The World

Viewed from the United States, there are three ways of looking at the rise of China and India: as an illusion, as a threat or as an opportunity. Fareed Zakaria is an optimist.

Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International, came to the US as an 18-year-old student from India. But, in many ways, this is a very American book – both in its optimism and in its determination to leave the reader with useful lessons.

Much of the material in The Post-American World will be well known to anyone with a passing interest in international affairs: the stunning economic growth in Asia; the challenge to America’s post cold-war hegemony; the parallels between modern America and the British empire. Zakaria tells this story in a convincing and entertaining way. But it is familiar stuff.

The novel feature of Zakaria’s book is its effort to argue that “the rise of the rest” need not entail the decline of the US.

To illustrate his point, he draws an analogy with tennis. A generation ago, American players dominated the US Open. Now they have to share the prizes with players from other nations. This does not mean that Americans have suddenly got worse at tennis. It is just that others have learnt how to play the game.

Zakaria makes the same point about economics. In recent years, the world’s biggest stock-market flotations have not involved American companies. This does not mean that America is getting poorer – just that other countries are getting richer.

Relative decline can – of course – still be a painful and dangerous condition. But Zakaria believes that the US can still be the world’s leading nation for many years to come – if it just learns to play its hand more intelligently. America’s intrinsic strengths in areas such as higher education and technology – combined with the weaknesses and rivalries of the emerging powers – should allow the US to mould the rules of the global game in ways that will protect and foster American interests.

Above all, America should seek to bind new powers like China into the international system, rather than constructing new alliances to contain them. Zakaria suggests that instead of being a lone ranger, the US should learn to think of itself as a chairman of the board.

Many of the points that Zakaria makes are eminently sensible. The US should not panic about the rise of new powers; the “war on terror” should no longer be the centrepiece of American foreign policy; Americans should be more aware of the views and expertise of foreigners; the US should avoid becoming the General Motors of nations – so obsessed by domestic concerns that it loses sight of revolutionary innovations overseas.

Other parts of Zakaria’s book are less convincing. He seems to regard the democratic political systems of both India and the US as a bit of a burden – leading to dumb debates and bad decisions. It may indeed be true that Chinese technocrats are better able to take a long-term view of the challenges facing their nation. But the biggest of these challenges – and one that the Chinese are no closer to solving – is finding a system that can deliver long-term political stability and legitimacy. In India and the US, this is known as democracy.

There are also bigger question marks over Zakaria’s thesis. His book was clearly drafted before the credit crunch – and some of its optimism about the global economy no longer rings entirely true. Some sentences jar, such as “the world is swimming in capital”.

More broadly, Zakaria may be too sanguine about the ease with which new powers – and, in particular, China – can be accommodated in the international system. At various points in his book, he notes the strength of resurgent Chinese nationalism. But he shrinks from concluding that China may in the end seek to re-shape its international environment in ways that America will not like – and cannot control.