disciplinary spheres oriented to the knowledge of the
East Asia: Prospects for the New Decade
by PETER W. PRESTON
An analysis of contemporary dynamics of change within
East Asia, cast in terms of the resources of the classical
European tradition of social theorizing, suggests that three
intermeshing logics of change are shaping the fundamental
structural underpinnings of current events: the long-
established drive for industrial-capitalist modernity, the
now familiar concern for regional interchanges and the
very recent unexpected episode of the Asian financial
crisis. Developments within the region will involve,
crucially: (a) Japan, where one can expect few novel
initiatives; (b) China, where one might expect processes of
reform to continue; (c) the NIEs, where there is likely to
be deepening interest in the region; and (d) the ASEAN
states, where there would probably be a greater concern for
developments within the wider East Asian region. Overall,
the regional states are likely to continue to develop in line
with specific historically established logics of change.
Introduction
It can be argued that there are diverse ways in which the
social world might be constituted, and if we grant this
point then there are two immediate consequences. First,
the global system which we inhabit is given to us in terms
of the conceptual machineries which we deploy (we have
no direct, unequivocal access to "reality"), and this being
the case, we can assert that a necessary condition of
scholarship is reflexive embedding in the processes which
theorizing would grasp. Put another way, we have to make
clear where we stand and for whom we argue (and in the
author's case, the approach adopted derives from the
classical European tradition of social theory). Secondly, it is
appropriate to acknowledge that the global system is home
to diverse forms of life. It is in the light of these broad
intellectual commitments that this article will consider how
theorists working within or with reference to the classical
European tradition of social theorizing should read and
react to recent changes within the global sy stem, and how
they relate to likely patterns of change in East Asia over
the next decade.
The classical European tradition of social theorizing can be
characterized in terms of its historical occasion, substantive
preoccupations, and formal character. The historical
occasion can be found in late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century concerns of intellectuals to grasp self-
consciously the patterns of change enfolding and running
through the societies in which they inhabited; in brief, to
theorize the process, in historical sociological terms, of the
"shift to the modern world". [1] In substantive terms, the
central preoccupation is with the analysis of complex
change, that is, the ways in which various agent groups
have read and reacted to enfolding structural circumstances
in the uneven and episodic historical process of the
ongoing construction of the modern world of industrial-
capitalism (in all its diverse forms). The formal character of
the classical European tradition is interpretive, [2] critical
[3] and dialogic. [4] And, finally, it can be compared with
more familiar contemporary ways i n which the nature and
role of the social sciences is understood; thus, the
preference for a spread of restricted technical professional
market-place is rejected in favour of routinely inter-
disciplinary work oriented to the encouragement of
discourse within the public sphere. [5]
The tradition is quite diverse. [6] There are a variety of
national traditions in Europe and each has had its own
preoccupations and typical relations with the central axes
of social power in the state, market, and polity. It would
also be true to say that the years following the end of
World War II saw a period when the influence of the
United States was strong. However, the strength of that
particular influence waned with the emergence of political
and intellectual confusions within the United States in the
decade of the 1960s. A series of recent restatements of the
concerns of the tradition can be identified, but at the
present time the long established interest of the classical
European tradition in the analysis of complex change has
found a new influential expression in the work of critical
international political economy. [7] It is these materials
which might usefully be deployed to analyse the current
situation within East Asia. It is in the particular specific
logics of the exchanges between structur es and agents that
we will find the outlines of those elite political-cultural
projects which will guide countries of East Asia into the
future.
Recent Patterns of Change in the Global System
A series of recent and ongoing changes within the global
system can be identified. These changes have shaped
recent social scientific debates. Firstly, the very sharp
reforms in the socialist states of Central and Eastern
Europe (1989-91) not only ushered in a period of rapid
change in those territories (and throughout Europe) but
also radically undermined the familiar Cold War world of
Western scholars and commentators. It was this sea-
change in the ways of reading the global system which led
to an interest in the nature of regions within the global
system. The earliest area of interest for Europeans was the
political-cultural project of the European Union
(1985/1991/1999). [8] Thereafter, the sequence of broadly
integrative changes in East Asia (1978/1985/1991) was
noted. [9] The third area of concern has been the relative
decline of the United States. [10]
The Collapse of the Political-Cultural Project of State-
Socialism in Eastern Europe
The debate in respect of the largely unanticipated collapse
of the USSR and the Eastern bloc has produced a series of
interlinked lines of explanation citing, in particular,
economic stagnation, political stasis, and historical
accident. First, in respect of economics, it has been
suggested that the Soviet system became economically
stagnant and unable to meet the aspirations of its
population, and this structural circumstance was the
fundamental occasion of collapse. The primary product
exports to Europe of oil and gas merely disguised the poor
state of the Soviet economy. Relatedly, the burden upon
the Soviet system of the Cold War arms race with the
United States and its allies was significant (for example, the
Co-ordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls
[COCOM] regulations blocked Soviet access to Western
technology). Secondly, with respect to politics, the Soviet
system became politically moribund and experienced a
legitimation/motivation crisis such that the political classes
were unable to formulate appropriate plans to deal with
what were perfectly soluble problems. If this argument is
cast in terms of the analytical machineries of international
political economy, with its concern for the ways in which
agent groups respond to enfolding structural circumstances
in order to fashion political-cultural projects oriented to
the future, then it can be argued that the elite political
groups within the USSR were unable to grasp the need for
either economic or political reform, thereby leaving in
place an outmoded system comprising an unresponsive
hierarchical political machinery, an inefficient centralized
economy, and a bloated military machine. Thirdly, with
respect to historical accident, whilst the demise of the
Soviet system was shaped by structural circumstances, the
actual path of events was influenced by a series of
accidental developments: (a) the over-optimism of the
Gorbachev perestroika (restructuring) initiative, where the
goal of spontaneously secured rational debate only led to
politic al confusion and breakdown; (b) the revolutions in
Central Europe which undermined the Soviet system
economically, as established trading partners turned to the
West, and politically, as the ambitions of modest domestic
reforms were dramatically overtaken in scope by the
sweeping democratizations undertaken by the former East
bloc states; and, (c) the chaotic, directionless and corrupt
rule of Boris Yeltsin in Russia.
The implications of the collapse of the project on state-
socialism for Western patterns of political understanding
have been quite profound. The Manichaean simplicities of
Cold War rhetoric have fallen away, leaving space for new
thinking. An early expression of the expectation of new
initiatives was talk of the "peace dividend" (where
expectations focused on both the political possibilities of
new initiatives, for example, co-operation in Europe, and
the economic possibilities as defence budgets were cut,
releasing money for alternative expenditures). But the
implications have run deeper. Thus, in the Western
European countries, there has been a political-cultural turn
away from Washington towards Brussels as the project of
the European Union has come to the fore. In a related
fashion, the countries of Eastern and Central Europe have
cast their aspirations for the future in terms of the notion
of a "return to Europe". [11]
There have been some popular views in the West, and thus
the related set of claims to the effect that the West "won"
the Cold War (routinely heard from conservative
politicians, and more mutedly from socialists), and that the
ethico-political end of history has been attained in the guise
of Western liberal-market systems [12] (ideas expressed
cogently by Francis Fukuyama [13] and, more sloppily by
the vast array of globalization theorists [14]). The former
reaction need not detain us, but the latter is more
interesting as it bears upon a developing debate in respect
of the fundamental nature of the global system. The "end
of history" theorists, whose arguments centre, one way or
another, upon the political philosophical tenets of
liberalism, argue directly that the pattern of life found in
the West is now pre-eminent and that other political and
economic systems must (and will) converge upon the
universal model evidenced in Western practice. The
proponents of "globalization" have essentially the same
argumen t but prefer to operate in a broad descriptive
fashion which tends to obscure the political heart of their
analysis. However, against the convergence theorists, it is
possible to make two points: first, that liberalism is not the
only political philosophy available within the Western
sphere, and that notwithstanding its centrality within the
"Anglo-American" [15] world, the notion of democracy is
available within the classical European tradition of social
theorizing. Secondly, that it is perfectly possible to run
arguments which point not to the emergence of a single
model of industrial-capitalism but instead to a variety of
forms, where each is the product of a particular (and
ongoing) historical movement towards the modern world.
The Europeon Union (1985/1991/1999)
The political-cultural project of the European Union is, in
essence, an aspiration to the construction of an integrated
economic, social, cultural, and political entity. The political
and ethical basis of the project can be found in the reaction
of European elites to the twin disasters of the Great War
and World War II. However, this domestic European
aspiration was submerged under the wider American
agenda of Cold War containment and the pursuit of an
open liberal trading sphere. Later, as the Cold War faded in
Europe, eventually ending both abruptly and
breathtakingly in the fall of the Berlin Wall in November
1989, the European Union emerged as the only political-
cultural project up and running within the continent.
In the post-World War II period, the peoples,
organizations, and government machineries of Europe
understood themselves within the overall framework of
Cold War bipolarity. The East was ordered according to
the tenets of Soviet-state socialism and became an autarkic
region within the global system. The West was ordered at
the macro-structural level in terms of the ideas, institutions
and power relationships established by the Bretton Woods
agreement which made the United States the core
economy of an open liberal trading region. The West
experienced a long period of unprecedented economic
prosperity. However, as the post-World War II settlement
began to weaken following the economic and political
confusions of the early 1970s, the countries of Europe
moved to adjust to the new circumstances. The countries
of Western Europe slowly moved towards a closer union,
and found an available mechanism in the guise of the
European Community (EC), itself a successor of the
European Economic Community (EEC) which had bee n
founded in the early 1950s. These ideas and institutional
mechanisms were in place when the extent of global and
regional structural change finally became unequivocally
clear with the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991. At
Maastricht, the idea of the European Union (EU) moved
to the fore, and it is now the overarching political-cultural
project around which European political life revolves.
The core of the European Union lies in northwestern
Europe. The key political axis in making the Union has
been between France and Germany. In Germany, the end
of the Cold War meant the end of the division of the
country and an unexpected movement to the centre of
Europe as the most populous nation with the strongest
economy. The commitment of the core countries of the
European Union was affirmed in the Maastricht Treaty,
and Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium
maintain a strong pro-Union stance, as does Italy. In recent
years, the Scandinavian countries, with the exception of
oil-rich Norway, have joined the Union, as has Austria. In
Spain, Portugal and Greece, the European Union has been
the institutional space within which post-military liberal-
democratic regimes have developed. [16] In a similar way,
the newly independent countries of Central Europe have
announced their intentions of joining the EU, a matter, as
they express it, of a "return to Europe". A core group of
European Union countries e stablished a common
currency in January 1999, and it is anticipated that in time
all the EU states will join the system. It is likely that the
circulation of the euro will further strengthen the drive for
unification. Overall, the project of European unification,
begun in the wake of World War II, shows no sign of
faltering and, notwithstanding tensions and confusions, the
established institutional machineries look set to provide the
vehicle for a distinctive European region.
The Integrative Changes in East Asia (1978/1985/1991)
The end of the Cold War has had one remarkable
consequence for Western observers in that as the
obfuscations of the period fell away, leaving politicians,
policy analysts, and scholars free to contemplate the world
anew, it became apparent that East Asia, hitherto regarded
as one of the arenas of Cold War competition, had been
undergoing a long drawn-out process of macro-regional
integration.
The notion of a "region" is not straightforward. In terms
of the classical European tradition, a region is constituted
in the historically unfolding interplay of political-economic,
social-institutional and cultural structures and the ways in
which these are read by key agent groups. In the years
prior to the arrival of the West, the East Asian region had
an economic, social, and cultural core in China. As A. G.
Frank has recently argued, [17] the Sino-centric system was
a prosperous civilization, and it was not until the rulers of
the late Ming dynasty turned inwards in the mid-fourteenth
century that the Western powers had the opportunity to
gain a real foothold in the area. The expansion of Western
capitalism -- initially mercantile and later industrial --
extensively remade the forms-of-life of the region, and it
was in the context of the ongoing exchange with the
Western colonizers that the various territories of East Asia
began their shift into the modern world. The Pacific War
destroyed the Western em pires in East Asia, and the states
of the region were able to pursue objectives of growth and
development under the guidance of indigenous elites; these
national projects were eventually to generate regional
linkages. [18]
In East Asia, it is possible to identify a series of key
episodes during the long years following the end of the
Pacific War which have, in broad terms, facilitated the
establishment of a measure of regional integration: first,
the decision of the Chinese leadership, under Deng
Xiaoping, to initiate economic reforms and engage with the
wider regional/global economy; secondly, the deepening
Japanese economic involvement within the region
following the agreed revaluation of the yen; and thirdly, the
political-cultural and security implications of the
dissolution of the USSR. Overall, it can be argued that in
East Asia, at the present time, the keys to economic
integration can be found in the twin circuits of Japanese
(and NIE) capital, on the one hand, and Chinese capital
(Greater China and the Overseas Chinese), on the other.
These patterns of economic interchange are paralleled by
the strengthening social networks of political leaders,
business elites, and the dense pattern of informal contacts
found in leis ure and tourism. Thereafter, in a multiplicity
of regional fora, East Asian elites meet to discuss common
concerns. It would be wrong to overstate the extent of the
macro-regional integration but the outlines of an integrated
East Asian region are visible. [19]
The Relative Decline of the United States
The United States is in slow decline within the global
system. At the present time, domestic U.S. public discourse
is shaped by the ideology of Americanism, [20] and the
related idea of the "free world". [21] In the U.S. domestic
sphere, politics has moved away from the post-war
preference for dispersed state intervention in pursuit of a
unified community, the declining legacy of the New Deal,
towards a market-centred expressive consumerism. In the
international sphere, the end of the twentieth century [22]
has seen the United States continuing to press for an open
global trading system, a continuation and broadening of
the original Cold War project of the "free world".
In the years following the end of World War II, the United
States attained an extraordinary economic, military, and
cultural preeminence. The American project advanced
rapidly, both domestically and internationally, in which a
key institutional vehicle was the machinery of the Bretton
Woods system, including the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (the World Bank), and the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The system
included fixed exchange rates and was underpinned by the
role and dominance of the U.S. dollar. However, the
economic consequences of the American war in Vietnam
meant that the U.S. economy could not sustain its position
in the early 1970s. The system of fixed exchange rates
ended in 1971 and, thereafter, the political-cultural project
embedded within the Bretton Woods institutions drifted
towards a market-liberal position.
The 1970s and 1980s saw the rise of the New Right. The
core of their position was an emphatic market liberalism
which advocated domestic reforms (in favour of restricting
welfare expenditures and encouraging market activity), and
international action (to foster deregulation, liberalization,
and the expansion of liberal-democratic market-based
systems). The machinery of the Bretton Woods system was
slowly changed to a new, more emphatically market-liberal
project. The Washington-based IMF and the World Bank
were important vehicles for disseminating these new
market-liberal ideas. However, by the late 1980s the United
States had economic and political competitors in both East
Asia and Europe.
In the 1990s, the U.S. economy grew rapidly, but its earlier
preeminence, indeed dominance, began to decline. The
global system is now tripolar -- the United States, the EU,
and East Asia. [23] The exposure of the United States to
the flows of power within the global system is now
significantly higher than at earlier periods in the country's
history. The United States is now the core economy of one
of the three regions within the world system. The post-
Cold War period has seen a shift in U.S. policy-thinking
from geo-strategy to geo-economics. The aspiration of the
United States is to maintain a market-liberal trading system,
but this project cannot now be imposed upon the other
two key regions within the global system. [24]
The Implications of these Changes
These changes have generated a number of debates. The
substantive question of the nature of the global system has
been confidently answered by proponents of the
mainstream -- that is, market-liberal capitalism has
triumphed. At the same time, a formal question in respect
of the scope and limits of social theorizing has been raised.
It would seem that if we reject the unitary world of the
optimistic orthodoxy then we are left with the task of the
piecemeal dialogic elucidation of the dynamics of change in
the ongoing shift to the modern world (and maybe,
presently, within a tripolar global system).
The result of these debates, as far as one can see, is that the
familiar world of capitalism in conflict with socialism has
given way to a more awkward vision of how the global
system might be characterized. The proponents of
globalization (and the related notions of post-modernity
and the ethico-political end of history) are seemingly in
error. Rather, we confront a nascent tripolar global system
whose individual regional logics and intra-regional
dynamics are not at all clear. It is to these difficult debates
that we now turn.
Debates about Forms of Economic Life
The recent pattern of changes within the global system has
been the subject of much debate. In order to secure a
preliminary grasp of these debates, we can speak of the
following:
* the mainstream market-liberal (Anglo-American [25])
debate;
* a critical/structural European alternative to the
mainstream; and,
* a series of alternative ways of theorizing which make
reference to political, intellectual, and cultural traditions
other than those of the West.
The Mainstream Market-liberal View
The orthodox market-liberal explanation of the recent
pattern of changes in the global system would be cast in
terms of the fortuitous removal of a variety of social,
cultural, and political inhibitions to the proper functioning
of market-liberal systems such that countries which had
been misdirected by wrong-headed political elites could
resume the process of modernization. That would, in due
course, see these countries recapitulate the historical
experience of the West in order to reach the stage of high
mass consumption presently enjoyed by the richest and
most successful country in the world, the United States
(recall Walt Rostow's work [26]).
The work of the market-liberals is a complex political
package. The theorists of market-liberalism affirm the
central role of the free market. An overarching claim is
made that "free markets" (that is, liberal markets) maximize
human welfare and this, in turn, is conveyed as a series of
interlinked claims: (a) economically, the claim is that as free
markets act efficiently to distribute knowledge and
resources around the economic system, then material
welfare will be maximized; (b) socially, the claim is that as
action and responsibility for action reside with the
individual, then liberal individualistic social systems will
ensure that moral worth is maximized; (c) politically, the
claim is that as liberalism offers a balanced solution to
problems of deploying, distributing and controlling power,
then liberal polities ensure that political freedom is
maximized; and, (d) epistemologically, [27] the claim is that
as the whole package is grounded in genuine positive
scientific knowledge, then in such systems th e effective
deployment of positive knowledge is maximized. [28]
When the political project of market-liberalism is spelled
out, it is clear that it is quite familiar. It is also clear that all
these interlinked claims can be refuted. [29] The political
philosophical tradition of liberalism has a' distinguished
pedigree, but, self-evidently, it is only one political
philosophical tradition among many. [30]
The Critical/Structural View
The critical/structural European tradition explanations of
the recent patterns of change in the global system would
be cast in terms of an episode of (relatively) abrupt
political-cultural change, revealing the accumulated effects
of longer patterns of structural change. Thus, the rhetoric
of Cold War bipolarity is taken to have obscured the extent
to which the global economy was forming into three
macro-regions, each of which evidenced a particular variety
of industrial-capitalism. These theorists suggest that the
end of the Cold War is not nearly as interesting as the
emergence of varieties of industrial-capitalism.
The European tradition approach revolves around the
emancipatory analysis of the dynamics of complex change
in the process of the ongoing shift to the modern world.
The substantive analyses which are pursued look at the
historical development of the distinctive political-
economic, social-institutional and cultural structures which
are the vehicles of particular forms of life. It is the case
that these analytical strategies can be deployed at a variety
of levels (sub-national, national, and regional), but as the
shift to the modern world has been widely accomplished in
the context of the formation of nation-states, it is this
particular level of analysis that has been most prominent.
The approach (deployed at this level) suggests that the
history of the modern period can be conceived in terms of
a diversity of discrete "routes to the modern world." [31]
It is possible to identify, schematically, two variants of this
general approach: one which speaks simply of three
varieties of industrial-capitalism (present in the three
macro-regions of East Asia, Europe and the United States
[32]); and a more sophisticated version which grants that
there has been, and is, a large variety of still unfolding
routes to the modern world, where each is the expression
of elite-ordered responses to the changing structural
circumstances within which they operate.
Alternative Lines of Thinking
There are other ways of grasping the business of change
which locate themselves within the polities, intellectual
traditions, and cultures of East Asia, Africa, and Latin
America. [33] Illustratively, one might point to the ways in
which East Asian scholars have grasped the shift to the
modern world of their own communities in an exchange
with the West dating from the nineteenth century -- in
particular, China [34] and Japan: [35] In a similar fashion,
one might point to the Islamic resources of North Africa
and the more dispersed traditions of sub-Saharan Africa in
their long exchange with the West. Often, these exchanges
run in two directions, and in the case of Latin America, the
locally theorized explanation of continuing subordination,
articulated in dependency theory, returned to the West in
the guise of the influential English language writings of A.
G. Frank. However, it is clear that theorists working within
these traditions must speak for themselves. Nonetheless, a
few general points can be made:
* the dynamism of the industrial-capitalism "invented" in
Europe and disseminated around the planet is such that all
countries must perforce make reference to the logic of this
form of life (that is, as Gellner would put it, debate
necessarily revolves around the business of "becoming and
being modern" [36]);
* the dynamism of the system of industrial-capitalism finds
expression in routine practice, that is, in the ways in which
economies, societies, and culture have and do organize
themselves: in other words, there is no single model;
rather, there are necessarily many versions depending upon
the ways in which countries have moved into the modern
world; and,
* these diverse historical experiences and consequent novel
existing patterns are the basis for contributions to
contemporary international debates about ordering the
global economic system.
A Tentative Conclusion in Respect of the
Diversity of Forms of Economic Life
The spread of recent changes within the global system has
been read by the orthodoxy in terms of the fortuitous
recovery of the possibility of establishing market-liberal
systems. The proponents of market-liberalism claim that
the liberal-market allows the fullest expression of certain
fundamental characteristics of humankind, that is, the
rational-calculative pursuit of the means to satisfy deep-
seated needs. The proponents of market-liberalism lodge a
related claim that their orthodox economics both grasps
this inherent logic accurately and does so with the
reliability of a natural science. Yet, it can be argued that
both the ontology and epistemology are untenable. The
claims to a universal scientifically grounded model are
simply an uncritically affirmed "local model". [37]
Against the orthodoxy, it can be argued from the classical
European tradition that any form of economic life will be
lodged within the structures of a wider form of life. To put
it another way, economies are lodged within societies
which, in turn, are lodged within cultures and in turn are
understood and ordered with reference to particular
intellectual traditions. In this way, it is possible to speak,
first at a micro-level, of a variety of economic forms of life
(the realm of economic anthropology); and secondly, at a
macro-level, of different types of economy and society (for
example, the distinctions between "plan-rational", "plan-
ideological", "market-rational", and "market-ideological"
proposed by R. P. Appelbaum [38]); or thirdly, at the still
larger scale of different regions. At this point, we can turn
to an analysis of logics of change within contemporary
East Asia.
Speculations in Respect of Contemporary
Change in East Asia
The current situation in East Asia can be analysed in terms
of three broad timescales [39] -- modernity, regionalism,
and crisis -- where each embraces a distinctive logic of
change. First, there is the post-imperialist and Cold War
phase, which can be dated from the end of the Pacific War,
which has seen the shift to the modern world in East Asia
(initially achieved via the irruption of Western industrial
capitalism and the construction of colonial systems)
consolidated (in the form of a series of prosperous new
nation-states) under the direction of Asian elites during a
long period of economic advance and Cold War
competition among the great powers. Secondly, there is the
post-Cold War phase, which has seen the slow, partial, and
incomplete dismantling of the East Asian system of blocs
(where relevant dates would be 1978, 1985 and 1989/91),
such that East Asia has experienced some inter-regional
integration and intra-regional identification (in other
words, the emergence of something that looks like an East
Asian region). Thirdly, we have had the recent episode of
the Asian financial crisis, whose implications for the
region, the global system, and European tradition of social
theorizing are still emerging.
In this section we will consider the current situation of
East Asia in terms of the logic of change in four areas:
Japan, China, the NIEs, and the ASEAN states. A final
area of concern relates to the changing global system and
its interactions with East Asia.
Japan: Crisis, Disputed Understandings and Readjustment
The three timescales noted above have found recent
acknowledgement in renewed debates about the
fundamental nature of the Japanese political-economic,
social-institutional, and cultural structures, and the
country's position within wider regional and global
systems.
In respect of the nature of the domestic situation within
Japan, it is possible to point to two broad positions. The
first is the mainstream view, which argues that as the logic
of economic activity is universal, and best exemplified in a
U.S.-style competitive market-liberal system, then the
sooner the Japanese economy is reordered in line with the
tenets of deregulation and liberalization the better for both
Japanese consumers and the country's trading partners.
The second position is the structural/historical view, which
argues that as the economic, social, and cultural logic
prevailing within a country are products of long-term
historical trajectories, it is appropriate to note that the
economy, society, and culture of Japan has been developed
over the modern period within the context of an elite
political-cultural project oriented to national growth and
security.
Thereafter, the proponents of the former position speak of
two great episodes of reform within Japan: the Meiji
Restoration, and the SCAP [40] reforms. A third phase of
reform has been mooted -- that is, the reforms required by
the recession of the 1990s coupled with the shock of the
onset in 1997 of the Asian financial crisis. [41] Yet, in
sharp contrast, the proponents of the second position
speak of a deep-seated continuity within the Japanese
political economy. [42] The roots of Japanese modernity
are traced back to the commercialization of Edo-period
Japan which, thereafter, modulated into the emphatic
concern for growth and security which marked the Meiji
Restoration. So far as these theorists are concerned, the
political-economic, social-institutional and cultural
structures of contemporary Japan were given their
characteristic form in this early modern period. The
subsequent history is one of great success. Sheridan argues
that there is no particular reason for the Japanese to
abandon styles of worki ng which have served them well.
[43]
Overall, it seems that the balance of debate favours the
latter group. One might therefore follow Taggart-Murphy,
concerning the business of organizing economic recovery,
who argues that the Japanese bureaucrats will continue to
"muddle through". [44] More broadly, one would expect
Japanese policy-makers to continue to advance their
concern for growth and security, and in this case we might
look to four particular issues: their economic role within
East Asia (where they are the regional core economy in
terms of gross output, trade, aid, and foreign direct
investment, and technological sophistication); their cultural
role within East Asia, where the influence of Japanese
popular culture in consumption is growing; [45] their
political/diplomatic role within the region (where the
legacy of the Pacific War has, so to say, displaced their
diplomatic activities, which now find indirect expression
within the structures of the United Nations, [46] and some
regional bodies [47]); and their economic, security, and pol
itical relationship with the United States (which is both
important, awkward, and increasingly subject to change,
and furthermore, where any change could have important
regional implications [48]).
China's Opening to the Global System
The logic of change, marked in terms of the three
timescales noted above, finds a different expression in the
case of China. The overall political stability established in
China in 1949 continues, notwithstanding commentators
who look to the increasing influence of regions within the
country. It is also clear that the market-oriented reforms
established in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping continue to move
forward, despite significant problems (rural-urban
migration, corruption, the problems of reforming the state-
owned enterprise sector, and the problems of legitimacy
presently experienced by the state/party). It is in the
intersection of these two timescales that we can consider
the present situation of China. What is quite clear is that
the Asian financial crisis, the third timescale, did not
impact significantly upon China.
China's economic advance continues apace. The economy
is now one of the largest national economies in the world.
A familiar spread of issues surrounding rapid economic
growth might be noted: first, the policies necessary to
ensure sustained growth within countries; secondly, the
requirement to attend to the negative consequences of
growth (migration, inequality, corruption); thirdly, the
development of trade linkages within the sphere of Greater
China (thus, it should be noted that there are burgeoning
and powerful economies in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
among the Overseas Chinese); fourthly, the relationship
between Chinese and Japanese capital within the region;
and fifthly, the implications of the Asian financial crisis and
the WTO-associated drive for trade liberalization are of
continuing concern. Thereafter, in the social sphere, the
employment and welfare consequences of economic
growth in China present acute challenges to the present
leadership. And in the political sphere there are a complex
mix of issu es to consider as contemporary national
problems (the power of regions and the demands of
minorities), the legacies of the Cold War (the issue of
Taiwan and a divided Korea), and the novel demands of
regionalization and globalization all bear down upon
political actors.
Clearly, the dynamics of change within China have
implications not only for the Chinese but also for regional
and global-system dynamics. The development of relations
within the region, that is, among the "Asian Tigers", Japan,
and China is of great interest. In Hong Kong, Taiwan,
South Korea, and Singapore, many people are relatively
affluent and enjoy high levels of consumption. These
"Asian Tigers" have made significant investments in China.
The development of Sino-Japanese relations is crucial to
the development of the region. [49] In a similar way, the
development of Sino-U.S. relations is critical to the issue of
peace and stability in East Asia.
Re-ordering the NIEs
The historical development experience of the four "Asian
Tigers", the region's newly industrializing economies
(NIEs), -- South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and
Singapore -- have been shaped by the long colonial period
(with the territories lodged within, respectively, the
Japanese and British empires), and, most particularly, by
the post-imperialist and Cold War period when they were
favourably treated by the United States in the context of its
concern to contain communism. The South Korean and
Taiwanese economies benefited directly from U.S.
involvement with the provision of aid, reform packages,
and access to its consumer markets. [50] The economies of
Singapore and Hong Kong grew within the context of the
post-war economic "long boom", one as an independent
nation-state, [51] and the other with a distinctly
anachronistic colonial status.
However, all these economies have found themselves in
potentially novel contexts in the wake of the end of the
Cold War. The U.S. policy of containment contributed to
dividing the East Asian region into two groupings of states:
the socialist, centred on China, and the (nominally) free-
market, centred on the United States. The U.S. strategic
interest in the region found expression not merely in
political and diplomatic activity but also in economic and
development policy where, to put the matter simply, the
United States gave its allies open access to its domestic
market in return for their political/strategic support. It is
clear that whilst this represented no particular problem for
the United States in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, there
were signs of economic difficulties in the 1970s. The
subsequent decade of the 1980s saw the issue of trade
relations, or, more particularly, trade imbalances assume a
central importance, with the United States unable to deal
with its trade deficit with East Asia and increa singly
dependent upon capital from the region. The unhappy
debates between the United States and its East Asian allies
continued throughout the 1980s and it is difficult to
imagine that they will ease in the post-Cold War
environment.
It might be argued that these matters have been made
more problematical by the uneven impact of the Asian
financial crisis where there is evidence that the more East
Asian elites were disposed to give credence to the U.S.-
sponsored arguments in favour of deregulation and
liberalization, the greater was the impact of the crisis. [52]
In Singapore and Taiwan, these strong states maintained
close control of their economies and both weathered the
financial storm relatively better than their neighbours.
Hong Kong was fortunate to receive the support of Beijing
in its struggles with financial speculators. However, in
South Korea the financial crisis had a devastating impact
upon an economy which had undertaken a measure of
deregulation and liberalization, and one result, which might
well prove awkward in the future, has been a contested
increase in the influence of U.S. dominated international
financial institutions -- the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank. [53]
A series of general points can be made: first, commentators
have spoken of a shift in U.S. policy orientations from geo-
strategy to geoeconomics, in which case the extent to
which the United States is prepared to tolerate asymmetries
in trade relations is now in question; secondly, the recent
Asian financial crisis has clearly been used by Washington
as a pretext to force "market opening" on the East Asian
economies; thirdly, it is also noticeable that the Chinese
economy, still not integrated with the circuits of Western
capital, was not damaged to any significant degree by the
crisis; and fourthly, the differential impact of the crisis in
the region can be related to the robustness of the various
state machines, with the region's developmental states
generally performing well as they adjusted to the demands
placed upon them by the unfolding crisis. [54] In this
context, if we reject, as seems sensible, the claims of
Western convergence theorists, the interesting questions in
respect of the NIEs will revolv e around their perception
of the importance of regional economic networks, the
flows of Chinese and Japanese capital, and the extent to
which any new political-cultural expectations find
expression within regional organizations.
The States of ASEAN
The countries of Southeast Asia have had a common
experience in colonial rule, with the exception of Thailand.
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Cambodia
and Laos are direct legatees of the colonial era in the sense
that they were constituted as nation-state projects in the
process of colonization and decolonization (the efforts of
colonial rulers and the nationalists they generated). The
other countries of the region were similarly shaped by the
experience of colonial rule but are able (arguably) to reach
back to political patterns antedating the colonial era (thus,
the kingdoms of Thailand [never formally colonized],
Vietnam, Burma and Brunei). The removal of foreign
empires saw domestic elites securing control and pursuing
growth and welfare goals (in diverse ways and with
differing results). Yet, there have been contradictory
processes at work in Southeast Asia. The subregion saw
conflict and confusion in respect of the future among the
newly constituted nation-states. In this regard, ASEAN has
provided both sub-regional security and an institutional
mechanism which has served to affirm the identities of
these new nations. [55] The sub-region also saw a long
drawn-out war in Indochina as the United States
endeavoured to secure its objective of containing the
"threat of communism" by military means. However, the
long years of prosperity within the Western sphere
eventually saw all the countries of ASEAN bound into the
East Asian region (in particular via links with Japan [58])
and the wider Western sphere (via the role of the United
States).
In terms of the trio of timescales (modernity, regionalism,
and crisis), we can note two interrelated sets of concerns:
the post-Cold War concern among the countries of the
sub-region with the development of the wider East Asian
region (the advance of China, the wider related issue of
security and the important reforms to the "ASEAN way",
and more broadly, the role of APEC and the demands of
globalization); and the recent dramatic impact of the Asian
financial crisis.
In the context of Southeast Asian politics, the emergence
of China is a key issue. The four modernizations
inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 have seen the
Chinese economy expand rapidly. China has a growing role
within the East Asian region. However, there are problems
in China's relationship with the countries of ASEAN,
symptomatically, the disinclination of China to deal with
the ASEAN countries on a multilateral basis in respect of
the putative oil reserves in the area of the South China Sea,
claimed by China and bordered directly by Vietnam, the
Philippines, and Malaysia. The issue of the relationship of
the states of ASEAN with China is made more awkward
by the security concerns of those states. China continues to
upgrade its armed forces (one of Deng's four
modernizations), and the ASEAN states are also investing
in advanced weapons systems. A related issue might be
noted: the accession of Myanmar into ASEAN occasioned
a rethink about the "ASEAN way" of non-interference.
Overall, ASEAN now embraces all the countries of
Southeast Asia and there are, perhaps, signs that the
organization is re-ordering its concerns to meet new
challenges.
A key challenge in recent years has been made by the
proponents of globalization. The routine demands of the
United States have found a particular institutional vehicle
in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). The role
of APEC has been problematical for the ASEAN states as
the political elites of the region have felt obliged to run
with the American agenda whilst simultaneously nursing
anxieties about the apparently negative implications for
ASEAN. A common formal affirmation seems to have
been made to the goal of "open regionalism". [57]
However, the APEC project may turn out to be a victim of
the recent set-backs to the neo-liberal project of global
deregulation, liberalization, and free trade, namely, the
Asian financial crisis and the WTO (World Trade
Organization) debacle in Seattle in November 1999.
It is clear that the Asian financial crisis has had a dramatic
impact upon the ASEAN states. There has been economic
damage throughout the region. In Thailand, there has been
economic retrenchment and social distress. In Malaysia, an
independent-minded prime minister has rejected the
orthodox Washington consensus model and, through
currency controls, secured a measure of economic success
by weathering the regional financial crisis. In Indonesia,
economic crisis has run over into political crisis. The
ASEAN states were not able to respond collectively to the
demands of the regional crisis. However, the organization
has held together. Again, one might anticipate those states
paying more attention to the situation of the wider East
Asian region in the future. [58]
The Role of the United States, EU and the Organization of
the Global System in the Future of East Asia
The changes within East Asia considered above have been
discussed in terms of a trio of intermeshing historical logics
(the long drive for modernity, a developing concern for
regionalism, and the recent abrupt eruption of systemic
crisis). The interplay of these historical logics has shaped
domestic national patterns of change and regional change.
It is also clear that there is a wider aspect to these logics,
one that embraces the broader dynamic of the global
system. The relationship of the East Asian region to the
wider global system has been the subject of much recent
discussion. At first these debates were somewhat abstract
(centring on globalization) but, more recently, they have
become intensely practical (as the shock of the Asian
financial crisis unfolded). In broad terms, the recent
patterns of change in the global system have opened up a
series of interrelated issues: the nature of globalization; the
aetiology of the Asian financial crisis; and the character,
role, and desired reform of key internat ional financial
institutions.
The Debate about Globalization: Description or
Prescription?
The fashionable 1990s idea of globalization purports to
capture the essential character of the contemporary global
system, namely, that the reach of the liberal-market system
is now world-wide and that an integrated global system is
in the process of construction. The advocates of
globalization base the core of their efforts within the
intellectual territory of orthodox market-liberal economic
theory and thus represent their work as positive social
science. The literature on globalization is vast. However,
two points can be made. First, the core of the arguments
advanced relate to claimed changes in patterns ofeconomic
life and here, as Hirst and Thompson [59] make clear, the
empirical plausibility of the claims is low, indeed it is better
to speak of a relatively restricted set of internationalized
economic activities. Secondly, the broad globalization
package of ideas recalls the earlier 1950s "logic of
industrialism" material, and it is better to view the core
assertions of globalization theory as the poli tical rhetoric
of the servants of the U.S.-centred liberal-market system.
[60] The talk is, therefore, prescriptive rather than
descriptive, all of which has been rehearsed in the context
of discussions about the nature of the development
experience of East Asia. [61] It is a debate which has, of
course, been revisited in recent years in the wake of the
Asian financial crisis.
The Debate about the Asian Financial Crisis: Too Much or
Too Little Liberalization?
The debate about the Asian financial crisis can be grasped
in terms of two broad lines of reflection. The first speaks
of crony capitalism. The second looks to the problems of
inappropriate liberalization. The first line of argument,
deeply informed by the nostrums of the Washington
consensus, has suggested that the rapid economic growth
of recent years fostered a peculiarly ill-disciplined version
of capitalism, so called "crony capitalism". In this
perspective, the root cause of the Asian financial crisis was
to be found in fundamentally corrupt Asian business and
political practices. The crisis was therefore seen as a
necessary corrective, an occasion for the establishment of
more market-liberal rational institutional structures and
policy stances.
The second line of argument, informed by the resources of
critical/structural analyses, looks to the intermeshing of the
different economic logics of the competitive capitalism of
the United States and the developmental capitalism of East
Asia in the particular context of financial market
liberalization (urged upon East Asian governments by the
proponents/institutions of the Washington consensus). In
this perspective, the root cause of the crisis was an
inappropriate financial liberalization which exposed
otherwise successful economies to the vagaries of the
international speculative financial market.
The arguments of the proponents of the Washington
consensus are of limited interest (notwithstanding genuine
domestic problems in some East Asian countries [62]) as
they are cast in terms of a putatively universal market-
liberal model which is not intellectually credible. The Asian
financial crisis is not leading (and will not lead) the
countries of East Asia to converge upon the American
economic model; rather elites will read, react, and adjust as
new domestic agendas are established. [63] The
critical/structural analysis can grasp these changes.
Conclusion
To conclude, the contemporary situation in East Asia can
be characterized in terms of the logics of change
underpinning patterns of life within particular countries
and their complex regional intermeshing. The economic
core of the region is, at the present time, Japan and whilst
its political elite has received a wealth of advice from the
West in general, and the United States in particular, all
urging, one way or another, the necessity of radical market-
oriented economic reform, there is little reason to suppose
that there will be any significant change. The logic of the
modern Japanese system was put in place during the Meiji
Restoration. It has been a success. Indeed, the most recent
expression of this success, the planned export-oriented
drive for national reconstruction following the Pacific War,
which has given us the notion of the "developmental
state", has been exported around the East Asian region. In
China, which has borrowed the strategy of export-oriented
development and moulded it to its own hist orically
specific circumstances, we might expect the slow processes
of economic reform and opening to a wider system to
continue. This is also true of the NIEs, where we might
anticipate modest domestic reform in the wake of the
Asian financial crisis and greater interest in the region.
Finally, in the ASEAN states, which were the most badly
hit by the financial crisis, we can expect a renewed
affirmation of the goals of growth and development
together with a greater concern for the context of the
region. Overall, it seems that the East Asian region will
continue to crystallize. However, it will not look like the
United States, and it will not look like the European
Union. Over the next decade, East Asia will follow its own
logic and assume its own pattern.
PETER W. PRESTON is Professor in the Department of
Political Science and International Studies at the University
of Birmingham.
NOTES
(1.) This is an idea taken from Barrington Moore, Social
Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon,
1996).
(2.) The notion of interpretation points to the role of the
theorist in grasping the cultural contexts within which
people live and work. The tradition of interpretative work
reaches back to nineteenth century hermeneutics, which
was originally a scholarly attempt to recover the true
meaning of biblical texts.
(3.) The work is ethically engaged. It is oriented to the
achievement of democracy. It is, crucially, oriented to the
public sphere. On this, see Jurgen Habermas, The
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
(Cambridge: Polity, 1989).
(4.) The familiar taken-for-granted objective of positivistic
work, the idea of a potentially finally accurate summary
description/explanation of everything that there is, an idea
which owes much to what Anthony Giddens, in Social
Theory and Modern Sociology (Cambridge: Polity, 1987)
has called the "received model of natural sciences", seems
to me to be an illusion.
(5.) For a very brief overview of the formal nature of social
theorizing, as I understand it, see P. W. Preston,
Rethinking Development (London: Routledge, 1987),
chapter 2.
(6.) For a very brief review of this aspect of the tale, see P.
W. Preston, Development Theory (Oxford: Blackwell,
1996), Parts I and II.
(7.) See Susan Strange, States and Markets (London: Pinter,
1988).
(8.) In 1985, the Single European Act began a process of
renewed economic integration, which was further
developed in the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, and further
advanced in the 1999 Amsterdam Treaty.
(9.) In 1978 Deng Xiaoping began reforms in China; in
1985 the Plaza Accords revalued the yen; and in 1991 the
USSR dissolved itself. In all, a trio of dates to encapsulate
the most recent phase of the development experience of
the states of East Asia, that is, within the context of the
region. These arguments are pursued in P. W. Preston,
Pacific Asia in the Global System (Oxford: Blackwell,
1998).
(10.) The relative decline of the United States is evident in
its changing comparative position over the years following
the Pacific War. In 1945, the United States was
unchallenged economically, militarily, and diplomatically,
but the current global system is clearly tripolar, quite
evidently with the European Union and less obviously with
the rise of an East Asian region. It might be added that the
1980s/1990s popular literature on the American decline
was often alarmist, and, given the success of the U.S.
economy in recent years, wrong.
(11.) These implications of the broad changes could be
unpacked in detail for each country in Europe. In many
cases, the changes have proved unsettling. In the particular
case of the UK political elite, for example, the apparently
wholly unanticipated end of the Cold War has occasioned a
slow political crisis as the elite endeavoured to adjust to the
unanticipated political centrality of the European Union.
(12.) In this article, in respect of matters economic, I draw
a distinction between market-liberal ideas (philosophies,
models, policies, party programmes, or whatever), which
are a particular variant of liberalism, and liberal-market
systems (that is, a particular sort of market). This is to
counteract the tendency within Western debate to suppose
that real-world markets are all one and that orthodox free
market theory grasps their essence. I wish to resist this
process of intellectual collapse in order to insist that forms
of economic life are diverse and that social scientific
reflection upon these forms of life is much wider than the
narrow sphere of free market thinking. Relatedly, in respect
of matters political, I draw a distinction between liberalism
(from Hobbes and Locke) which characterizes the
political/social world in terms of autonomous individuals
with endogeneously arising needs/wants which are
satisfied in contractual relationships, the arrangement of
which is secured by the minimum regulator y state, and
democracy (from Rosseau) which characterizes the
political/social world in terms of networks of social
relationships within which ineluctably social beings
distinguish themselves as individuals as they pursue their
particular (and socially occasioned) concerns, the
arrangement of which finds best expression within the
framework of a broadly engaged interventionist state. The
liberal approach is universalist, the egoistic nature of
humankind is given, as is the model of an appropriate
political/state form, whereas the democratic approach is
relativist, and democracy presents itself as an ongoing
historical, context dependent, social achievement (see also
note 32).
(13.) F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992).
(14.) See, for example, R. Robertson, Globalization: Social
Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage, 1992); or M.
Albrow, The Global Age (Cambridge: Polity, 1996).
(15.) The formulation "Anglo-American" is quite familiar
and, in my view, misleading. The population of the United
States is 263 million, whilst that of the UK is 58 million,
Australia has 18 million, New Zealand 3.6 million, and
Canada 29.6 million. In the context of discussion about the
global system, it would seem that speaking of the United
States might be more accurate, but for the present, the
familiar usage will be preferred. Data taken from World
Bank, World Development Report 1997 (Oxford
University Press, 1997).
(16.) See P. Anderson, English Questions (London: Verso,
1983).
(17.) A. G. Frank, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian
Age (University of California Press, 1998).
(18.) See M. Bernard, "Regions in the Global Political
Economy", New Political Economy 1, no. 3 (1996). See
also J. Zysman, "The Myth of a Global Political
Economy", New Political Economy 1, no. 2 (1996). A
contrary view is put by Gerald Segal, Rethinking the Pacific
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1991).
(19.) These arguments are made at length in Preston,
Pacific Asia.
(20.) A product of the late nineteenth century, following
the Civil War, which is antistatist, socially egalitarian, and
materialist. It is a variant of liberalism (see D. McKay,
Politics and Power in the USA (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1994)).
(21.) The umbrella label for the set of ideas, institutions
and alliances associated with the assumption by the United
States of a global role in the years following World War II.
(22.) An idea from Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes:
The Short Twentieth Century (London: Michael Joseph,
1994), who suggests that the century began in 1914 and
ended in 1991.
(23.) A popular expression of this argument was made by
Lester Thurow, Head to Head: The Coming Economic
Battle Among Japan, Europe and America (London:
Nicholas Brearley, 1994). However, it should be noted
(setting aside the awkward issue of how regions are
established/defined) that the three regions posited in this
article are not all the same, indeed they are quite different:
(i) the United States is a continental power with a deeply
integrated domestic sphere (it is, after all, a long established
single country); (ii) the European Union is presently
engaged in organizing a federal system among fifteen
countries in a unique mix of supranational and
transnational institutional mechanisms; and (iii) East Asia,
in contrast, has significant linkages with other parts of the
global system and shows little sign of repeating the model
of the EU, much less that of the United States.
(24.) On East Asian responses, see Richard Higgot, "The
Asian Economic Crisis: A Study in the Politics of
Resentment", in New Political Economy (1998), and the
special edition of Pacific Review 13, no. 1 (2000) dealing
with the Asian financial crisis. In respect of the European
Union it is enough to note that there are sharp conflicts
with the United States over trade, where, for example,
European consumer resistance has generated problems for
American agribusiness in respect of genetically modified
crops.
(25.) See P. Bourdieu and L. Wacquant, "On the Cunning
of Reason", Theory, Culture and Society 16, no. 1 (1999).
(26.) W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A
Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1960).
(27.) The proponents of market-liberalism routinely lodge a
claim to positive scientific knowledge. A series of claims
are being made: (i) in respect of the nature of natural
science, where the "received model" (naive realism
conjoined to naive induction [Giddens, Social Theory]) is
affirmed such that scientific enquiry means
describing/explaining external reality; (ii) in respect of the
methodologies of natural science, where a standard
characterization of the core experimental procedures of the
physiochemical sciences are affirmed; and (iii) in respect of
the objectivity/disinterestedness of natural science where a
simple notion of the objective apprehension of reality is
affirmed. Translated into the sphere of concern of the
market liberals, this presents itself in the form of a
commitment to quantification, inductive statistical
modelling, and aprioristic mathematical modelling as ways
of objectively grasping external reality. These claims are
not persuasive.
(28.) The claim to priority of mainstream (free market)
economics rests on a series of claims: (i) to the scientific
status of their enquiries (where this includes statements
about the positive scientific status of their discipline) and
statements about other disciplines (which are mainly taken
to be of lesser scientific status); (ii) to the accurate
identification in their enquiries of the central concerns of
social science (taken as grasped in the liberal project of
rational actors seeking to maximize satisfaction in
conditions of scarcity and social constraint); (iii) to the
accumulation as a result of their enquiries of a body of
knowledge in respect of social life; and (iv) on the basis of
these to the status of the pre-eminent professional
discipline within the broad sphere of the social sciences.
(29.) See P. W. Preston, Discourse of Development: State,
Market and Polity in the Analysis of Complex Change
(Aldershot: Avebury, 1994).
(30.) See C. B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in
Retrieval (Cambridge University Press, 1973) who argues
that liberalism and democracy are different and that liberal
democracy is incoherent. See also Juergen Habermas, op.
cit., who argues for the language-carried possibilities for
democracy which might be redeemable within the
discourse of the public sphere. It is this work which I
prefer to work with -- democracy becomes an aspiration,
grounded in language, and in practice an ongoing historical
achievement.
(31.) Cf. Barrington Moore, op. cit.
(32.) See Lester Thurow, Head to Head: The Coming
Economic Battle among Japan, Europe and America
Brealey, 1994). Cf. also P. W. Political-Cultural Identity
(London: Sage, 1997).
(33.) See B. Hettne, Development Theory and the Three
Worlds, 2nd ad. (London: Longman, 1995).
(34.) For a note on the nineteenth century exchange, see F.
Christiansen and S. Rai, Chinese Politics and Society
(London: Prentice Hall, 1996). The contemporary situation
is considered by Aihwa Ong, "Chinese Modernities:
Narratives of Nation and Capitalism", in Ungrounded
Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese
Transnationolism, edited by Aihwa Ong and Donald
Nonini (London: Routledge, 1997).
(35.) See, for example, Stefan Tanaka, Japan's Orient:
Rendering Pasts into History (University of California
Press, 1993). See also Sun Ge, "How Does Asia Mean?
(Part 1)", Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 1, no. 1 (2000).
(36.) E. Gellner, Thought and Change (London:
Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1964).
(37.) S. Gudeman, Economics as Culture (London:
Routledge, 1986).
(38.) P. R. Appelbaum and J. Henderson, eds., States and
Development in the Asian Pacific Rim (London: Sage,
1992).
(39.) An idea which I derive freely from the magisterial
work of Ferdnard Braudel is that "modernity" points to the
historically slow business of building a modern state and
nation, "regionalism" points to the more recent emergence
of a regional dimension to economic, social, and cultural
advance, and, finally, crisis points to the abrupt upheavals
in long established dynamics consequent upon problems
within the financial system.
(40.) SCAP stands for Supreme Commander for the Allied
Powers -- in fact, General MacArthur -- but the term is
used to designate the occupation authorities in Japan
following the end of the Pacific War.
(41.) For example, F. Gibney, ed., Unlocking the
Bureaucrats Kingdom (Washington: Brookings, 1998).
(42.) I have in mind the work of Chalmers Johnson, Ron
Dare, or Robert Wade.
(43.) See K. Sheridan, ed., Emerging Economic Systems in
Asia (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1098).
(44.) R. Taggart-Murphy, "Japan's Economic Crisis", New
Left Review, February 2000.
(45.) See John Clammer, Contemporary Urban Japan: A
Sociology of Consumption (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).
(46.) See Ron Dore, Japan, Internationalism and the UN
(London: Routledge, 1997).
(47.) See Julie Gilson, "Japan's Role in the Asia-Europe
Meeting", Asian Survey (1999). The author argues that the
ASEM context allows Japan to play a low-key indirect
leadership role among the Asian participants.
(48.) See Bruce Cummings, Parallax Visions (London:
Duke University Press, 1999).
(49.) See R. Taylor, Greater China and Japan: Prospects for
an Economic Partnership in East Asia (London:
Routledge, 1996).
(50.) It might also be noted that this U.S. involvement had
its price: (i) in Korea in the form of a catastrophic
unnecessary war (see Bruce Cummings, Korea's Place in
the Sun [New York: Norton, 1997]); and (ii) in Taiwan in
the form of the unexpected arrival of the remnants of the
Kuomintang.
(51.) See G. Rodan, The Political Economy of Singapore's
Industrialization (London: Macmillan, 1989).
(52.) M. Rhodes and R. Higgot, "Introduction: Asian Crises
and the Myth of Capitalist Convergence", in Pacific Review
13, no. 1 (2000).
(53.) See ibid. See also R. Higgot, "The Asian Economic
Crisis: A Study in the Politics of Resentment", New
Political Economy 3, no. 3 (1998).
(54.) See Linda Weiss, "Developmental States in
Transition: Adapting, dismantling, innovating, not
'normalizing'", in Pacific Review 13, no. 1 (2000).
(55.) A point made by my departmental colleague Jurgen
Haacke.
(56.) On the role of Japan within the region, see, for
example, Alan Rix, Japan's Foreign Aid (London:
Routledge, 1993); and Peter Katzenstein and T. Shiraishi,
eds., Network Power: Japan and Asia (New York: Cornell
University Press, 1997).
(57.) The extent to which formal commitment has been
translated into actual practice is another question.
Proponents of the benefits of liberal-market trading
regimes also argue for the benefits of unilateral market
opening, but in terms of critical/structural analysis the
benefits/disbenefits accruing to any one country will be a
matter of that country's political-economic logic vis-a-vis
the wider system embraced. In the case of many, if not
most, countries in APEC, one might suspect that the
commitments to "open regionalism" were formal, that is,
elements of the rituals of diplomatic interchange.
(58.) See Richard Higgot, op. cit.
(59.) P. Hirst and G. Thompson, Globalization in
Question (Cambridge: Polity, 1996).
(60.) The 1950s saw a period of great enthusiasm for the
U.S. model (within the United States) which found
expression in an interrelated set of social scientific theories.
The key was the notion of the logic of industrialism which,
it was claimed, best grasped the core of the modern system
(rather than talking about socialism or capitalism). The
logic was universal and all variant economic systems could
be expected to converge. The system was also successful
and high levels of consumption would lead to an end of
ideology. The poor countries of the Third World would
also be subject to this universal logic, and they would
experience modernization. The approach had little
intellectual merit and its more superficial plausibility was
fatally undermined by the confusion of the 1960s and
1970s.
(61.) See World Bank, The East Asian Miracle (Oxford
University Press, 1993); and R. Wade, "Japan, the World
Bank and the Art of Paradigm Maintenance", New Left
Review 217 (1996).
(62.) Rhodes and Higgot, op. cit.
(63.) See Weiss, op. cit.
Publication Information: Article Title: East Asia:
Prospects for the New Decade. Contributors: Peter W.
Preston - author. Journal Title: Contemporary Southeast
Asia. Volume: 22. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2000. Page
Number: 233. COPYRIGHT 2000 Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies (ISEAS); COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group