You Can Do It, Asia!

One day, there were two alien brothers, Chowynorg & Chipponorg, traveling from Andromeda galaxy on their space tour. It looked like they were heading to a blue planet, which was also the main destination of their space tour.

"Haahhh, what a far journey.. are we there yet?"

"Geez, don’t complain much, pretty soon"

"Okay.."

after a while,

"Ehem, get ready little brother…, Welcome to the planet called Earth! A planet inhabited by more than 7 billion humanbeings!"

"Wow, very beautiful planet.. What did you say?Humans? What kind of creature is it?”

"Yeah, human, the most intelligent beings on this planet. From that amount live on earth, 60% was recorded live on a continent called Asia!"

"What? What kind of continent that can accommodate up for that many humans?"

Figure 1. Asian People

"You can guess that Asia is the largest continent on earth. This continent consists of 50 countries from west end to east end of the planet's eastern hemisphere! Very big isn’t it?"

“Interesting! Keep explaining more about it!"

"Okay bro! Besides, this continent is extremely beautiful, with great diversity that exists on it. You won’t find more diverse continent on earth than Asia. Ranging from ethnic diversity, culture, religion, and various other things, makes this continent so rich in philosophical values."

"Wow, seems really cool and unbeatable."


"Yes, that's right. Currently, Asia is listed as the fastest economic growth continent on earth. This is because they have abundant amount of natural resources and manpower, which is, well, you don’t have to doubt it."

Figure 2. Images of Asian Culture
(Spiral from upper left : India-Japan-Uzbekistan-Oman-Indonesia-Thailand-Iran-Kazakhstan-Taiwan)

The situation became silent before Chowynorg continued..

"Both of that potentials should be, once again, should be a sufficient asset for Asia to become the truly greatest continent on earth. But unfortunately, behind that grandeur and diversity, the continent is still devastated by so many things"

"Really?"

"That’s true, many of the members of it are still plagued with problems, ranging from welfare, poverty, hunger, health, education, environmental crisis, and so forth."

Figure 3. Poverty in Laos

"That's strange.. I mean, Hey,what's wrong with you guys Asian countries? They are more capable than that, aren’t they? "

"Cool down brother. Yes, but unfortunately, there are still shortcomings within, and one of the most significant is the lack of education and R&D activities in this continent. Ooh, how sadly, even though the population reaches billions, but not many skillful human resources they have. We can observe how big this problem by highlighting the illiteracy rates in Asia, which is up to 75% of the total illiterates on the planet!"

Figure 4. Illiteracy Rates in Asia
Source : Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific (2011) 

"Shocking fact.. Okay, perhaps many of this continent's population hasn’t got appropriate education, but they still have abundant natural resources, don’t they? Even you said its economic growth is the highest, isn’t it?"

"Maybe it's true, but in reality, so much of their reserve nowadays is being controlled & owned by people from other continents, like Europe and America! The example lies on some oil and mining sites in various countries in Asia. In addition, not all of natural resources they have today are handled properly. This is because they don’t have advanced technologies for managing natural resources, and finally it leads to unsustainable development. The notion of "sustainable" here can refer to many fields, ranging from economic, social and environmental. We can take an example on energy sector. Nowadays, the continent energy needs is very much to support their rising economic growth, especially in China & India. However, it becomes apparent that, the use of energy resources in most of Asian countries doesn’t meet the energy efficiency and environmental protection principles. If this still continues, predicted later in 2030, Asia will face a great energy & environmental crisis, hmm.."

Figure 5. Energy Production Outlook in Some Countries

Source : Summary of Asian Energy Outlook (2011)

"And then what? Would they let this happens? Especially about those other continents began to steal theirs! Aarrgh, even I'm very annoyed to hear that!

"That's why, as I've mentioned before, Asia needs to create adequate human resources by improving education, and needs to establish more R&D activities to acquire advanced technology for more sustainable development. If every country on the continent does that, surely this continent can be much more sustainable in the future.”

"Genius! but, how to achieve it? Education..R&D.. It’s not easy, even in our galaxy, isn’t it?”

"Yes, I know that...”

"What about the cooperation they have done? As a continent comprises of 50 countries, they should have done... "

"Hey, I just want to explain!"

"Oh, sorry, hehe"

"Yes, as you just said, they had ever planned cooperation named Asian Union. At first, Asian Union was going to be founded on economic base, so the goal was to open up trade routes and mutually support each country's economy. However, this plan is difficult to do because of the too diverse condition of Asian countries. For example, China and India have a lot of population, reach billions, but Maldives & Brunei Darussalam are even less than 1 million. There is also Japan which is more advanced than the others. Furthermore, natural resources reserve is different each other. Such things make economic cooperation on the same level to be difficult, and will just result a burden for certain countries in Asia."

"Yeah, it’s true."

"But I think, they still can make an Asian union"

"Really? how?"

"Of course, by changing the base. I've told you they are lacking in education and R&D, so why don’t they form Asian Union based on that? "

Figure 6. Japanese Technology

"I'm pretty sure every Asian country has great potential to grow, as long as they create innovation for sustainable development that I mentioned from the beginning. For that, I think it would be good if they can collaborate in this field. Maybe the condition of countries in Asia on this field is still different. But at least, establish both education and research cooperation will certainly be easier and not hampered much of burden like economic aid, won’t it? For that, I think they can create programs such as research collaboration, technology investment and also education partnership between countries. With such programs, each country could contribute to the development of education and technology, for more sustainable & innovative Asia."

Chipponorg nodded,

"Lastly I wanna say, this isn’t time for them to be selfish each other, if they really want to release the potential of this continent."

"Yes, you're right. If the concept of sustainable development coupled with collaboration among countries in Asia, I believe, they will make a GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION in their continent! Hopefully they can realize it soon. You can do it, Asia!"