03.31.2026
Manifesto
The framing of the East and the West is wrong. Let's fix it.
The French word chinoiserie (sheen·waa·zr·ee) refers to an art style that had its heyday in Enlightenment-era Europe. As trade with East Asia expanded, Europeans produced art that mimicked the design of the decorative goods that flowed in from China (hence chinois) and elsewhere in Asia. It was a phenomenon that involved fascination and exaggeration in equal measure.
We adopted Chinoiserie as the title of this publication to evoke that period of cultural communion. In our eyes, English-language discourse about Asia has returned to an era of importation and imagination; the region has become the target of Western anxieties about technology and empire. Meanwhile, the intellectual class is feverishly heralding civilizational conflict between East and West despite its own mixed record of prognostication.
In its traditional definition, the West refers to the United States, its merry band of anglophones and its European aides-de-camp. The East includes China, Japan, Korea, and a range of other countries in the Indo-Pacific region. These terms are used to refer to what were once distinct civilizations.
We believe that this framing is outdated. Despite this, mainstream Western coverage of Asia struggles to overcome the pull of Orientalism: at its worst, it portends a clash of civilizations and tallies the political, economic, and scientific achievements of each side.
Even pundits with calmer heads attribute Asia's successes and failures to superficial cultural differences instead of the prosaic forces that mould Western economies: China is more than Confucianism; Japan’s birth rate is low for ordinary reasons, not because of unique cultural weaknesses.
Chinoiserie asserts that neither perspective is true. Both kinds of analysis lead audiences to fear that the West is either due for imminent erasure or merely piecemeal displacement.
This worldview has overstayed its welcome. There is a reason it came to be: over the last five centuries, the modern world has consolidated around Western conceptions of development, legitimacy, and history. The arrival of a serious competitor feels existential. In China—just as in Japan before it—the West sees a challenger to its dominance who raises anxieties about its decline.
Yet the West already won. People the world over wear blue jeans, watch NBA games, and enjoy Hollywood blockbusters at movie theaters. For all the talk of the dollar’s demise, global markets still run on Western rails. In Asia, legal systems owe much to Western jurisprudence. Even the wave of communism that swept into the region in the 20th century hailed from Europe. Today, public discourse there uses Western terms; national self-perception is filtered through a Western lens.
This misperception has consequences for both sides. Though Asian societies have succeeded in the Western system, they struggle to be understood internationally. This is as much a matter of international perception as it is of domestic policy. Abroad, Asian countries resist staking a confident claim on the world despite their considerable economic, political, and military clout. At home, many are beset by parochialism that curtails their ambition.
The West also has much to lose by clinging to its orthodoxies—it is sleepwalking out of its own supremacy. It failed to architect an international system that could accommodate the rise of economic powers other than itself. Even now it prefers to draw the lines of battle: it frames the race for artificial superintelligence as a struggle for lasting preeminence.
Without a clear understanding of its first true peers, the West is fumbling its chance at defining its role in a world that has already begun to tilt away from it.
We see something better. This publication presents a vision for a century defined by a global community that—despite recent setbacks—could flourish.
We dream of a future where the East and the West amplify each other. We want to glide into a US state capital on a high-speed train; to enjoy the wonders produced in Asian cities brimming with innovation on par with Silicon Valley; to walk in San Franciscan neighborhoods every bit as dense, vibrant, and safe as they are in Asia. We owe it to the latter billions who will inherit the civilization we are building today to imagine the world of abundance that they will inhabit.
There are sure to be obstacles. Though we are optimistic, we are also realists. We cannot pave over genuine political rifts. That does not stop us from advocating for prosperity.
This vision is founded on a desire for deeper mutual understanding. Western policymakers, entrepreneurs, and investors could come to appreciate their own measure as they take inspiration from abroad. Their counterparts in the East also have much to gain in moving past their fixations and seizing a chance at leadership. The prize is a common civilization that shares its innovations no matter the source.
In service of this, we intend to write about the destination of the American empire, the travails of industrial policy, the looming demographic crisis, and the flywheel of entrepreneurialism. These questions and more will determine the century that all sides will share.
People in power imposed the consensus that guided the last century.
Together we can build the one that will shape the next.