Foreign Policy introduces “Trip Report,” a new feature that takes readers behind closed doors with some of the world’s sharpest minds for an intimate, unfiltered look at subjects ranging from the European economic crisis to the course of the war in Afghanistan. Think of it as a new kind of intelligence — a backstage pass to rooms you haven’t been cleared into before.

Where I went: I recently returned from a two-week trip to Asia, visiting India, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. I’ve been to these countries many times over the past 25 years in my capacity as chief investment officer and later chairman of Emerging Markets Management and AshmoreEMM. During my trip I met with a number of high-level policymakers, bankers, company executives, investors, think tanks, and scholars. But where there was once almost universal optimism, this time I came away with a very different sense. A few years ago there was a widespread feeling that the developed world had fallen off its pedestal — that Asia had not only escaped the global financial crisis but that its system was somehow superior. That overconfidence seems gone now. Instead, there is a sense of vulnerability. There is more awareness of the political Achilles’ heel of their own path of development and even new economic concerns about challenges to their newly acquired competitive edge [continue reading in new window...]