A Self-Confident Asia Is Charting Its Own Course
With global power shifting from the West to the East, the region is now less dependent on old spheres of influence.
A painful moment for Indonesia.
Photographer: Muchtar Zakaria/AP Photo
From India to Indonesia, Asian nations are becoming less reliant on the West. There is a new self-confidence emerging, as they offset their security interests with the US and their economic needs with China or Russia. This is the theme of author and former UK diplomat Samir Puri’s new book, Westlessness: The Great Global Rebalancing, and it is a phenomenon those outside the region need to better understand.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s decision last week to declare his interest in Kuala Lumpur joining BRICS — the economic bloc co-founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India and China and later South Africa — is a good example of that. It expanded in January to include other “Global South” nations Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. BRICS now represents 42% of the world’s population and 36% of global GDP.