Looking east

After studying history at Cambridge, Rachman joined the BBC World Service before going off to freelance in the US. He joined The Economist in 1990, where he had various roles, including spells in Bangkok and Brussels. He moved to FT in 2006, where he now has a roving global brief.

Easternisation is Rachman's first book after his Zero-Sum World was published six years ago. It also partly examined whether in the wake of the financial crisis, the West had become vulnerable to a rising Asia.

It is likely to prove timely with the renewed focus on the South China Sea. US President Barack Obama has already made clear where his country's foreign policy priorities lie.

"It doesn't make sense for America to spend 90 percent of its time worrying about the Arab world or even Europe now. The 21st century is clearly going to be in economic and, increasingly, in geopolitical terms about Asia and America," says the author.

Rachman believes that despite those who argue otherwise, the rise of China is now a permanent geopolitical feature.

"You get these recurring debates in the West, where you hear people saying, "Well, surely this is not going to go on forever and the whole thing will blow over." It is clearly not going to be the case. You have only got to look at the development of the West which went through periods of massive turbulence. Just look at the American Civil war and the military defeats of Japan and Germany (after World War II)," he says.

"China has somehow figured out how to do industrial development and achieve rapid economic growth and that doesn't necessarily disappear."