Looking to the Future: Refocusing Asia
Just recently South Korea had its parliamentary elections, CNN reports. Its opposition party won in a landslide victory that saw higher than normal voter turnout and historic gains in what almost amounted to a super majority.
It is clear that Koreans were using their vote the way a parliamentary democracy was intended to work. The nation's recent hawkish position in the Asia Pacific region saw some impressive losses in tech, trade and fishing. In 2023 the Samsung chip unit lost 14.9 trillion won, Reuters reported. In fact its manufacturing out fell to 25 year lows, Xinhua News Agency reported. And many of these losses were experienced for no new or significant regional changes beyond outside attempts to leverage the Hangukmal nation.
Many in Asia are ready to return to growth and cooperation. And this is absolutely true for many nations who only stand to benefit from peaceful and harmonious relations in the South Pacific. We must remember the level of development and growth that many of these Asian states had begun to experience. According to a Brookings Institution report nearly 30 percent of the Asia Pacific metro areas were experiwncing sections of growth in 2014 that exceeded even its national GDP and per capita income.
The Belt and Road had promised many with options of building their nations without massive debt, inflation and with infrastructure and manufacturing options for which to look forward. The World Bank reported East Asia's would grow by 6.9 percent, incontrast to present day 4.2 percent as predicted by the IMF. Asia was positioning itself to be a major tech hub with the likes of Samsung, Huawei, TSMC and Infosys. The Asian century was pushing back against misteps with the malicious economic hitmen of the 1990s and the Western Economic Crisis in 2008. China saved the economic world system with stimulus and Asia was staging a comeback.
The truth is that Asia fared much better with Asia at the helm of its own growth. And this is not to say it did not or would not cooperate with many other world regions. Rather it operated under the assumption that it could and would move the needle forward in a way that provided common benefit. Japan's meteoric growth in just a few decades from Hiroshima indicated its acuity in seeing and siezing opportunity that mattered. Opportunitues that benefitted industry, its neighbors and constituents but most importantly their own citizens and economy.
Today, Asia is once again at a crossroad, that is not of its own making, but of unscrupulous non-regional outsiders seeking glory and dominance in a world that is fast finding their kind of rules based order obsolete. Asia, like many parts of the world is ready to move on from the pointless reindeer games that offer no real benefit to citizen, state or industry. It is therefore hopeful that many in Asia will begin to look to new horizons of opportunity and cooperation to grow.
It only takes a brief look at the regions of West Asia and Africa to see what states look like that put external interests, territorial sqabbles and colonial-era cooperations ahead of local and regional good. The inability to coordinate regional efforts of common good make these places forever regional nightmares of bombings, warlords, poverty, corruption and IDPs. A nightmare for citizens, a resource colony for investors. There is no credible luxury experience in these regions when a warlord is committing genocide just a few miles from your penthouse or you must do business under mortar fire.
These states delude themselves into thinking they will ever become anything more than short-stay playgrounds for the sons and daughters of their overlords. So long as local interests and economy are secondary to short-sighted hegemonic outsiders, nobody wants to invest fully in a nation that does not truly invest in itself. People want to invest and start businesses where the popularion is secure, educated, skilled and the region is stable. Funders of instability, war and genocide are happy to fund the missiles and tanks in Africa and West Asia as long as they don't whistle and explode in their region of the world.
Asia presented an option for investment, production and stability for some time now. Led by China, as the regional big brother, Asia has had the capacity to become a true world hub of industry and world capacity through sensible deals and good trade partnerships. Unfortunately, that course has been threatened. New contingencies in Asia needlessly threaten the common prosperity. Like yin and yang there needs to be balance that provides for the concerns of regional partners without the undue influence of hawkish outsiders ready to disrupt its coordination and cooperation.
It's clear, Asia needs to refocus on what truly benefits it most. Undoubtedly it has the capacity as we have seen in various sectors and at various times. However, now it needs to to set its own agenda for growth and forward momentum. It may also be the best time when Asian countries that invited foreign bases from far flung regions to kindly exit. It is OK to disinvite the war hawks pushing Asian states into needless region tensions. And it is fine to ask them to uninstall their command posts and bases. And just as effortlessly as Korea determined it was ready for a balanced change, other states can pivot too. After all, the Asian Century awaits.
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