| In December 2003 the Indian and Thai stock markets were Asia's star performers and looked unstoppable. The hungry Chinese dragon was devouring commodities ranging from steel, copper and aluminium to oil and soya beans, and in the process sending global prices to record levels. |
| As a result stock exchanges in countries as far apart as Australia and China were shooting through the roof. |
| Fast-forward to June 2004. The Indian and Thai stock markets have slid to the bottom of the Asian league tables. Steel-makers are talking about falling prices in the second half of 2004 and at the London Metal Exchange, copper and nickel have slipped from their peaks. |
| Simultaneously, the fund managers have been pulling a few billions from the emerging markets and taking it to safer havens. |
| How else is the swirling picture changing? For a start, the attention has turned from the London Metal Exchange to Nymex and every moneyman can tell you the latest spot prices of Brent crude. |
| And the smart money is travelling to Russia which, after Saudi Arabia, has more oil than any other country in the world. An alternative destination is Japan, which has been pulled out of the economic dumps by the scorching growth of China. |
| What next? The world is waiting with bated breath for an inevitable hike in US interest rates in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, Japan is the brightest star on the international firmament with its economy poised to rise to levels unseen since 1990. |
| Through all the twists and turns one thing is staying constant: in the next decade Asia will be the growth engine of the world. Firstly and most obviously, there's China with its voracious appetite for growth. According to recent figures, the Middle Kingdom consumes between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of a range of commodities from iron ore to zinc and copper. |
| India and the other countries of the subcontinent like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka "" though poorer than other parts of Asia "" are also charging ahead with growth rates of over 5 per cent. It's the same story in a string of countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and even Hong Kong. |
| Inevitably, this growth is interlinked. Japan is making a stronger than expected comeback because its companies are hotfooting it to China. Korea too is benefiting from the same phenomenon. For once the US isn't the most important export market for these countries. |
| In addition, the demand for everything from autos to mobile phones is moving at double digits throughout Asia. Compare that to what's happening in Europe or North America where growth figures are anaemic by comparison. |
| The changing economic equations are being felt at a geopolitical level "" but only very slowly. Last week when the world's leaders gathered for the G-8 summit it was painfully obvious that a session of the Old World Order had just been called to order. Seven European and North American leaders "" plus the Japanese prime minister "" got together round the conference table to put the world to rights. |
| The sight was so incongruous that even newspapers like The New York Times were constrained to comment that the meeting was either absurd or irrelevant or both. Even the world leaders must have been feeling the pressure because they suddenly turned their attention to Africa and began making polite noises about the poorest of the poor. |
| Why weren't the Chinese there? And should India have been there? What about the Brazilians and the Russians? It is, after all, Chinese demand that has given the world economy the giant boost that it needed. |
| In the midst of all this there's India, hit at one level, by uncertainties around the world and also hobbled by the new government that's finding its way. |
| By the time, the new powerbrokers of Delhi find their way forward the swirling picture around the globe will have been tossed up in the air and altered once again. |
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