I write on the long way home from a trip that started in Tokyo and ended less than two weeks later in Dubai.  During these 12 days, I visited customers, partners, government officials and staff in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.  While Asia and the Gulf are regular destinations for me, I seldom try to cover this much ground in such little time.  Fun for the aging body it is not.  However, it was a great opportunity to compare how half of the famous BRIC countries were recovering from the global recession and getting on with fulfilling their destiny.

In 2001, Jim O’Neil of Goldman, Sachs coined the term “BRICs” to refer to the fast growing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.  According to O’Neil and his colleagues, these four countries which then accounted for only 15% of the GDP of the G6 (US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Japan)  would account for more than 50% by 2050 and would push out all but the US and Japan from the list of the six largest economies in the world.  I remember reading the Goldman report and thinking at the time that it set forth a logically compelling economic argument, but that it did not help me picture how we would get from “here” to “there.”

Less than 10 years on, while Russia seems to have fallen to earth, my two-week speed tour suggests that India and China have shrugged off the financial crisis and have resumed their ascent.  In fact, the deep crisis that has engulfed western markets only seems to have accelerated the growth of India and China.  History normally flows gradually forward in such imperceptible increments that we ignore its progress.  Sometimes, however, we can see it speed along like a flower filmed in time-elapsed photography. Such are the times in which we live.

I can now readily see how at least the BICs will fulfill their forecast destiny.  I have written previously about Brazil’s progress (see infra  Is it Brazil’s Time? (2007)), and the signs there continue to be good.  However,  it does feel to me as if we are living through the transition from America’s century (20^th) to Asia’s century (21^st). (Europe’s century was obviously the 19^th ). Despite all our challenges, I remain optimistic about the United States. Sure we need to begin living within our means and not treating the roofs over heads as a revolving credit facility, but the productive and innovative capacity of the country is still great and Asia’s rise need not be a zero sum game. Nonetheless, America’s reign as the world’s only superpower will have been short-lived.  

A final note on two weeks of trains, planes and automobiles:  Don’t count out the Gulf.  While Dubai’s current problems are well known, it would be wrong to conclude that Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain are all one large palm-shaped sand bar stretching into the sea.  Anyone for the 22^nd being Africa’s century with the Gulf its major trading hub?