Asia as Center of Innovation in 21st Century?

An interesting debate over at McKinsey Digital though I'm not sure they had sufficiently polarizing opinions particularly on the disagreement side. The comments offer some of the more interesting insights. My two (libertarian) cents? Government doesn't need to enact an "innovation policy". Government needs to get out of the way. Americans are already the world's biggest innovators but the idea that taxing them, burdening them with regulations and making it more difficult for them to finance their ideas will help them innovate is, quite simply, crazy.

On the other side of the equation, if necessity is the mother of all invention, China's going to need a lot of it just to keep up with its demographics problem of its own making. Historically, let's also not forget China and India were the world's economic powers.

While there's no doubt that India and China are catching up - they're doing just that - they're playing catch up. While the US has its own problems, to say that US dominance as innovators is a position that's theirs to lose, grossly understates the problems both India and China face.