Media erodes sovereignty of Asia's modernizing states

Media erodes sovereignty of Asia's modernizing states

The Internet and the global media are at the forefront in effecting greater political space within Asia. Yeap Soon Beng looks at this phenomenon

In today's borderless world where leaders learn quickly that the global polity is a messy place, with events easily spinning out of control, most governments feel under siege. Governments remain disturbed, despite greater economic cooperation and interdependence between countries, as they realize that world market forces are usurping their authority and robbing them of the ability to set their own agendas.

For many Asian countries that are confronted with an international balance of power tilted against them, participation in the global economy means conceding more and more of their autonomy in decision making to foreign interests if they are to remain players. Within the dynamics of an unequal world, Asian governments know that making these concessions is necessary to ensure an improvement in the standard of living, to create jobs for their people and to develop industries.

But in doing so, it also means an erosion of their economic sovereignty. Even for a powerhouse like Japan, in working towards resolving the car dispute with the United States, the former was pressured to make concessions by the latter.

In spite of the inequality of global power, Asian leaders are aware that this compromise has helped maintain the economic vitality that has led the Asia-Pacific to unprecedented growth in less than a generation.

However, when it comes to compromising their political sovereignty, Asian governments are not only reluctant but extremely troubled by the prospect. Their dilemma is the perception that the erosion of their political sovereignty translates to paving the way for the introduction of Western democratic reforms.

One of Asia's main champions of this viewpoint is Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. He declared that it would be a mistake "to follow mindlessly the present politically correct and stridently advocated view that democracy is the precondition for economic development." Lee's view, popularly known as the "Asian way", is openly shared by Malaysia and China. Leaders in these countries warn that democratic reforms could actually be inimical to the economic growth of Asian countries.

While the erosion of political sovereignty is a fate shared by all governments, East and West, in today's increasingly interdependent world, it is more dramatic and more keenly feared by Asian governments as many have a cultural and historical need to maintain highly regulated and hierarchical societies.

This threat to political sovereignty has become more real and urgent with the arrival of the global media, especially satellite TV and the Internet. Many Asian governments see the media invasion as politically hegemonic and culturally imperialistic. The governments' distrust of the global media is rooted in the discourse of democratic politics where the media has always acted as the primary interface between the public and officials, and between issues and legislation.

By providing this interface in today's borderless world, the global media's role as passive spectators has changed to that of active players and referees in the dynamics of local politics.

The presence of a more intrusive and proactive global media have forced some Asian leaders to become more outspoken in their suspicions of the industry. Some have managed to put the media, local and foreign, in their assigned political space within the framework of the "Asian way".

While some leaders have been criticized for their "harsh" treatment of the media, a closer examination will show that their actions have been sporadic and, more important, transparent. In fact, except in a few countries, none of the latest media developments in the former communist regimes and some of the more regulated Southeast Asian nations, have involved a clamor to follow an authoritarian ideology.

In analyzing the growing tolerance towards the media by many Asian governments, some scholars are asserting that the alleged authoritarian need for control by political leaders is no longer valid.

A more relevant and important, but less obvious, explanation has to do with the governments' ambiguity in dealing with the erosion of their political sovereignty in the borderless world where the media is becoming all powerful and all reaching. Asian governments are quickly learning about the difficulties in regulating the rapidly progressing and changing media. They have realized that there is no way in which they can stop the flow of information from entering their countries and the best they can do is to harness that flow for economic development.

To come to terms with their fledging political sovereignty, some Asian leaders have resorted to socially constructing the global media as a threat and danger to the region's social and cultural identity. As noted by a media analyst, "it is a construction that draws on and feeds into the new posture of Asia in the post-colonial world which actively creates the West as an enemy of the state".

Furthermore, Asian leaders have a tendency to see the giving up of their sovereignty as a zero sum game, with the West as the aggressor and main benefactor. The barrage of attacks by several Asian leaders in portraying the West as decadent and trying to feverishly undermine Asia's success is testimony to the zero sum mentality. To some extent, this line of thinking could also explain why certain Asian nations, in spite of their growing political confidence nurtured by recent economic growth, continue to perceive their societies and cultures as vulnerable and easily ravaged by the West.

However, as more Asian countries become fully immersed in the global economy and modernized, their governments are also becoming aware of the centrality of the media to the country's political and social life. What remains highly contested is the media's role in modernizing Asian societies.

This changing role of the media, which could be one of continuity or rupture with the past, will continue to fuel the anxiety and ambiguity of Asian governments as they try to make sense of their interaction with modernity.

Rather than blindly assuming that the relations between the media and the government "is a mixture of paranoia and the arrogance of power", which Asian leaders have been accused of exhibiting, critics should temper their judgments and see events in a broader perspective.

In modernizing Asian societies, where sovereignty is being eroded on both the political and economic fronts, the ubiquitous democratic trend can but only be embryonic at this stage of growth. However, it is a trend that is undeniably moving across the Asian political landscape.

While caution, rather than jubilation, shrouds the democratic mood, it merely reflects the challenges confronting many Asian governments as they push their countries towards modernity.

Dr. Yeap Soon Beng is Sub-Dean with the School of Communications Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.