Change in Asia
By Shahid Javed Burki
Tuesday, 08 Sep, 2009
ASIA is changing rapidly and change is coming from several different directions. With the exception of China, it is the exercise of democracy through elections that is producing the change. China is on the fast track to become the world’s most prominent economy.
India is also making rapid economic advances but the most important development in its case is the clear signal sent by the electorate in this year’s elections. The voters were unambiguous in their message: they would not tolerate extremism of any variety, and certainly not one that would allow Hinduism to become the dominant force.
The development of the Indian political system has also influenced the countries on its periphery. Pakistan, after being dominated for years by the military, has turned the corner and is now engaged in developing a political structure in which the will of the people will prevail. Bangladesh is moving in the same direction. It has also discarded strongman rule in favour of a system based on people’s representation. Sri Lanka continues to follow a broadly representative system but has still to come to terms fully with minority rights.
Also significant is the way some of the Asian governments have decided to enforce the writ of the state in cases where some of their people, after having operated from the margins of the political system, attempted to use force and intimidation to increase their influence. Pakistan is at the forefront of the war against non-state operators and has gained some successes in recent months. Its operations in Swat appear to have been successful.
Afghanistan is the only South Asian country that is still struggling to find a direction. The presidential election held last month has not resolved ethnic differences that have continued to weaken the central government and allowed local warlords to maintain their control on the population in their areas.
There are also changes in some other parts of Asia. The Chinese government has reasserted its control on the economy and the evolving political system. Its approach towards economic management with the state playing a commanding role is no longer considered to be off-base. This is where the rest of the world is also going — a subject I will discuss in some detail next week in this space.
Another change, not entirely anticipated that has occurred was produced by the elections held in Japan on Aug 30. The Japanese voters threw the Liberal Democratic Party out of power for only the second time in the country’s post-war history. The LDP had governed for more than 60 years; its rule was briefly interrupted by the narrow victory of the opposition a couple of decades ago. Then the opposition was able to govern for only 11 months. It was too fractious to rule and the coalition fell apart bringing the LDP back to power.
This time the change is likely to last since the Democratic Party has won massively. It has captured 308 of the 480 seats in the lower house of parliament. Working with the smaller parties, it has enough of a presence in the lower house to pass important legislation. When the incoming Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, forms the government he will set the country on a path that will deviate significantly from the one Tokyo has followed since its defeat in the Second World War.
Change will come but it will come slowly. Coming slowly, it will endure for a long time. What the world may see is a significant restructuring of the global political and economic order. There will be change in four areas, all of them significant for the world. Japan will begin to address the problem posed by a rapidly ageing population, it will redirect public money towards the less advantaged segments of the population, it will redefine its relations with the US and it will get closer to its Asian neighbours, in particular China.
Watching this development from Pakistan, it is the last two changes in public policy that should be of interest. If Hatoyama begins the process of disengaging his country from the United States, it will not happen suddenly. The first series of adjustments will concern the positioning of the American troops on the island of Okinawa which has become a contentious issue. The Democratic Party had pledged in its manifesto that the agreement with America will be renegotiated. The agreement allows the US to keep 50,000 soldiers on the island.The other change will be the Japanese withdrawal from another agreement that has the Japanese ships fuel the American fleet in the Pacific. This is controversial in Japan; it has been vigorously opposed by the left especially as the refuelling involves the fleet engaged in active operations as has been the case in the Iraq war. As Japan begins to pull back from a close military relationship with the US, Washington may get even more dependent on India as a friend in the Asian region. If that happens it will have implications for Pakistan.
The second area of interest for Pakistan will be the likelihood of closer relations between Japan and China. Since Beijing has been close to Islamabad for decades — it has been rightly called Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’ — it is conceivable that we may be seeing the emergence of two blocs. Washington may form a close working relationship with India while China, Japan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan — the last three countries nervous about India’s hegemony in the region — may form some kind of an alliance. The main point to be underscored is that the election in Japan has produced a dynamic of considerable consequence for Asia, in particular Pakistan.