Uprising: Will Emerging Markets Shape Or Shake The World Economy?

Emerging markets are big news. But after the financial crisis, what does the future really hold for them? And what does this future mean for global business?George Magnus, one of the world's most respected economic analysts, is your guide through the challenges and opportunities for emerging markets and those doing business in them.This magisterial book looks in detail at China and India the big players and also less hyped but crucial markets, including Eastern European countries and Turkey. Magnus takes in his sweep everything from commodity prices to climate change, and from comparative advantage to demographic to provide a compelling analysis of what the future might look like not just for emerging markets, but for investors, businesses and economies everywhere.Uprising is a mustread for anyone who cares about the future of the global economy.Exclusive Q&A with Author George MagnusAuthor George MagnusHow did you first become interested in the impact that emerging markets are having on the global economy in the wake of the financial crisis?I took the view early in 2007 that the West was headed for a serious and protracted debt crisis, the sort that's typically associated with emerging markets, and unprecedented in scale in richer economies since the 1930s.I was thinking about writing a book on the meltdown and who and what was to blame, but became attracted to more forward looking global implications of the crisis. If we in the West were going to be shocked for a decade, would emerging markets keep the global economy afloat? Would they be able to sustain a model of development that relied on the hedonism of Western consumers?So I decided to ask whether the precrisis assumptions about emerging countries were still valid in a more fractious and unpredictable global economy, where linear extrapolations had become meaningless. Would emerging markets, especially China, be able to embrace extensive economic and political reform to deal with key structural issues, for example, unbalanced global trade which was and remains at the heart of our weakened global system. Then I found a lot of people and authors arguing that the world was reverting to a system that had existed before the birth of Christ and until about 1800 when China really did rule the world. So I decided to investigate and assess the credentials of this statement.Uprising is quite an interesting title for the book do you think that what were seeing an uprising of emerging markets?Yes. The Western model of capitalism, especially financial capitalism, has been punctured. The socalled Washington Consensus is seen by many as yielding now to a Beijing Consensus. China and other emerging nations are vocal about ending the US dollarcentric financial system. Emerging markets, while a disparate group, have some common interests in lining up against the West over economic policies, technology transfer, and climate change. Those infamous tectonic plates of power are certainly shifting towards emerging countries, but the questions are how far, and so what? Since China is the only major rival to the US as a global power and leader, can it exercise a global leadership role? Does it want to? And what if it can't or won't?Your argument in the book, that China in particular is overhyped at the moment, is quite controversial. Why do you think its an issue that provokes such strong feelings?Basically because a lot of people think we may be at some sort of tipping point where vested interests and beliefs play a big role. China, unlike other major emerging markets, isn't just big and populous. It really can shake things up in Asia and the world. So Sinophiles and Sinophobes both have loud drums to bang.More specifically, I'd suggest three reasons. First, there are many people who claim selfservingly, often for blatantly commercial reasons, that this is now the Chinese century. Second, there are those who think the Western globalization model is now