A sense of community elusive in East Asia
The article above is pretty interesting in it’s criticism of Asian countries for failing to put aside the past and move forward as a community like what Europe did/is doing. Here’s an excerpt:
To be blunt, there is no community. Each of the major countries – China, Japan and South Korea – clings to its own vision of the future, to its own self-serving version of history, and relates to the outside world as a sole actor, and almost never in terms of regional interests or priorities.
I won’t disagree that there isn’t much in the sense of community here in East Asia. I mean even Taiwan, which is supposed to be a province of China, has their own regional goals that is contrary to that of the PRC (obviously) and Japan (like those disputed islands).
Some would say that East Asia looks a hell of a lot better than what’s going on in Africa. I mean with all these civil wars, genocide, fighting over resources, fractured states, and terrorism all over the continent, East Asia looks pretty damn good. However, in another part of the article, they say:
The first thing that must be said about East Asia is that for all of its economic achievements, it lags woefully behind much of the rest of the world in important ways.
You can’t compare East Asia to Africa because it’s so much richer. Some people have been arguing that all the problems taking place in Africa is due to lack of economic growth. The reason why China isn’t bombing Taiwan is because they don’t want to destroy their economy and links to the rest of the world. When you’re a land locked country in Africa with no natural resources, then you don’t have much to lose.
But is it really fair to compare the level of cooperation in East Asia to that of Europe? I mean the European Union is nothing short of amazing in my own opinion. I still can’t believe that all these countries that used to kill and hate each other not too long ago (especially the recently admitted Eastern Europe countries) have united in the way that they have.
There really doesn’t seem to be much want from the governments of the Asian people for more cooperation. People are still hung up about what happened during World War II and the Korean War. They’re all still demanding apologies all the time and pointing at the wrong-doings of other nations to stir up nationalism. Instead of hatred dying out with the last generation, it’s being passed down to the youth.
I personally don’t see much progress in the near future of East Asian cooperation. I get the feeling that everyone will just condemn it as ‘The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere’ in sheep’s clothing. Or something awkwardly stated like that.
