What I’m really worried about is war. Will the former rich countries really accept a completely changed world economy, and a shift of power away from where it has been the last 50 to 100 to 150 years, back to Asia?

Rosling frames his deepest anxiety not as poverty or disease—topics he often showed were improving—but as geopolitical backlash to rapid global economic rebalancing. The quote points to a historical “return” of economic weight toward Asia after a relatively brief period of Western dominance. His worry is that societies accustomed to setting the rules of trade, finance, and security may resist diminished relative status, and that this resistance could manifest as militarized conflict rather than peaceful adaptation. Implicitly, he argues that the key challenge of the 21st century is managing status loss and power transition without war, through institutions, cooperation, and a realistic understanding of global development trends.