Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia

1. 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 of 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
the Asia Pacific and South Asia. 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.

The Asia Pacific and South Asia has emerged over the past decade as a new political force in the world.
Much 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 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.

2. 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.

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.

3. An alternative way to see the relationship between globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia is
one where the region is more of an autonomous agent serving as an engine for globalization. This view,
while acknowledging the external impacts on the region shows important ways in which the region is
also influencing and transforming the nature of globalization itself. This framework mirrors a broader
intellectual change in scholarship that seeks to re-interpret the facile narrative that globalization is
simply a form of Westernization imposing itself upon Asia. Historically, for example, many scholars now
argue that for much of early modern history Asia led the global economy only ‘falling behind’ from the
eighteenth century. As Anthony Reid notes, the Europeans did not create the spice trade. The thriving
spice trade in the region and beyond is what drew the European powers to the region. Circumnavigating
the globe was a means to find cheaper and faster ways to bring the goods back to Europe (Reid, 1988).
Spices were already making their way to various parts of the globe, but the Europeans were interested
in cutting out the middleman.

In the post-colonial era, the assertion that the Asia Pacific and South Asia are mere beneficiaries (or
victims) of globalization is even less tenable. The earlier discussion of Japan suggested that the end of
World War II and the rise of the Cold War helped bring Japan into the global economy. What this view
overlooks is the extent to which Japanese development in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s actually shaped
and in many ways globalized key parts of the world economy. Japan as a resource-poor nation-state
embarked on a massive project to procure raw materials such as coal and iron at unprecedented
economies of scale allowing them to gain a competitive edge in the global manufacturing market.

India and China, among others in the region, have also become a major source of international migrant
labor, which is also one of the fundamental characteristics of the era of globalization. This includes the
migration of highly skilled labor into the high tech industry based in Silicon Valley, which includes a
disproportionate number GE1714 03 Readings 2 *Property of STI Page 7 of 10 of immigrants from India
and China. But much more prominent is the flow of domestic workers to other places in the region, or to
the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.

Globalization has not been a one-way street. While there is little doubt that the Asia Pacific and South
Asia have very much been on the receiving end of globalization, it is also true that the region is
generative of many aspects of the globalization process. This can be seen both historically and more
recently and across a broad variety of domains from the economy to political structures to culture.

4. The Asia Pacific and South Asia to globalization is as a regional alternative to globalization. The
arguments from this perspective see the region as a source of resistance to globalization or to global or
Western powers. This section views initiatives for regionalism through this lens in part because the rising
critical discourse of globalization resonates in much of the region and because the idea of Asian
exceptionalism has been prevalent both historically and in contemporary times.

A more recent manifestation has been the concept of Asian values that became popular among leaders
in the region in the mid-to-late 1990s. Proponents of Asian values such as then-Prime Minister
Mohamed Mahathir of Malaysia argued that Asia has culturally distinct characteristics that make it
different from Western liberal democracies. As Mahathir noted, 'The Asian way is to reach consensus on
national goals within the democratic framework, to take the middle path, the Confucian Chun Yung or
the Islamic, awsatuha; to exercise tolerance and sensitivity towards others' (Langlois, 2001: 15). This
contrasts with Western values where ‘every individual can do what he likes, free from any restraint by
governments [and] individuals soon decide that they should break every rule and code governing their
society”’ (Langlois, 2001: 15).
There have been a variety of ways in which the Asia Pacific and South Asia region can be seen also as a
region that poses an alternative to globalization. For the most part, these alternative paradigms are
consciously articulated alternatives to external forces. Local movements eschew global capitalism, states
push back against the perception of Western imperialism, and religious movements emerge from the
perceived threat of secularism. Not all of these visions are coherent and few have been successful in the
long term.

5. To suggest various lenses through which to explore the relationship between globalization and the
region of the Asia Pacific and South Asia. The point has not been to argue that one lens is more
appropriate than the other. Instead, it shows how globalization is a complex process where regional
dynamics must be understood as both a cause and a consequence. The concept of a region and the way
to understand its relationship to globalization, it has done less to question the category of the region
and the delineation of the region vis-avis other areas of the world. It began by loosely defining the
region and laying out alternative perspectives. The essay has proposed a view of the Asia Pacific and
South Asia as an object of globalization, a subject of globalization, and an alternative to globalization.

It has also perhaps simplified the possible ways to view the interactions between region and process.
Some argue that what we see today is but a dual process of ‘hybridization’ (Shinji and Eades, 2003: 6)
Cultures are dynamic and emerge and adapt in the context of external and even internal changes. In this
way, processes can be recursive and include both the role of subject and object simultaneously. While
this may be true, the benefit of this framework has been to disaggregate and illustrate the different
perspectives instead of subsuming them in one whole theoretical approach.

It has seen globalization as a process occurring over the longueures, even if manifesting itself most
clearly in the past two decades. And within that variety, it has tried to offer a frame through which to
interpret that process. While incomplete and contradictory, this is also the essence of globalization and
its relationship to the Asia Pacific and South Asia.