Before the current international economic crisis, Asian policymakers deferred to their Western counterparts. The enormous blunders since committed by the US and Europe mean deference has been replaced by disquiet. Asia's concern is that the world will soon come to grief if both the US and Europe...

Asia has long been underrepresented in institutions of global governance. Recent challenges to those institutions have focused less on their legitimacy than on their effectiveness. Such engagement reflects a changed approach to sovereignty. Once it was understood primarily as a defense against...