The Asians are destined to dominate the world in the last part of the 20th century. This was predicted as far back as the 19th century, when the West had not yet reached the peak of its world glory. As early as 1862, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward said: "European commerce, politics, though, and activity, will sink in relative imporance, while in the Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theatre of events in the world."

Contemporary experts have called the Asians "a people with a destiny," the latter part of the 20th century as "the Asian century," or "the Pacific century," and the present as the start of the "Asian-Pacific age." Thus, the Asians, who had been exploited and made to feel inferior by Westerners, can now be glad, for a new world era has begun.