The Asia-Pacific Economic Shift: Rana Mitter on a Fragmented World Order

François Picard welcomes Rana Mitter, historian, author and ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. Mitter examines the evolving role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has transitioned from a largely symbolic platform for China and Russia to signal distance from a US-led order, into a forum where Asian powers coordinate around the material foundations of security—energy, technology, infrastructure, and trade.

Far from representing a unified anti-Western bloc, Mitter’s analysis highlights the fluidity of the current order. India exemplifies this dynamic, with major powers able to participate in rival institutions while advancing their own strategic interests. Rather than a simple replacement of American hegemony by China, the emerging system is characterized as more fragmented and transactional, shaped by the long-term migration of economic and demographic weight toward Asia.

Mitter argues that even a change of administration in Washington is unlikely to restore the unipolar order of previous decades. The recent gathering in Bishkek offers insight not only into today’s geopolitical alignments but also into a world whose economic and strategic center of gravity is steadily shifting toward the Pacific.

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