Asia rising and the maritime decline of the west : a review of the issues

The notion that Asia is rising and is set to dominate the latter half of the twenty-first century has become one of the most discussed of recent issues. The claim rests on a large number of economic, social, political and military assumptions and predictions. The scale and diversity of the issues to be addressed makes the validity of the claim hard to assess. This paper does not intend to provide a clear-cut answer as to whether the claim is true or not, but instead to review the issues upon which such a judgement will need to be based