The worlds economic centre is now in Asia and more than half the world’s population live within a circle superimposed over a section of southeast Asia. It is not the first time in history that the global economy has revolved around the Pacific. The demography was about the same in the year 1.000.
In the video below from The Economist, we can see how a seaborne traffic jam forms outside the bustling ports of Singapore. These ships mostly come from around the Pacific. In the last few decades the Pacific has become the engine room of global trade, far eclipsing the Atlantic.
East Asia has turned into a giant factory, sending cheap goods to the United States. Asia will soon become the biggest trading partner of Latin America, and is about to get its first shipments of natural gas from North America.