Interview with Parag Khanna

**Zachary Karabell** (0:06)
What could go right? For this discussion, I'm joined by Parag Khanna, who has been a global thinker and traveler for the past decade plus. He has written several books, all which are on the theme of where are we and where are we going? He is the prototypical big thinker. And his most recent book, which is out in February of 2019, so it is either already out by the time you're listening to this, or just about to be out, looks at the rise of Asia. The future is Asian commerce, conflict, and culture in the 21st century. And one of the things that this book does particularly well is shift the aperture, shift the lens, shift the perspective of how we are viewing the world. The we in this case being in Anglo, this is a podcast in English. It is largely a Western audience or people who can speak English. And so the perspective does tend to be, what does the world look like from the vantage point of the United States or the Anglo world or the Western European world. And as we know and as we read and as we are sensible of every day, the world is becoming much more globalized insofar as there is the rise of Asia and the rise of China and the increasing affluence. That is a challenge to the American sense of self. It's a challenge to the Western European. It's a challenge to the past several hundred years of human history where one portion and one area of the world has been preeminent and predominant. And so looking elsewhere, looking at how this change appears from a different vantage point, can be illuminating. And in many ways, if you're sitting in multiple Asian societies today, not that they are necessarily linked by anything other than geography, the world looks very different. And in many ways, there's a much more optimistic view of the changes that are put because the relative prosperity and the relative gains in that part of the world are that much greater. It's easier to be optimistic when you feel that your present is going well, at least economically and materially, and your future holds more. So Parag Khanna speaks to that. He lives in Singapore. He was born in India. He's lived in the United States. And he has been able to, I think, have the sensibility of many cultures by virtue of who he is, where he's lived, and the work he's done. So with that, let's speak with Parag.
So Parag Khanna, you have yet another book on the big themes that are shaping our world. This one pretty consistent with some of the themes you've been focused on over the past decade about the relative rise of Asia, and I suppose perhaps the absolute rise of Asia. So in a nutshell, and having gotten very good, I'm sure, at encapsulating your thoughts in pithy, digestible bites. What's the thesis of the book?

**Parag Khanna** (3:24)
Well, you're very astute in pointing out that I have been, I guess, consistently focused on the rise of Asia, absolute and relative. And whereas in the past, I and many others have focused maybe singularly or overwhelmingly on China, the purpose of this book is to point out that the future, what you would call the Asian century is called the Asian century for a reason, because it's not the Chinese century, it's the Asian century. And therefore, one has to start to look at the actual structure of the Asian system, which is greater than just China. There's 5 billion people in Asia, and only 1.5 billion of them are Chinese. The fastest growing markets in Asia are no longer China. The youngest populations are also outside of China. More foreign investment is going into South and Southeast Asia than into China. So the further you look into the future, the more Asia returns to its multipolar past, which is something that's very natural condition in Asia, and doesn't resemble a Chinese hegemony. So I think that Asia is actually going in a direction that we should want it to go in, and one that it's actually most historically comfortable and familiar with. But we as the West are not particularly familiar with this Asian history, and we need to become more familiar with it. So what I do is kind of flesh out this path towards the return to Asia's natural multipolarity, what it means for Asia, what it means for China, what it means for the US.

**Zachary Karabell** (4:47)
So that's a fairly optimistic view of the emerging order in Asia. And in a lot of ways it is, and I'm sure you'd agree, it's sort of a 20,000 foot view that if it pans out, it'll pan out over time. But in the real time that we all live in, it will probably seem a little more chaotic and much messier, right? So you talk to a lot of people, you live in Singapore, there is a mix of support for China's emergence as the, by population and economic dynamism, the most significant player, much as the United States was the most significant player in the Western Hemisphere, but by no means, as you just point out, the only player. So there's the mix of admiration for that and support for that, but there's also a good deal of concern amongst non-Chinese Asian countries about exactly what kind of significant player is China going to be. Do you share any of that concern?