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World
Affairs, Geneva , Jul-Sep 1997 Vol 1 No 3
THE EUROPEAN UNION AND
THE
UNITED STATES IN
EAST ASIA: THE
NEED FOR OMNILATERALISM
A PERSONAL
VIEW BY A EUROPEAN
WOLGANG PAPE
Europe and the US have often adopted different approaches to East Asia, but
their policy objectives regarding trade and investment are fundamentally
similar. It is now time for a shift from the established multilateral framework
that is essentially Western-oriented towards a more global or "omnilateral"
system.
As a continental European one often
feels somewhere in the middle between the US and Asia, as if the dateline over
the Pacific Ocean still marks the
fault line between two extremes; to quote Goethe: Prophete rechts, Prophete links, das Weltkind in der Mitten! (Prophet to
the right, prophet to the left, the child of the world in the middle!) However,
now the Europeans have started to wonder, who is really unique in this world:
the Japanese islanders at the periphery of Asia who have often so pretended by claiming
their yuniku-sa (uniqueness),
or the pioneering Americans on their seemingly endless mainland?
A recent
book by the former Harvard professor Seymour Lipset under the title, American Exceptionalism, confirmed
indirectly that we Europeans are in many respects somewhere in the middle
between two extremes in this shrinking world. Lipset contrasts in particular
the exceptionalism of the Americans with the self-proclaimed uniqueness of the
Japanese at both ends of the range of possibilities. Some Europeans simply
claim that we are closer to both sides than they are to each other. This can
easily be confirmed if you just measure the distance between Brussels and
Beijing and Washington and Beijing. The
ominous "Japan-passing" of recent date is an exclusively American
term, as we Europeans need not fly across Nippon's islands anyway, but can
reach China directly, and also by Eur-Asian railway! While many Japanese have
slowly come to realise the dangers of being passed over in view of missed new
ideas from visitors and foreign direct investment, the next level of
indifference has already been discussed on the borderless Internet under the
slogan "Japan nothing".
FROM
CONFRONTATION TO COOPERATION
In contrast to such
"nothing", the European Union has during the last decade stressed
"cooperation" time and again in its policies towards East Asia.
However, we had to come a long way to reach the necessary mutual understanding
which underlies such cooperation.
Despite
Japan's accession into GATT in 1955, there have remained rocks like Scylla and
Charybdis in the path towards cooperation. Major trade frictions occurred in
the 1960s when Japan produced plans to slowly liberalise its economy only after
her Western trade partners exerted pressure. Such a pattern recalled the forced
opening of the country, particularly as symbolised by Admiral Perry's Black
Ships in the middle of the nineteenth century, and soon the term gaiatsu (outside pressure) found its way
into the foreign media almost as widely as Japan's exports flooded into the
markets of the West. But it is for reasons other than merely historic that the
Japanese nowadays associate gaiatsu
much more with America than with Europe. There are even suggestions about
applying reverse gaiatsu by the EU
and Japan in the multilateral context against the US, in order to see American
policymakers forswear negative hegemony and short-term unilateralism, (eg, most
recently, before the WTO on the Massachusetts law denying state contracts to
companies doing business in Myanmar).
However,
vis-à-vis its Asian partners, the EU not only often lacks the means to build up
such pressure due to its absence of military power and as a restrained exporter
of foodstuff, it also has to bring together the often diverging interests of
fifteen member states. Furthermore, as a supra-national entity it is by its
very structure and also by conviction much more inclined to resort to the
multilateral system. Thus it tends to rather apply the mechanisms of the WTO,
GATT, and even OECD, to pursue its policy goals. The basic objectives of
Europe's East Asia policies are best described in the recent Communications of
the European Commission (EC). The most general one is entitled, "Towards a
New Asia Strategy", (Communication of July, 1994) while the others are
more specifically on Japan, China, ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting), etc, and most
recently on Hong Kong called, "The EU and Hong Kong: Beyond 1997".
The European Union has during the last decade stressed
“cooperation" time and again in its policies towards East Asia. In the
Communication on Japan, the word "cooperation" comes up close to 30
times and in the Communication on China even more frequently. Of course, in the background of such slogans lie strong economic
interests expressed in such terms as "market access" and
"business opportunities". However, the intentions of the EU go clearly beyond the strictly economic, into
areas of science and technology, environment, and even such multilateral issues
as disarmament and non-proliferation.
The actual
implementation of Europe's East Asia Policies varies greatly according to the
individual Asian country or economy concerned. By fir the greatest number of
declared EU policies that have been implemented concern Japan, especially with
regard to the numerous fields of cooperation. There has also been more advanced
political dialogue with Japan than with other partners in East Asia.
Nevertheless, the frequent procrastination of summits and ministerial meetings
highlights the Japanese tatemae (facade) of mere declarations
without substantive content or honne (reality). However, for the sake
of comparison and contrast with the US, the concrete implementation of EU trade
policy with Japan is worth looking at in detail.
An
instructive example is provided by TAM (Trade Assessment Mechanism) which the
Commission has been conducting with Japan since 1993. It aims at improving
access to the Japanese market by mutual agreement on an objective basis of
data. For this purpose an EC-Japan group has been set up jointly with experts
from both sides who analyse the factors affecting the comparative performance
of European products on the Japanese market and vice versa. Using Europe's
performance regarding other advanced partners, like the US, Canada and
Australia, as a reference, the Commission regularly conducts a systematic
evaluation together with the Japanese ministries. The purpose of this joint TAM
exercise is not to set any quantified target for trade, but to identify
problems, to establish their causes, and to propose action for their timely
resolution.
TAM, by
simply creating mutual awareness of problems for trade in both markets, has
contributed considerably to overcoming stereotype perceptions, building
confidence and, more concretely, reducing barriers to trade (eg, for the beer
market in Japan). It is noteworthy that the EU-Japan TAM exercise preceded by
about half a year the rather controversial "Framework for a New Economic
Partnership" agreed upon between the US and Japan. With the passing of
Japan bashing, it is now obviously China which draws most of the attention in
Washington. The Europeans too have woken up to the challenges perceived in the
"Middle Kingdom".
The cooperative approach of the EU
is best exemplified by one particular project of the EU with China, because it
clearly contrasts with a similar endeavour by the US which lost steam a couple
of years ago. The need for management training in China was recognised by
Europe as well as by America. In fact, the US Department of Commerce perceived
this need early on and established a school in Dairen. However, for various
reasons the school had to be closed in 1994.
The EC
similarly understood the demand for such schooling and gradually started
cooperating with the State Economic Commission of China in Beijing on human
resource development in the project for a management institute. About 10 years
later in 1994, just when the American school in Dairen was closing, we opened
our "China Europe International Business School” (CEIBS) in Shanghai.
Hundreds of MBA graduates have been trained in accounting, marketing and law,
through this educational joint venture and many of them now occupy senior
positions in China. This year the CEIBS will more than double the intake of
full-time MBA students to 130 per year. In addition, more than 1200 executives
from Sino-foreign joint ventures and Chinese companies have been participating
in its management programmes. CEIBS is now already three times the size of the
operation envisaged at the outset.
With the
trade balance showing an American surplus, South Korea presently figures less
prominently in the US. In October 1996 the EU entered into a Framework
Agreement of Cooperation. The EU's decision to contribute 75 million ECU over a
five-year period to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation
(KEDO), after allocating 15 million in 1996, has stepped up efforts to attract
Brussels, through Euratom, to participate with Seoul, Washington and Tokyo as a
full member on the executive board of the consortium to promote nuclear safety in
Korea.
One cannot
leave EU-East Asia relations without briefly throwing at least some light on
Europe's growing partnership with ASEAN. The strengthened relations help member
states to reach beyond their colonial past and bilateral links to cooperation between
the two regions. The Cooperation Agreement of 1980 makes the European Union
ASEAN's longest dialogue partner. Obviously
the challenges of vast markets and common experiences in regional integration
are major motives for cooperation. But beyond the economy, along with the
US and others, the EU is also an active partner in the ASEAN Regional Forum
where security issues dominate the agenda.
It is
therefore not surprising that it was a member of ASEAN, viz, Singapore, which
took the initiative leading to the first Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Under this
new acronym, ASEM brought together twenty-five heads of state and government in
March 1996 in Bangkok. This has been a point of crystallisation in recent
European policy towards East Asia.
ASEAN
invited China, Japan and South Korea to participate in the first ASEM, thus
forming an Asian side of "ASEAN plus 3”, that means 10 Asian countries. It
is interesting to note that the self-chosen format of the participting
countries "ASEAN plus 3” coincides with the membership of the East Asian
Economic Caucus (EAEC, or "Caucus without Caucasians") proposed by
Malaysia's prime minister Dr Mahathir. Furthermore, at ASEAN's thirtieth
anniversary at the end of 1997, it is again this constellation of ASEAN plus 3
which were invited to an informal East Asian summit, which the US and
consequently Japan's Foreign Ministry have long opposed.
In spite of
pre-summit uncertainties and earlier scepticism about ASEM, the Bangkok meeting
of leaders last year was regarded as "success beyond expectation". It
marked a historic turning point in the relations between the two regions, as a
new dialogue among equals between Europe and Asia has begun to replace the
notion of the "missing link" in the Triad. A surprising reaction
after the Meeting came from Malaysia's prime minister, as he was one of the
most sceptical at the outset: "Dr Mahathir prefers ASEM to APEC" read
the headline in Kuala Lumpur (Sunday
Star, Malaysia, February 3, 1996)
Also
unexpected was not so much the partly condescending criticism from major third
countries, but the surprising reaction of some who considered it a
quasi-counter balance to the grouping of a so-called JUSCANZ. This initiative to bring together Japan, the USA,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is very flattering. It shows that ASEM is
taken much more seriously than was originally thought. In particular, the
reported attempt of JUSCANZ to include Switzerland and Norway as EU outsiders,
might result in new theories of anchoring or even containment.
US EAST ASIA POLICIES
Ever since
the end of the Vietnam War, the American President and his administration
cannot be considered the only source of foreign policy in the US, other players
have to be included in our analysis. For instance, the Senate's Committee on
Foreign Relations and in particular its present chairman, Jesse Helms, exert
immense influence. Major decisions depend on them ranging from the confirmation
of the presidential nominee for secretaries of State and Commerce, or the US
Trade Representative, to the ratification of international treaties.
In the
recent scandal regarding “Indonesia Gate” in the US elections, we find a
further indication that Asian-Americans are now moving increasingly into the
hitherto occidental mainstream of US politics in their own Asian fashion, ie,
with guonxi and money, (few people
complain about British tobacco interests putting money into Dole's coffers to
support his stance). Ambitious Asian-Americans have started advancing into
elite positions in American society. For example, in the much publicised OJ
Simpson case, judges Ito and Fukusaki gave many viewers abroad the prima‑facie
impression that Japanese-Americans have taken over the US judiciary. However,
the mainstream of “the American way” is still formed by the WASP (White
Anglo-Saxon Protestant) establishment and "the Asian way" is regarded
as almost diametrically opposed to it. Such contrasts are emphasised not only
by Asians, such as Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir and Ishihara, but also by Americans,
like Harvard's Lipset in his aforementioned book "American
Exceptionalism".
Another
major "agent of influence" is the business
lobby whose influence often is reflected very directly in the international
negotiations of the government. Often such lobbying is evident in the case-by-case
approach of market-opening demands of the US administration, eg, the
"Kodak-case" with Japan. The "Market-Oriented,
Sector-Specific" ‑(MOSS) negotiations of the 1980s with the Japanese are
now considered as barely successful, thus discrediting the sector-by-sector
approach in the US.
Such obvious
opening of international trade negotiations under the pressure of specific
business companies is not without danger. The displayed reduction to a concrete
individual case of the lobbying firm allows the foreign country concerned to
limit the often structural issue of wider interest (eg, closed distribution
system and enforcement of competition law) to one company's case (eg, Kodak),
and find an accordingly limited compromise, satisfying only that one company's
interest. Such a short-sighted approach by US negotiators might provide
appropriate headlines for politicians, and the media with concrete examples. In
the long-term, however, it only skims the problem and does not solve the wider
issues at stake. Naturally, it is also the basic concept of Anglo-Saxon
case-law that manifests itself in this approach in contrast to the continental
European understanding of more abstract legal codes which, on the other hand,
runs the risk of dogmatically neglecting the individual tree while serving the
principles of the overall forest.
From the
opening of markets to the creation of new jobs, from democracy to human rights,
the basic objectives of US policy towards East Asia, apart from nuances, hardly
diverge from the goals of the Europeans. Here the common values of “the West”
broadly draw from the same sources and their economic interests run parallel.
A detailed
analysis of the objectives of US policy towards East Asia is difficult. Not
only because of the apparent lack of continuity, but also because of the less
dogmatic and more case-oriented approach of the Americans in general. Thus US
objectives seem to be less clearly defined in official documents, and these
sometimes have to be interpreted retrospectively after the implementation of
concrete action. This leads to the slogan that some people in Washington are
"too active to be reflective" about policies. While several observers
advocate that the US diminish its involvement in the region, ie, they criticise
the policy in quantitative terms, others examine the goals set and the methods
used to reach those objectives. One influential, conservative, American think
tank recently called for a "coherent US policy in East Asia" by
putting the emphasis on US commitment to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan whilst
"preventing China from engaging in dangerous adventures".
Nevertheless its report acknowledges, ‘What happens in China will depend on its
own choices, but the United States and its allies can develop a free and rich
Northeast Asia and assure the Chinese people that the door is open for them to
join’.
It seems that US policy is fluctuating with the size of the trade deficit
as far as North East Asia, and especially Japan is concerned.
Such wide
and abstract objectives, of course, are difficult to prove and at the risk of
oversimplification, one can say that President Clinton started his first
presidency with high priorities for reforms in Asia, thus initially
subordinating trade to strategy. At last with the delinking of the MFN issue
from human rights problems in China in 1996 and the quickening approach to
Vietnam, economic objectives have clearly come to dominate the American agenda.
This has provoked considerable criticism in the heart of America.
While the
priority given to US exports in Asia to create 'jobs back home' is still on the
rise, particularly in regard to China and South East Asia, it seems that US
policy is fluctuating with the size of the trade deficit as far as North East
Asia, and especially Japan, is concerned. The Pentagon's former Japan expert
Joseph Nye has focused attention on wider security issues. The recent
developments concerning the bilateral Security Treaty reflect their new found
importance. Obviously, the USA as a superpower is still regarded by many as the
major arbiter on security in Pacific Asia. Apart from its bilateral
arrangements as "neighbour beyond the ocean", it claims to have a
considerable stake in the guarantee of peace in the region in general.
This
contrasts sharply with EU policy which has only an overall interest in global
peace. Only one member state is directly involved in a major East Asian
security treaty, ie, the Five-Power Defence Arrangement which links the UK with
Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. The EU, however, has also been
participating as such, since the early stages of the ASEAN Regional Forum where
security issues are raised. Recently calls like, Europe Has a Major Role to
Play in Asia-Pacific Security have also been found in the American press. (International Herald Tribune (1HT), July
9 1997).
In this short paper one can only be
very general about policy-making in the USA and the EU vis-à-vis East Asia - a
region composed of a highly heterogeneous set of countries and economies in
terms of geography, state of development and policies regarding the West.
Furthermore, the policies of the US and EU in various sectors, from trade to
fundamental rights, are not always consistent nor complementary. Often
addressing different interests and lobbies, they may at times even be
contradictory.
Given these
reservations, I dare to draw a generalising conclusion concerning the overall
consistency of both players' East Asia policy. In recent years there appears to
be greater continuity in European policy objectives and implementation than in
the American. The Clinton administration defends this lack of “grand design by
pointing out‑that "all-embracing strategies went out with the Cold War”
and "with no single great enemy, the Clinton approach is one of
case-by-case management". (IHT,
September 2, 1995).
As for the
implementation of US policy towards East Asia, it seems to link more closely
with its objectives which are less long-term and rather ad hoc. Often the
objectives are only recognisable in the implementing action itself This
pragmatism is increasingly true for American trade policy where the business
lobby often joins Washington's negotiations, expounding individual firms'
interest during official visits, for eg, President Bush's infamous tour of
Japan with the "'Big Three" of the American car industry in January
1991. The European Commissioners have recently also joined the US bandwagon
travelling with an - albeit smaller and lower key - business entourage.
To give a
quantitative assessment of the impact of such involvement of business in
American diplomacy, the Economist (August 12,
1995) under the headline "Sales Force One" pointed out that 'In the
year 1994 the Clinton administration was involved in providing advocacy on
transactions worth $46 on, with an export content of $20 billion'. On issues
like human rights also, American policy is more directly reflected in action,
exemplified in the much published support of Harry Wu's return from China as
well as in private companies investment decisions which sometimes are even
exploited in commercials back home.
Such support
for a political objective contrasts with the little attention East Asian issues
of fundamental rights receive in Europe. For example, among the Commission
financed projects to promote human rights, not a single country of he region
appears on any of the Commission 's lists (Europe, No 6429 of February
27, 1995 p 12‑13). Nonetheless, the Commission pursues a policy of
including a clause on the protection of human rights generally in all treaties
with relevant countries, most
recently with Vietnam (while Australia still does not accept it).
It can be accepted as a valid generalisation that the Americans adopt a more
confrontational approach towards China and Asia than the EU. The
methodology of the implementation of the US trade policy towards East Asia has
been subject to criticism from various sources. In particular, its policy since
mid-1980 when it moved away from the instruments of the multilateral system,
which it had helped to
build in the first place. Henceforth, the US has increasingly tended towards a
position which
experts like Jagdish Bhagwati have come to
call "aggressive unilateralism" ranging from the "super"
and “special" variants of section 301 of the 1988 Trade Act to the direct
imposition of unilateral sanctions.
Outside
interpreters have recently described US policy in East Asia, especially China,
as moving increasingly from "positive engagement" (China into WTO,
etc) as demonstrated at the Seattle APEC summit of 1993 towards what some call,
"containment of an Asian dragon with growing economic power or its
"constrainment". (IHT, August 9, 1996). Similarly exaggerated are
descriptions of European policies of "collusion" with Asian partners
to keep out American business by unrestrained export credits, etc.
However, it
can be accepted as a valid generalisation that the Americans adopt "a more
confrontational approach towards China and Asia" than the EU. They often
like to throw their weight around as a superpower (not only in military terms,
but also in terms of main supplier of basic foodstuffs to Japan, and of
technological know-how to most of East Asia). Often propagating their model to
the world with almost religious zeal, as seen most recently at the Denver
Summit in June. This is done evidently in order to impress their partners with
unilateral threats often on the basis of national laws like "Super 301
", or even extra-territorial application and possible action by Congress.
In
concluding the comparison of EU and US policies on East Asia, one might easily
say that there is a greater tendency in the American policy to pursue its
objectives unilaterally. This is done mainly by exploiting the instruments of
pressure available only to the US as a superpower and also with the leverage at
its disposal due to certain dependencies on American supplies in the region.
Not only for the lack of such means,
but also because of its very nature as a growing regional union of traditional
nation states, bound by the common conviction of deeper super national
integration, Europe as a "soft power" is apt to implement its common
policies towards East Asia more through long-term persuasion and cooperative
efforts.
Nevertheless,
one cannot deny a wide transatlantic commonality of policy objectives, as far
as trade and investment in East Asia are concerned. Therefore, from an Asian
perspective there is neither the danger of a "ganging up of the West
against Asia", nor is there any basis to conduct a policy of divide et impera by Asian countries
against the West. However, there are plenty of opportunities for concrete
cooperation in the Triad to open up to a global system of governance beyond the established multilateral framework towards
‑ what 1 would like to call - the "omni-lateral" system.
OMNILATERALISM
As the above-mentioned logic of the
European Weltkind in der Mitten already
indicates, there has to be some balance of weight on both sides, in the East as well as in the West of Europe. Without any
doubt, America to the West of Europe has contributed enormously to the
setting-up of the multilateral system. For example, it would be impossible to
imagine the creation of the United
Nations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, just to mention the
main institutions, without the pro-active participation of the US. Similarly,
Europeans have contributed to the establishment of these organisations through
the Atlantic Charter with the UK, for instance. These contributions can be
tracked to a point where the current multilateral system appears not only
Western inspired, but an outgrowth of almost pure Western thinking, including
of course its tolerance of otherness in pluralism.
For an
outsider, it may be hard to make out the influence of non-Western and in
particular Asian cultures in the setting-up of these institutions or their
working processes. Although some countries were early members or even founding
fathers of the institutions, the Asian impact on these multilateral
institutions seems to have been minimal. This has often been attributed to economic
backwardness of the Asian countries, until Japan caught up with the West after
having joined the IMF in 1952, GATT in 1955 and OECD in 1964, subsequently
benefiting considerably from that multilateral system.
Although some countries were early
members or even founding fathers of the institutions, the Asian impact on these multilateral institutions seems to have been minimal. Most European
countries then applied Article 35 of GATT against Japan, thus denying her
advantages which they granted to the other contracting parties. These
restrictions were gradually lifted over the years as Japan's trade partners
perceived the need to at least partly replace those restrictions by Voluntary
Restraint Agreements and the like. In doing so, the question remains even after
decades of membership: Has Japan really adapted its internal economic patterns
to this multilateral system? Following
the debate on Japan's, industrial
policy, some critics argued that GATT's traditional market-based and
non-discriminatory orientation
showed weaknesses and thus needed modification. The West then demanded Japan
play a more active role on the international stage "commensurate with her
economic might". However, as a matter of fact, the Japanese mainstream
understanding of their hackneyed internationalisation is still too passive to
lead to any proactive input into the multilateral system, which would help it
also to encompass the particularities of the internal workings of their very
Japanese society. While the process of deregulation might render the country's
legal basis more similar to Anglo‑Saxon concepts, it will hardly, or at least
only in the long term, alter ingrained patterns of behaviour on the Japanese
islands.
The German
scholar, Josef Kohler, once explained law as a cultural phenomenon. Hence, if
it is alien in a given society, such incompatibility creates friction and might
even lead to forms of schizophrenia. Also the OECD points out in its
"Vision 2020" that the prospects for the new Global Age, in which all
countries can be active players, depend on the ability to adapt to changes, and
emphasises first the many "behind-the-border" barriers which need to
be tackled (OECD Document, "Towards a New Global Age", C (97) 80,
Pan's 1997).
A similar
dualism could sharpen in a China which under outside pressure precipitately and
superficially adopts Western rules, but internally cannot rapidly adapt her
traditional pattern of behaviour. For some - especially young people in China -
the reception. of Western thinking has already gone too far. From Japan's
experience with gaiatsu to open up
since the mid-nineteenth century to similar outside pressures from other
countries, one can easily conclude that civil liberties in a state are
inversely proportional to the impact of such external pressures. Others go even
further in drawing a worst-case scenario, arguing that the economic determinism of the West could well cause ‘violent
efforts to throw off, master, or revenge, the invasive influence of disruptive
Western ideas and values’. According to William Pfaff, 'The
internationalisation of any non-Western economy automatically undermines social
practices, and religious and cultural norms. It is a literally subversive
force... There will sooner or later be a reaction.'
On this
timing, I should like to qualify Kaffs analysis, as we in Europe and America
also first had to develop these concepts, and one of the major problems for
East Asia is the incomparable speed of development. First in Japan followed by
the "Four Tigers" and then with Southeast Asia, the acceleration to
reach industrialisation and subsequently beyond, has dramatically progressed
with each "Wild Goose" following Japan and now even the
"Dragon". Social advances that
have taken centuries in the UK to grow internally are now pushed into these
countries within a few years. Backlashes, therefore, cannot be avoided, even in
still well controlled societies like that of South Korea. Furthermore, there is
growing realisation in Asia that nowadays modernisation does not, necessarily, mean
Westernisation.
Such
development in China could not only cause much greater problems for the West in
view of China's size, but also because China is clearly more assertive
internationally, as the re-emerging "Middle Kingdom", supported by an
already highly active network of 50 Million overseas Chinese. China is the
world's second largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, after Japan. With
its trade surplus with the US expected to be greater than that of Japan soon,
China has bought a sizeable number of US treasury bonds exceeding that of Japan
in 1996. 'China could jolt the US financial market as well as the world economy
by dumping those bonds ... such a danger involving China is much greater
compared with Japan's holding of US bonds.' (Mainiciii
Shimbun, February 24,
1997). Unless China joins as an integral "stake-holder", and not only
a passive trader in the existing multilateral system, such a system remains
only "multilateral Western". The acclaimed world order would not be
truly all-compassing and thus would remain unable to claim genuine universal
values for all.
Without going into the details of
underlying philosophies, there are good reasons to doubt the absolutism that we
have reached the "end of history".
There is growing realisation in Asia that nowadays modernisation does not, necessarily, mean Westernisation. Rather we can see the increasing re-emergence of
culturally divergent identities, which the contentions of the hot and cold wars
of our century had covered up under superficial layers of ideologies. While now
roots are sought more and more in regional, and even local, cultures by mobile
individuals in order to balance their loss of identity within globalising
economies, world bodies rightfully deserve their name, only if these organisations
fully encompass the pro-active partnership of all players on this globe, from the occident as well as the orient.
The
absolutism of neither Hegelian nor, more recently, that, of Fukuyama's claimed
"End of History", is convincing but the forces of pertinent, traded
cultural notions and new patterns of communication, (for example "death of
distance" through the Internet) are too strong to be any longer neglected
in global governance. These divergent cultural presumptions have to be
understood first, in order to establish a sense of "co-ownership" and
an all-inclusive approach by international institutions.
One example,
where Eastern concepts might greatly contribute to. World-wide problem solving
is their more holistic approach to nature and consequently more direct
comprehension of interdependence in our common ecological system. On the highly
topical issues of the protection of the environment, it is the old Buddhist
principles of interdependence in nature and in cycles of reincarnation which
serve as a much better basis to understand the need for the recycling of
materials, than our Western concept - or rather illusion - of creation from
zero. Holistic views of nature conserve, whereas our analytical approaches
often tend to divide before conceiving common elements. If some East Asian
economies have not yet manifested these holistic values as much as would be
expected from their religious background, it can be attributed mainly to the
speed of development and social transformation that does not reflect traditional
values. With the stabilisation of a broader middle class in society, there will
re-emerge a stronger identification with original values, as we have seen
already in Japan.
One concrete
manifestation of the holistic approach can be seen in the long established
Japanese horticultural art of miniaturising an otherwise intact landscape, as
Sansui (compare also Chinese Bonsai), whilst gardening in the West
traditionally amounts to the systematic, geometric separation of the elements
and sorts of plants, as in Parc de Versailles, for example. Seeing "nature as the mother", (Takeshi Umehara, Voice, Tokyo, July 95, p 166, in Japanese)
is now perceived as one of the reasons for success. It was not by accident that
the Worldwatch Institute gave Japan and China relatively good marks on their
environment policies (State of
the World 1997, New York 1997, p 9). The fact that Chinese cities have
relatively few polluting, motorised bikes or mopeds, but still millions of
human driven non-polluting bicycles seems to be the result less of technical
and economic backwardness, than the intended outcome of a strict licence
system. Apparently, it is very difficult to get a licence for a motorcycle and
frequently it is refused.
The generic nexus of guatixi or connections in China is the
traditional variant of the modern concept of networking, be it in persona or
only virtually through the Internet. Some go even further and suggest the
linked verses in dialogue in the Japanese renga tradition of multi-dimensional unit is the possible structure
for networking in the information age. For them there is a need for
“synthetic" perspectives with "circulation" and
"symbiosis" instead of the Western "analytic" methods with
"progress" through competition. (cf. Kenichi Ito, Non-European Civilisations Rediscovered, Symposium at
the JDZ Berlin, June 1,1996).
There must be
numerous other examples for the comparative culturalist, drawn not only from
Asian cultures, but also from other continents which, as co-owning and
proactive stakeholders, could enrich global governance. The search for such
constructive elements in emerging societies to build a truly omnilateral system
of course, remain an ongoing task that will never be finished as long as
history flows.
If we do not open up to such omnilateralism
- in contrast to
the "only multilateral system" of today - there is a danger, at some
point in the future, that China will no longer see the need to join the
"Western-made" institutions or enter as a passive member, like Japan
did in GATT in 1955, but may sooner or later break up its purely Western
concepts from the inside like an alien cuckoo in a nightingale's nest.
Admittedly, such omnilateralism seems to be an idealistic vision which
underrates the urgent need to "constructively engage" China into the
world trading system. However, it is precisely the constructive, ie, building
together nature of the engagement which should reflect China's input to build
an omnilateral system. Otherwise, there is clearly a risk of taking
non-Westeners into the existing
system like accepting a new member into a conservative club, because they just
happened to move into the neighbourhood in terms of development (like South Korea into the OECD), or because they have
grown sufficiently important as the new boys on the block (for eg, Russia into
"Group of 8 " and China into WTO). If one accepts Europe as Weltkind
in der Mitten, then it should naturally assume the role of a mediator. This is a role Europe can, and should play
much more often. The
multilateral organisations, however, are expanding their geographical and
thereby also their cultural reach, which, likewise, should also encompass their
particularities. This, of course, does not at all exclude the existence of
universal fundamental values, as then agreed upon by all "
omnilaterally".
When I
quoted Goethe's Weltkind in der Mitten at
the beginning to locate Europe in between America and Asia, I wanted to
indicate the relative nearness of Europe to both. If one accepts Europe as Weltkind in der Mitten, then it should
naturally assume the role of a mediator. This is a role Europe can and should
play much more often. But its preoccupation with its own integration process
(now in particular with East Europe) has hitherto prevented it from fulfilling
that function. The Cold War strengthened the alliance with America, but left
the missing link" with East Asia. It is time the Weltkind regains its balance and opens up to omnilateralism.
