Veranstaltungsberichte
The fact is that the economic rise of Asia has occurred on a scale and speed unparalleled in world history, with some even calling it a miracle. At the same time, Asia seems the biggest potential flashpoint for geopolitical conflicts in the world — a concern underscored by the attempts of some countries to change the territorial or maritime status quo or to exploit their economic or riparian advantage. Asia itself has become the theater of a new Great Game. In other words, Asia’s rise has come with new dangers to its security and economic and environmental well-being.
Today, Asia is at the political crossroads, the shape of its future security uncertain, even as Asia’s importance continues to rise globally in economic and political terms. A favorite theme in international debate nowadays is whether Asia’s rise signifies the West’s decline. But the current focus on economic malaise in Europe and the United States is distracting attention from the many serious challenges that call into question Asia’s continued success. The future will not belong to Asia merely because it is the world’s largest, most populous, and fastest-developing continent.
While Asia obviously holds the key to the future global order, it faces major constraints. It must cope with entrenched disputes, harmful historical legacies that weigh down its most important interstate relationships, increasingly fervent nationalism, growing religious extremism, and sharpening competition over water, energy, and other resources.
Moreover, Asia’s political integration badly lags behind its economic integration, and, to compound matters, it has no security framework. Regional consultation mechanisms remain weak. As Asia illustrates, the growing economic stakes in an increasingly interdependent world have only sharpened geopolitical rivalries. Asia is doing well economically but not politically. Politically, Asia is becoming more divided. Economic interdependence helps to raise the costs of political miscalculation, yet economics alone cannot solve politics or avert armed conflict.
Asia actually faces two contradictory trends. On one side are territorial and maritime disputes, Islamist extremism, covert warfare, nuclear rivalries, and increased military capabilities. On the other side is a rising Asian interdependence through communications, trade, investment, technology, and tourism. Asia, however, must cope with resilient nationalism, protectionism, and diverse kinds of negative transborder influences, including terrorism, subversion, and illegal migration.
Against this background, Asia’s power dynamics are likely to remain fluid, with new or shifting alliances and strengthened military capabilities continuing to challenge regional stability. Respect for boundaries is a prerequisite to peace and stability on any continent. Europe has built its peace on that principle, with a number of European states learning to live with boundaries they do not like. Efforts at the further redrawing of territorial frontiers are an invitation to endemic conflicts in Asia. An overt refusal to accept the territorial status quo only highlights the futility of political negotiations. After all, a major redrawing of frontiers involving the surrender of big chunks of real estate by one disputant to another has never happened at the negotiating table in modern world history. Such a redrawing can only be achieved on the battlefield, as happened in Asia in the second half of the twentieth century. After more than six decades of efforts in that direction, the redrawing of frontiers must come to an end, or else Asia’s economic renaissance will stall.
Across Asia, the failure to come to terms with history weighs on all the important bilateral relationships. Some nations are even resurrecting the ghosts of history. In East Asia, the so-called “history problem” has spurred a resurgence of competing and mutually reinforcing nationalisms. Squabbles over history and remembrance remain the principal obstacle to political reconciliation in Asia, reinforcing negative stereotypes of rival nations and helping to rationalize claims to territories long held by other nations. Such squabbles also sow fragmentation and instability, and have certainly fueled Asia’s more recent territorial disputes. Indeed, the politicization of history remains the principal obstacle to reconciliation in Asia.
Can Asian countries overcome their legacy of conflict to forge a common future that benefits all? Breaking out of the vicious cycle demands forward-looking governments and the will to pursue political reconciliation. Honoring one country’s heroes and history can be done without seeking to alienate, provoke, or rub salt in the wounds of another nation. Asian nations cannot change the past, but they can strive to shape a more cooperative future. They must heed the wisdom of a Russian proverb, “Forget the past and lose an eye; dwell on the past and lose both eyes.”
No strategy in Asia to build power stability will be complete without a major economic component. Asia’s powers should move beyond free-trade agreements to initiate joint geoeconomic projects that serve the core interests of smaller countries, which would then not have to rely on Chinese investments and initiatives to boost growth. As a result, more countries would be able to contribute to the effort to secure an inclusive, stable, rules-based order in which all countries, including China, can thrive.
- Brahma Chellaney