The Rising East
ON A WINTRY NIGHT in New Hampshire 50 years ago, a discerning diplomat named Charles Malik told an audience at Dartmouth College: "The challenges confronting the Western world are basically three: the challenge of communism, the challenge of the rising East and the challenge of the internal forces of decay." Challenge of Asia &
Pacific page is to explain the
diverse world of AsiansAmbassador Malik, the envoy of Lebanon to the United Nations, went on: "The challenge of the rising East is that after centuries of relative eclipse or domination by the West, great nations throughout Asia have recently won a fine, new free, independent existence."
He summed up: "Asia, the mother continent of the human race, desires to achieve for herself an honorable place under the sun...Asia is emerging; Asia is carving a place for herself; Asia desires to be recognized and heard."
It is from the incisive remarks of Charles Malik, who was later president of the U.N. General Assembly and then foreign minister of his nation, that this column respectfully takes its name. In the half-century since Dr. Malik spoke, his prescient vision of Asia has come to pass and that will be the theme of what appears here.
Asia today is home to 60 percent of the world's people, people who are increasingly better educated, people who are gradually enjoying better health and longer lives, people who can do things. They operate steel mills, turn out high-tech electronics, build skyscrapers, and make the trains run on time.
THE CULTURES of Asia are resurgent in religion, literature, music and art. Please note the plural, for Asia is enormously diverse. While some Asians, for their own political purposes, assert Asian values, no such set of values exists. Japanese values are not Thai values are not Indian values.
To quote Malik again: "There is a bewildering variety of ancient civilizations and cultures, each with its own coherent and time-honored outlook on God, reality, the universe, history, man and society."
Those outlooks feed the strong currents of nationalism that course through Asian nations today and are more telling than, in that awkward term, globalization. As almost anyone who has traveled or lived in Asia recently will testify, there has been an explosion of national pride, most of it healthy and constructive.
That pride, moreover, is heightened by the legacy of colonialism. Just before the outbreak of World War II, foreign flags flew over almost every capital in Asia. Not until 1999, when the Portuguese colony of Macao was returned to China, did 500 years of colonialism end. Most Asians are still sensitive about that.
Asia is as diverse politically as it is culturally. At one end of the spectrum are established democracies in Japan, Australia and India. There are new democracies in South Korea and Taiwan. What the eminent scholar, Robert Scalapino, calls "soft authoritarian" regimes are in Malaysia and Singapore where governments restrict political life but not much more. Hard authoritarians are still found in North Korea on the left and Burma or Myanmar on the right.
LASTLY, INDONESIA and the Philippines are troubled nations in danger of falling apart.
After the financial crisis that began in 1997, most of Asia has resumed the march toward more productive economies, the reduction of poverty and more satisfying standards of living. Most Asian nations can feed themselves, which was not true only a few years ago, and rely more on manufacturing and high technology and less on mining and oil production to drive their economies.
The intent of this column and the articles on this page will be to chronicle the progress of Asia, even in its fits and starts. Part of the focus will be on the politics, economics and diplomacy that affect the life of Hawaii and America.
More will offer glimpses to explain who Asians are, how they live and why they do the things they do.
As for the other trials that Ambassador Malik highlighted, the challenge of communism has been met. The Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites are no more. China's socialist economy is in turmoil and its politics are corrupt. Vietnam is stagnant and North Korea is a basket case.
The challenge of internal decay, however, is for others to address.
Richard Halloran is editorial director of the Star-Bulletin.
Email rhalloran@starbulletin.com.Richard Halloran is editorial director of the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at rhalloran@starbulletin.com