Bairektarevich A. Why Is (The Korean Peninsula and East) Asia Unable to Capitalize (on) its Successes: Asia Needs Asean-Ization not Pakistanization of its Continent

Abstract: Speculations over the alleged bipolar world of tomorrow (the so-called G-2, China vs. the US), should not be an Asian dilemma. It is primarily a concern of the West that, after all, overheated China in the first place with its (outsourced business) investments. Hence, despite a distortive noise about the possible future G-2 world, the central security problem of Asia remains the same: an absence of any pan-continental multilateral setting on the world’s largest continent. The Korean peninsula like no other Asian theater pays a huge prize because of it.Why is it so? Asia’s success story? Well, it might be easier than it seems: Neither Europe nor Asia has any alternative. The difference is that Europe well knows there is no alternative — and therefore is multilateral. Asia thinks it has an alternative — and therefore is strikingly bilateral, while stubbornly residing enveloped in economic egoisms. No wonder that Europe is/will be able to manage its decline, while Asia is (still) unable to capitalize its successes. Asia — and particularly its economically most (but not yet politico-militarily) advanced region, East Asia — clearly does not accept any more the lead of the post-industrial and post-Christian Europe, but is not ready for the post-West world. How to draw the line between the recent and still unsettled EU/EURO crisis and By contrasting and comparing genesis of multilateral security structures in Europe with those currently existing in Asia, we can easily remark the following: Prevailing security structures in Asia are bilateral and mostly asymmetric, while Europe enjoys multilateral, balanced and symmetric setups (American and African continents too). These partial settings are more instruments of containment than of engagement. Containment will never result in the integration through cooperation. On contrary, it will trigger a confrontation which feeds the antagonisms and preserves alienation on the stage. Therefore, irrespective to the impressive economic growth, no Asian century will emerge with deeply entrenched divisions on the continent, where the socio-political currents of the Korean peninsula are powerful daily reminder that the creation of such a pan-Asian institution is an urgent must.

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