The tilt towards a new Pan-Asianism

His call hit a super-high responsive chord in Japan, an emerging empire that had just beaten Czarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05. Sun was supported by Japanese leaders, including Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai, and the all-powerful patriotic society Kokuryukai chairman Mitsuru Toyama, who believed China must be won in the rivalry between the white and the non-white races in Asia.

The pan-Asianism, which made Japan the leader in the regional effort to break way from Western domination, wound up in disaster. Japan began its empire building by invading Manchuria, then fighting Chiang Kai-shek’s China, and finally launching sneak attacks on Pearl Harbor. It was able to create a Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, which encompassed the whole of Southeast Asia and Burma as well. The short-lived empire collapsed with Japan’s unconditional surrender in the summer of 1945 to end the Second World War.

Now, with China rising as a real power in Asia, a new pan-Asianism is emerging in the world’s most populous region. Neo-Asianists in Japan, who have been increasing their ranks fast since before the end of the last century, have to concede that their country is no longer the undisputed leader as it was before the war. The People’s Republic of China is Asia’s top military power, which Japan is constitutionally forbidden to challenge. Japan has to resort to soft power — economic and cultural influence — to share leadership with China, advocates of neo-Asianism are convinced.

They have found like-minded thinkers and theorists in China, whose top national priority is rapid modernization to put a century of humiliation at the hands of imperialist powers to an end and recover its past glory. The Chinese began to assert leadership first by allying itself with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose member states were all once made dependents in the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan countered with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s free trade zone scheme, but after he bowed out, Tokyo has tried what it can to achieve a rapprochement with China to help the ASEAN-plus-Two (China and Japan) or plus-Three (China, Japan and Korea) come into being.

Their concerted effort is necessary to allay the fears of ASEAN countries that were dominated by China for centuries before the invasion from the West and by Japan during World War II. These countries do not want either China or Japan, in particular, as the single leader in the world’s largest trade bloc when Australia and India join. They subscribe to the neo-Asianism with a co-leadership.

That has persuaded China and Japan to agree for the first time to a modus vivendi to jointly develop a disputed undersea gas field in the East China Sea. China’s foreign minister came out to declare that the joint gas exploration isn’t “a problem of someone losing rights and shaming his country,” but a foreign direct investment for the mutual benefit of the two countries.

1|2|Next Page>>

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email