China and India are in the curious position of wanting to remain known as developing countries just as they begin to take center stage in global affairs, economically and politically. Over the course of the year, One World, Many Peaces has highlighted key trends and events relating to the rise of the East. However, not one in itself completely captures the paradox of this rise in terms of how reluctant these two superpowers are in taking their inevitable place, and how rushed others are to have them do so. The bottom line is that having half the world's populations makes Asia as a whole more than important and less than avoidable.
But the rise of the East is not limited to China and India, although they are already starting to act like magnets of power, especially China. Japan has since the end of the Cold War turned into the greatest of Western allies in Asia and a powerhouse unto itself until the crisis of the 1990s, from which it is still recovering. The way to do so, its new premier seems to think, may be shifting primary its allegiance Eastwards. South Korea seems to be shaping up to be the country that will stick with the West come hell or high water, but even this is doubtful when it realizes the potentials of shifting. Each of these situations reinforces one thing: that the rise of the East is more reluctant than rushed.
The most peculiar case in the rise of the East remains Vietnam. It has been said that the U.S. belatedly won its war there when capitalism took over. The most dangerous case is still North Korea, where a military-first policy is in place. Pakistan's terrorist troubles are also a worrying destabilizing force, with the Kashmir region likely to be Balkanized. But it is precisely this complexity which brings to the East a dynamism which the West seems to have lost by falling in to the left-right pendulum swinging trap that leads nowhere but the past. To create the future, the world beginning with me and you must finds ways to take the rise of the East into account.
This conlcudes One World, Many Peaces' four-part weekly series "The Decade in Review," offering provocative closing and opening thoughts on the years 2000-2009. We will return on January 5, happy holidays and best New Year wishes!
