TOKYO -- Does Asia matter?
Eurocentrists ready to write off any promising growth future for
Asia point to the prolonged financial crisis, questionmarks concerning
China, the lingering Korean Peninsula impasse, stalemate over Taiwan,
uncertain politics in Indonesia and Pakistan and unresolved missile and
nuclear questions as examples of regional instabilities that are likely to
go on and on.
Then there is the problem of corruption and cronyism, by whatever
name, that is endemic throughout Asian nations.
Even regional leader Japan, with the world's No..2 economy, seems to
have lost much of its dynamism, some Europeans are saying.
Other worrisome trends on the horizon are working against a
continuing Asia boom. One is the spectre of neo-isolationism hinted in the
United States after its "no" vote on the nuclear test ban treaty.
American refusal to pay its United Nations dues and the mini-boom of
"America first" politician Pat Buchanan are other unsettling straws in the
wind.
The litany of negatives about Asia should not overlooked. Nor should
the hyperbolic raves about the "Coming Asia Century" be thrown overboard in
their entirety.
Just remember that Europe's -- and certainly the United States' -- occupancy
of the world's centerstage has been relatively recent and brief. The
invention of the steam engine changed a lot of things.
All of this is an extension of the argument first raised by London
scholar Gerald Segal this past summer in his Foreign Affairs magazine
article "Does China Matter?" It has given pundits far and wide a fresh
controversy on which to chew.
Segal's evidence centered on facts like China's development numbers
won't even match Brazil's until well into the next century. But China has
the enthusiasm of nationalism with "recovery of Taiwan" as its centerpiece.
If the Taiwan issue were suddenly solved, Beijing would have to invent
"another Taiwan" to rally and inspire the military and the masses to drive
ahead toward growth targets.
Some view Segal's comments, part truth but part tongue-in-cheek, as
giving some perspective to the spectacle of "China experts" falling all
over themselves on the October 1 China 50th anniversary of just being
China.
I wrote at the time that it was doubtful if the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) would be around in its present form to celebrate a 75th
anniversary.
Statesman Henry Kissinger, partying in Shanghai, put it less
bluntly: "The Communist Party will change in the next 50 years as much as
it has changed in the past 50 years."
If even half of the Chinese population achieves the level of an
average American's income and lifestyle, the strain on theworld's resources
will be unbearable.
Does China matter? Does Asia matter?
Sure they do. Don't listen to faraway investment fund managers with
strange-sounding portfolios
hyping the Iberian Saturday Growth Fund. Every region in the world has
its problems; few have the
prospects and potential, as Asia does, "to get it all together."
China's economy has been expanding by nearly 10 percent a year since
1980 with no slowdown in sight. Asian talent seems particularly drawn and
adaptive to the Internet and other high tech avenues.
Instead of listening to the critics, pay attention to positive
voices which represent big stakes in Asia: "I have no doubt the
Asia-Pacific nations will come roaring back--and be among the leaders of
this new century." That's Rick Wagoner, President and Chief Operating
Officer of General Motors, speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of
Japan on October 18.
So, be ready for Asia's next surge, despite the naysaying gnomes of
Zurich.
Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.