The 21st Century is decidedly the Asian century. Asia has already established itself as the locale for the major themes of contemporary international affairs. These include economic growth, energy security, trade routes, nuclear proliferation, political conflicts, and war-on-terror and inter-civilizational issues.
Asia is also the continent of paradoxes. It contains two global achievers, a resurgent power and the world’s mega-problems. The Chinese economy has grown at a phenomenal pace averaging 9.6 percent over the last 28 years. It’s ranked the world’s fifth largest economy. Its GDP stands today at $2,710 billion compared with $200 billion in 1978. Chinese per capita GDP however is just $1,591, placing it behind more than 100 other nations.
Meanwhile Russia is in a resurgent mode out to regain its traditional influence. Its “look East” foreign policy and its Iran and Hamas policies illustrate this. Putin’s resolute ways and Russia’s growing economic clout because of rising oil prices have made this possible. Russia has amassed $100 billion in reserves.
Similarly India with its GDP growing by 7 percent in recent years is the world’s tenth largest economy. Its exports, especially of services, grew by 105 percent in 2004-05. Growth in services has largely been fueled by the information technology boom in which India is emerging as a world leader. Indian social sector indicators are also showing major improvements. For example 108 million children attend primary schools in India, making the country’s education system the second largest in the world after China.
As these countries assert themselves, the rise of middle powers like Pakistan is also being billed as miraculous.
Asia is also leading the global drive for regionalism. Afghanistan’s membership and China’s observer status in SAARC, observer status for Pakistan and India in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN’s expanding links with Central Asia, Pakistan’s offer of an energy corridor to China are all moves toward regionalism. It’s geo-economics at work.
Global conflicts including Palestine, Kashmir, the nuclear issue involving North Korea and Iran, and Taiwan are all located in Asia.
If new nuclear powers emerge on the world stage these will be Asian powers. The increasingly complex security situation in Asia has sucked in NATO for the first time in 50 years. It is based in Afghanistan and Iraq. Taiwan remains the potentially explosive factor in an otherwise intricately interdependent China-US policy.
In a November 2003 speech the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell had said “whether China chooses peace or coercion to resolve its differences with Taiwan will tell us a great deal about the kind of role China seeks with its neighbors and seeks with us.” The arc of turbulent transition lies in Asia extending from Pakistan to Morocco and from Afghanistan across the Central Asian republics. Wars between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India are also a thing of the past. In the Gulf the era of wars has ended while turbulence is likely to continue. Against the backdrop of continuing US presence the pressure for democratization will be there in the Gulf. In Oman elections are scheduled for next year, Kuwaiti women have already got voting rights and Saudi Arabia had local council elections.
Asia’s strategic centrality comes at a price. As the prime location of the rise of terrorism, overall security in various Asian zones is greatly threatened. The US military presence, its political policies and its response to the growing threat of terrorism greatly complicate the emerging homegrown security drives in Asia. Often Washington’s assertion of muscle power as opposed to legal and diplomatic power means states live under the destabilizing fear of pre-emptive strikes and regime change.
But logic of outside intervention premised on hegemony and power play often conflicts with internal dynamics of peace. At the same time Washington has not been able to exert any positive influence in the resolution of the Asian conflicts.
Against this backdrop a multilateral framework needs to be created by Asia that can absorb the inevitable shocks and strains of sociopolitical changes. As an effective Asian multilateral mechanism the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) holds promise. On the economic front ASEAN is highly effective. Other regional organizations of Asia like the Arab League, the OIC, the ECO and the SAARC have still not developed into effective mechanisms. Individually China, India and Russia do have their own autonomous bilateral practices. Otherwise most of Asia is embedded in regional security structures defined primarily by Washington. But US approach to conflict resolution is one that is based on its own national interests and one that defies international law as we saw in its invasion of Iraq.
Since 1980s onward, as the US strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote, “For America the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. For half a millennium, world affairs have been dominated by Eurasian powers and people — it’s the chess board on which struggle for global primacy is being played.” This of course is outdated thinking that runs contrary to the political trends of an ascendant and assertive Asia.
