ANALYSIS:If our future links with all Asia are as limited as those with Japan, things do not augur well for Ireland, writes DAN O'BRIEN

IN WORLD history there is no bigger question than why the industrial revolution happened where and when it did.

Before that transformative event 200 years ago, economic output across the world was – from what is known – quite closely correlated to population size. Because Asia has been the most populous part of the world throughout human history it had always accounted for most economic activity.

In the 19th century that changed as the industrial revolution in Europe propelled the continent to global pre-eminence.

With the recent rise of Asia, where half the planet’s population resides, the world economy has been moving back towards its pre-industrial revolution balance.

That the 21st century will be Asian has long been predicted.

Early in the second decade of the century Asia already looks on course to account for far more of the planet’s economic output than either Europe or the US, and it should do so well before mid-century.

The uninterrupted tigerish rates of growth recorded in many emerging Asian economies, including the big two in that grouping – China and India – are transforming the region and the lives of its inhabitants.

Ultimately, the rise of the east will change all our lives. If managed well, the global tilt eastwards should be mostly for the better – for everyone.

Many of the issues surrounding the rise of the east were discussed last Friday at a conference organised by a new Irish outfit, Asia Matters. A mix of speakers from both Europe and Asia gave perspectives on a range of issues.

Mauro Pettriccone, the European Commission’s top trade negotiator with Asia, pointed out that Europe’s exports to China are growing much faster than China’s exports to Europe.

And while some people still fret about Chinese competition, European consumers want Chinese goods because they are such good value. Low-priced Asian goods, he noted, had been a big contributing factor in keeping inflation in check in recent time.

Sean O’Driscoll, the boss of Irish appliance-maker Glen Dimplex, was in the lamentably rare position of being able to recount a tale of Irish corporate success in the east (if a company from a place where the temperature very rarely tops 25 degrees can flog air conditioners to sweltering parts of Asia then surely other Irish companies can sell more stuff in the east).

O’Driscoll went on to say that Japan – whose economy is only fractionally smaller than China’s and much bigger than India’s – is a forgotten country in Ireland. He noted that a Japanese premier has never set foot on Irish soil.

The almost non-existent economic ties between the Emerald Isle and the Land of the Rising Sun can only be a cause of concern for Ireland. If future links with the rest of Asia are as limited as those with Japan, Ireland will be as much of an economic backwater in the middle of this century as it was in the middle of the last.

Key will be the ability to replicate with Asian companies the relationship with American companies, whose presence in Ireland has been enormously dynamising. As Japanese trade official, Jun Arima, pointed out in his presentation, Ireland does not rank in the top European destinations for Japanese companies. This does not augur well.

In corporate Atlanta and Chicago, Ireland is in the centre of the Euro-American economic space. Deep historical and familial links, along with a shared language, make Ireland an ideal point to access the EU market.

But in corporate HQs in Bangalore or Guangzhou, executives looking at a European location for their operations are as likely to consider Ireland as their counterparts in Tokyo or Osaka.

For them Ireland is not at the centre of anything, but an island behind an island off the coast of the most distant point of the Eurasian landmass.

If that is a somewhat depressing thought, Yosuke Kawakami, a Japanese diplomat, wryly asked about Europe’s Emu (economic and monetary union) and fretted about the potential for disaster of its crashing. He hoped that Europe’s single currency would rise like a phoenix.

But the final slide of his presentation included an image of a less successful bird – the dodo.

For them Ireland is not at the centre of anything, but an island behind an island off the coast of the most distant point of the Eurasian landmass