It’s time to peel away the layers of a cliche that is not just useless, but harmful. The claim that the twenty-first century will be Asian, just as the twentieth century was American, is often made but seldom examined. Yet this axiom is not just simplistic, it could also encourage the very rivalry that most threatens Asia’s security and prosperity- between the US and China. Asia is certainly playing a more prominent role in global geopolitics, just as Europe once did and America still does. The purpose of this Paper is to unpack the layers of complexity concealed by the phrase ‘the Asian Century’. The future is too complex to be characterised by any one continent.
