“Asian Century Without Asians?”

Asia is celebrating prematurely. The number of economic articles that have appeared in print welcoming the so-called Asian Century is beyond count. There are also many books on the subject. Despite having less than 20 per cent of the world economy in their clasp, Asian countries are made to feel like crowned kings. The press predicts that the global economy will be led by Asia.

Global growth may be taking off again after the financial crisis, driven by an Asian engine but the pilots are not Asians.

One look at the boards of large corporations will tell you that.

Apart from a handful of companies, Asians are not CEOs or directors in many of the Fortune 500 companies. There is an important distinction between Asians in Asia and naturalised Asians in the West. Indira Nooyi (Pepsico CEO), Vikram Pandit (Citibank CEO), Jerry Yang (Yahoo co-founder and former CEO) and some others have made their countries of origin proud, but they are Americans.

Is there any Chinese living in China who is on the board of an American company? Or for that matter, how many Indians or Koreans or Vietnamese are on those boards? Yes, there are exceptions. Ratan Tata, the Indian industrialist on the board of Alcoa, is a rare example. Lakshmi Mittal became the chief executive of Arcelor Mittal by taking over companies and not choosing to wait.

“There's a negative perception of Asians out there. People may view them as smart people, but not as leaders,” says Wilson Chu, a Dallas lawyer who directed a Chinese-American study of Fortune 500 companies.

The Committee of 100, a group of prominent Americans of Chinese descent formed to address issues concerning the Chinese-American community, in its 2007 Corporate Report card on Asian ethnicity, cited that only 1.46 per cent of the Fortune 500 company directors in the US are Asians, notwithstanding that most of them are naturalised US citizens.

Yet, Asian giants have taken the leap of faith. Some years ago Sony chose a Briton, Howard Stringer, as chief executive and, of course, there is the more famous case of Nissan being run by Charles Ghosn, a Brazilian.