Friday, January 25, 2013

Zakaria's Projected Post-American World



Reading books is my passion. So, I spent holidays and weekends catching up on some books that interests me. I recently read Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World second time and found that it bears repeating. Here are my impressions after reading this book.

In this book, he has analyzed the global influence of the United States. There is no doubt that the United States is one of the most powerful countries on the planet and will continue to enjoy this title for some time. He also spoke of how its influence is waning in the political order and system. He believed that there were three fundamental power shifts in the last 500 years that reshaped international politics, economics and culture. The first was the rise of the Western world that accelerated the development of science and technology, commerce and capitalism, and agriculture and the industrial revolution. The second change brought U.S. as a global superpower since the late nineteenth century. The change of power in third place, which has been called rise of the rest, is about to change the power of emerging countries like India and China, including the enormous influence of non-state actors.

He also talked about the various factors that led the world into the current power balance. Europe dominated the world in the nineteenth century through its trade and labor force established on the basis of the industrial revolution. Then the power moved to the U.S. due to its market-led U.S. democracy. By virtue of this system, power is shifting gradually into the hands of countries like India, China and Brazil, etc. Despite this, he further argues that U.S. continues to maintain its dominance in the coming decades.

Nobody denies the impressive progress made by China in recent times. China is No. 1 reserve currency in the world. It is also second largest country consumer of oil after the U.S. There is a commercially valuable historical progress of China is third position. In the past 15 years, China has developed 8 00,000 kilometers of roads that are enough to go around the world 19 times. They are preparing their youth for the challenges ahead by sending training at Harvard, Cambridge learning strategic thinking, overall planning, international vision, international connections and skills management practices. It is easy to imagine that this group of highly learned will be of benefit to China competes with the world. Chin is seen as the next superpower. However, it will take decades for China to surpass U.S.

He has also written his thoughts on the world's largest democracy, i.e. India. Despite its flaws, it has also made remarkable progress in the field of economics and technology. He says the large and growing population of entrepreneurs is the competitive advantage of India. They are familiar with Western business trends and most importantly they have a grip on the global language. Like China, the Indian government is also encouraging their young people to go abroad to study because they understand that they will return to India with money, investment ideas and global standard. On page 154, he has written that Gautama Buddha was born in India. I wondered why he wrote he was born in India, where Buddha was born in Nepal?

The image of the United States is being tarnished due to its intervention sort of nature. Therefore, the book suggested the improved image of the world. It has asked U.S. to play the consultation, cooperation and the role of compromise in the writer’s project post American world. He has also recommended six other practical guidelines for US to follow. 

No comments: