/ world today news/ At the beginning of the Cold War, geostrategic circumstances shaped unique institutional paths for Asian countries to manage their economies and security. In the absence of an alternative mechanism at the regional level, trade and financial relations are regulated through a combination of US-centric bilateral and multilateral agreements and informal networks based on corporate and ethnic ties.
The so-called “San Francisco system” (established by the San Francisco Peace Treaty, 1951) provides Asian countries with a unique institutional mix of bilaterality and multilateralism. America’s allies in Asia gain both access to the American market and protection. Freed from military expenditure, they direct all their efforts to technological and economic development. In 1980, trans-Pacific trade overtook trans-Atlantic trade. By the end of the decade, it was 1.5 times larger. East Asian GDP continued its growth relative to North American and after the end of the Cold War (from 35% in the 1960s, to 91% in the 1990s), reaching in 1998 92% of the US GDP, thanks to the countries in the “China circle” (Mainland China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan). This shift of economic power beyond the boundaries of the collective West, according to J. Arrighi, makes S. Huntington raise his “too influential idea of an impending clash of civilizations”.1
But with the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent absence of a system rival, the existence of the San Francisco system lost its meaning for the United States. As the APR has become the center of world trade, ideological conflicts have been pushed to the background. The United States has progressively reduced the resources allocated to the APR, relying on the so-called “Pacific loyalty”. They also cut the Navy. This has made China a regional power by default – a challenge that has led them to re-engage with the Asia Pacific.
The previous strategies, however, did not achieve success.2 The creation of the AUKUS block caused the sharp dissatisfaction of the regional states. The current Indo-Pacific economic framework of the Biden administration purports to be an alternative to “One Belt, One Road”, but according to most researchers of the region, it does not have the economic, political and above all moral strength to be realized, much less against the backdrop of Japan’s accelerated militarization.
Thus the American presence in the Pacific went from undisputed hegemony to decline and neglect.
What’s more: it looms Asian Geopolitical Union, between the countries in the SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), possibly Turkey and some South Pacific microstates (wary of new Western strategic concepts, especially the “Indo-Pacific”), such as the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, at first – with a geostrategic position or rich in natural resources.
And after the restoration of Iran’s diplomatic relations with the SA and the UAE, after the return of Syria to the Arab League and the ceasefire in Yemen, this alliance may also be joined by the countries of the league. Among them is Egypt, which joined the BRICS New Development Bank and is a candidate for membership in the group, along with 19 other countries (according to Bloomberg), including from the Arab League, and – Indonesia – the largest Muslim country. in the world, where on March 28, at an official meeting of the finance ministers of the ASEAN countries, it was decided to stop using the US dollar, the euro, the yen and the British pound in financial transactions and switch to settlements in local currencies.
Malaysia has again raised the idea of creating an Asian Monetary Fund, rejected by the US in the early stages of the Asian financial crisis (1997-98) due to concerns that it could undermine the IMF’s leadership role. But in 2000, instead of directly confronting US opposition, the ASEAN countries + China, Japan and South Korea created a currency swap scheme as a “bulwark” against future financial crises.
So it is not China that is the main driver of Asian integration, although it welcomes it and the benefit is mutual. Many factors are intertwined here. Among them is the historical memory of the colonial era. The integration core is the ASEAN countries that support the so-called “dynamic stability” from the end of the Vietnam War until today and do not allow hegemony in the region – neither external nor internal.
The process of building the regional financial architecture is conditioned by East Asia’s dissatisfaction with the global financial regime. Perceived injustice stimulates countries to seek regional solutions to their problems.
In 2006, not China but Japan proposed an economic partnership agreement (as an Asian counterpart to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). The idea evolved into the largest trade bloc – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, signed on November 15, 2020 in Hanoi between 15 Asian countries (the 10 in ASEAN and partners Australia, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand). It does not include the United States and, unlike the WTO, is oriented toward developing countries, excluding investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms that favor private corporations.
The logic behind the formation of the Asian Geopolitical Union is focused on regional supply chains, transit diplomacy and the construction of new economic corridors that will connect landlocked Eurasian regions with those of the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia.
Indications of this can be seen in the shift in the direction of the main subjects of international relations to the current economic, political and military trends in the world. Regional organizations are strengthening and expanding, accelerating the process of de-dollarization and the formation of national financial transfer mechanisms. At the regional level, energy import and export patterns from Russia to Europe are shifting to the Persian Gulf and the APR.
Regional supply chains are gradually replacing Western global supply chains. There is an increasing tendency for countries to strengthen their sources of national power through bilateral and multilateral relations in their neighboring areas. All of this points to a geopolitical transformation in which the world order will be focused on regional multilateralism to protect economic growth and national security.
China is absorbing global capital and energy flows, goods and labor flows to the East at a faster rate than the US. With the New Silk Road connected to the North-South Corridor, Beijing is gaining additional economic and political importance in global politics.
India will also take advantage of the corridor to open a new trade door for the exchange and transfer of goods from the Indo-Pacific to northern Russia and the historic crossroads of Iran and the Caucasus. Indian foreign relations are designed to align the country with new geopolitical situations arising from any regional or international development. Exports of Russian oil to India at a lower price support its economic growth. As a country located between the two most important points in the world – the Straits of Hormuz and the Straits of Malacca – it is becoming a center for the transfer of energy and goods in Southeast Asia.
TURKEY balances between East and West and will continue to do so. It is dependent on Russian wheat, energy, tourism, nuclear technology, but is strengthening its economic and geopolitical relations with both China and Iran.
Iran also benefits from its geographic centrality, connecting regional subsystems in Eurasia, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia to China.
In short, a new bipolar world order is emerging, but not between the US and China, but between the Western coalition (AUCUS countries and Western Europe), and the Global South.
Not by chance, on March 26 of this year, J. Borel expressed strong concern at the forum in Doha that “One of the negative consequences of what is happening is that we can push Russia towards China and to create a divide between the Global Southeast and the Global Northwest, which will mean a radical undermining of the existing balance”.
In the words of Singaporean diplomat and scholar Kishore Mahbubani, former chairman of the UN Security Council, whose latest book, The Asian 21st Century, has been downloaded millions of times online, this is because “The Global South is not naive”. He does not believe in the “black and white” version of the conflict in Ukraine that the West “sells”.
According to Narendra Modi, it is because “Confidence in international financial institutions has been eroded”.3
According to the President of the Philippines, F. Marcos, the “principle of “against whom shall we be friends” has been replaced by “shake hands and prosper.” International diplomacy will slowly build on this formula, except for those for whom it is too late to dream of such a foreign policy.
In my opinion, in the conflicts between the great powers, the regional powers find an opportunity to defend their own geopolitical interests, realizing their independent role in the world order. Asia is simply regaining the positions it had before European hegemony. Geographical areas that were intensely connected in the past are once again becoming centers of interaction. In the 13th and 14th centuries, it was the Middle East, the “Arab-Persian imperial center”, covering the strategic zone of international exchange, the northern steppes in Central Asia and the Indian Ocean, connecting China to the Middle East via the Straits of Malacca and India. 4
Notes:
1 Arrighi, Giovanni. Global governance and hegemony in the modern world-system. Sp. Monday. No. 9/10 – year XII. S. 2009, p. 18-19
2 In 2012, B. Obama officially launched the “Pivot to Asia”. This redefined US foreign strategy, placing the focus on the center of the global production process. It was understood that this strategy needed economic institutions and the support of a military presence to give it credibility. In 2016, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was established and the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet rose to prominence. But this strategic shift was short-lived. Emboldened by anti-globalization movements and protectionist policies, in 2017 Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement. During his administration, the US hardened its stance against China, starting its biggest trade war to date. This is how the United States eventually lost influence on the Pacific chessboard. To reverse this process, agreements such as AUKUS or the Quad were created, but they are geopolitical rather than geoeconomic in nature. Washington is now trying to fill this geo-economic vacuum through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).
3 at the opening of the G-20 finance ministers’ meeting, February this year. in India
4 Abu-Lughod J. Before European hegemony. The world system A.D. 1250-1350. N.Y. Oxford, 1989, рр. 366-367
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