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99 Foreign Aff. 52 (2020)
The Endangered Asian Century

handle is hein.journals/fora99 and id is 682 raw text is: The Endangered Asian Century America, China, and the Perils of Confrontation Lee Hsien Loong I n recent years, people have been saying that the next century will be the century of Asia and the Pacific, as if that were sure to be the case. I disagree with this view. The Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made that argument to Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988. More than 30 years later, Deng has proved prescient. After decades of extraordinary economic success, Asia today is the world's fastest-growing region. Within this decade, Asian economies will become larger than the rest of the world's economies combined, something that has not been true since the nineteenth century. Yet even now, Deng's warning holds: an Asian century is neither inevitable nor foreordained. Asia has prospered because Pax Americana, which has held since the end of World War II, provided a favorable strategic context. But now, the troubled U.S.-Chinese relationship raises profound questions about Asia's future and the shape of the emerging international order. South- east Asian countries, including Singapore, are especially concerned, as they live at the intersection of the interests of various major powers and must avoid being caught in the middle or forced into invidious choices. The status quo in Asia must change. But will the new configura- tion enable further success or bring dangerous instability? That de- pends on the choices that the United States and China make, separately and together. The two powers must work out a modus vivendi that will be competitive in some areas without allowing ri- valry to poison cooperation in others. LEE HSIEN LOONG is Prime Minister of Singapore. 52 FOREIGN AFFAIRS