This session will address the impact on global geosciences of the rapid growth of scientific and technological research in Asian countries. Topics to be considered will include the enormous increase in the numbers of papers submitted to scientific journals (and the challenges this causes for editors and reviewers); the increase in support provided by funding agencies to many Asian universities and research institutes; participation in international science programs (where Asian scientists are commonly not well represented); opportunities and implications of collaboration and mobility of researchers between Asian countries and the West; the rise of geoscience societies within individual Asian countries and across the region; research related to the competition for natural resources and global climate change