Book review: Book explores the challenges facing the 'Next Asia' in a global economy

As the most dynamic and rapidly growing region in the world over the past decade, Asia has attained a new level of prosperity. Yet Developing Asia's newfound economic ascendancy remains uncertain.

As 2008 came to an end, every economy in the region had either slowed sharply or tumbled into outright recession. Far from having the autonomous capacity to "decouple" from weakness elsewhere in the world, export-led Asia had become even more tightly tied to foreign markets than was the case a decade earlier. The once-bright future was now in doubt.

Investors, business managers, policymakers and political leaders all need to dig more deeply to uncover the challenges, opportunities and risks in this critical region.

Written by Stephen S. Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, the book, The Next Asia: Opportunities and Challenges for a New Globalization, peers into the future of the world's most dynamic region to help readers understand the economic imperatives of Asia and how it will shape the world economy.

The Next Asia provides a timely assessment of the region's potential to provide a new source of growth for a post-crisis global economy.

The current Asia remains very much an export machine, with auxiliary fuel provided by capital investment. It's a supply-oriented growth model that leaves Asia heavily dependent on external demand from others.

Roach argues in this book that the region can lead -- if and only if it becomes better balanced, drawing increased support from internal private consumption. Notwithstanding the tensions of the globalization debate and the risks of US-China trade frictions, The Next Asia makes the case for this daunting transition.

Featuring more than 70 essays, the book has five critical building blocks: the world after the financial crisis, Asia's critical role in globalization, the upcoming rebalancing of the Chinese economy, a new pan-regional framework for integration and competition, and a frank discussion of the biggest risk to this remarkable transformation in the form of US-China trade tensions.

This book will help readers understand and profit from the world's most dynamic region.

(China Daily 11/30/2009 page8)