Is the 21st Century Asia's?

Many writers have noted how the international system might be on the cusp of a change, where the "America Century" will no longer describe world order. If, however, the challenge to the established international regime arises from East Asia in general, or from China in particular, the numbers are, at best, ambiguous. Moreover, the conventional narrative ascribes to the established system intangible attributes such as soft power that are difficult to dislodge.

This talk develops an alternative approach—of economics, demand and supply, and rationality—to analyse the rise of Asia and its potential disruption to the current world order.

Short reference: An Economic Perspective on the International System: Demand, Supply, and a Rational World Order, 16 December 2015 article by Professor Quah.

Longer reference, Ordering the World: Truth to Power (2016, incomplete book manuscript).

Professor Danny Quah is Professor of Economics and International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at LSE's Institute of Global Affairs. He had previously served as LSE's Head of Department for Economics, and Council Member on Malaysia's National Economic Advisory Council.

Quah is Tan Chin Tuan Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore, and lectures regularly at Peking University. He studied at Princeton, Minnesota, and Harvard, and was Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at MIT before joining LSE.

Quah gave the third LSE-NUS lecture in 2013, TEDx talks in 2014 and 2012, and the Inaugural LSE Big Questions Lecture in 2011. His current research is on an economic approach to world order - global power shift and the rise of the east.

This seminar series has been organised in association with the China Centre.