I hope my US friends will not see this as an ungrateful act of abandoning a ship in trouble. On the contrary, my plan will keep the ship in service, as it is repaired. This is the best way for countries that have benefited from the American century to repay their debt.

The prosperity in Asia – created by US investment and trade – has spawned problems for the US. East Asia's current account surpluses have averaged $400bnover the past decade, while the US current account deficit runs at an annual average of $800bn. Asian countries, other than Japan, accumulated the surpluses largely by supplying cheap goods and services to the US. They can no longer rely on this one major market given that America's ability to sustain consumer spending is severely curtailed. Having parked most of their surpluses in the currency that was most convertible – the dollar – Asian countries face the prospect of losing as much as the country that issued the currency. Most of Asia's sovereign surpluses are in US dollar-denominated equity and notes and Treasury bills. Is there a way to protect the value of these as the US economy finds its feet? Asia's reserves could be turned into Asia bonds that, without losing their value, could be used to stimulate investment and trade in Asia.

An Asia bond would not be a self-centred zero-sum game. It could offer an opportunity for wealth creation across the world. Three billion Asians want their governments to invest their hard-earned surpluses in tangible productive capacity that they can see rather than playing with paper investments, such as esoteric derivatives.