Asia Identity

Critical Asian Studies
Tayior&francisCro 37:2(2005), 179-208 i 6 % Taylor&frandsCfoup
Routledge
GLOBALIZATION, EDUCATION, AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
Mark Lincicome
ABSTRACT: This essay examines a resurgent interest in "regionness" as a response to globalization, and it looks at how governments and citizens have participated in the discourse on forging a new Asia-Pacific community that has developed over the past fifteen years. Part one distinguishes between "regionalization" and "regionalism" as competing visions for the construction of a future Asia-Pacific community. Regionalization, the dominant paradigm during the postcolonial period, centers on interstate forums dominated by officially recognized political and economic elites who seek interstate cooperation in order to protect state interests, state power, and national identity from foreign as well as domestic challenges. Regionalism, as an alternative paradigm, envisions the creation of transnational networks inclusive of nonofficial actors, whose identification with a particular state and set of national interests does not preclude the creation of a regional identity (or identities) and support for regional interests. Part two considers the challenges that regionalism poses for the nation-state and its leadership. It does so by highlighting the pressure for reform that globalization has brought to bear upon one particular institution that theorists of nationalism have long identified as central to the perpetuation of national identity, national unity, and state authority: schooling. Part three assesses the current prospects for such reforms by briefly examining recent educational developments in Japan, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Since the 1980s, as tbe term "globalization" bas gained global currency, the economic, social, and cultural processes to which it refers bave acquired an aura of ubiquity atid itievitability.' Like modertiization theory, wbich it bas gradually superseded, the discourse oti globalization frequently lays claim to a totalizing
ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 02 / 000179-30 2005 BCAS, Inc. DOI: 10.1080/14672710500106242
universality. While few scholars who study this phenomenon, and even fewer political leaders and government bureaucrats who try to grapple with it, prediet the demise of the nation-state in the face of these globalizing forces, few would deny that these forces pose genuine challenges to the ways in which states have hitherto elaimed legitimacy and exercised their authority, both at home and abroad. The apprehension over the future of the state that this has given rise to is suceinetiy expressed by Higgott, who defines globalization as (i) the emergence of a set of sequences and processes increasingly less hindered by territorial or jurisdictional barriers and one that enhances the spread of trans-border practices in economic, political, cultural and social domains; and (ii) as a discourse of political knowledge offering one view perhaps the dominant one among powerful decision making elites of how to make the postmodern world manageable. For many, globalization as knowledge constitutes a rationalization of government that challenges the language and imagery of a state-centric world and defines the limits of the possible.^ Nowhere has concern over the impact of globalization and its implications for the nation-state been felt more acutely than in the Asia-Pacific. Several reasons can be cited for this. First, the history of Western colonialism in this region, which some scholars liken to globalization,^ and which ended only after a series of protracted conflicts in the decades following World War II, is still deeply etched in both living memory and national legend, and it fuels the perception that globalization likewise emanates from the West and amounts to a sinister form of neocolonialism. Second, the postcolonial process of nation-state building in much of this region is, therefore, also a comparatively recent and arguably unfinished phenomenon. Third, the Asian financial crisis that crippled many economies in the region in 1997-1998, and which occasioned the intervention of international agencies like the International Monetary Fund, only served to confirm fears of neocolonialism in the minds of many Asians. Predictably, one response to the perceived threat of globalization among political figures such as Malaysia's Mahatir Mohamad, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, and Japan's Ishihara Shintaro has been to mount a shrill rhetorical defense of the nation and the authority of the state against virtually every facet of the Westem Other; from economic policies and diplomatic strategies to social institutions, cultural practices, and even moral values. However, their own complicit support for globalization in their respective countries, coupled with tangible economic, political, social, and cultural changes wrought by modernization and globalization during the postcolonial era, have rendered their strident appeals to state-centered nationalism less compelling than before, and opened a political space for other voices to articulate different responses. This essay examines a resurgent interest in what Higgott calls "regionness"^ as a noteworthy alternative response to globalization, and it looks at how governments and citizens in four countriesJapan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia have participated in the discourse on forging a new Asia-Pacific community that has developed over the past fifteen years. Needless to say, neither nationalist nor regionalist discourses are unique to this pan of the world or this
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particular historical moment; nor are they mutually exclusive. But their appearance and juxtaposition at this particular time presents an opportunity to ponder the relationship between the global, the national, and the regional in the Asia-Pacific, as well as the fiiture of the nation-state, at the start of a new millennium. The body of this essay is divided into three parts, the first of which distinguishes between "regionalization" and "regionalism" as competing visions for the construction of a future Asia-Pacifie community. Regionalization. the dominant paradigm during the postcolonial period, centers on interstate forums dominated by officially recognized political and economic elites, who seek interstate cooperation in order to protect state interests, state power, and national identity from foreign as well as domestic challenges. Regionalism, as an alternative paradigm, envisions the creation of transnational networks inclusive of nonofficial actors, whose identification with a panicular state and set of national interests does not preclude the creation of a regional identity (or identities) and support for regional interests. While proponents in both camps share a common vocabulary when they speak of "cooperation" and "mutual respect" in the pursuit of "mutual interests," advocates of regionalism frequently link these terms to the pursuit of a communal "identity," shared "values," and expanded "rights" for individual members of that community. Part two consider the challenges that regionalism poses for the nation-state and its leadership. It does so by highlighting the pressure for change that globalization has brought to bear upon one particular institution that theorists of nationalism have long identified as central to the perpetuation of national identity, national unity, and state authority: schooling. It posits that schooling can either promote or hinder the transition from regionalization to regionalism, depending on whether societies in the Asia-Pacific pursue (or, at least, tolerate) reforms to the content, practice, and polities of education that encourage (or, at least, permit) a redefinition of national identity and citizenship. Lastly, part three assesses the current prospects for such reforms by briefly examining recent educational developments in four countries whose state representatives have been at the forefront of recent regionalization efforts: Japan, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Regionalization versus Regionalism

Scholarly disagreement over when to date the onset of globalization in the Asia-Pacific may be due as much to differing interpretations of "globalization" as it is to differing interpretations of the historical record. Samuel Kim locates that moment in the early twentieth century, following his definition of globalization as a series of complex, independent yet interrelated processes of stretching, intensifying, and accelerating worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of human relations and transactions economic, social, cultural, environmental, political, diplomatic, and security such that events, decisions, and activities in one part of the world have immediate consequenees for individuals, groups, and states in other parts of the world,"^
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The early twentieth century is notable not merely for the massive colonial presence of the Western powers throughout the region, but also for the unprecedented response to the "Western threat" made by Meiji Japan, which harnessed the forces of nationalism at home and imperialism abroad to emerge as a viable rival to Western power, and as a credible "Asian" model of modernization in the eyes of its neighbors in the region. Japan's military victory over Russia in 1905, which sparked fears of an ominous "Yellow Peril" among Western observers, served notice that modernity was not the monopoly of Western civilization. A decade later. World War I revealed the hollowness of Western civilization's claim of superiority. The effect of these global developments among some Asian reformers was to spawn a discourse that encompassed both national and transnational visions. They imagined a modern China, Korea, Vietnam, or India whose new identities were to be defined not only by their independence from Western imperialism but also by their ethnic and cultural solidarity with other Asians. In his analysis of pan-Asianism and its relationship to the discourse of civilization during this time period, Prasenjit Duara observes that nations need to maintain a duality between civilization as equal to the nation and civilization as transnational, because they often move between these two positions. "New nations," he writes, "seek the transnational conception of civilization because it is only as a trans territorial, universal ideal of, say, Islam or Confucianism with itspotential capacity to reveal the truth of the human condition and embrace all of humanity, that this (civilizational) Self can achieve recognition from the Other."'' However, this duality contains a latent tension. "Because the spiritual impulse of a civilization tends to be universalizing, national boundaries are ultimately artificial and limiting. The transcendent stance of civilization thus may permit a critique of the nation and... can produce the problem of loyalties divided between those to the nation and to civilization,"^ This tension even permeated pan-Asianism in Japan, "which both fed and resisted the nascent imperialism of that nation."^ In the end, Japanese government leaders and ideologues tried to resolve these divided loyalties by making the Japanese nation coterminous wath Asian civilization. Not content to have Japan play a supporting role as a partner in Asia's renaissance, they proclaimed Japan "the Leader of Asia, the Protector of Asia, the Light of Asia, "^ and attempted to impose a hierarchical structure upon the region that was keyed to Japan's national interests. Hence, Japanese prime minister Konoe Fumimaro's announcement of a New Order in East Asia in November 1938, eighteen months after the outbreak of the second Sino-Japanese War. Konoe declared that the aim of this New Order, like the war itself, was to "secure eternal stability in East Asia," To that end, "The core of this new order is the establishment of mutual relationships between Japan, Manchuria, and China in political, economic, cultural and other domains." Eour years later, in 1942, as Imperial Japan found itselffightingto retain control over far-flung territories throughout the Asia-Pacific against the Allied counteroffensive in World War II, talk of a New Order was replaced by a more grandiose vision: the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.'"
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Japan's scheme to control and exploit its neighbors by incorporating them into a "New Order" of its own invention reminds us that places are not preordained; they are created, together with the networks of social relations that help to define their inhabitants. As Higgott explains: "[R|egionness" varies by policy issue and by what the dominant actors in a given group of countries, at a given time, see as their priorities. Shared historical, linguistic and/or cultural characteristics traditionally define a region, but with the attempts to construct understandings of region around the Pacific Ocean, these factors have lost some salience. While there may be structural incentives to regional cooperation (proximity, dramatic technological and economic growth and enhanced interaction flowing from it) regions are socially constructed they need positive social and political action to advance them." During the first four decades after World War II, pan-Asian appeals to a transnational identity rooted in a common civilization were muted, and "regionness" tended to follow the paradigm of "regionalization" rather than "regionalism." I would venture three reasons for this outcome, beginning with widespread revulsion against Japan's manipulation and betrayal of a pan-Asian spirit, symbolized by Japanese wartime treatment of its 'Asian brothers." So deep are those scars that they have stymied Japanese proponents of a new Asia-Pacific regionalism since the early 1980s, when Japan embraced this strategy as a means to cope with the current forces of globalization. That is, citizens in some of the countries that Japan hopes to enlist in a new Asia-Pacific regional partnership are wary, vividly recalling the wartime hardships they experienced as a result of Japan's earlier promise of "co-prosperity."'" A second reason for the primacy of regionalization after World War II is tied to the postwar movements for independence from the colonial powers and the daunting task of constructing nations in place of colonies. Compared to regionalism, regionalization is less susceptible to "the problem of loyalties divided between those to the nation and to civilization" that Duara finds in pan-Asianism, because the latter explicitly acknowledges the primacy of the nation-state. To the leaders of these nascent states, regionalization was seen as a means to harness international cooperation to the goal of nation-building. A third reason for favoring regionalization over regionalism during the four decades following World War II can be traced to cold war politics, in which the former division between Western and Asian civilizations was partially displaced by the ideological division between communism and democracy/capitalism. The cold war was responsible for creating new states North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan whose identities, founding myths, political leaders, and institutions of government were determined in opposition to one another, and in alliance with one of the two major superpowers. The choices open to Asia's leaders were not between Asia and the West, but rather, between the United States, the Soviet Union, or the nonaligned camp. As noted above, regionalization during the early postwar decades came to center on interstate forums dominated by offieially recognized political and
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economic elites, the best known and most influential of which is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), established in 1967 when its founding members (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) signed the Bangkok Declaration. Although this document spoke of promoting economic, social, and cultural cooperation in the region, the organization was established mainly for political-security reasons, which helps to explain why it has been dominated by foreign ministers and has relied on state-to-state cooperation through diplomacy.^' In the words of Yamakage, "Their objectives were to reduce the threats at home and from outside, and to help each other accomplish their individual national goals. The functions of this new regional organization for regional cooperation can be summarized as the pursuit of a good neighbor policy in order to promote mutual trust and regional integration in order to foster national unity.''' (emphasis added)'^ With the end of the cold war, the Asean policy agenda has expanded beyond traditional security issues to include trade andfinance,"^ Why should economic ' issues now dominate the agendas of so many private sector and public sector regional forums inthispartof the world? There are several reasons. First, the contemporary discourse on globalization has always emphasized economic reform as the starting point for broader political and social reforms. ^ Economic dereg^ ulation or privatization both within and across national borders is touted as a catalyst for greater economic opportunity and healthy competition; which, in turn, expands the middle class; which, in turn, brings pressure from below for political deregulation at the top, culminating in the global spread of political, economic, and social democracy. Second, it is the political and business elites who thus have the most to gain by trying to manage this far-reaching process. Ever since Japan's Meiji government coined the phrase "rich country, strong military" in the late nineteenth century, governments throughout Asia have pinned their nation-building plans, and their own legitimacy, on economic modernization. Besides funding a "strong military" as much to quell dissent at home as to defend the homeland from foreign powers or to project its power abroad a "rich country" may also bolster a regime's popular support, to the extent that citizens believe that their own lives will improve as a result. Again, beginning with the Meiji leadership, those same governments have tried to discourage citizens' demands for a greater share of political power by substituting hopes for a higher standard of living, and by promoting an ideology of economic nationalism.'^ A third reason why economic issues have spurred Asia-Pacific states to experiment with newer regional forums like the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) and its East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) is that they can be discursively framed as matters of a diplomatic, bureaucratic or technocratic nature, requiring the authority and expertise of the ruling elites in order to be resolved. This reduces the possibility of public "interference" in the negotiation and policy-making process, and also reduces the potential for these economic matters to assume domestic political, social, or cultural importance beyond the ability of the elites to fully control.
what has resulted from this elite domination of the discourse on regional cooperation among Asia-Pacific states? First, it has meant that elite interests have dominated the official regional agenda. Second, it has meant that these elites have structured regional alliances so as to retain control over the policy-making process, and to favor policies that protect their interests. According to Woodside, the belief in an Asia-Pacific community helps to maintain separate national elites with an identical concern for its perpetuation in very uneasy coexistence with each other, while encouraging them to think that they must take greater account of each other than they need take of the vast populations they govern. In its early stages the acceptance of the belief is more the sum of provisional elite alliances within a large region than it is the reflection of even the beginning of the unification of an "Asia-Pacific" consciousness that might weaken the region s far-flung ethnic or racial divisions.'" However, over the past fifteen years or so, as the conditions that favored regionalization and interstate forums like Asean have changed, evidence of a possible paradigm shift has slowly emerged to challenge the status quo. The end of the cold war, together with the maturation political, economic, and social of societies such as the PRC, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore since the end of World War II a dynamic process that has been strongly influenced by the forces of globalization have brought about calls for a different regional dynamic, referred to throughout this essay as regionalism. These advocates for change represent a broader cross section of their respective societies and profess concern for a broader array of issues than those traditionally favored by government leaders, diplomats, and bureaucrats working through their own state institutions or through interstate forums like Asean. In contrast to radical groups like Jemaah Islamiah, which seeks to ovenhrow existing state institutions and leaders in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines to create a single Islamic state in their place, those who embrace the principles I have ascribed to regionalism are inclined to view existing state agencies and interstate forums like Asean and APEC as potential allies in their quest to build a more closely integrated Asia-Pacific community. For some, this means trying to reform the membership, policy priorities, and decision-making procedures that dominated these bodies during the postwar era of regionalization. For example, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, which precipitated a crisis of confidence in the future of Asean itself not only with respect to its policy priorities, but also with respect to its traditional code of conduct, known as the 'Asean way,""* scholars like Tay and Estanislao have urged political elites themselves to take the initiative: Accordingly, the Asean governments must be willing to recognize the rising voice and influence of civil society and non-government organizations. The greater participation of the peoples of the region is critical to building a sense of community within the region. Where Asean has traditionally been a state-centric organization, in the future much greater room should be provided to allow civil society organizations within Asean to
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reach out towards each other and co-operate more intensely in the pursuit of common interests.^" Others have taken a more proactive approach, by participating in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or launching other private-sector initiatives aimed at addressing, on a local and/or regional level, issues like democracy, human rights, poverty, literacy, and environmental degradation that governments and organizations like Asean have traditionally been reluctant to take up. For example, transnational civil society networks have organized "People's Forums" in conjunction with meetings of APEC representatives, challenging APEC policies and putting forward a more egalitarian, democratic agenda.^^ Analyzing this trend in Southeast Asia, Shamsul describes these NGOs as new forms of social movements. "If the 'old' ones were established and legitimized by institutional structures of the state with the primary aim of supporting well-organized state-sponsored activities of various kinds, the 'new' social movements often emerged to articulate differences, plurality and dissent." As well, they "tend to reject centralism and stress community empowerment instead."" Unlin goes even farther, seeing the emergence of NGOs and similar groups in countries like Malaysia and Thailand as "evidence of the emergence of transnational civil society in Southeast Asia," made possible by "processes of globalization |that] have made civil societies less limited by geographical boundaries."^' By transnational civi! society he means "the sphere of ideas, values, institutions, organizations, networks, and individuals located between the family, the state, and the market and operating beyond the confines of national societies, polities and economies" (emphasis in original). This, in turn, makes it possible to conceive of "global citizenship," where "citizenship is understood as participation, something that is realized through responsible action," rather than as rights and entitlements in relation to a state.^^ "Responsible action" does not necessarily pit NGOs or other active participants in transnational civil society against states, however. On the contrary, Grugel notes that NGOs are increasingly present within governance structures, nationally as well as globally, thereby blurring the boundary between "national" and "transnational" forms of activism. Their goal is not to eliminate states, but to "make states effective and efficient instruments for their community."^^
Regionalism and the Nation-State

From the foregoing, we can anticipate that the transition from regionalization to regionalism, should it proceed in the Asia-Pacific, will be a slow and contentious process, since it involves seismic shifts in the state's relations of power and authority on two different fronts simultaneously: on the domestic front, vis-a-vis its own citizens (and, for that matter, noncitizens such as migrant workers); and on the international front, vis-a-vis rival states and their citizens. This situation has prompted Kim to predict that "More than ever before in human history, the rise or fall of an effective state, even a great power,' is keyed to and determined by the speed with which it can establish congruence between domestic and foreign policies amid the changing trends and requirements of globalization.^*^
Among the various challenges that regionalism presents to the state and its representatives, two will be taken up in the remainder of the essay: identity and citizenship. Throughout the period of postwar regionalization in the Asia-Pacific (and long before that, in the case of Japan), nation-states have expended considerable resources to create and perpetuate among their citizens notions of identity that centered on the nation, and concepts of citizenship that centered on the state. Studies of nation-building and state formation in the modern era routinely assign to schooling a significant role in this process. Schools not only provide members of a society with the practical knowledge and skills literacy and numeracy required of a modern workforce. By requiring all citizens to submit to a standardized curriculum in subjects that promote a national imaginary including language arts, history, civics, and morals schools are also said to contribute to the creation of what Anderson famously calls an "imagined community," through the formation and dissemination of a common national identity and a shared national consciousness where none existed be^ fore.^^ Even so, most scholars treat schooling as just one among various institutions and activities that contribute to this outcome. According to Gellner's classic study of nationalism, however, providing universal, compulsory access to schools that teach a standardized curriculum is not something that individual states in the industrial age elect to do. Rather, it is something that all states are compelled to do. In fact, writes Gellner, it is the single most important function of the modem state, because without it modern society cannot reproduce itself: tN]ationalism is, essentially the general imposition of a high culture on society, where previously low cultures had taken up the lives of the majority, and in some cases the totality, of the population. It means the generalized diffusion of a school-mediated, academy-supervised idiom, codified for the requirements of reasonably precise bureaucratic and technological communication. It is the establishment of an anonymous, impersonal society, with mutually substitutablc atomized individuals, held together above all by a shared culture of this kind, sustained by folk cultures reproduced locally and idiosyncratically by the micro-groups themselves.'" Furthermore, writes Gellner, since only the state commands the resources necessary to support an educational system on such a grand scale, its monopoly over schooling is also the state s principal source of power and legitimacy; more important, even, than its monopoly over the legitimate exercise of violence.^^ Little wonder, then, that the so-called late-developing nations of Asia have typically placed a high value on the spread of education and on centralized state control of schooling. Following the precedent set by the Meiji government in Japan, which pioneered the introduction of universal, compulsory education in Asia beginning in the 1870s, state governments have not merely promoted schooling, but have sought to define the aims and content of school education according to a national economic, political, and social agenda. (In Japan's case, the government not only required that Japanese imperial subjects in the home islands study Japanese history and language, learn to recite the Imperial Rescript on Education, and ritually bow before the Japanese emperor's portrait
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that was housed in every school. As part of its plan to civilize the rest of Asia, it also required non-Japanese subjects in the territories it occupied to do the same.) Significantly, when Gellner published his theory more than two decades ago. just as the discourse on globalization was gaining momentum, he did not foresee any diminution of either nations or nationalism. Rather, "differences between cultural styles of life and communication, despite a similar economic base, will remain large enough to require separate serving, and hence distinct cultural-political units, whether or not they will be wholly sovereign."^" The number and scale of nationalist movements around the globe from Palestine, to Chechnya, to Aceh that the world has witnessed in the decades since he made that prediction would seem to prove him right. Still, it is hard to ignore certain countervailing, if paradoxical, evidence to suggest that during those same decades, the real and perceived effects of globalization in the Asia-Pacific region may have altered the conditions that made nationalism the only form of social organization open to the modern imagination, and that made education the monopoly of the state. In panicular, as globalization has intensified economic competition between countries, states throughout the world have embraced ideas like economic rationalism and managerialism, which advocate deregulating services traditionally provided by the state. Education has been thoroughly implicated in the shift to economic rationalism, which Mok and Welch describe as "the subversion of the social good to that of the economic good: the promotion of productivity and economic growth, the pursuit of more economistic forms of efficiency, and the development of a more competitive and performative culture." Encouraged by supranational bodies like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, which have publicly supported the move to a less centralized form of public management, states have enlisted education in their transition from a "welfare state" to a "competition state"^' by granting more autonomy to public school administrators, expanding the number of private schools, introducing school choice, emphasizing critical thinking and problem-solving skills over rote memorization of information (traditionally supplied through state-authorized textbooks), encouraging life-long learning, and so forth. At the same time, the pressure to compete in the global economy has prompted government leaders and officials with authority over schooling to encourage students to acquire foreign language skills and a more cosmopolitan awareness of the world beyond their own national borders. In light of these changes, the question to be addressed in the final section of the essay is whether, in response to globalization, education in these societies can be liberated from its exclusive focus on the nation to incorporate a truly regional and global perspective into the (formal and informal) curriculum? Are schools in countries like Japan, Malaysia. Singapore, and Australia now poised to help nurture transnational civil society, global citizenship, and the transition from regionalization to regionalism including the construction of a regional identity and sense of community, rather than a strictly national one? 188 Critical Asian Studies 37:2 (2005)
Education Reform and the Prospects for Regionalism

One sign that proponents of regionalism have already attracted the attention of defenders of regionalization is the latter's selective appropriation of the former's terms of reference to "community," "culture," and "values." Of course, this does not mean that the two camps agree on what these terms should mean. A case in point is the well-publicized campaign to restore 'Asian values" that was taken up by political and business elites in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, and Japan beginning in the early 1980s. Rhetorically, their admonition to their fellow Asians to revive and reinstate "traditional" indigenous values exhibited some of the characteristics of early twentieth-century pan-Asianism that was discussed earlier. To begin with, their Asian values mantra purported to elevate issues of a spiritual or moral nature grounded in civilization and culture above issues of a worldly, material nature grounded in political economy. Second, it contained a transnational element that seemed to extol regional identity and citizenship as much as national identity and unity. Finally, it struck a defensive tone that was, at times, explicitly directed against the alleged dangers of Westernization and globalization. However, a closer look at this campaign reveals its ties to the dominant paradigm of regionalization and its conceptual distance from regionalism. To begin with, there was no substantive agreement about what values were "Asian," or what made them distinctly Asian. The tendency during this period to affix the "Asian" label to values such as harmony, cooperation, consensus, placing society above self, and respect for authority had less to do with reviving a neglected regional heritage than with inventing a national one. In Malaysia and Singapore, a primary goal was to neutralize longstanding ethnic tensions between Malays, Chinese, and Indians, while in Korea and Japan it was to neutralize political tensions pitting leftists against conservatives, economic tensions pitting labor against management, and generational tensions pitting youth against their elders. Again, it must be emphasized that these goals were defined largely by the ruling elites, and primarily reflect the interests of these elites. ^ The irony is that ^ while they tended to frame the revival of Asian values as a defense against the tide of globalization and Westernization, their aim was to enlist Asian values in advancing economic development that was dependent upon globalization. Further evidence that the Asian values debate was driven primarily by domestic political considerations on the part of the ruling elites is that by the early 1990s the debate itself was being quietly shelved. During this period, further advances in globalization rendered the political virtue of Asian values into something of a political vice. Asian values were fine, unless they ended up stifling competition, discouraging the acquisition of foreign languages and a cosmopolitan outlook, or public receptivity to foreign investment and modern technology. ^ Furthermore, the 1997-98 Asianfinancialcrisis revealed numerous ex^ amples of corporate and political corruption in high places, which contradicted the ethical pretensions of the very elites who had championed the Asian values doctrine. ^^
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The growing tensions between rcgionalization and regionalism, and the resulting contradictions that beset these states" shifting positions toward the recent Asian values campaign, are also reflected in the educational reforms that have been devised in response to globalization.
Japan
Education in Japan has come in for heavy criticism in recent years for doing exactly what Gellner insists that education in any modern society must do. Books bearing titles like Cartels of the Mind'''' and An Empire of Schools''^' accuse Japanese bureaucratic and corporate elites of systematically undermining the democratic educational reforms that were introduced during the American-led Allied Occupation following World War II, in order to return the schools to a version of Meiji-era state control and elite domination. According to Brian McVeigh, in place of genuine education, the Japanese state now serves up "educational nationalism": a "confluence of statist, ethnic, and racialist ideological curforges "a pow-
Flyer (printing date unknov^'n) advertising the sale of Chikyu no nakamatachi [Our Global Friendsl: a learning aid produced by Kaihatsu Kyoiku O Kangaeru Kai (Society for the Contemplation of Development Education), and marketed to school teachers wishing to teach Japanese children about their counterparts in foreign countries. (All illustrations courtesy of author.)
ing and national sentiments."^" Given these accusations, it may come as a surprise to learn that more than any other nation in the Asia-Pacific, Japan has persistently attempted to reform its educational organization, curriculum, and teaching practices in order to cope with the challenges of globalization. If these attempts are to have any real chance of moving Japan beyond regionalization to the threshold of regionalism, however, state representatives will have to resolve three contradictions of their own creation. The first contradiction is ideological, and can be traced back to the very origins of the current reform
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movement in 1984, when then prime minister Nakasone took the extraordinary step of appointing an Ad Hoc Council on Educational Reform to critique Japanese education and recommend reforms needed to groom the next generation of citizens for life in the twenty-first century. The Council's findings, published in a series of reports between 1985 and 1987, provided both the rationale and the framework for the Ministry of Education's ongoing drive to "internationalize Japanese education" (kyoiku no kokusaika). Appearing throughout these reports is the phrase "coping with internationalization" {kokusaika e no taio), which encapsulates the Council's view of internationalization as a challenge to the preservation of Japanese identity, national unity, and economic power. Japan must prepare to "cope" with an increasingly interdependent community of nations that is openly critical of Japan's economic self-centeredness and cultural insularity, and that expects all members including Japan to act responsibly for the welfare of the whole. To meet this challenge, education must train future generations of "cosmopolitan Japanese" (sekai no naka no Nihonjin) who can help Japan assume a role in the new world order commensurate with its standing at the forefront of the most advanced nations, and make positive contributions not only in the economic arena, but in education, science, and culture as well.^^ The problem with this prescription for educational reform, from the standpoint of promoting regionalism and cultivating a regional identity, is that it remains firmly rooted in the state-based ideologies of national identity and regionalization, Nakasone himself repeatedly stated that tomorrow's cosmopolitan Japanese must be socialized to "contribute to the international community with ^Japanese consciousness" by imbuing them with a thorough knowledge of, and a deep respect for, tbe distinctive (and some would contend, superior) attributes of Japanese tradition and culture. While Lynne Parmenter has identified some subtle changes in the Ministry's 1998 curriculum guidelines (which went into effect in 2002) when compared with the preceding 1989 guidelines (which had been in effect since 1992), the fundamental rationale and aim of internationalization remains unchanged: National identity is prioritized over individual, international, and global identities. At no point does Monbusho [the Ministry of Education] advocate any attachment to tbe world group or international society. Instead, it uses the international context to reinforce attachment to the national group, thus strengthening national group boundaries.^^ The most blatant example of this was the Ministry's decision to mandate (in the 1989 curriculum guidelines) tbe display of tbe Hinomaruflagand the singing of the Kimigayo anthem in the schools, in keeping with the Council's recommendation for more attention to the cultivation of patriotism among students. This move, which continues to be opposed by some local school teachers and principals, was later backed by tbe Japanese Parliament, which granted legal recognition to the Hinomaru as Japan's "nationalflag"and to Kimigayo as its "national anthem."^" While regionahsm does not demand the rejection of national identity, it does require that national identity itself be open to redefinition, in tandem with the
active pursuit of a regional identity (or identities). If the government's renewed emphasis on patriotism is any indication, then Japan still has a long way to go. Tbe second contradiction that has hampered progress toward meaningful educational reform is political: tbe continued concentration of authority over education in the hands of the state. As already noted, the widely publicized drive to "internationalize" was conceived by a government-sponsored council and has been orchestrated by the Ministry of Education. As just noted, the Ministry has played a vigorous role by periodically revising the national curriculum guidelines that everyone from textbook writers and publishers to school officials and teachers, is expected to follow. The advantage of this approach is that it sets mini-
This page is from a sixth-grade social studies textbook: Shinpen Atarashii Shakai [new edition. New Society! (Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki, 1995), p. 54. This excerpt highlights japan's governmental and nongovernmental contributions to the development of less advanced countries in Asia and Africa.
mum standards for curriculum reform for school districts throughout the country. The disadvantage is that it risks perpetuating elite, bureaucratic interference in education at the local level. Significantly, such interference has been recognized as a deeply ingrained problem in Japanese education, prompting concurrent efforts at "liberalization" (jiyuka) or deregulation, such as granting local school districts moreflexibilityin how they implement the standard curriculum guidelines. For instance, a number of prefectures have elected to establish new programs in international studies, some of which are housed in new international high schools, that offer students concentrated foreign language study in assorted Asian and Western languages (English, German, Chinese, Korean) often taught with the help of native speakers more intensive study of world history and foreign cultures, and opportunities to travel abroad in school-sponsored trips to destinations in both Asia and North America. Furthermore, the novelty of the Ministry's push for "education for international understanding" (kokusai rikai kyoiku), which now permeates the Minis192
Critical Asian Studies 37:2 (2005)
try's guidelines for most subjects in the curriculum, has meant that teachers have frequently been left to devise their own teaching strategies and materials. These, in turn, have found their way into commercially published handbooks for the profession, handbooks that are not subject to the Ministry's scrutiny or authorization.^' Thus, the relative independence that teachers have come to exercise in deciding how education for international understanding" actually takes place in their own classrooms offers some potential for resolving both the ideological and the political contradictions inherent in the Ministry's reform program. However, that potential is threatened, in turn, by a third contradiction that, depending on one's perspective, could be described as ideological, political, economic, and/or structural: the ostensibly meritocratic, but unmistakably competitive system of entrance exams for high school and university. The problem is not just that the system is competitive, but that the content of the exams has long favored rote memorization of empirical information over critical thinking and analytical skills, social education, practical experience, and personal reflection. The deleterious effects of this system have long been recognized by the authorities, including Nakasone's Ad Hoc Council, whose reports combined a call to internationalize Japanese education with calls to develop students' individual character (kosei). creativity (sozosei), independence ijiyu), self-discipline ijiritsii), and personal responsibility (jiko sekintn).'^ More recently, the Ministry of Education admitted that in spite of the phenomenal quantitative expansion of upper secondary education after World War 11, insufficient attention has been given to "the extreme diversification of students' attributes, including abilities, aptitudes, interests, concerns, and career paths.'"^ To remedy this oversight. Prefectures and individual schools are.. .working to diversify educational content and teaching methods to reflect local and school conditions, course and subject characteristics, and students' abilities, aptitudes, and career plans. Efforts have also been made to develop differentiated schools through such measures as the establishment and restructuring of courses and the introduction of a sub-course system to reflect internationalization, the shift to an information-oriented society, and other social changes. To provide additional impetus for efforts in these areas, new types of upper secondary schools have been established to provide a flexible response to social change and the diversified needs of students through approaches that are not bound by traditional frameworks. Sustained efforts are still being made in these areas by prefectures as well as individual schools." In addition to these steps, the entrance exam system has undergone modest revisions, such as supplementing multiple choice questions with an essay requirement and a fore ign-la ngu age (English) listening comprehension exercise, and encouraging colleges and universities to place greater weight upon high schot)l transcripts and letters of recommendation as part of the application process. Yet, by most accounts, these changes are superficial and have done little to alter a system that continues to serve vested state and corporate interests.
In spite of or, perhaps, because of these persistent structural and ideological constraints, school teachers, university students, and faculty have joined a cross section of other Japanese citizens to establish homegrown NGOs to advance the cause of global citizenship, on the one hand, and regionalism, on the other. The Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (Kokusai Kyoryoku NGOSenta; known by the acronym Janic), a networking NGO founded in 1987, has identified more than one hundred Japanese NGOs whose overseas activities encompass poverty reduction, educational support, medical and healthcare services, environmental protection, and assistance for refugees. While not all of these NGOs specifically target Asia or the Asia-Pacific, a number of them do. For example, among the seventy NGOs that belong to Janic are the Asian Community Trust, the Asian Rural Institute, Bridge Asia Japan, the Association of Medical Doctors for Asia, the Institute for Himalayan Conservation, and the Japan Asian Association and Asia Friendship Society. Other Janic members, such as the Development Education Association and Resource Center, produce educational materials and sponsor seminars to educate Japanese citizens about global issues such as sustainable development, and about the concept of global citizenship itself, which is reflected in Janic's own vision statement: To contribute to the realization of a global society where people are liberated from hunger, poverty and the violation of human rights, where people live in barmony with their natural surroundings, wbere people are assured of equal and fair opportunity to participate in choosing the direction of their society, and where people mutually respect diverse cultures and values, while living together*^
Australia
When it comes to regionalization in tbe Asia-Pacific, Japan and Australia are rarely mentioned in tbe same breath, except in strictly economic and political terms: as bilateral trading partners and as staunch diplomatic and military allies of the United States. And when it comes to regionalism, the two appear to share nothing in common historically, culturally, linguistically, or ethnically upon which to forge a shared identity. However, as Gavan McCormack points out, this assumption overlooks one very important historical similarity: "Like Japan, Australia in the nineteenth century adopted policies of monoethnic, racial superiority, denigration of its aboriginal inhabitants, chauvinism, and rejection of Asia. While Japan declared its sloughing off of Asia, Australia declared itself white, and both insisted on their superior racial qualities. Both in recent decades debate how best to enter, or, at least associate more closely with, Asia."^^ This fact begins to explain why Japan and Australia both became early advocates of Asia-Pacific regionalization,^' and why Australia has been second only to Japan among Asia-Pacific states in attempting to incorporate a regional perspective into its school curriculum. It also begins to explain why these reforms have generated as much political heat in Australia as in Japan. According to former prime minister Paul Keating, "throughout the 1950s and '60s the fear of Asia, or of something from Asia, remained the dominant undercurrent in Australian policy toward the region,"^" much as it had since the 1850s,
nqe is
[ourney, blueprint
Front cover of Change is a journey, not a blueprint: Teacher stones of change. The studies of Asia in Australian schools, by David McRae (Asia Education Foundation, 2001). Example of literature produced by the Asia Education Foundation, with funding from the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, designed to promote the study of Asia and Asian languages in Australian primary and secondary schools.
when Australians began to conceive of their nation as "an outpost of Europe" facing the threat of "the growing power of the East.""'' However, during the last quarter of the twentieth century, "Old certainties about national identity have been eroding without a new consensus emerging. Questions and contestations dominate contemporary discourse. Who are we as Australians and how do we fit into the Asia-Pacific region?"^" Keating's description of the challenge facing Australians in the decades after World War II coinciding with Ihe era of regionalization described earlier points to some unexpected parallels between the political challenges domestic as well as foreign that confronted Australia, on one hand, and post-colonial Asia's new states, on the other. First, the "fear of Asia" that had prompted generations of white Australians to reaffirm their political, eco-
nomic, racial, and cultural ties to Europe delayed, but could not prevent, a gradual erosion of this colonial mentality, as Australia came to assert greater political and economic independence from Britain while forging new economic and security relations with its neighbors to the north. Second, Australia was no less susceptible to cold war geopolitics and U.S. infiuence than were America's other major allies in the region, albeit for different reasons; and, like them, Australia s alliance with the United States would become a major topic of domestic political debate by the early 1970s. Third, in Australia as in Asia, these developments inspired politically charged discursive attempts to redefine both nationness and regionness. If there is one point upon which Keating and his critics agree, it is that responsibility for this initiative belongs mainly to Keating and two of his predecessors as Labor Party leader and prime minister: Gough Whitlam (1972-1975) and
Lincicome/Clobalization, Education 195
Bob Hawke (1983-1991). On the domestic front, Whitlam is remembered for taking steps to eradicate the remnants of the "White AustraUa" policy by outlawing racial discrimination and enacting new programs to improve the rights and welfare of Aborigines and other ethnic minorities. Abroad, he sought greater independence from U.S. foreign poUey in Asia by withdrawing Australian troops from Vietnam, establishing diplomatic relations with the PRC, Vietnam, and North Korea, and promoting human rights, nuclear disarmament, and environmental protection.^' While Hawke was more accommodating to American foreign polic7 than Whitlam. the end of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union during his administration enabled him and Keating (1991-96) to embark on a new doctrine of "enmeshment" in the Asia-Pacific.''^ This doctrine was undeniably a product of the regionalization paradigm: centering on engagement among state representatives, acting through regional forums both old (Asean) and new (APEC, Asean Regional Forum), in order to advance an agenda defined by governing elites. However, in the course of promoting a new era of interstate cooperation between his government and other states bordering the Pacific, tbe Keating doctrine explicitly promoted a new regional identity, symbolized by the hyphenated name 'Asia-Pacific," that was also to be the cornerstone of a new Australian national identity. Indeed, political opponents both at home and abroad went so far as to accuse Keating of trying to turn Australia into an Asian nation. "^ Keating ^ replied by stating emphatically that 'Australia is not, and can never be, an 'Asian nation,'" but [T]hat is a very different thing from asserting, as I believe we must, that Australia is a legitimate and central part of the region around us; that we are and have every right and responsibilityto be a charter member of the region and its institutions. Whether you call this region Asia, or tbe West Pacific, or the Kast Asian Hemisphere, or the Asia-Pacific matters much less than our active panicipation in it, our legitimacy in being part of it.^-* This new era of openness to the Asia-Pacific prompted a variety of educational initiatives that brought the philosophy of regionalism and the idea of a regional community one step closer to reality. At the university level, programs in Asian Studies were expanded on Australian campuses, and more Australian students traveled to neighboring countries to study Asian languages and cultures. Some institutions w^ent a step further; opening up branch campuses in countries like Malaysia, geared primarily toward Asian students, many of whom conducted part of their studies at home campuses in Australia. At the pre-college level, an unprecedented drive to introduce the study of Asian culture in the curriculum during the 199()s has meant that more Australian students now study Japanese than any other foreign language.'^''Just as significant has been the innovative partnerships between the government, commercial, and nonprofit sectors that helped to sustain this drive. A prime example of this partnership is the Asia Education Foundation, established in 1992 to promote teaching and learning about Asia in Australian schools. The Foundation is a joint activity of the Curriculum Corporation a nonprofit pub196 Critical Asian Studies 37:2 (2005)
Front cover of Voices and Values; Gf/zens/i/p in Asia {Access Asia series), by Beth Cilligan (Curriculum Corporation [part of the Asia Education Foundation], 1998 [reprinted 2000]). Example of government-funded supplementary teaching materials produced by the Asia Education Foundation to promote the study of Asia and Asian languages in Australian primary and secondary schools.
Usher owned by the various State ministries of education and the University of Melbourne's Asialink Centre. Funding for the Foundation comes from the Commonwealth government, partnerships with each state and territory, grants from Asian governments and nonprofit agencies, and private donations. Its professional staff organizes teams of academics, curriculum specialists, and teachers to produce curriculum materials, policy statements, and teaching strategies for individual subjects in the curriculum; runs in-service training workshops, conferences, and foreign study tours for teachers; and maintains websites containing curricular materials and information about Asia for free distribution to teachers.''^
The Asia Education Foundation stands at the crossroads between regionalization and regionalism in Australia. This position is reflected in its statement of curriculum goals for the study of Asia, according to which, students should understand and appreciate the diversity of environments, cultures, religions and societies of Asia; develop informed attitudes and behaviour towards Asian people, events, issues and lifestyles and the ability to communicate these appropriately and effectively to others; understand the economic, strategic and cultural importance of the countries of Asia and their links with other countries in the world, particularly Australia; develop an awareness of the diversity of values within Asian societies that extends beyond cultural stereotypes; form skills for interacting effectively with peoples of the Asian regions, within school curricular activities and generally; develop a commitment to principles of friendship, peace, social justice, cooperation and mutual respect among all peoples and nations, with a particular focus on the peoples of Australia and
Lincicome/Globalization, Education
197
On one hand, it requires no great leap of the imagination to see how regionalization would stand to benefit from cultivating in Australia's future workforce and future elites a better appreciation of Asian peoples and their cultures, not to mention a practical understanding of the economic, strategic, and cultural links between Asia and Australia. Like Nakasone's cosmopolitan Japanese, this generation of Australians would be armed with the practical knowledge and skills needed to defend the national interest on the frontUnes of the new global economy and regional security nexus. On the other hand, the Foundation's concluding emphasis on developing "a commitment to principles of friendship, peace, social justice, cooperation and mutual respect among all peoples and nations" resonates strongly with the principles of regionalism, and offers tacit support for the attendant concepts of transnational civil society and global citizenship.
Malaysia and Singapore
Prior to the recent wave of concern over globalization, neither geographic proximity nor a common heritage of British colonialism did much to encourage regional cooperation, much less a regional identity, between Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore. On the contrary, it could be argued that these very factors have continued to hinder all three states from pursuing a coordinated regional response to globalization. Geographical proximity has meant competition for economic and strategic advantage, while the legacy of British colonialism has placed a high priority on nationalism and nation building, rather than a transnational regionalism. The irony of this last point is that European colonialism, which some authors have described as the first historical instance of "globalization" in Asia, continues to shape the responses of former European colonies like Malaysia and Singapore to the current wave of globalization including their experiments in regional cooperation nearly a half century after independence. Nowhere is this irony more apparent than in Malaysian and Singaporean educational policies that, in different ways, have perpetuated the race-based social, economic, and political divisions instituted by the British, and for the same purpose: social engineering and control. The introduction of ethnic Indian and Chinese immigrants into the Malay Peninsula to serve in the colonial administration and in colonial-sanctioned trade and industry helped to thwart a unified nationalist revolution against British control following World War II. Instead, independence came about gradually, with British consent and cooperation, which left the colonial system of race-based social relations intact. Thus, from the outset, the overriding challenge facing the postcolonial leadership has been: How to forge a common national identity and promote national unity among numerically and economically unequal populations of "Malays," "Indians," and "Chinese" (and, in the case of Malaysia, tribes like the Orang Asili)?*^*^ And, from the outset, education was harnessed to this political goal. In Malaysia, where Malays are officially recognized as the nation's indigenous "sons of the soil" (bumiputra), where Bahasa Melayu is the official mother tongue, and where Islam is the only state-supported religion, education has
been placed in an untenable position of promoting Malay cultural, political, and economic hegemony while also endorsing multiculturalism and tolerance for the nation's Chinese and Indian "minorities." To redress perceived social and economic inequities among the principal ethnic groups and shore up its political support among the Malay majority, the government harnessed education to its New Economic Policy, which sought to increase the bumiputra share of corporate equity from 2.5 percent in 1970 to 30 percent by 1990. Accordingly, English-language instruction a vestige of colonial privilege was phased out and Bahasa A page from Education in Malaysia, published in 1997 by MalayMelayu became the mesia's Ministry of Education (p. 28). dium of instruction, although Chinese and Indian elites managed to secure public funding for Chinese and Tamil education at the primary level; a racial quota system was implemented that favored bumiputra students in admission to tertiary schools; and special secondary schools, programs, and scholarships for bumiputra students were also provided." The interethnic conflicts that these affirmative action policies unwittingly provoked help to account for the emphasis that came to be placed upon values education in the curriculum, beginning in the 1980s. As noted earlier, instruction in "Asian values" was never intended to promote a regional identity in response to globalization. Rather, it was designed to soothe these interethnic tensions and promote a still-elusive national identity.
the Challenges
III!
Ml'
I. thr prntK i
However, while the nation remains the primary referent for Malaysian educational policy. Lee has identified a number of recent reforms attributable to globalization, some of which have important implications for the development of a regional identity. Most notable is "a series of policy initiatives involving the liberalization of post-secondary education and re-emphasizing the importance of the English language" in private institutions.'"" Among other things, deregulation and privatization of higher education has made it possible for foreign
Lindcome/Globalization, Education 199
mainly Australian schools to establish branch campuses in Malaysia. These schools appeal not only to foreign students from Australia and other parts of the Asia-Pacific, but also to Malaysia's own ethnic minorities (Chinese and Indians) who have been disadvantaged by their government's quota system for the bumiputra. These schools permit Malaysian students to complete their education abroad, while acting as a bridge to students' rccntiy into Malaysian society, armed with a more cosmopolitan outlook and English-language competence. Ironically, the transformation of English from the language of colonial oppression to the language of international business, science, and technology has also made it a potential medium for enhanced regional cooperation among Asia-Pacific nations. The problem with relying on private schools to foster a transnational outlook and cross-cultural communication skills is twofold: not only does it exclude a majority of Malaysian students; it also exacerbates existing socioeconomic class divisions. According to Lee, those intra-ethnic class divisions are a direct byproduct of the government's affirmative action programs that were aimed at the bumiputra, and loom as a greater source of potential social instability than interethnic divisions.^' In light of these persistent social tensions and the ongoing struggle to arm the populace with the basic skills seen as necessary to make them productive and self-sufficient, it is little wonder that the government views a curriculum geared toward imparting a transnational identity as a luxury that contemporary Malaysia simply cannot afford at present.^'^ Thus, while Malaysia's Ministry of Education recognizes that "There is certainly a need to develop an awareness of the Asean and to instill an Asean spirit and a sense of kinship among the young in member countries," it is content to proceed on the assumption that Malaysian students will acquire the "Asean spirit" as a consequence of the instruction they receive in Malaysian morals and citizenship, since the "positive values found in Malaysian societies and advocated by the various religions, traditions and cultures of different communities.. .are also consonant with universal values."^^ The contradictions inherent in these policies appear to haunt the activities of Malaysian NGOs, as well, although any connection between them can only be inferred. On the one hand, notes Weiss, "Malaysian activists on the whole seem comfortable with assuming some transnational (particularly regional) role, even if most still view themselves as Malaysians above all.... Frequently, a sense of (Southeast) Asian identity complements, but does not replace or transcend, a specific national identity," particularly because of the platform provided by Asean.*^ On the other hand, many Malaysian NGOs remain overtly oriented around ethnicity; a situation that the state has been happy to exploit by installing vertical structures to incorporate and control key social groups under a form of statist democracy'"^ Thus, even as "the concept of a national culture that would underpin the whole nationalist project has been quietly abandoned" by the government in response to globalization and economic liberalization, with the result that the growing Malay middle class "now shares the same values and outlook as its non-Malay counterpart," T. Rajamoorthy remains skeptical that this presages
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Some of Singapore's CDnitraints and vulnerabilities
How Singapore handles tKese constraints and vulnerablliries Recruiting workers from other countries
Small land area
Lack of manpower
Establishing friendly ties with other countries
Shortage of water
Reclaiming more land from the sea
Dependence on other countries for our basic needs
Buymg water from

other countries
Ramorrbar that, iJotprte being a (moil notion, Singapore 'na' woriiod fiord lo overcome ite corntrainti mid vulnerobllltlet
From Civics and Moral Education: Pupil's Book 2B (Singapore: Curriculum Planning and Development Division, Ministry of Education, 2000), 47. Excerpt from Unit 2, "Singapore and the World," of a pupil's workbook.
the development of a new concept of citizenship that is more multicultural and less focused on national identity.^ Compared to Malaysia, conditions in neighboring Singapore would appear, at first glance, to be more conducive to reorienting education away from overtly nationalistic, statist priorities, in favor of promoting greater international competence, a transnational perspective, and a regional identity among its citizens. I n d e e d , Singapore would seem to have more in common with Japan in this regard: two island nations, poor in natural resources save for their well-educated and highly disciplined populations, and keenly dependent upon amicable relations (economic, diplomatic, cultural) with other nations for their future development. This sense of dependency is vividly captured by Kwok Kian-Woon in his introduction to Singapore 2001, published by the Ministry
of Information and the Arts, in which he states that "the island-city-nation-state has always been a work in progress, a child of globalization, responding to historical, economic, technological, social, and cultural forces outside of itself like a top that is spinning, with its pointed end barely always touching the ground. It cannot afford to spin out of control. Nor can it afford to lose its momentum or it may not spin at all."^^ These similarities are reflected in their programs for educational reform. With respect to English-language education, for example, Japanese students now commence study in primary school (rather than middle school) like their counterparts in Singapore, where English has been the medium of instruction in primary and secondary school since 1987.*'** And, like Japan, Singapore during the late 1980s and 1990s launched a comprehensive reform program in response to globalization, which emphasized administrative flexibility, entrepreneurship, cultivation of creativity, expansion of lifelong learning opportunities, and the promotion of information technology^'
Lincicome/Globalizatioa, Education 201
However, to an even greater extent than Japan, Singapore's education policy responses to globalization remain firmly grounded in a nationalist perspective and harnessed to elite priorities. In practice, this has meant that education in Singapore, like its counterpart in neighboring Malaysia, remains captive to the politics of ethnic and national identity. Following Singapore's independence from Malaysia in 1965, its ethnic Chinese population adroitly leveraged its majority status to insure its continued political, economic, and cultural dominance without having to resort to the kind of affirmative action policies and programs that have proved divisive in Malaysia. Instead, under the banner of "unity in diversity," the government of Singapore has tried to fashion a national identity that officially recognizes and celebrates the country's Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnic groups, while subtly shaping each group's definition and expression of its own ethnicity, and while managing relations within and between these groups.^' Thus, returning to the example of English-language instruction, Wang notes that English is not only meant to connect Singapore to the rest of the world; it is also meant "to act as the neutral bridge linking the various ethnic communities which make up the population of Singapore, "^^ since it is the only language they all have in common. Similarly, Wee observes that as the 1980s concept of a pan-Asian capitalist culture started to weaken in the early 1990s, the state's pursuit of "national culturalism proceeded but now via a simultaneous affirmation of the national and the global, rather than the regional or the pan-Asian. This was prescient, given how problematic the Asian-Pacific "triad power' was about to become with the Asian [financial] crisis, and given the already poor community sense in the Pacific."^^ Thus, along with its greater emphasis on flexibility, creativity, lifelong learning, and information technology, the government of Singapore also introduced a new National Education program centered on citizenship training, in order "to strengthen the development of national cohesion, instinct for survival and confidence in the future."^' This posture is reflected in the textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education for primary and secondary school students. For example, one second grade pupil's workbook for civics and moral education is divided into four units, covering "Our Citizenship," "Be a Part of Total Defence," "Sustaining Singapore's Growth," and "Singapore and the World." Their common refrain is the need for Singaporeans to work together to protect the nation from the various "constraints and vulnerabilities" that threaten its existence. The overriding goal of national survival also frames the text's discussion of Singapore s international relations. Thus, in the unit on "Singapore and the World," pupils are taught that Singapore handles its "lack of manpower" by "recruiting workers from other countries," and its "dependence on other countries for our basic needs" by "establishing friendly ties with other countries."^"^ The question of Singapore's contribution to the international community is not ignored, but is portrayed as the work of the state, operating through its membership in Asean and the United Nations. There is no discussion of global citizenship, or of any sort of transnational community or identity.
Conclusion
If the foregoing assessments of education in Japan, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore are representative of education in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, then the nation clearly remains the principal referent for education in the region, and the state remains the chief arbiter of what passes for education, just as Gellner concluded more than twenty years ago. If so, then it would seem unlikely that education is poised to push these societies to move beyond regionalization toward regionalism, including the formation of a transnational regional identity and sense of community. What Gellner did not foresee, however, is the extent to which globalization has challenged the state's monopoly over the education and thus, the identity of its citizens. Virtually all of the states examined in this essay have been compelled to respond to the demands of global capitalism by instituting educational reforms that have the potential to empower their citizens to breach the borders of the old national imaginary. Most elites in power have shown a reluctance to acknowledge, much less encourage, that potential at the grassroots level. It remains to be seen what the citizens themselves elect to do. States thus face a choice. The transition from regionalization to regionalism depends to a great extent upon "the rising voice and influence of civil society and non-government organizations," and with citizens' ability to exercise what Dirlik calls "place-based imagination." Animated by the globalization discourse described by Higgott, this derivative discourse draws renewed attention to the particular, through the lens of localism and regionalism. While not necessarily opposed to globalization, it seeks to create new regional communities, or new networks of local communities, in order to resist globalization's threat of marginalization and to fashion new political spaces in which to influence the process of development and its outcomes.^^ States can choose to permit, or even encourage, grassroots participation in this process. Or they can seek to limit citizen participation and risk citizen resistance; or perhaps even worse, citizen apathy and the death of regionalism altogether. In this regard, it is interesting to note that even some critics of the nationalistic, authoritarian character of the earlier Asian values campaign are slow to dismiss its transformative potential.^^ Even as the Japanese government, according to one critic, moves to wave the banner of Asian values in a bid to reestablish its leadership in the region,"" groups of citizens in Japan and elsewhere are taking a variety of initiatives to challetige their government's state-centered agendas.^^ In many cases, they have sought to minimize cooptation by the state by working through nongovernmental organizations or through local governmental bodies to engage directly with their counterparts abroad in a variety of cultural, educational, and economic exchanges.
Notes
1. The author wishes to thank the Japan Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the College of the Holy Cross (USA), and the Asia Frontier Research Project at Rikkyo University (lapan) for providing grant support to conduct re203
Lincicome/Globalization, Education
2.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15.
16.
search in Asia for this essay. He also wishes to acknowledge the incisive comments provided by three anonymous readers of a previous draft. Earlier versions of this essay were presented at Rikkyo University, for the Symposium on Globalism and Education for Sustainable Development in the Asia-Pacific, 1 August 2005, and at Monash University Centre in Prato (Italy), for the Second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, 23 July 2004. Richard Higgott. "The Political Economy of Globalisation in East Asia: The Salience of'Region Building,'" in Globalisation and tbe Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories., ed. Kris Olds, Peter Dicken, Philip F. Kelly, Lily Kong, and Henry Wai-chungYeung (London and New York: Routlcdge, 1999), 92. See Arif Dirlik, "Introducing the Pacific," in What Is in a Rim? Critical Perspectives on the Pacific Region Idea, ed. Arif Dirlik (Boulder: WestviewPress, 1993), 5. This term, borrowed from Higgott, is discussed later in this essay. Samuel S. Kim, "East Asia and Globalization: Challenges and Responses." in East Asia and Globalization, ed. Samuel S. Kim (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000). 10. Prascnjit Duara, "The Discourse of Civilization and Pan-Asianism," in Nations under Siege: Globalization and Nationalism in Asia, ed. Roy Starrs (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 71-72. Ihid. Ibid., 75-76. This was the slogan of the AAA Movement: a propaganda campaign that Japan launched in the Dutch East Indies in April 1942, shortly after its military forces secured control of the archipelago. Tomoko Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919-45 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 231-34. Higgott, "The Political Economy of Globalisation," 93. Yumei Zhang, Pacific Asia: The Politics of Development (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 139-40. Memories ofthe war and the Japanese occupation forces in East and Southeast Asia continue to evolve in response to domestic politics: they vary not only between countries, but also between ethnic groups within a single society. See Wang Gungwu, "Memories of War: World War II in Asia," in War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore, ed. P Lim Pui Huenand Diana Wong (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000); and Ricardo T. Jose, "War and Violence. History and Memory," in "We Asians": Between Past and Future, t:^{\. Kwok Kian-Woon, Indira Arumugam, Karen Chia, and Lee Chee Keng (Singapore: National Heritage Society, 2000). JusufWanandi, ASEAN's Past and the Challenges Ahead: Aspects of Politics and Security," m Reinventing ASEAN, ed. Simon S.C. Tay Jesus P Estanisla, and Hadi Soesastro (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001), 25. Yamakage Susumu, 'A Changing ASFAN and the Implications for Japan," in Gaiko Forum 4, no. 1 (spring 2004): 37. Zhang, Pacific Asia, 138-43. This began in 1992 when the six original member states set up the Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA), and gained further momentum following the 1997 Asian financial crisis through the so-called "Asean 4-3" formula, which brought the Asean member states (now numbering ten) together with China, Japan, and South Korea. See also Higgott, The Political Economy of Globalisation," 104. Robert W Cox, "A Perspective on Globalization," in Globalization: Critical Reflections, ed. James H. Mitteiman (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1996), 21-24.
204
17. Zhang,, Pacific Asia, 144. 18. Alexander Woodside, "The Asia-Pacific Idea as a Mobilization Myth," in Dirlik, What Is in a Rim.^ 20. 19. The Asean way, among other things, "(I) emphasizes the norm of non-interference in other states' affairs; (2) prefers consensus and non-binding plans to treaties and legalistic rules; and (3) relies on national institutions and actions, rather than creating a strong central bureaucracy." See Simon S.C. Tay and Jesus Estanislao, "The Relevance of ASEAN: Crisis and Change," in Tay et al., eds., Reinventing ASEAN, 920. Ibid., 20. 21. Anders Unlin, Globalization, Democratization and Civil Society in Southeast Asia: Ohservations from Malaysia and Thailand," in Globalization and Democratization in Asia: The Construction of Identity, ed. Caterina Kinnvall and Kristina Jonsson (New York: Routledge, 2002), 162. 22. Shamsul A.B., "Glohalization and Democratic Developments in Southeast Asia," in ihid., 198-99. 23. Unlin, "Globalization," 149. 24. Nicola Piper and Anders Uhlin, "New Perspectives on Transnational Activism," in Transnational Activism in Asia, ed. Nicola Piper and Anders Uhlin (New York: Routledge, 2004), 7-8. 25. Jean Grugel, "State Power and Transnational Activism," in ibid., 33-39. 26. Kim, "East Asia and Glohalization," 25. 27. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983, 1991). See also: E.J. Hohsbavmi, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990): Anthony Smith, National Identity (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1991). 28. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1983), 57. 29. Ibid., 34. 30. Ibid., 119. 31 Ka-ho Mok and Anthony Welch. "Globalization, Structural Adjustment and Education Reform," in Globalization and Educational Restructuring in the Asia Pacific Region, ed. Ka-ho Mok and Anthony Welch (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 7-8. 32. Zhang. Pacific Asia, 146-47; C.J.W-L. Wee, "From Universal to Local Culture: The State, Ethnic Identity, and Capitalism in Singapore," in Local Cultures and the "New Asia": The State, Culture, and Capitalism in Southeast Asia, ed. C.J.W-L. Wee (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2002), 138-42; Chua Beng Huat, "Living with Capitalism in Asia, Uncomfortably," in "We Asians": Between Past and Future, 141-45; David Birch, Tony Schirato, and Sanjay Srivastave, Asia: Cultural Politics in the Global Age (Crows Nest, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2001), 14-24. 33. Birch, Schirato, and Srivastava believe there were racist overtones in this abrupt denunciation of Asian values, which they attribute to Western critics following the 1997 Asian fmancial crisis. See Birch, Schirato, and Srivast, Asia: Cultural Politics in the Global Age, viii. 34. Chua, "Living with Capitalism," 146. 35. Ivan P Hall, Cartels of the Mind: Japan s Intellectual Closed Shop (New York: WW Norton, 1998). 36. Robert L. Cutts, An Empire of Schools: Japan's Universities and the Molding of a National Power Elite (Armonk. N.Y: ME. Sharpe, 1997). 37. Brian J. McWci^^ Japanese Higher Education as Myth (Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), 47.
38. Mark Lincicome, "Nationalism, Internationalization, and the Dilemma of Educational Reform in Japan," Comparative Education Review 37. no. 2 (May 1993): 123-27. 39. Lynne Parmenter, "Internationalization in Japanese Education: Current Issues and Future Prospects," in Globalization and Education: Integration and Contestation across Cultures, ed. Nelly P Stromquist and Karen Monkman (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 251. 40. Robert W Aspinall, Teachers' Unions and the Politics of Education in Japan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 124-27. 41. See the following examples: "Kokusai rikai kyoiku" mondai kaiketsu shirizu 4: Gakushu o meguru mondai ni do kotaeru ka, ed. Maki Masami, ltd Kazuhiko, and Takeda Shinichi (Tokyo: Toyokan Shuppansha, 1997; ''Sogoteki na gakushu" nojissen: Kokusai rikai kyoiku no kangaekata, susumekata, ed. Saito Gunhei (Tokyo: Kyoiku Kaihatsu Kenkyujo, 1997); Tada Takashi, Gakko ni okeru kokusai rikai kyoiku: Gurobaru maindo o sodateru (Tokyo: Toyokan Shuppansha, 1997); Chiiki ni nezashita kokusai rikai kyoiku jissen jirei shu, ed. Zenkoku kaigai shijo kyoiku, kokusai rikai kyoiku kenkyu kyogikai (Tokyo: Daiichi Hoki Shuppan Kabushiki Gaisha, 1993); Ningen o kangaeru atarashii shakaika nojugyo 5; "Kokusaika, johoka shakai de no ikikata" o manabu, ed. Oyamada Jo, Watabe Yaeko, Kobayashi Kenji, and Komatsuzawa Masato (Tokyo: Toyokan Shuppansha, 1994); Shin gakko kyoiku zenshu 6: Kokusaika to gakko kyoiku, ed. Okuda Shinjo and Nagaoka Jun (Tokyo: Gyosei, 1995). 42. Lincicome, "Nationalism," 127. 43. Japanese Government Policies in Education, Science and Culture: New Directions in School Education: Fostering Strength for Life (Ministry of Education, 1994), 20. 44. Ibid., 40. 45. URL: http:/Avww.janic.org/en/en-index.html. 46. Gavan McCormack, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence (Armonk, NY: ME. Sharpe, 1996), 177. 47. Dirlik, "Introducing the Pacific," 7-8. 48. Paul Keating, Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia-Pacific (Sydney: MacmiUan, 2000), 19. 49. David Walker. Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850-1939 (Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1999), 4. 50. Brian Galligan, Winsome Roberts, and Gahriella Tdfiletti, Australians and Globalisation: The Experience of Two Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 2. 51. URL: http:/AvhitIani.alp.org.au/bio.html. 52. Peter Chalk, Australian Foreign and Defense Policy in the Wake of the 1999/2000 East Timor Intervention (Santa Monica, Calif: Rand Corporation, 2001), 10-15; David Martin Jones, "Regional Illusion and Its Aftermath, " in Policy (New South Wales: Centre for Independent Studies, spring 2003). 53. At least one critic accuses Keating and the Labor Party of pursuing precisely the opposite goal. Hage charges that their pro-Asia discourse and their ideology of multiculturalism "should be seen primarily as a NX'hite nationalist strategy directed towards Asia," the aim of which is to allow the Australian nation to "assume a non-Eurocentric posture and identity, and to imagine itself as an independent internationai subject in Asia rather than in Europe." See Ghassan Hage, White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (Annandale, N.S.W: Pluto Press, 1998), 142, 145. 54. Keating, Engagement, 21.
55. "TopTenLanguages Year 12 1991-2000 (Candidates for Year 12 Tertiary Entrance Subjects)," compiled by Outcomes and National Reporting Section, Budget and Coordination Branch, Schools Division. In 2000, Japanese was the most commonly taught foreign language, Chinese was third, and Indonesian fifth. 56. Interview with Kathe Kirby, deputy director and director of education, Asialink, 29 April 2002. Two ofthe organization's wehsites can be found at: (1) www. asialink.unimelb.edu.au; and (2) www.curriculum.edu.au/accessasia. 57. Asia Education Foundation, Studies of Asia: A Statement for Australian Schools, 2d ed. (Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation, 2000), 6. 58. It is imponant to remember that each of these race-based groups was also internally divided along ethnic and cultural lines. 59. Molly N.N. Lee, Educational Change in Malaysia, Monograph Series No. 3 (Penang, Malaysia: School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2002), 5-6. 60. Ibid., 8. 61. Interview with Molly N.N. Lee, 25 February 2002. 62. Interview with five officials ofthe Curriculum Development Committee, Malaysian Ministry of Education, 27 February 2002. 63. "Malaysia Country Report: Moral Education Program The Malaysian Experience," paper presented by officials ofthe Malaysian Ministry of Education at the Regional Seminar on Values Education in Asean, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), 11-14 July 1994, 20-21. 64. Meredith L. Weiss, "Transnational Activism hy Malaysians," in Piper and Uhlin, li-ansnational Activism in Asia, 130-131, 142. 65. Meredith L. Weiss, "Contesting Race and Nation: Malay Dominance and Multiracial Coalitions in Malaysia," in Starrs, Nations under Siege, 225-27. 66. T. Rajamoorthy, "Globalization and Citizenship in Malaysia,' in Globalization and Citizenship in the Asia-Pacific, ed. Alastair Davidson and Kathleen Weekley (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 91-94. The author cites three reasons for this skepticism: (1) the ideal of globalization presupposes a genuine cosmopolitanism, which is still lacking in this case; (2) globalization has displayed a worldwide tendency to accentuate existing fault lines within society; (3) it is douhtftil that high economic growth rates supporting the middle class can he sustained, which might precipitate a political reaction to current liberalization policies. 67. Kwok Kian-Woon, "Singapore 2000: A Review," in Singapore 2001 (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 2001), 13. 68. Wang Su Chen, "Which English for Our Schools? Some Thoughts," in Challenges Facing the Singapore Education System Today, ed. Jason Tan, S. Gopinathan, and Ho Wah Kam (Singapore: Prentice Hall, 2001), 257. 69. Saravanan Gopinathan, "Globalization, the State and Education in Singapore," in ibid, 11-12. 70. Ihid., 7. 71. During the 1980s and 1990s, the government attempted to address growing disparities in educational attainment hetween the majority Chinese and the Malay and Indian minorities by providing support to various ethnically based groups. Some critics have charged, however, that these affirmative action policies are incompatible with the government's espoused multiracial ideals. See Jason Tan, "Reflections on Singapore's Education Policies in an Age of Globalization," in Mok and Welch, Globalization and Educational Restructuring in the Asia Pacific Region, 42-44. 72. Wang, "Which English for Our Schools?" 257.
Uncicome/Clobalization, Education 207
73. Wee, "From Universal to Local Culture," 148. 74. Singapore 2001, 221. 75. Curriculum Planning and Development Division, Ministry of Education, Singapore, Civics and Moral Education, Pupil's Book 2B Normal (Singapore: SNP Education, 2000), 47. 76. Arif Dirlik, "Globalism and the Politics of Place," in Olds et al., Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories. 11. Ibid., 52; Chua, "Living with Capitalism," 151. 78. Koichi Iwahuchi, Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism (Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 2002), 13-14. 79. Zhang, Pacific Asia, 147; Chua, "Living with Capitalism," 145-48.
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Critical Asian Studies

Tayior&francisCro 37:2(2005), 179-208 i 6 % Taylor&frandsCfoup

GLOBALIZATION, EDUCATION, AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC

Regionalization versus Regionalism

Regionalism and the Nation-State

Education Reform and the Prospects for Regionalism

Some of Singapore's CDnitraints and vulnerabilities

Small land area

Establishing friendly ties with other countries

Reclaiming more land from the sea

Dependence on other countries for our basic needs

Buymg water from

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

Critical Asian Studies 37:2 (2005)

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