The Way Ahead

As established previously, the twenty-first century is an era that calls for great wisdom and great strategy. In the last 35 years, the world has changed dramatically, especially between the West and the East. The collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1989 and the burst of the financial bubble in Wall Street in 2008, along with 35 years of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation have led people to rethink and reconsider. In fact, these unprecedented events subverted people’s thinking. In the meantime, Western scholars believe that it was both premature and inaccurate to celebrate the “defeat” of communism and the “triumph” of liberal Western democracy. The last decade saw the continuing stagnation of capitalist economies in Europe and the USA in contrast to economic growth of 8% in China in the last 30 years. Researchers and management scholars started to rethink Western management and proposed to draw inspiration from centuries of scholarship around the world, innovation, entrepreneurship, inclusiveness, sustainability, and technological creativity between West and East. The world now needs a big strategy—a new synthesis of East–West wisdom to secure global environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The West and East are facing different challenges.