Asia is considered the great development success story, while Africa and to a lesser extent South America have lagged since the 1970s. Beyond the traditional rhetoric of South-South cooperation, various Asian countries are now increasingly engaged in outward economic activity also into Africa and South America, challenging established patterns. The 2008 Barnes Symposium addresses issues associated with emerging (Asian) multinational enterprises, private and quasi-private sector driven development, business and human rights, and, on the religion side, the extent to which behavior and law is actually influenced by religious doctrine as opposed to social custom as part of the non-Western environment (tribalism problems, including but also beyond Islam). On the economic side, investment into the balance of the developing world from Asia looks distinctly different from different perspectives. From an African perspective, Asian investment is often a welcome alternative to investment from traditional (Western) sources. This is so both for competitive reasons and because of a perception that the Asian countries by and large have been more successful at development. Beyond South-South rhetoric, the rest of the developing world believes that perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the Asians unavailable from Western enterprises. From a South American perspective, the on-going revival of what resembles populism or traditional socialism in certain countries may also contribute a political element to the welcome mat for Asian investment. From a Western perspective, Asian investment into the developing world is often understood through the lens of business and human rights. Asian countries typically follow policies of non-intervention into local affairs on a political level, with the result that Asian investors may be prepared more often to enter or invest in conflict areas where human rights concerns have been raised (for example, drilling for oil in the Sudan). Asian investment, particularly in natural resources and energy, also may come via state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which for separate reasons may be displacing traditional Western multinational (private sector) investors in the energy sector in particular. So there may be an inherent conflict with Western tendencies to use economic leverage also to apply political pressure in human rights disputes, which is paralleled and magnified by perceived or actual competition between SOEs and private sector multinationals in certain sectors. This indirectly calls into question human rights-related conditionality sometimes practiced by international financial institutions. The broader picture involves challenging received concepts of human rights as the Asians also assert their human rights and political views in multilateral fora such as the UN. It may be misleading even to speak of a single Asian perspective on inward investment into developing countries, to the extent different Asian countries have distinctly different interests. Meanwhile, the Asians cannot be understood as acting in a concerted fashion via a single supranational body like the EU. But the underlying question, heightened by SOE participation, is the extent to which private sector as opposed to public sector motivations behind incoming foreign investment are identical. So does the incoming investment correspondingly benefit the locals in terms of private sector-led development contributing to the development of human resources and local institutions in terms of modern development policy? And, ultimately, if the Asians are successful enough to become foreign investors, are they going to be just another set of foreigners acting in their own interest? So will South-South development cooperation remain more rhetoric than reality? On the religion side, 2008 Barnes touches on the question of the extent to which behavior claimed to stem from religion may be more a product of tribalism. The recent focus on “religious” extremism accompanying US involvement in the Islamic world may be misleading, to the extent so-called fundamentalist actions are more a product of tribalism than religion as such. And the final link in the intellectual inquiry is the idea that religious fundamentalism itself is perceived by some religion scholars as a reaction to modernization. So when religious fundamentalism makes an appearance in conflict or similar areas, common in less successful areas of the developing world such as Africa, what is the proper response and relationship also to development policy and incoming investment, whether from traditional or the newer Asian sources? Is the proper response on the security side, or is this simply a difficult to avoid aspect of successful economic development, hence modernization? The answer to this question and related US policy responses will presumably engage whomever occupies the White House January 20, 2009.