Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia PDF

Preview

Summary

Kimura, Ehito. “Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia.” In The SAGE Handbook of Globalization, edited by Manfred B. Steger, Paul Battersby, and Joseph M. Siracusa, Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2014. 13 Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia Ehito Kimura AS...

Description

Accelerat ing t he world's research.

Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia Ehito Kimura

Cite this paper

Downloaded from Academia.edu 

Get the citation in MLA, APA, or Chicago styles

Related papers

Download a PDF Pack of t he best relat ed papers 

Globalizat ion and t he Asia Pacific and Sout h Asia by Ehit o Kimura Mary Jane Perlas Rout ledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism Richard St ubbs, Mark Beeson APEC, ASEAN+3, and American Power: T he Hist ory and Limit s of t he New Regionalism in t he Asia-Paci… Marcos (Mark) T Berger

Kimura, Ehito. “Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia.” In The SAGE Handbook of Globalization, edited by Manfred B. Steger, Paul Battersby, and Joseph M. Siracusa, Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2014.

13 Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia Ehito Kimura

ASIA PACIFIC AND SOUTH ASIA AND THE WORLD Two processes, seemingly in tension with one another are occurring in world politics today. The first is the acceleration of globalization, defined as the worldwide integration along economic, political, social, and cultural lines. The second is the emerging influence of Asia as a global force. Neither of these processes is absolute, each contains elements of variety, contingency, and uncertainty. But given these broad trends, this essay explores the relationship between the process of globalization and the region of Asia Pacific and South Asia. The essay proposes a framework along three trajectories, the region as an object impacted by globalization, the region as a subject pushing globalization forward, and the region as an alternative to globalization. These three ideals are proposed acknowledging that they are neither complete nor wholly distinct. Instead, they highlight the different ways we might think about varying processes of

globalization from a regional perspective. The essay chooses breadth over depth and presents a series of snapshots as a way to offer a larger, if incomplete, tapestry of the relationship between process and place, between globalization and Asia Pacific and South Asia. The term ‘Asia’ itself comes from the ancient Greeks who categorized the world into three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In this sense, Asia as a region was initially defined externally rather than from within. The exact boundaries of Asia have been a matter of contention since its inception and demarcation has often been made along cultural or political lines rather than according to any clear geographical rationale. For example, while Russia occupies a vast amount of the Asian continent, it is not usually considered a part of Asia. The Middle East, too, while sometimes included as part of Asia is typically referred to as its own region. A more recent and even less precise regional label is ‘Asia Pacific’. This refers broadly to the area of the world in or around Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Typically, it

GLOBALIZATION AND THE ASIA PACIFIC AND SOUTH ASIA

includes the states in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Occasionally, it refers to an even broader area as evidenced by the regional grouping, APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), which includes economies of the ‘Pacific Rim’ such as Canada, the United States, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. Sometimes, Asia Pacific includes South Asia and even Central Asia, though usually it does not. The ‘Pacific’ part of Asia Pacific usually refers to the Pacific Islands, or Oceania, the island groupings of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. For purposes of this essay, the Asia Pacific and South Asia refer together to the regions of East (or Northeast) Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and South Asia. In addition to differences in language and culture, the variation among states and peoples in this region is vast. It also includes some of the world’s most economically developed states such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, and highly impoverished countries such as Cambodia, Laos, and Nepal. It includes the largest and most populous states on the globe including China and India and some of the world’s smallest such as the Maldives and Bhutan. The countries in the region also vary widely according to geography, political systems, historical experience, and broad demographic characteristics. Lumped together, the area makes up nearly a third of the world’s land mass and two-thirds of the global population. The combined economies of the region now generate the largest share of global GDP (gross domestic product) at 35 per cent, compared with Europe (28 per cent) and North America (23 per cent) (Asian Development Bank, 2012: 156). It also accounts for just over a third of total world exports of merchandise goods up from a quarter in 2001 (Asian Development Bank, 2012: 211). Despite this economic growth, there are still millions of people affected by poverty, hunger, HIV/AIDS, gender inequality and other socio-economic problems in the region. In addition to its sheer size, the Asia Pacific and South Asia has emerged over the past decade as a new political force in the world. Much

201

of this is driven by the robust economic growth in China and India and the strategic implications this brings to regional and global players. Japan also remains a relevant if declining force in the region and the world, and other countries including the Koreas, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Pakistan all have economic and strategic relevance in today’s global system. For all of these reasons, global powers outside of the region are focused intently on the Asia Pacific and South Asia. The United States has implemented a foreign policy shift dubbed the ‘Pacific Pivot’ committing more resources and attention to the region. In a widely read article in Foreign Affairs, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called this the shift from the ‘Atlantic Century’ to the ‘Pacific Century She notes: The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics. Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans – the Pacific and the Indian – that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy. It boasts almost half the world’s population. It includes many of the key engines of the global economy, as well as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It is home to several of our key allies and important emerging powers like China, India, and Indonesia. (Clinton, 2011)

How then are we to think about the relationship between globalization and this economically and politically important region? The rest of this essay divides into three parts. The first section takes an externalist view illustrating the way in which the region has been affected by globalization. The second section takes a generative view showing how the region is an active agent pushing the process of globalization forward. The third perspective shows how the region can be understood as posing an alternative to globalization. Ultimately, no one view is complete, but together they illustrate the dynamism and complexity of globalization. In putting forward these perspectives, the essay also sees globalization in broad historical terms focusing not just on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries but further back to colonial and even pre-colonial times.

202

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF GLOBALIZATION

AN EXTERNALIST VIEW OF GLOBALIZATION One thesis about globalization in the Asia Pacific and South Asia is that it is an external phenomenon being pushed into the region by world powers, particularly the United States and Europe. From this perspective, globalization can be understood as a process that transforms the Asia Pacific and South Asia. On the one hand, it can be seen as a force for good bringing economic development, political progress, and social and cultural diversity to the region. Others see the darker effects of globalization including its role in economic underdevelopment and the uprooting of local tradition and culture. One of the earliest manifestations of this externalist discourse emerges from the historical narratives about the Western ‘arrival’ to the Asia Pacific and South Asia. According to this view, the technologically and industrially more advanced Western powers found their way to the region and alternatively prodded and muscled their way to political and economic dominance. Western superiority at the time existed for a variety of reasons, ranging from environmental and ecological advantages to other social, political, and/or cultural characteristics.1 While we will question some of these assertions later, there is little doubt that colonialism in the region beginning from the 1500s brought enormous, often devastating changes. This ‘first globalization’ had deep implications for domestic political structures in many local indigenous polities. One early example of this was the Portuguese invasion of Melaka in 1511 and the subsequent fall of the sultanate, which shifted political and economic dynamics in Melaka and beyond. Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Visayan region of what would become the Philippines in 1521 marking the beginning of extended Spanish colonial rule in those islands. The Dutch followed in the seventeenth century and slowly strengthened their position in the Dutch East Indies. The British also consolidated their power in South Asia, Burma and

the Malay peninsula while the French eventually took control of Indo-China in the late nineteenth century. The mode of colonial rule and domination varied over both space and time. JS Furnivall famously made the distinction between direct colonial rule through colonial administrators and indirect rule though ‘native’ administrators (Furnivall, 1956). Depending on the context, some local rulers were simply deposed, but in other instances, colonial powers propped up rulers, formed alliances, or faced significant resistance. Despite these differences, the breadth and depth of transformation that colonialism brought to the region would be difficult to understate. Europeans brought new economic practices, religious beliefs, cultural values, and political structures that changed the region drastically. Even places that did not experience colonial rule decidedly had to deal with the consequences of Western influence. Japan, which had been closed off during the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate, was forced open by the ‘black ships’ of Commodore Matthew Perry in the late nineteenth century. Combined with other factors, this brought about the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent political and economic transformation of Japan turning it into a regional and eventually world power (Jansen, 2002). Thailand too was never technically colonized, but the country underwent significant changes under the rein of King Mongkut (Rama IV) and King Chulalongkorn (Rama V). Rama V in particular is still remembered as a ‘Great Modernizer’ who brought major political, social, and economic reforms to Thailand (Stifel, 1976). By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, movements for nationalism and independence emerged in many parts of the world including the Asia Pacific and South Asia. While important in its own historical right, these movements were also products of an increasingly globalized world. Scholars of nationalism argue that the roots of national identity lie in the rise of western industrialization and capitalism. Once developed, it became manifested politically in concrete

GLOBALIZATION AND THE ASIA PACIFIC AND SOUTH ASIA

movements in colonial areas such as Latin America and Asia. Benedict Anderson, for example highlights the global experiences of nationalist leaders such as Jose Rizal in the Philippines, who came to imagine themselves as Filipino after being influenced by life in Spain and elsewhere (Anderson, 2007). He also highlights how as the idea of nationalism gained steam, it became modular and spread to other parts of the globe (Anderson, 1991). World War II marks another way in which the region comes to be at once integrated and influenced by external forces. The rise of Japan and the outbreak of war in the Pacific theater after the bombing of Pearl Harbor marked the beginning of the end of Japan’s own imperial domination in the region. After the war, the region became mired in the emerging politics of the Cold War. After World War II, concerns about political instability, faltering economic reform, and the fall of China all pushed the United States and their occupation to stress Japan’s economic growth and its incorporation into the world economy (Ikenberry, 2007: 52). This meant opening up American markets to Japanese goods, drawing on the Japanese market to supply equipment and goods for US armed forces and other aid programs, and eventually incorporating Japan into the multilateral economic order including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Ikenberry, 2007). Much ink has been spilled about Japan’s subsequent economic ‘miracle’ of the 1970s and 1980s with authors attributing the success to statist policies, market policies, cultural characteristics, and international relations (Johnson, 1982: 6–16). While interpretations vary, one argument is that Japan and other East Asian states including Korea and Taiwan were able to adapt their economic policies in line with what they understood as an increasing globalized economic system and benefitted from export oriented growth policies in the 1980s and 1990s. The growth model suggested an important role of the state, contrary to neo-liberal economic thought but it was a far cry from collectivist

203

and autarchic economic policies followed by India and China in the post-war period. The success of the East Asian economies was followed in the late 1980s and 1990s by the highly high-flying growth of Southeast Asian countries including Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. The Southeast Asian ‘tigers’ had some similarities to their East Asian counterparts including relatively close ties between the state and business elite, some degree of autonomous decisionmaking structure, and the rise of manufacturing. However, the Southeast Asian economies were also much more reliant on infusions of foreign capital, based on fixed exchange rate policies and corresponding investments and returns (Garnaut, 1998: 1–11). Much of the rise in financial investment can also be attributed to the role of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Part of the Bretton Woods system, they were the cornerstones of economic liberalization and globalization in the post-war global economy. While initially designed to help rebuild Europe, the World Bank and the IMF soon turned their attention to the developing world including Southeast Asia. During the Cold War, these institutions came under the heavy influence of the West and so they simultaneously promoted neoliberal economic policies while also propping up Western and US allies, often times authoritarian figures. In Indonesia, Suharto’s policies and the economic framework under the IMF and World Bank provided crucial assistance as well as a foundation for the legitimacy of the authoritarian Suharto regime. And despite providing some basis for economic coherence, the lenders looked away from the massive amounts of corruption and patrimonialism that occurred in the Suharto regime (Winters, 1996: 86). In Thailand, the IFIs pushed liberalization and export oriented growth which led to increasing amounts of foreign investment and double digit GDP growth (Hewison, 1999). In the Philippines, the World Bank and the IMF had a cozy relationship with

204

THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF GLOBALIZATION

Ferdinand Marcos whose tenure had a disastrous impact on the country’s economy and left it straddled with nearly US$30 billion in debt (Bello, 1982). By the mid-1990s, the policies that had driven high levels of growth in the ‘tiger’ economies began to show their limits. Much of the investment going into places such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia was speculative ‘hot’ money looking for quick returns on capital. When investors began to realize the unsustainability of this model, financial speculators began to attack the currencies, betting that the central banks would have to readjust their rates thereby netting huge gains for the speculators. In July 1997, the Thai economy collapsed as investment fled like a massive herd and the crisis spread to much of the region (Bullard, Bello and Malhotra, 1998). Once again, interpretations of the Asian Financial Crisis varied. The IFIs and orthodox economists argued that the crisis occurred due to poor policies, weak governance, corruption, poor institutions, and inadequate liberalization (Rahman, 1998). In other words, they argued that globalization had not gone far enough. Other more critical voices argued that the problem was precisely the unfettered capital resulting from processes of globalization over the past several decades (Bello, Bullardand Malhotra, 2000). Both views however, recognized the deep impact globalization has had on the economies in the region and the influence it played in the creating the 1997 crisis. More recently, attention has turned from Southeast Asia to China and India. For its part, China began liberalizing their economy in the late 1970s with the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping. India began to liberalize their economy in 1991 and increased levels of trade and foreign direct investment particularly in the textile and services sectors of the economy. While there are significant differences in their approaches to liberalization, both countries have experienced high levels of economic growth as a result and have also become much more integrated into the global

economy including membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) (Mahtaney, 2008). Economic globalization and liberalization has arguably had other broad regional effects as well. In terms of working conditions in the Asia Pacific, a study by the International Labor Organization (ILO) highlights how labor practices are undergoing significant changes. Among many of the developed countries in the region such as Japan, Korea, and Australia, a more global economy has meant an uptick in non-standard employment, characterized by temporary and parttime employment (Lee, Sangheaon and Eyraud, 2008: 3). In developing countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, there has been an increase in informal employment such as self-employment, family workers, and informal enterprise workers. The Philippines estimates that 18 per cent of workers are underemployed while in Indonesia, nearly a quarter of all workers are either unemployed or involuntarily underemployed (Lee, Sangheaon and Eyraud, 2008: 19). Often these workers do not have legal contracts and even in places where they do, observers have raised serious concerns about working conditions and safety issues at factories that manufacture goods for Western companies (Yardley, 2012). Politics too has been a defining characteristic of globalization. Proponents often argue that liberal and democratic political values should not be interpreted as Western, but rather as universal thus explaining the expansion of democracy worldwide. In the region, the past three decades have witnessed a substantial fall in authoritarian regimes with a corresponding rise in democratic regimes. This has been attributed to a number of factors including rising middle classes, a more globally connected world, and the end of the Cold War (Huntington, 1991). The fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia in 1999 is illustrative. Suharto had been in power for over 30 years. When the Asia Financial Crisis brought the country’s economy to its knees, large-scale protests, the flight of capital, and the lack of international support

GLOBALIZATION AND THE ASIA PACIFIC AND SOUTH ASIA

led Suharto to step down in May of 1998. The financial crisis showed how deeply integrated the economy was in the global financial system. The demands made by the international financial ...