A NY Times article on the coming summit in Malaysia where US is not invited reminds me of a car accident I was in 20 years ago. It was a new Honda Accord (the first new car we had purchased), 2 weeks old, on a New Jersey road. I was stopped at a red light. In my rear view mirror, I could see a car barreling down on me, and I knew it was going to hit me. But there was simply nothing I could do. That 5 seconds seemed like the longest ever - Einstein's relativity at work. What is the relation to US? More below the fold.
As Asian consumers grow and demand more indigenously designed products (recent issue of BusinessWeek highlights how many consumer companies like SONY, Samsung, Nokia, and GM have established design houses in China to create products suited for the Chinese market, rather than US or European designs), and old enmities give way to new commerce (China and India's bilateral trade is trending upwards), US presence is diminishing. In no small measure, this administration takes the blame for not seizing the opportunity for engaging Asian powers more powerfully while it is distracted by the middle east. Bush has not visited India even once, and while scheduled to do so in 2006, will find the reception decidedly chilly (because of the image of Big Brother and opposition to ideas generally supported by the rest of the world like global warming). There has been little special effort made with other Asian countries, with the exception of China.
Earlier US capital was a pre-requisite for growth in most Asian countries. But increasingly, Asian capital is replacing that. Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and even Indonesia is ponying up investment in the infrastructure sector in India (though the Indonesian money might be from dubious sources).
So I feel like we are watching, in the rear view mirror, the slowly unfolding irrelevance of US importance on the world stage.
How does one rectify this? Leaving aside the political change necessary, there are certain growth areas in technology and knowledge that US must invest in heavily. Human brain, nanotechnology, renewable energy, molecular healthcare, human machine interface, space - these are all knowledge frontiers that awaits exploration. But it will not be enough to generate the knowledge alone in US universities, because diffusion of knowledge is so rapid that it would be hard to protect it geographically. Therefore, along with the discoveries, we need to find ways to manufacture products based on this knowledge here in US. But this administration is not capable of that much foresight. We need the political changes first.