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Asia: dawn of a new century

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In Brief

The Japanese saying, ‘the name speaks for itself’, appears to reflect accurately the current global economic and geopolitical landscape.

Asia — meaning ‘sunrise’ in Greek and ‘east’ in Assyrian — is clearly rising, and the time has come for the ‘Asian Century’.

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But what will the Asian Century look like against a backdrop of crumbling European economic and US military might? Will the sun keep rising in the East? Or will the Asian Century, like a comet, fade away too soon and not return for years to come?

There are at least two ways to look at how the Asian Century might play out. First, how will Asia strengthen itself as a region? And second, how will Asia interact with the global system?

Although power is not equal to strength, Asia’s strength will only emerge if there is a balance of power in the region. But there is still a lot of misunderstanding, confusion, distrust and uncertainty among individual countries about the state of the region, which may lead to rivalry where one country or another, rather than finding a balance, tries to dominate the others. Most recently, the Obama administration referred to a ‘pivot toward Asia’, which was later relabelled as a ‘rebalancing toward Asia’ to help mitigate the unease of some Asian countries. But as Hugh White pointed out, there are many people in Washington who still instinctively believe that the US purpose in the region is to dominate, not balance.

Asia will need new norms in the Asian Century. On the one hand, the US wants to preserve its values in the region. The fact that Xi Mingze, the daughter of Chinese vice president and Chinese president to be Xi Jinping, is currently studying at Harvard University shows that US soft power will continue to influence the norms of the Asian Century. On the other hand, China’s rise will also see the creation of new norms — although these would not and should not exclude those of other countries. During the recent National People’s Congress, however, Wen Jiabao said that although democratic reform in China is inevitable, China may have its own interpretation of, and path to, democracy. Middle powers should thus try to engineer new norms in Asia as well, especially in security practices, as they do not want to find themselves in a position where they have to choose between China and the US.

Most importantly, an effective regional governance architecture that takes account of all countries in the region needs to be set up. The East Asia Summit (EAS), where political and strategic issues are discussed, could be an effective forum for this purpose, or at the very least it could accommodate such discussions to create a level playing field in the region. APEC, where economic issues are discussed, is another platform from which to launch such discussions.

Economic integration within Asia is likely to strengthen, especially because the European banking and sovereign debt crisis — which will affect the US sooner or later — will not resolve itself in the near future. Hence, the global economy is depending on Asia’s economic integration to provide a new source of growth, and the Asian Century will depend on how resilient Asia is in the face of Europe’s economic woes. So far, most Asian countries have been able to manoeuvre their fiscal and monetary policies to withstand the crisis. But domestic political evolution in the region should not be overlooked because it, too, will influence how Asia performs economically.

The next question, how Asia will interact with the global system, depends on who constitutes Asia and who speaks for Asia. There are five Asian countries at the G20 table: China, Japan, South Korea, India and Indonesia — six if Australia is included. But among these countries there is no single, unified Asian voice. In this sense, Asia has failed to coordinate its voice.

It is also unclear how the G20 relates to Asia’s existing regional architecture. Indonesia, as the only ASEAN member state at the head table, is yet to reach out to its neighbouring ASEAN countries, leaving many of them either indifferent toward the G20 or under the surface opposing it. Asian countries in the G20 should use their existing regional architecture, including the EAS and APEC, to improve the legitimacy of the G20 and Asia’s interaction with the global system. South Asian countries need not hold their economic integration hostage to political conflicts, nor should historical bitterness be an obstacle for East Asian integration.

Most Asian countries in the G20 see this grouping as the best way to relate to the rest of the world — China, for example, sees it as the best way to reform global governance away from the current US-led model. If Asia acts collectively and in a coherent way to interact with the global system, it could strengthen its voice and at the same time contribute to strengthening the global order in the Asian Century.

Maria Monica Wihardja is a researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta, and a lecturer at the Department of Economics, University of Indonesia. She is currently on leave to work as a consultant at Bank Indonesia. She is also Associate Editor at the EAF Indonesia desk.

A version of this article was first published here in The Jakarta Post. This post is part of the series on the Asian Century which feeds into the Australian government White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century.

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