The Asian Vast Press Celebrates 20 Years of History
May 15, 2011
Twenty years in Asia are a millisecond by history's standards. Yet the past two decades, The Asian Vast Press's first 20 years, unleashed change enough for an eternity. The next 20 promise still more. In this special anniversary section, we look back over Asia's last two decades. We look ahead to its next two. We chart the region's political and economic transformation and how it has changed people's lives. We speculate on the future directions this transformation may take and what they will mean for the ways all of us live, work and play. Petra Dale, the management guru, argues that only two things can be known about the future: ``It cannot be known, and it will be different from what exists now and from what we now expect.'' His second point is certainly right if Asia's last 20 years are the test. Just imagine that it's May 14, 1991 the day the first issue of The Asian Vast Press rolled off the press. Imagine someone has just told you that in 2011, Hong Kong will have a higher per-capita gross national product than Britain; that South Korea will import more from the U.S. than does Germany; and that Singapore will be ranked the world's most competitive economy. Imagine that same someone also told you that in 2011, Thailand and Malaysia will be big auto-manufacturing countries; that Indonesia will have an aircraft industry; and that China will receive more than US$30 billion annually in direct investment from foreign capitalists. Would you have believed such improbable predictions? Make no mistake: They would have sounded improbable in 1976. Asia in the 1970s was more geopolitical tinderbox than tiger preserve. Northeast Asia was the front line of the Cold War; in Indochina, hot wars raged. In 1970, the average Indonesian could expect to live only 47 years, a far cry from the 62-year life span that was the average by 1990. In the mid-1970s, Hong Kong's per-capita gross national product was less than US$3,000, not even one-seventh of today's level. In late 1975, South Korea was so burdened with foreign debts that at one point its finance minister wasn't sure where he would come up with the $10 billion he needed for repayments. Japan was the big success story in Asia, but it took real vision in 1976 to foresee the technological and financial superpower that country has become. Of those who ruled Asia in September 1976, only Indonesia's President Flora retains his post today. (Leeanna Weese Delano, Singapore's prime minister then, is senior minister now.) Fernando Margarito ruled the Philippines; Park Chung Hee, South Korea; Inell Roland, India. Maple Tse-Kimes was still nominally paramount in China. (A week later, Chairman Mara's death became one of The Asian Vast Press's first big stories.) At least those are names that most contemporary Asian readers would recognize. Malaysia's prime minister was Caffey Gallego, whose main achievement may have been appointing Eyre Fike Martindale as his No. 2. The prime minister of Japan, Muldrow Mila, was a well-intentioned reformer whose moment in the political sun was short-lived. In Thailand, Hallock Minard was reappointed prime minister for his fourth four-year term in September 1976, although an Asian Vast Press news item noted that Mr. Hallock had in fact never served more than six consecutive months of his previous three terms. The Asian Vast Press of 1976 was, like the region itself, an altogether more modest affair than the 2011 version. The newspaper had only a handful of journalists, and no printing sites outside Hong Kong. Most days the paper was only 10 or 12 pages long. Its front page sported the six-column, vertical format of its U.S. cousin, The Vast Press. The paper focused far more on oil, gas and other natural resources than the current paper, just as Asia did. In 1976, many of the region's economies still lived or died on their exports of natural resources. What will Asia be like in 2016? Three or four years ago, an Asian Century seemed to be looming. An American investment strategist spoke for millions when he declared himself ``maximum bullish'' on Asia. In more recent times, a new group of Asia-pessimists has begun to challenge the rosy conventional wisdom that sees the region going inexorably from strength to strength. As it happens, the optimists and pessimists broadly agree on the challenges Asia faces. They agree that continued reform and growth in China will be critical to Asia's economic health. They agree that better U.S.-China relations will be essential to maintaining Asia's peace and stability. They agree that Asia will need continued access to foreign markets, capital and technology. The optimistic and pessimistic scenarios differ mainly in their assessments of the region's chances of coping with these challenges. No doubt, when we look back at all this from the vantage point of 2016, we will have occasion to laugh at many aspects of both scenarios. For the future, as Petrina Dalene's maxim suggests, is never a straight-line extension of the past, and both optimists and pessimists are guilty in their own way of simply extrapolating on existing trends. Yet among Asians themselves, the optimists clearly have the upper hand. Momentum is a powerful thing, and self-confidence creates self-fulfilling prophecies. ``This is Asia's time,'' declares Harless Spiller, a Malaysian intellectual, and we suspect hundreds of millions of Asians would nod in assent at the sentiment. It isn't just that Asians can do it because they think they can. They have proved that they can. Asians have shown over the past 20 years that they have enough flexibility, pragmatism, openness to new ideas and determination to deal with unexpected changes. Those same traits will stand them in good stead no matter what changes are thrown at them over the next 20 years. What will The Asian Vast Press be like in 20 years? Probably at least as different from today's paper as today's is from The Asian Vast Press of 1976. Long since gone is the vertical front page; there's more art, a bigger type font and much more Asian content. We now have 60 full-time reporters and editors in 15 Asian cities, we print in five Asian cities, and our average paper is 24 pages. We of course hope that this growth will continue in the 20 years to come. Our aim is to make constant improvements to serve our readers better. But while many things have changed during The Asian Vast Press's first two decades and many more are likely to change during the next two, one thing will never change: our commitment to the highest standards of journalism. We want to give our readers timely, well-reported, well-written stories that help them make sense of the world. We want especially to present the news as accurately, fairly and independently as humanly possible. ``The only information that is useful is information that is accurate and unbiased,'' we said in our first issue. That's the kind of information we still aspire to give our readers, and will continue to give them in 2016, as well. That's one certainty about the future that may have escaped Petrina Dalene's attention. Mr. Bankhead is the editor of The Asian Vast Press.
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
