News: Europe may soon be Asianised

(PTI 04/05/2006) Jakarta - Globalisation will soon see Europe and the whole world being Asianised as globalisation meant a borderless world and thus nobody could justify preventing Asians, especially China and India from swarming Europe, says Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

"In Europe today, there are already millions of Asians, and if they (the West) say that globalisation means a borderless world, then they cannot justify preventing people from Asia from going to Europe," the former Malaysian Prime Minister said during his keynote address at the closing of the Asian HRD Congress here Wednesday.

He said there were more Asians than Europeans in this world and that just China and India with a combined population of 2.3 billion people would already be able to swarm the whole of Europe, which has a population of 360 million people.

Mohamad said Asian countries and the third world too were entitled to their own definition of globalisation and need not necessarily accept the definition of the West that would like to see all other nations open up their markets and economy to the more advanced countries.

"Eventually, even the world will be Asianised even though I may not be able to live to see it," he said, adding that even now in Europe, more Asians especially, Arabs and Indians, could be seen on the streets than the European themselves and an Indian chicken dish 'tikka' was already very popular.

Citing an example, Mohamad said England today is not the England of 50 years ago and the England of 50 years from now will be almost half Indians and already tikka is England's best dish.