Read Online The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel P. Huntington - Free Book Online
Authors: Samuel P. Huntington
Tags: History, Non-Fiction, Political Science, Current Affairs, Modern Civilization, Scholarly/Educational, World Politics
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conflict.
The economic development of Asia and the growing self-confidence of Asian societies are disrupting international politics in at least three ways. First, economic development enables Asian states to expand their military capabilities, promotes uncertainty as to the future relationships among these countries, and brings to the fore issues and rivalries that had been suppressed during the Cold War, thus enhancing the probability of conflict and instability in the region. Second, economic development increases the intensity of conflicts between Asian societies and the West, primarily the United States, and strengthens the ability of Asian societies to prevail in those struggles. Third, the economic growth of Asia’s largest power increases Chinese influence in the region and the likelihood of China reasserting its traditional hegemony in East Asia, thereby compelling other nations either to “bandwagon” and to accommodate themselves to this development or to “balance” and to attempt to contain Chinese influence.
During the several centuries of Western ascendancy the international relations that counted were a Western game played out among the major Western powers, supplemented in some degree first by Russia in the eighteenth century and then by Japan in the twentieth century. Europe was the principal arena of great power conflict and cooperation, and even during the Cold War the principal line of superpower confrontation was in the heart of Europe. Insofar p. 219 as the international relations that count in the post-Cold War world have a primary turf, that turf is Asia and particularly East Asia. Asia is the cauldron of civilizations. East Asia alone contains societies-belonging to six civilizations—Japanese, Sinic, Orthodox, Buddhist, Muslim, and Western—and South Asia adds Hinduism. The core states of four civilizations, Japan, China, Russia, and the United States, are major actors in East Asia; South Asia adds India; and Indonesia is a rising Muslim power. In addition, East Asia contains several middle-level powers with increasing economic clout, such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia, plus a potentially strong Vietnam. The result is a highly complex pattern of international relationships, comparable in many ways to those which existed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe, and fraught with all the fluidity and uncertainty that characterize multipolar situations.
The multipower, multicivilizational nature of East Asia distinguishes it from Western Europe, and economic and political differences reinforce this contrast. All the countries of Western Europe are stable democracies, have market economies, and are at high levels of economic development. In the mid-1990s East Asia includes one stable democracy, several new and unstable democracies, four of the five communist dictatorships remaining in the world, plus military governments, personal dictatorships, and one-party-dominant authoritarian systems. Levels of economic development varied from those of Japan and Singapore to those of Vietnam and North Korea. A general trend exists toward marketization and economic opening, but economic systems still run the gamut from the command economy of North Korea through various mixes of state control and private enterprise to the laissez-faire economy of Hong Kong.
Apart from the extent to which Chinese hegemony at times brought occasional order to the region, an international society (in the British sense of the term) has not existed in East Asia as it has in Western Europe. [17] In the late twentieth century Europe has been bound together by an extraordinarily dense complex of international institutions: the European Union, NATO, Western European Union, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and others. East Asia has had nothing comparable except ASEAN, which does not include any major powers, has generally eschewed security matters, and is only beginning to
The economic development of Asia and the growing self-confidence of Asian societies are disrupting international politics in at least three ways. First, economic development enables Asian states to expand their military capabilities, promotes uncertainty as to the future relationships among these countries, and brings to the fore issues and rivalries that had been suppressed during the Cold War, thus enhancing the probability of conflict and instability in the region. Second, economic development increases the intensity of conflicts between Asian societies and the West, primarily the United States, and strengthens the ability of Asian societies to prevail in those struggles. Third, the economic growth of Asia’s largest power increases Chinese influence in the region and the likelihood of China reasserting its traditional hegemony in East Asia, thereby compelling other nations either to “bandwagon” and to accommodate themselves to this development or to “balance” and to attempt to contain Chinese influence.
During the several centuries of Western ascendancy the international relations that counted were a Western game played out among the major Western powers, supplemented in some degree first by Russia in the eighteenth century and then by Japan in the twentieth century. Europe was the principal arena of great power conflict and cooperation, and even during the Cold War the principal line of superpower confrontation was in the heart of Europe. Insofar p. 219 as the international relations that count in the post-Cold War world have a primary turf, that turf is Asia and particularly East Asia. Asia is the cauldron of civilizations. East Asia alone contains societies-belonging to six civilizations—Japanese, Sinic, Orthodox, Buddhist, Muslim, and Western—and South Asia adds Hinduism. The core states of four civilizations, Japan, China, Russia, and the United States, are major actors in East Asia; South Asia adds India; and Indonesia is a rising Muslim power. In addition, East Asia contains several middle-level powers with increasing economic clout, such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia, plus a potentially strong Vietnam. The result is a highly complex pattern of international relationships, comparable in many ways to those which existed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe, and fraught with all the fluidity and uncertainty that characterize multipolar situations.
The multipower, multicivilizational nature of East Asia distinguishes it from Western Europe, and economic and political differences reinforce this contrast. All the countries of Western Europe are stable democracies, have market economies, and are at high levels of economic development. In the mid-1990s East Asia includes one stable democracy, several new and unstable democracies, four of the five communist dictatorships remaining in the world, plus military governments, personal dictatorships, and one-party-dominant authoritarian systems. Levels of economic development varied from those of Japan and Singapore to those of Vietnam and North Korea. A general trend exists toward marketization and economic opening, but economic systems still run the gamut from the command economy of North Korea through various mixes of state control and private enterprise to the laissez-faire economy of Hong Kong.
Apart from the extent to which Chinese hegemony at times brought occasional order to the region, an international society (in the British sense of the term) has not existed in East Asia as it has in Western Europe. [17] In the late twentieth century Europe has been bound together by an extraordinarily dense complex of international institutions: the European Union, NATO, Western European Union, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and others. East Asia has had nothing comparable except ASEAN, which does not include any major powers, has generally eschewed security matters, and is only beginning to
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