Come Carpentier de Gourdon is currently the Convener of the Editorial Board of the WORLD AFFAIRS JOURNAL, a quarterly publication dedicated to international issues, sponsored by the Kapur Surya Foundation (a co-sponsor of the “World Public Forum for Dialogue of Civilisations”) New Delhi, India. La seguente intervista è servita alla stesura dell’articolo L’Asia nel mondo postpandemico pubblicato sul sito della rivista Eurasia. First, a very general question. The mainstream narrative of the CoronaVirus pandemic has always talked about a world that would totally change. What do you think will change and, generally, what do you expect in the future? What will be the next challenges to face? Our globalised industrial/technologically driven society is too complex to change radically in short order. Certain mandatory precautionary measures and patterns of behaviour will be maintained for some time but many old habits will return fast insofar as they pertain to human nature and are required for a densely populated world. The most substantial changes may occur in the realm of educational methods, work patterns and, at a deeper level, the monetary/financial/economic system where digitalisation will spread faster while regionalisation alters the character and dynamics of globalisation. Cryptocurrencies and cybermoney will become increasingly prevalent. Bitcoin and the Chinese Cyberyuan are two factors of rising importance in global finance. Let’ talk about Asia. I believe that the near future belongs to Asia and that the pandemic has only accelerated the Asian “pivot to west” process and exposed the difficulties of the West. What do you think about it? (East) Asia is on the rise and that trend will continue at least for some of the countries which can control their internal problems in a changed economic and strategic environment and resist outside pressures from enemies and rivals. However many states such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines will continue to struggle with major demographic,environmental, cultural, religious and socio-political challenges which may plunge them into long-term turmoil and economic distress. Asia is not likely to be a uniformly prosperous and peaceful area, China nad both Koreas may also experience internal commotions and socio-political unrest. Now let’s focus on India. How does the country get out of this emergency? Is a new Golden Age ready for India or not? It is too early to predict how fast and how well India will recover from the current economic slump caused by the anti-COVID 19 lockdown measures and restrictions. Some major rating firms and financial analysts are pessimistic about the country’s short term future. Many sectors of the already sluggish economy have been hit hard and the banks which were burdened with high volumes of NPA are not in a position to help much. The government is trying to stimulate the economy mostly on the supply side but the demand side is depressed and the drying out of foreign investments, foreign remittances from expatriate workers and foreign tourism may not be fully compensated b positive factors such as the low energy prices. India’s economic gwoth may be sluggish for a...