Eminent political analysts, academics and journalists have predicted a promising Asian resurgence in 2015 and called for Asians to learn to look to the Near East for inspiration and not the Far West. They included participants in the annual ‘Global Outlook’ conference organized by Singapore’s Straits Times group on November 21.

“The export-led growth model of the past will no longer work for the major Asian economies,” warned keynote speaker, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy addressing a gathering of over 400 business people, bankers, academics and media practitioners.  But he argued that Asia will experience a “new golden era of peace and prosperity” driven by its own burgeoning middle classes and visionary new leaders.

…“(President Xi Jingping) probably regards himself as the ‘owner of the house’, unlike his predecessors who very much regarded themselves as ‘managers of the house’. Because of that mindset and self-identification, Xi Jingping has the vision and strong desire to transform China,” noted Dr Li Mingjiang, coordinator of the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.