As culture in the West faces decline in line with its economies, arts writer Derek McArthur considers why the 21st century will artistically and culturally belong to East Asia.

There’s no secret that the West is in a perpetually decaying state, living out the last hurrahs of concentrated power. Even if you haven’t noticed the details, you’ve felt it.

It’s a surreal feeling, like trudging through some gruelling, never-ending hallucination. I’d imagine it’s like how Russians felt in the run-up to the Soviet Union's collapse, when a system is locked into place yet crawling along with no obvious future.

Daily life in such a system struggles to find meaning and purpose for any individual because the collective missions of society have evaporated. Progressively, the artistic and cultural energy is siphoned away and then disregarded, slowly stripped of any meaningful importance it once held.

So, here’s my not-quite-unfounded, and not entirely original either, prediction: the 21st century will see East Asia become the main hub of earth’s culture, much like the West enjoyed its ironclad cultural reign of the 20th century.

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While the West is busy deconstructing itself, East Asia - specifically South Korea, Japan, and the rapidly expanding creative fields in the........

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