This was supposed to be the Asian century, but the Eastern boom is dying of
exhaustion
So here’s how it looks. Years of unsustainable, credit-fuelled growth are
brought to a halt by a crushing financial crisis which exposes deep
structural flaws at the heart of the economy. Rarely has the assumption of
ever-rising living standards looked so vulnerable, with younger generations
forced to pay not just for the crippling legacy of debt their parents leave
behind, but for the mounting costs of an ageing population and the
consequences of decades-long environmental degradation. Economic decline,
austerity and inter-generational recrimination seem to beckon as populations
adjust to the true mediocrity of their circumstances.
I’m referring to the tired old “developed” economies of the West, right?
Actually, no: it’s China where these observations seem more appropriate, and
perhaps other emerging market economies said to be about to eclipse the
hegemony of the old world, with its lazy ways and sense of entitlement.
Western “declinism” of the sort described by Dambisa Moyo in her book How the
West was Lost, and more recently by Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC,
in When the Money Runs Out, is still the narrative of our times. But
sometimes a sense of perspective is demanded; compared with the challenges
faced by China and the rest of the developing world, the relatively minor
adjustment to expectations that needs to be made in the West is a stroll in
the park.
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