Tatler Takes 5: Parag Khanna, The Global Futurist

Global futurist Parag Khanna is the author of the international bestseller The Future Is Asian. As we celebrate 2020 and the dawning of “the Asian Century,” Khanna tells Tatler Asia five things we need to know in the months and years ahead

1. Stay in Asia for higher education

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Every day someone will ask me: should I send my kids to the US or the UK for college? If you can get your kids into Yale-NUS, stay in the region. I see the data—more and more people are saying: why go to another time zone to a populist political disaster of a country like the US and the UK when there’s a Yale campus here? Just stay in Asia.

2. Don't worry about the US recession

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The recession in the US—does anyone in Vietnam care? Someone living in Ho Chi Minh City, they’ll continue to use their 5G network to download mobile learning platforms, use job placement apps and make money. None of this is remotely contingent on the US. The recession is utterly irrelevant to this person—now, multiply this anecdote by four billion people and you get Asia.

3. Stop focusing on US politics

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Asians looking at US politics are obviously fed up with its volatility and being distracted, paying attention to it. In 2020, because political stability is entrenched with the same governments being re-elected—for example in Indonesia and the Philippines—Asia can focus much more on its own policies and less on American politics: policy being the actual science of getting things done, and politics the art of doing nothing and blaming someone else for it.

4. The next wave of expats

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Put yourselves in the shoes of a 20-year-old kid who grew up in America where everyone was learning Chinese. For them, moving to Asia is not even the remotest big deal. They have no material possessions, no obligations and their parents are young—the only expats I’ve ever known who’ve left Singapore, the only reason is to take care of ageing parents, otherwise why would you ever leave here? It’s paradise. The third wave, the younger expats, are experimental, open to everything, and they grew up in an Asian world, taking Chinese lessons, watching Crazy Rich Asians—and you see them coming here by the plane load.

5. When to renounce your citizenship

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I speak to a lot of high net-worth families and their kids—mostly in Europe and the US. Young people are extremely mercenary—they’re incredibly shrewd because they’ve been raised in wealthy families and have grown up in a world where the Henley Index says Singapore has the world’s most powerful passport. Let’s just say that everyone I know who’s ever done it is neither poor nor stupid. You’d have done your homework. The numbers are skyrocketing, and I imagine the numbers will only go up.

Topics

Tatler Takes 5 Interview People The Future is Asian Parag Khanna Books Asia Asian Countries