Don’t Look Too Close
The world sees the “Asian Miracle,” where the economy of Asia, especially China, is continually on the rise soon to surpass the United States as the world’s strongest economy.
Looks are deceiving.
The author, Michael Auslin, has been to Asia and looked beneath the surface and interviewed different people from all parts of the continent. What he found was a very different Asia, with staggering economies, democratic and tyrannical governments with rampant corruption, invest pollution and the destruction of the environment, demographic pressure, a clinging to the past, and potential conflicts that can lead to war, war involving the United States.
Back in the 1980s, it was believed that Japan would soon dominate the world’s economy, but it stagnated in the 1990s due to overbuying, bad investments, and deep debt, and Japan has been fully recovered.
Then it was China, but their (overheated) economy also stagnated, with over investing (e.g. building hundreds of square kilometers of literally emptm cities), companies moving out of China for cheaper labor, intense pollution, corruption, and a tyrannical government interfering with private businesses.
There are up and coming economies like that of India, but their problems of poverty and overpopulation has to be confronted.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg and does not involve the economy alone.
Asia, unlike Europe, cannot unite into a single “Asian Union” or “Asian Common Market.” There is ASEAN, the Southeast Asian Association of Nations, but it does not include China or Japan, and they just talk, with little action, if any. The problem is differences of customs, cultures demographics, and ancient feuds, dating back to World War II, and earlier, that were never resolved.
One example is that women are still considered culturally inferior in some countries and treated as such. China, Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam (to name a few) are all distinct and separate identities which they will bend to the modern world, nor to each other. Pollution in China is destroying their environment on a massive scale, poisoning drinking water and the air, killing people in the cities.
Most of all, there are unsettled disputes, where no one will bend, that can lead to wars, possibly nuclear war, involving the U.S. This is scary and needs to be studied greatly. Chapter 6, “The Clouds of War,” presents these threats, and they will scare you.
North Korea, under the regime of Kim Jong-un, has or will have nuclear tipped missiles that can hit South Korea, Japan, and the United States. China and Japan are fighting over claims in islands in the East China Sea, and China’s building bases on reefs in the South China Sea. Countries on the South China Sea are threaten and are turning to the U.S. for protection, that can lead to war. China has a non-negotiable claim to Taiwan, which desires to be a separate country, and China has actually threatened to destroy U.S. cities with nuclear missiles should they protect Taiwan in a Chinese invasion of that island.
China simply intimidates the rest of Asia, violating the territorial integrity of other countries, and the rest of Asia is turning to the U.S. for help.
All in all, Asia, the economic miracle that it is, is also a powder keg with the potential for self-destruction, taking a lot of the world, especially the U.S., with them.
The end of the book does not pose solutions, but does cover possibilities on how strategically these conflicts can be dealt with, minimizing the risks Asia faces today.
There would be alliances of trade and militaries, providing a counterweight to China, that would include the U.S. There are also ways to continue relations with China, for they remain an economic powerhouse, and the U.S and China are interdependent.
Asia may not dominate the world, but it is still an indispensable part of it that cannot be ignored. One must look at all of Asia, every country, and find out how to deal with each one, both within and without. Each country, many not mentioned in this review, is vital to Asia’s stability, for the region is not as stable as one may believe.
Alastair Browne
