The Asian Century

This is a republication of an article that I wrote in the Chicago Maroon (University of Chicago) several years ago. Kaveh Afrasyabi's column in Asia Times reminded me of my own speculations on the same issue years ago. Here it is:

The Asian Century?

Just as the 19th century was the British century and the 20th century was the American century, will the 21st century be the Asian century? This is not that much of a question of forecast now as it was in the 1970s; rather, as we officially entered the 21st century some two years ago, the question of whether the 21st century should count as the Asian century became a question of objective conditions under the current situation.
Let us specify what the theorists or advocates of the Asian century thesis mean by the term Asian. By Asian, they certainly do not mean Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Iran or Israel, which are all Asian countries, geographically speaking. Neither do they refer to the Russian Federation, the two-thirds of which lies in Asia. Rather, by the term Asian, they are refering to East Asian countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. These countries that I just mentioned actually are thought to be the inner circle, the central force, behind the drive towards the Asian century. Except China, which is growing at an unprecedented rate, and which is indeed the current justification behind much of this theorizing about the Asian century, all the other inner core members are relatively wealthy and industrialized, at least wealthier and more industrialized then their other Asian neighbors. The outer circle or core, or the second shell, or whatever you want to call it, consists of the less wealthy and less industrialized yet still fast industrializing and developing south east Asian countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and even Vietnam. If Japan is the most developed of the inner circle, and the inspiration of all Asian and non-Asian developing countires, Malaysia is the most developed of the second-tier, outer circle of less developed countries, and the examplary country showing that “there is still hope of success for the late developers.”
Giovanni Arrighi argues that “in a recent comparative analysis of rates of economic growth since the 1870s, the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) finds ‘nothing comparable with the [East] Asian economic growth experience of the last three decades.” (p.66) Following Arrighi and the UBS study, we find that “the eight-percent plus average annual income growth set by several [East] Asian economies since the late 1960s is unique in the 130 years of recorded history.” But moreover, and finally “even more impressive is the advance of East Asia in global high finance. The Japanese share of the total assets of Fortune’s top fifty banks in the world increased form 18 percent in 1970, to 27 percent in 1980, to 48 percent in 1990.” (Ibid) The way Arrighi tells the story, it sounds like the economic basis of hegemony has already shifted from the U.S. to East Asia. He argues that some form of China-centeric conglomeration of East Asian states will be the next hegemon of the capitalist world economy. The irony here is that China is still officially communist. Giovanni Arrighi, Immanuel Wallerstein and some other guys we could have mentioned are basically NeoMarxist sociologists, and they are saying that global capitalism needs a hegemonic leadership based on economic prosperity and now that economic growth, and along with it the hegemonic leadership to preside over global capitalist, is passing on to East Asian countries. According to Arrighi, for example, this hegemonic genealogy began with Venice, than passed onto Genoese merchants, then to Dutch, and then firmly to the British Empire and finally to the U.S. Now the leadership of global capitalism is passing on to East Asian countries led by China, Arrighi claims.
If you think Arrighi is exaggerating, you haven’t seen anything yet. Let’s look at Andre Gunder Frank’s thesis in his book “Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age,” which I think is the much more extreme and historical version of Arrighi’s thesis. While for Arrighi, history of global economy starts in 1450s with the Venetians, Genoese and the discovery of Americas, Gunder Frank claims that the old world (Asia, Africa, Europe) has been incorporated into a global economy for more than 5000 years. And Gunder Frank further claims that in these 5000s years of economic history, the world markets revolved around China, so to say. The world economy was China-centric for some 4500 years and hence, Gunder Frank claims, the last 500 years of European domination has been an exception, a deviation from the usual course of economic activity in the previous four and a half millennia. Now, he thinks, the world economy is bouncing back to the usual course, re-orienting itself towards an increasingly China-centric world order.
The question for me is normative. Fine, these theorists make convincing arguments about economic trends that we can observe in everyday life. Everyone knows about the Japanese miracle. Everyone knows about the Asian tigers. And finally, everyone is becoming increasingly aware of China’s rise to regional and maybe even global supremacy. But the normative question is whether this shift in global hegemony to East Asia is a good thing. Well, Japan is a well functioning democracy, maybe to much of a democracy like France and Italy, since Japanese cabinets, like their Italian and French counterparts, change at a rapid pace, once or twice a year! Japan is good, to say the least, we can sympathize with its type of government and even feel attracted to its culture, customs and cherished traditions. But what about China? It won’t be fun living under Pax China if they keep the authoritarian, repressive, left wing-fascist (as opposed to right wing-fascist) type of regime.
Overall, we are not in a position to approve or disapprove some country’s hegemony, since the one who leads others in a capitalist world economy, dictates the rules of the game and individuals, families, communities, etc. do not have a say in the matter. So if China is winning the capitalist game, it will become the new global hegemon sooner or later. Let me ask some thought provoking questions about the other side of this hegemonic shift before I ran out of space. What about Africa? Hegemony is passing from Venetians to Genoese to Dutch to British to Americans to Chinese, etc. In general hegemony is passing in between European and Asian countries. Africa seems to be passed over in general. Latin America is also in the same situation but they have been incoporated to the Old World System only recently, just 500 years ago. What about Russians? What about Arabs? What about the European Union and the Germans in particular? Will they not attempt to rule the world, again? And what would happen if one of these continent-sized nation-states and states-groups attempt to challenge China or the U.S.? That’s the end of the story for now and I wish you a happy thanksgiving. Go wherever and eat some turkey! I’ll be here.