RIVALS - How the power struggle between China, India and Japan will shape our next decade

By Bill Emmott

Published by Allen Lane/Penguin (UK) and Nikkei Publishing (Japan)

On Wednesday 9 July 2008, the Foundation launched the publication of Bill Emmott’s most recent book, ‘Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape our Next Decade’.

Emmott began his presentation with Kakuzo Okakura’s 1904 assertion that ‘Asia is one.’ Economic integration is such that now half of all trade by Asian countries is conducted within the region. Japan has been instrumental in creating a Pan-Asian framework and should not be written off as yesterday’s economy. Its economic growth may not be as spectacular as that of China but it is a mature economy, which has finally moved out of deflationary stagnation.

China today resembles Japan in 1970, argued Emmett. By the end of the 1960s, Japan had seen rapid economic growth driven by high levels of investment but had also experienced environmental problems and external pressure to revalue its currency. Rising inflation brought on by the 1973 oil shock stimulated environmental reforms and the transition to a high-tech economy. The question is whether China is capable of making a similar shift in its economy.

Unlike Japan and China, India’s economic growth has been mainly financed by domestic savings, manufacturing and infrastructure building. It has been moving away from its dependency on services and information technology and India’s newly regarded competitiveness will ease its transition into manufacturing. The new symbol of India is the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car.

The positioning of three large countries next to each other inevitably leads to opportunities, danger and tension. Opportunities are mainly economic, whereas tension and danger comes from regional rivalry and friction caused by border disputes, unstable marginal regimes, and succession squabbles. The future of North Korea after Kim Jong-il is uncertain and China’s insistence at selecting the Dalai Lama’s successor could result in disruption within Tibet and its neighbours. Moreover, in response to China’s rise, India has received a visit from every Japanese Prime Minister since 2000 and is now the largest recipient (25%) of Japanese overseas aid.

In response to Emmott’s remarks, Professor Glenn Hook (Director of the Graduate School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield and Director of the National Institute of Japanese Studies) compared ‘Rivals’ to George Orwell’s ‘1984’, which sees a world split into three regions. In Orwell’s novel, all three are totalitarian whereas Emmott has presented Asia as being dominated by two democracies and one authoritarian, nominally communist country, moving towards democracy.

The common enemy in ‘1984’ is each other while in ‘Rivals’ it is environmental concerns. Emmott does not gloss over rivalry and competition as evinced with the Yasukuni Shirine visit debate, Sino-Indian territorial claims, competition over resources and textbook controversies; but suggests that opportunities for cooperation also exist, making ‘Rivals’ an altogether more hopeful vision.

Questions from the audience included concerns over how China, Japan and India can cooperate (on climate change for instance); the impact of India’s growing population in 2050; the extent to which Emmott’s protagonists can become the motors of the world rather than share in the misery (current credit crunch); the impact of Asian heterogeity on regional integration; the future location of the financial services; the impact of China on Africa; the role of ideology; and whether it is justified to consider China as a threat.

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