Nation, Region and the Global in East Asia: Conflict and Cooperation 東アジアにおける国家、宗教、世界性−−対立と協力
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Volume 8 | Issue 41 | Number 1 | Article ID 3422 | Oct 11, 2010 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Nation, Region and the Global in East Asia: Conflict and Cooperation 東アジアにおける国家、宗教、世界性−−対立と協力 Mark Selden Nation, Region and the Global in non-state actors whose actions construct and East Asia: Conflict and Cooperation* redefine the geographical, political and especially the economic parameters of a region, Mark Selden require that we reconceptualize both the national and the global?3 I reflect on region I propose to examine the resurgence of East formation in light of the geopolitics and Asia in the final decades of the long twentieth economics of empire in an effort to gauge what century in relation to three major forces that new possibilities regional integration offers for shape the era and the region: nationalism, East Asia. To do so, I briefly examine the regionalism and globalism. I understand contemporary region in light of two earlier contemporary globalism primarily in relation to epochs, the Sinocentric tributary trade system the US bid to forge a hegemonic order (16th - 18th century), and the era of system predicated on military and diplomaticdisintegration, colonialism, nationalism, supremacy and neoliberal economicendemic wars, and revolutions (1840-1970). presuppositions enshrined in international institutions.1 “The characteristic policy vectors of neo-liberalism,” Richard Falk comments in his critique of the economic and social dimensions of globalism, “involve such moves as liberalization, privatization, minimizing economic regulation, rolling back welfare, reducing expenditures on public goods, tightening fiscal discipline, favoring freer flows of capital, strict controls on organized labor, tax reductions, and unrestricted currency repatriation.” It is the sum total of the effects of these measures, from the perspectives of global governance, social justice, and the environment, that drove his conclusions about Predatory Globalism, a volume that appeared in the year of the Seattle anti-globalization protests and a decade before the economic meltdown of 2008.2 This study breaks with the standard periodization for the long twentieth century, I am particularly interested in exploring which stresses two great divides of 1945 and insights that derive from regional as opposed to 1990. In the conventional view, 1945 marked national and global perspectives. In what ways the formation of a US-structured yet bi-polar does contemporary East Asian regionalism, postwar order ushering in the displacement of pivoting on processes fostered by state and colonial empires by nationalist-driven new 1 8 | 41 | 1 APJ | JF nations in the wake of the defeat of the old a declining US relinquishes its military primacy colonialisms, and 1990 the end of the “Cold and the continued divisions among China, War” and the inauguration of what some have Japan and Korea yield to deepening political rushed to style the era of “globalization”, or of and cultural bonds? untrammeled American supremacy. Those were, of course, critical moments in shaping regional and global outcomes. Nevertheless, from the perspective of nationalism, regionalism, and globalism in East Asia, and with an eye to gauging the resurgence of East Asia in general and China in particular, the US- China opening of 1970 and the US defeat in Indochina five years later, I suggest, provide more fruitful framing which highlights the end of a century of war that devastated and divided the region and paved the way for an era of economic complementarity and, perhaps eventually, systemic integration and geopolitical restructuring. This watershed allows us to appreciate the magnitude of Shanghai changes that made it possible to overcome certain divisions of an earlier colonial era, as well as the legacy of the Asia-Pacific War and This is not to suggest the arrival of a post- subsequent regional polarization associated nationalist world. A new regional order is itself with the Soviet and American empires.the product in no small part of the meshing of Post-1970 changes have transformed both East diverse national agendas, and in East Asia as Asia and the world economy. Since the 1970s, elsewhere, it faces challenges from nationalist geopolitical change (centered on the US-China conflicts exemplified by unresolved tensions opening but including breakthroughs in ROK- rooted in historical experiences of colonialism China and Japan-China relations) and domestic and war, postwar territorial divisions, socio-political and economic change (notably asymmetric economic imperatives, among market- and mobility-oriented developments others. Critically important to fueling and including decollectivization, mass migration, sustaining these conflicts have been the mega-urbanization and capitalistterritorial outcomes enshrined in the San transformation in China) have led toward rapid Francisco Treaty that the US imposed in ending interpenetration of East Asian economies with the formal occupation of Japan in 1952. As trade, investment and migration playingKimie Hara has documented through the important roles. Central to this process has analysis of successive drafts of the treaty, the been both China’s dramatic ascent and the role US moved from clear specification of of major cities, notably Beijing, Shanghai, boundaries for resolution of territorial issues Tianjin, Guangzhou, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, including Dokdo/Takeshima (Korea and Japan), Taipei and Singapore in establishing new Diaoyutai/Senkakus (China and Japan), the regional and global networks. In assessing the Kuriles/Northern Islands (Russia and Japan), resurgence of East Asia and emerging East and Taiwan (China) to vague formulations that Asian regionalism, a critical question remains: left unresolved the legacies of colonialism and will these foundations for region formation war and pose difficult challenges for transform the geopolitics of the region in which overcoming national rivalries. The result has 2 8 | 41 | 1 APJ | JF been continuing territorial conflicts over six accommodation and overcoming national decades, which have continued to block a divisions involving China/Taiwan (substantial Russia-Japan peace treaty in the wake of World integration) and the Korean peninsula (despite War II and to fuel myriad conflicts among the reversal of nearly a decade of progress regional powers.4 And long-term national toward the reduction of North-South tensions divisions—notably China and Taiwan, as well as since the 2007 election of President Lee the Korean peninsula—that reflect not only the Myung-bak). results of World War II and postwar independence and revolutionary movements, Signs of region formation abound. They include but above all US military and diplomatic an explosion of cultural interchanges, rising interventions to redraw boundaries throughout cross-border tourism within the region, labor the Asia-Pacific. This involved both the empire migration, joint government-sponsored history of bases, in Chalmers Johnson's evocative projects, and student and scholar exchanges. phrase, the permanent stationing of US troops Importantly, new forms of diplomacy have in Japan, Korea and elsewhere and the securing accompanied China’s rise as a regional power, by the US of Japan's mandate over the Pacific illustrated by the China-ASEAN free trade Islands. agreement and the Six-Party Talks centered on North Korea security and nuclear issues, all of Not surprisingly, each of the major players in which cast China in a leading diplomatic role. the integration of East Asia—China, Japan and The emergence of ASEAN + 3 (China, Japan, South Korea—has its own conception of the South Korea) is perhaps the best example of emerging region formation as well as of the Southeast Asian nations taking the initiative in relationship to the superpower. Criticalpromoting regionalism, one in which the differences hinge on the question of the Chinese role is again notable. Yet, despite geopolitical and economic position of the important areas of progress, conflicting United States in the region, the rise of China, approaches to East Asian regionalism and inter- the reunification of China-Taiwan and North state divisions continue to be driven by and South Korea, and the relationship between competitive nationalisms and diverse the emerging regional order and ASEAN, the approaches to conceptualizing the nature of the Shanghai group, and South Asia. region and perhaps, above all, the question of the role of the United States as a participant or While noting these and other obstacles to partner in an emerging East Asian order and regional accommodation, and the fact that the conflicts involving North Korea nuclear two great historical examples of East Asian development, Japan-Korea conflict over regional order—the China-centered tributary- Dokdo/Takeshima, and Japan-China conflict th trade network of the 16-18 century and over Senkakus/Diaoyutai islands, among others. Japan’s short-lived but ambitious Greater East What can be learned from a brief excursion Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of the yearsthrough earlier regional approaches that might 1937-45—were both predicated on empires usefully frame understanding of contemporary associated with the supremacy of a single regionalism or future prospects? power, I nevertheless emphasize the importance of contemporary momentum toward I East Asian Regionalism: The 18th Century a more broadly based regional integration. The combination of growing interdependence of The dominance of the Western colonial powers strong East