Vasuki Shastry, Associate Fellow in the Asia Pacific program of Chatham House, joins Kopi Time to discuss his book on the complexities and challenges of Asia. We go over Asia’s inner tensions and bifurcations, and the headwinds coming from aging, deglobalisation, technology disruption, poor leadership, middle income trap, inequality, climate change, gender, internal insurgencies, fragile geopolitics, and oligarchy. Vasuki is not a pessimist, but is keen to bring in realism in discussions about the region’s future. He wants the notion of Asia’s unrelenting rise to be eschewed, as it does a disservice to recognising the formidable challenges that lie ahead.