Imagining Asia

Asia at the end of the 20th century is rather more then just an economic powerhouse. For the first time since the end of decolonization a region is claiming to articulate some kind of universal message in contrast to that presented by the West. This book by European political scientists is an attempt to come to terms with this affirmative Asia. The editors provide an overview of what they consider to be the emergence of an Asian ideology they call Asianism. This phenomenon is examined from three perspectives: the ideological, that of the imagining and articulation of Asian identity, and that of the theory and practice of Asian forms of regional free trade. There are sections with case studies on Northeast Asian and Southeast Asian countries as well as India and chapters devoted to the ideological underpinnings of Asianism such as Indonesian Islam, Thai Buddhism and Confucianism. In attempting to provide an examination of Asian regionalism in political, as opposed to purely economic terms, the book demonstrates that, with the end of the Cold War, various capitalist models and, more importantly, the supposedly divergent value systems which underlie them, are now in competition.