In the coming realignment of world powers, emerging nations in Asia will play a key role and are set to become dominant global political and economic powers by 2030, a new US government-backed report predicts.
The National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) just-released Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds report identifies key meta-trends that will shape the future international system, especially the diffusion of power away from the West.
It says that Asia will outperform North America and Europe combined on measures including gross domestic product, population size, military spending and technological investment. The report argues that the world’s economic prospects will increasingly depend on the position of developing economies, led by economic powerhouses such China, India and important regional players such as Indonesia and South Korea in Asia.
China in the leading role
The NIC predicts China to emerge as the world’s largest economy, India to become the biggest driver of middle-class growth on Earth, and competitive scenarios between a number of rising and established powers in Asia, with a dramatic tilt in the international economy’s center of gravity from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific.
“By 2030, Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power,” the report says, “largely reversing the historic rise of the West since 1750.”
Middle class to triple
The report also predicts that the global middle class will triple by 2030 from one billion to three billion, much of that growth in China, India and elsewhere in Asia. That means that middle class consumption – a major driving force in the global economy – will increasingly come from Asia rather than the West. Also, financial assets will continuously shift from the West to the East.
However, the NIC report remains just a scenario, albeit a well-funded one. Economists say that while many Western nations would have to ensure that the recent slow or stagnating growth caused by the 2008 financial crisis does not lead to further prolonged slumps or crises, rising states such as Indonesia must concentrate on sustaining economic development and avoiding the so-called middle-income trap, in which per capita income does not increase to the level of the world’s advanced economies, and invest heavily in technology, infrastructure and education to eventually become an advanced nation.
SOURCE / Investvine