Journal Articles
Asia’s economic growth in the past several decades has been stellar. Asia today accounts for over a quarter of the global GDP and three of the five largest economies in the world are in Asia. This share is growing and by some accounts could well account for over half the global output by 2050. Some have dubbed the twenty-first century as the Asian Century. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. Asians today are richer, healthier, more educated and live longer than they did a generation back. However, the region also faces many severe development challenges. Continuing poverty (two thirds of the world’s poor still live in Asia), rising inequality, social deprivations, environmental degradation, gender biases, food, energy and water security, poor physical and social infrastructure, limited reach of the formal financial sector, poor governance and weak institutions are among such pressing challenges. If these challenges go unmet, could Asia get caught in a ‘middle income’ trap, thus rendering the dream of an ‘Asian Century’ just that: a dream? This article examines the phenomenon of ‘Two Faces of Asia’. It analyses the challenges that Asia must confront, the opportunities that it must exploit and concludes that an Asian Century characterized by Asian prominence in a globalized world is ‘plausible but not pre-ordained’. The article also argues that the Asian Century should not be cast in a narrow, parochial sense as ‘Asia’s Century’. Rather, it offers the promise of a century of shared global prosperity in which Asians take their rightful place among the ranks of the affluent—on par with those in Europe today.
A period when the world’s economic gravity is shifting to the Asia-Pacific region with the promise of an Asia-Pacific twenty-first century, Japan is increasingly facing pressure to maintain its economic and political position vis-à-vis China. To minimize any adverse impact, Japan needs to expand its economic horizon crossing the hitherto established boundary, importantly focusing on one or more countries to increase its strategic depth in the international economic relationship. India seems to be uniquely placed to get Japanese attention for such engagement due to a number of advantageous factors it holds. With a vast population, diverse demography, increasing economic promise, democratic governance, soft power and physical location at the core of South Asia, India makes a bona fide contender to play an important role in the emerging global order. This article argues that a deeper economic cooperation between Japan and India can benefit Japan Inc. through the expansion of economic space, on one hand, and may accelerate India’s rise in the global order, on the other. But for a cooperation of mutual betterment, both countries need to position themselves for becoming complementary to each other. They will face a number of barriers at both ends though.