• Amidst the rising power of the Asian economies, you contemplate two scenarios. One, Asia’s continuing march to modernity and, two, the retreat of the West to their protectionist fortress. What seems more probable?

I think the march to modernity is the more probable scenario. Asians want to participate in this march to modernity and I think that’s a good sign.

I visualise the retreat to the fortress scenario because Western triumphalism is being replaced by a new kind of Western pessimism where many people in the West no longer believe that they can compete with young Chinese and young Indians. If Americans and Europeans no longer believe they can compete with Chinese and Indians, they become protectionist and then we enter a very dangerous world. This is why I call this as a plastic moment of world history because the West can go either way at this moment.

•While you talk of the possibility of a confrontation between the rise of Asian powers and resisting western powers, Japan is an exception. It has aligned its interests with western interests so the question of a confrontation between the two doesn’t arise.

Japan is a unique case. It was the first Asian country to modernise. For the last 150 years, the Japanese have believed that they should align their interests with the West rather than with Asia to secure a better future. Now they realise, that apart from the western bus of history, there is an Asian bus too leaving the station and now they have got to make this difficult decision on whether to stay on the western bus or move to the Asian one.

... contd.