EAST ASIA: Searching for the Asian Soul

By Kunda Dixit Reprint | | Print |

Kunda Dixit

MANILA, Dec 24 1994 (IPS) - The magazine covers and newspaper headlines were unanimous in 1994: ‘Asia Ascendant’, ‘Asia Unleashed’, ‘The Rise and Rise of Asia’.

Never mind that when blurb writers talk about Asia they mainly mean the economic over-achievers on the Pacific Rim, the message is clear: a richer, more powerful Asia-Pacific is turning politically assertive and will become more so in 1995 through to the next century.

After shamelessly trying to be more materialistic than the West, and after showing the world what capitalism really means while attaining living standards that rival European levels, countries like Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia and, to some extent, China are trying to re-discover their Asian soul.

Opinion pages of Asian newspapers are dominated by the debate between the proponents of Asian and Western value systems. They delve into the search for the Asian way, the Asian definition of democracy and human rights, the Asian concepts of social justice.

The year 1995 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. The irony of a long line-up of commemmoration ceremonies will not be lost – the East Asian co-prosperity sphere which heralded Japan’s entry into the war has actually come to pass.

Asia’s new assertiveness is largely a factor of the surprising shift in Japan in 1994 that made politicians, academics and businessmen less squeamish about openly criticising the West, especially the United States.

Trade friction with the West and its inability so far to gain permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council has irritated Tokyo, which now sees itself less dependent on a U.S. security umbrella over the Western Pacific in the post-Cold War era.

In addition, Japan’s trade and investments in Asia are soaring while economic links with the United States and Europe remain stagnant, or are decreasing.

Irked by Anglo-Saxon arrogance, the Japanese are looking for a role model. They seem to have settled for Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who has received unprecedented adulation in the Japanese media as the messiah of the “Asian Way.”

But not everyone in Asia agrees with Mahathir’s brand of obstreperous confrontation with the West. (MORE)