If expectations are low enough, they can be surpassed without too much trouble. The G20 finance ministers managed that in Korea. Since national policy changes were out of the question, agreement on some fine words was an accomplishment – far preferable to an open fight. Besides, the International Monetary Fund’s governance is to be made less unrepresentative. For all that, economic globalisation is still running far ahead of its political counterpart. But then again, the transition from the waning to the emerging global order is a tricky business.
AIA, the Asian insurer just floated in Hong Kong for $18bn by American International Group, is an exemplar of the shift. From its founding in 1919 until now, it was a company that sent profits earned from Asian customers to mostly western owners. Western financial decadence, in the form of AIG’s foolish credit bets, forced a sale, largely to Chinese and other developing world shareholders. But there is an irony: one part of the “Asianising” of AIA was the decision to appoint a new boss. He turned out to be an Englishman, Mark Tucker.
As recently as 2000, the old AIA arrangement made geopolitical sense. Rich countries could still push poor Asians around. The rich G7 (which included Japan) made up only 12 per cent of the world’s population but produced 72 per cent of global gross domestic product. And then it was the poor countries that had messed up in the last global financial crisis.