The Seventh Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

In a familiar historical pattern, the gravitational forces of urbanisation have outstripped the capacity of cities to absorb the people streaming in from the countryside. Slums have mushroomed around Asia’s booming cities. Thirty-one per cent of China’s urban population live in slums, as do 23 per cent of Indonesia’s and 32 per cent of India’s. ASIA’S NEW MIDDLE CLASS The growing complexity of industrialising economies gives rise to an urban, educated class of managers and service providers. These people, the middle class, have a powerful effect on the tastes, consumption patterns and political expectations of their societies. A dissatisfied middle class can be an implacable cause of disturbance, while a satisfied middle class provides society with a strong core of stability. A new middle class is booming in Asia’s rapidly developing societies. The World Bank estimates that East Asia’s middle class will triple in number between 2000 and 2030, and that South Asia’s middle class will increase by a factor of 13 over the same period. Using the standard definition of middle-class wealth — the capacity to spend between $10 and $100 per day on discretionary, non-essential items — Asia has a middle class population of about 560 million, of which 330 million are in Asia’s fast emerging economies. China’s middle class currently comprises about 12 per cent of its population; the Brookings Institution’s Homi Kharas estimates this could swell to over 50 per cent within 12 years. The middle class makes up about five per cent of India’s population, but Kharas estimates it could reach two-fifths by 2025. He projects that Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam will be predominantly middle-class societies in 15 years time. 1 Asia’s burgeoning middle classes will be the rudders that shape their societies. Their consumption drives economic growth; their fears stabilise social and political systems; their resentments drive political change. More than anything else, it is the rise of the middle class that will ensure that, from now on, Asian countries will make their own history. THE MOBILE INTERNET The internet has spread from the developed to the developing world faster than any other technological innovation, other than the mobile telephone. Just five years ago 56 per cent of internet users on the planet lived in wealthy countries; now 62 per cent of internet users are in the developing world. A major factor in the spread of these technologies is the astonishing decrease in their prices, which have fallen fastest in developing countries. Over the past five years, the price of internet connectivity fell by 52 per cent in developing countries; the prices of mobile telephony by 22 per cent. 2 Asia is the most dynamic frontier of the internet and mobile phone empires. Between 2006 and 2011 the number of Chinese, Indian, Indonesian and Laotian internet users tripled (to 38, 10, 18 and 9 per cent respectively), while the number of Filipino internet users quintupled (to 29 per cent) and Vietnamese net users doubled to 35 per cent. The mobile phone’s inroads have been even more dynamic. Thirteen times more East Timorese, six times more Vietnamese, five times more Indians and Cambodians, four times more Bangladeshis, and triple the number of Indonesians, Iranians, Mongolians and Pakistanis now use mobile phones than did in 2006. Of Asia’s 20 largest societies, all but North Korea and Myanmar have over half of their population using mobile phones. The spread of smart phones, enabled by third generation broadband technology, is bringing these two communications frontiers into alignment. By 2011, 159 countries had launched commercial third generation broadband networks, lifting mobile broadband coverage to 45 per cent of the world’s population. RECONNECTING ASIA The onset of European colonisation after the sixteenth century disrupted the spontaneous and regular interactions among societies on the Asian continent. For centuries, flows of trade, learning, and religious and cultural influence had surged and ebbed with the regularly alternating monsoon winds around Asia’s coasts and with the cycle of the seasons across its inland routes. Great Asian empires, built by Genghis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane) accelerated these connections. The influence of Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist and Islamic cultures followed the flows of trade, leaving behind a rich layering of cultural and philosophical influences. The Portuguese were the first to arrive in Asia in force, and set the pattern for what was to follow. Where Asia’s maritime trade had occurred spontaneously and collaboratively, the Portuguese realised they could profit from capturing and controlling this commerce. As other Europeans arrived — the Dutch, Spanish, French and British — there began a struggle for exclusive control of Asia’s riches. The result was centuries 62