending so much today on its own infrastructure but the largest recipient of loans from the Beijing based Asian infrastructure investment bank is India and as all Indians ought to know when an empire invests in its colonies or in its periphery it actually helps them build and modernize and gain the confidence to resist and indeed what it took the British Empire and Europeans three hundred years to learn china is experiencing in just three years look around at Pakistan Malaysia Myanmar countries are canceling or renegotiating their debts to China they're demanding a better deal in which they benefit more from the relationship rather than the reverse and so what belton Road will ultimately do is return Asia to its natural state of multi polarity a respectful degree of autonomy among Asia's proud civilizations indeed thanks to the power of connectivity and trade agreements Asia is truly integrating like never before countries in every corner of Asia are developing new complementarities with countries far across the Asian mega region trading in energy and food in goods and technology labor capital already Asians today trade much more with each other than with any other region of the world and as the us-china trade war unfolds China will in fact accelerate its trade with other Asians so Asia is actually becoming more and more self-sufficient every single year in decades past Asians used to produce for the West but now Asia's economies have become so large that the West is producing for Asia any way you measure it Asia is stitching itself back together again here you can not only see the fundamental infrastructures connecting Asia sub regions but in particular all of the busiest international airline routes in the entire world are between pairs of Asian cities this means business travelers entrepreneurs students tourists are Criss crossing the region in growing and growing numbers and all of this is actually leading to a very significant intermingling among Asian peoples Japan has never had more migrants than it has today in South Korea there are towns full of Korean Vietnamese and Korean Chinese families in Dubai Indians and Filipinos are getting married and giving birth to little indie Pinos and in Singapore generations of intermarriage between Chinese and Indians have created a new race of chind Ian's so today we don't call ourselves Asian as naturally as Europeans do European but I'm confident that future generations will that was the dream of India's great poet and Nobel laureate Tagore he urged Asians to recover the spiritual bonds of unity that tie them together over their colonial barriers and cultural obstacles his firmest belief was that Asia is one so the next time someone asks you who you are or where you come from you may still have your own answer but I certainly hope it includes pride in being Asian thank you [Applause] [Applause]