Chapter 5: Western Incompetence, Asian Competence?

This is another chapter full of Mahbubani's criticism towards the West. I'm do not feel resentful towards Mahbubani for his criticism. In fact, I find it enlightening to see how the others view the Western nations. Nevertheless, the criticism has also left me feeling pessimistic toward the Western nations.

In this chapter, Mahbubani presents four challenges that the West must overcome and how they deal with them. Sadly, the West's choices on how to deal with these challenges are not impressive.

The West and the Middle East
Basing off Mahbubani's explanation - if I had to describe how the West is handling its problem with the Middle East, I would say it's like an elephant tamer trying to tame a lion. The Western nations lack knowledge and vision for the Middle East. They run blindly into the Middle East with the expectation that the Middle East would welcome the West with open arms.

Unfortunately, that would not happen. Because of the West's ignorance, the West has caused more troubles and resentment from the Middle East.

The West on Free Trade and Global Warming
After China had entered into the global market, especially after its admission to the WTO; it seems as if the Western nations have falling into a mental depression. They began to see East Asia as competitors rather than allies. The Asian countries are becoming more powerful and successful. When the West recognized that, it almost seem like the West was falling to depression, mentally.

Economically, they lost their motivation and drive to push for trade liberalization. When it comes to global warming, it's as if the West is neglecting the fact that they have also contributed in this crisis. Naturally, the West should have been more responsible for global warming- but instead they are pushing the blame onto China and India! Of course China and India has contributed in global warming and have accepted the fact that they are also responsible for this crisis. At least they are making a great effort to reduce green house emissions, unlike the West.

The West and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
I have never heard about the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) until I read this chapter. During 1945, the Western nations seemed a lot more optimistic. They created the NPT to prevent/reduce nuclear development in order to bring peace to the world. However there were no policies to punish the states that weren't following its regulation. I assume it is because the world had just left a horrific war that all nations believe that no one would oppose the NPT.

Unfortunately, the NPT is spiritually dead. Nations ignored the NPT's regulations and developed/increase their supply of nuclear weapons. Ironically, some of those nations are the five official nuclear weapon states- who are suppose to punish those who have also violated the NPT's policy. They neglected the "rule of law", so countries, like India, laugh bitterly at the five nuclear weapon states for its hypocrisy and double standards.

The West and Iran
I found this section of the chapter quite interesting. Several times Mahbubani describe that any Western government officials that suggests the idea of the West to rebuilding its relationship with Iran would be "crucified." Maybe it's because I have a weak background about history, but why is it impossible for the West to rebuild its' relationship with Iran?

The "standard American response" is that Iran held fifty-two American diplomats and embassy staff in Tehran hostage for 444 days. On a side note, I know this completely unrelated but when I read "444 days" I was reminded of the fact that the Chinese believe that the number 4 is an unluck number.

But, anyway, returning back to the main subject- I believe that it's unreasonable for the West to completely disregard the idea that it should rebuild its relationship with the Iran. The West have always encourages other nations to have more diplomatic dialogues with other nations in order to strive for a peaceful nation. So why can it not practice what it's preaching? Every nation has caused some sort of troubles with one another- the Japanese with the Chinese, South Korea with North Korea. But somehow they manage to find a way to be diplomatic with one another.

The truth is that the West is too self-righteous. When President Ahmadinejad offered to rebuild the West and Iran's relationship, the West was too ignorant to reciprocate the Iran's offer. In fact, any government officials who expressed positively to President Ahmadinejad would be "crucified." The Bush administration seemed more like a tyrant to me: "you're either with us or against us!"

Learning from Asian Competence
So what can the West learn from the Asian countries? Well, first off China has made a major effort to learn from the mistakes of other major powers.

The West's attitude is: "either you're with us or you're not." Because of this ideology, the West has many enemies. They did not attempt to understand that Asians. Unlike the Western countries, China has made an effort to build a strong relationship with all the nations in the world. They did not let their relationships with other nations affect one another- such as their relationship with the Islam and the US.

Rather than making decisions based on short-term interest, the Chinese have also constructed long term relationship with the ASEAN. They view the world in its complex form, which enables China to become very successful.

If the Western nations could follow the Chinese's example, then the economic gap between the East and the West would shrink.