The high economic growth leading to the  significant role that the emerging markets of China ,India and SE Asian Countries will play in the world economy in the years to come has been much analysed , debated and acknowledged by the world at large. Still what is not been talked about how this economic growth of the asian countries will call for a change in global power politics dynamics.

This gap has been filled up by Kishore Mahbubani in his book The New Asian Hemisphere , The Irrestible Shift of Global Power to the East .

As a Singaporean Diplomat Kishore Mahbubani has straddled both the worlds : the west and the east which gives him the unique perspective to write this powerful account.

He traces the reasons for rise of Asia in the recent decades and how it calls for a fundamental review of the world order , change in the mindsets of the global leaders and reorientation of the multilateral institutions to be more effective in the new emerging reality. He is mindful to acknowledge the crucial role played by west in the rise of east but also blunt enough to point out the gaps in the West’s policy and actions.

 The need to fundamentally review the role of the multilateral institutions which governed the world affairs post World War II  till now is now needed more than ever in the context of full blown global financial crisis . This is now being acknowledged by the the World Bank President Robert Zoellick.

This is a great read for anyone who is interested in slightly longer context of history , understand the sources of tension between West and East on the backdrop of economic prosperity of this region and possibly how the new world order may look like. 

The Economist takes a different take on this book and calls it a anti-western polemic. There is a high possibility that may have missed the very point the book is trying to make.