A COUPLE of decades late, the world is becoming persuaded that the boom area in growth during the coming half century is what is roughly called Asia Pacific - that vast kaleidoscope of countries, peoples and economics involving the Indian sub-continent and China and Japan in the north, Australasia in the south and everything in between.
This realisation of the region's importance has spawned an industry of learned books purporting to tell us everything we ought to know: obscure (often American) academics and economists have come out of the woodwork with dusted-off theses in numbers sufficient to provide a floating bridge between Tokyo and Tasmania. This book is a welcome relief.
Michael Dobbs-Higginson is former chairman of Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific. He has had 30 years' experience of the region and now enjoys a far-from-placid retirement, if you can call it that, sitting as an investment banker on various boards, co-owning a Shanghai factory and advising governments and corporations.
This is a distillation of what he knows about the region and equally important, what he feels in his gut. (Facts you can get from any reasonable computer; gut feeling is not so far distilled through the entrails of a microchip).
For example, what about Hong Kong? The author is definitely one of what might be called the Percy Cradock school. He is robust. Democratic reforms can only lead to ever-increasing confrontation with Beijing. And he is frustrated by what he perceives as the ''Patten-led democratic feeding frenzy'' when the activists and their supporters ''only represent a very small percentage of Hong Kong's population - as opposed to representing a large proportion of those who are politically active''.
His views are perhaps illuminated by the list at the back of those he consulted, which includes all the great and the good, such as the Sohmens, David Li, Willy Purves, etc. I didn't see any acknowledgement to Chris Patten, but maybe that was an oversight.
By concentrating on Hong Kong, I have put this review out of kilter, but we do like regarding our own navel. The book is equally exhaustive (and opinionated) about every one of a dozen other regional locations.
