India, Sept. 25 -- Look at the UK beyond Buckingham Palace. Its airports, economy, and quality of life are plummeting. Its Scotch has been losing ground to Indian whisky too

Nothing tells you what a country is like as reliably as the state of its major airports.

One reason why the world started looking more respectfully at East Asia was because so many of its airports improved beyond recognition towards the end of the 20th century. Singapore's Changi became the world's best airport and other countries raced to open new modern airports. Seoul's Incheon, Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi and so many others served as advertisements for their countries.

The pattern has been repeated in West and South Asia. Dubai has taken over from Changi as the worl...