"Can Asians think?"

It's interesting that you say that the rest of the world fears the West in the same way the West fears the rest of the world. How does the rest of the world fear the West?

The most powerful societies are still in the West. You'd be amazed at the damage that simple decisions in the West can make. For example, if you look at trade, a new regulation of bananas can kill an entire industry. A new regulation of apparel can deprive thousands of their jobs. One of the most remarkable stories is about how a Belgian NGO went to Bangladesh and found a factory that was employing child labor. They caught them red-handed and said, "You see? Aha. We were right." Two years later, the NGO went back and guess what? Many of the young female child workers went into prostitution. That's one reason why I quote Max Weber in my book: "It is not true that good can only follow from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true."

You talk about how the Western mind is limited and how it's so hard for Western intellectuals to be aware of how they are limited, because part of being liberal-minded is thinking you consider all points of view. How is the Western mind limited?

When you live in New York, as I have for three years, it's very easy to become smug and complacent. For example, you pick up the New York Times and you say, "I'm reading the best newspaper in the world. I know exactly what's going on in the world. If anything important is happening in the world, the New York Times will tell it to me just right." It's very easy to believe that. But consider the possibility that even the mighty New York Times might get it wrong.

We do ... And you're also implying that Western minds can't conceive of any other type of society than their own, and that we want exact replicas of American-style government and free markets everywhere?

Democracy is the only long-term destination. But you can't have these systems adapted to different societies and not function differently. At the end of the Cold War there was this famous essay by Francis Fukuyama called "The End of History." The general assumption was that we had reached the peak of history and that everybody else should copy us and become like us. What you're seeing now -- the big lesson -- is that it's not the end of history but the return of history.

You respond to Samuel Huntington's famous essay on the clash of civilizations as well. Will the return of history bring this clash? Has it already done so? Or will the result be a fusion of civilizations as you hope?

I can see the fusion happening. If you travel from Singapore, Sydney, San Francisco or Vancouver, you don't feel like you're leaving one cultural universe and entering another. There's an ease and comfort with which Asians and non-Asians interact with each other. If you go to the campuses, for example, it's remarkable, there is a meeting of minds.

One point I do make, which is of course controversial, is that the flow of ideas has been a one-way street. But I see a two-way street coming. There's so much in the history and culture of China and India which hasn't been rediscovered yet. Europe went through its Renaissance a few centuries ago. There has to be, has to be, a huge Asian Renaissance coming in the next few decades. It has to come. When Asians reach a certain level of affluence, they'll do exactly what the Rockefellers and others did: go back and rediscover their past.

But you do see this two-way street emerging?

It has to do with larger forces. There are 400,000 to 500,000 Asian students in the U.S. These people, often at the top of their classes at Harvard and Stanford, return to their countries and run organizations. When they go back, they're not going to be passive and take all the wisdom that's been given to them and say that's the gospel truth. Maybe they'll have a different point of view. That's why it will happen. It's the unleashing of the creativity of hundreds of thousands of Asians that will change the dynamic.

Do most of them return?

Even those who stay here 10 to 15 years do go back. There are so many opportunities there. They can build a new society.

Do you think the West is afraid of this two-way street?

I hope not. The Western mind is a troubled mind. On the one hand, you have reached a level of comfort and affluence that has never before been seen in the history of man, but yet also there must be an awareness that other societies are rising and becoming successful. One of the most insightful comments that Samuel Huntington makes in "The Clash of Civilizations" is when he says that the West dominates the world. It's quite remarkable, an honest statement: "In the politics of civilizations, the peoples and governments of non-Western civilization no longer remain the objects of history as targets of Western colonization but join the West as movers and shapers of history."

I agree with that comment, and I also agree with his second comment: "The West in effect is using international institutions, military power and economic resources to run the world in ways that will maintain Western predominance, protect Western interests and promote Western political and economic values." This combination is a recipe for disaster.

These are very strong statements. That's why you need to have a change, a gradual evolutionary change.

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