Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Overview
- CHAPTER ONE Introduction: The Inertia of Foreign Policies
- CHAPTER TWO Cold War Assumptions and Changing Realities
- CHAPTER THREE Regional Trends
- CHAPTER FOUR Asia's Big Powers: Japan and China
- CHAPTER FIVE Smaller Places, Decisive Pivots: Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia
- CHAPTER SIX The Aspiring Power and Its Near Abroad: India and South Asia
- CHAPTER SEVEN Russia and Its Near Abroad
- CHAPTER EIGHT The United States and the New Asia
- CHAPTER NINE Scenarios for the Future
- CHAPTER TEN Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
CHAPTER THREE - Regional Trends
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Overview
- CHAPTER ONE Introduction: The Inertia of Foreign Policies
- CHAPTER TWO Cold War Assumptions and Changing Realities
- CHAPTER THREE Regional Trends
- CHAPTER FOUR Asia's Big Powers: Japan and China
- CHAPTER FIVE Smaller Places, Decisive Pivots: Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia
- CHAPTER SIX The Aspiring Power and Its Near Abroad: India and South Asia
- CHAPTER SEVEN Russia and Its Near Abroad
- CHAPTER EIGHT The United States and the New Asia
- CHAPTER NINE Scenarios for the Future
- CHAPTER TEN Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Today that instinctive belief that the West is in a sense almost definitely superior in every sense is disappearing. The global imagination is changing, and because the global imagination is changing, as India or other Asian powers emerge today, the impulse to join the West will be less. That indeed in some ways each will discover their own identities even more. But what I find surprising is how few people in the West have noticed that this is happening.
—Kishore MahbubaniAsia's most important regional political trend has been rising nationalism, and its most important economic trend has been the emergence since the 1990s of a new phase of the Asian miracle. Both of these trends are fundamentally reshaping Asian geopolitics.
Outbreaks of Nationalism
Across the region, a combination of nationalism, nationalist outbursts, and assertions of national identity has been occurring in ways that could potentially change the structure of Asian international politics. China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, and the United States have all become more nationalistic and assertive in the recent past. One could debate whether the overall level of nationalism is higher, but the overall level, by whatever measure, is less important than the potential transformation of Asian politics. The Taiwan government's deliberate fostering of local nationalism under Lee Teng-hui, through such measures as substituting nationalistic Taiwan history courses for Chinese history courses, and the overt thrust toward independence under Chen Shui-bian had the potential to create a regional maelstrom.
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- Asia, America, and the Transformation of Geopolitics , pp. 33 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007