Trying to re-discover an Asian soul

Trying to re-discover an Asian soul

So you thought you had heard the last of the Eastern vs.
Western values debate? No, you've not, says Kunda Dixit of Inter
Press Service.

MANILA (IPS): The magazine covers and newspaper headlines of
1994 said it all: `Asia Ascendant', `Asia Unleashed', `The Rise
and Rise of Asia'.

Never mind that when blurb writers talk about Asia mainly mean
the economic over-achievers on the Pacific Rim, the message is
clear: a richer, more powerful Asia-Pacific is turning
politically assertive and will become more so in the last five
years of this century and into the next one.

After shamelessly trying to be more materialistic than the
West, after showing the world what capitalism really means and
after attaining living standards that now rival of approach
European levels, countries like Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea,
Malaysia and to some extent China are trying to re-discover their
Asian soul.

Open the opinion page of any Asian newspaper today, and it is
dominated by the debate between the proponents of Asian and
Western value systems. They delve into the search for the Asian
way, the Asian definition of democracy and human rights, the
Asian concepts of social justice.

In 1995, there will be endless ceremonies to mark the 50th
anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. And the irony of it
will not be lost -- the East Asian co-prosperity sphere over
which Japan entered the war has actually come to pass.

Asia's new assertiveness is largely a factor of the surprising
shift in Japan in 1994 that made politicians, academics and
businessmen less squeamish about openly criticizing the West,
especially the United States.

Trade friction with the West and its inability so far to gain
permanent membership of the UN Security Council has irritated
Tokyo, which now sees itself less dependent on a U.S security
umbrella over the Western Pacific in the post-Cold War era.

In addition, Japan's trade and investments in Asia are soaring
while economic links with the United States and Europe are either
falling or stagnant.

Irked by Anglo-Saxon arrogance, the Japanese are looking for a
role model. They seem to have settled for Malaysian prime
minister Mahathir Mohamad who in 1994 got unprecedented adulation
in the Japanese media as a messiah of the Asian Way.

But not everyone in Asia agrees with Mahathir's brand of
obstreperous confrontation with the West. And even his presumed
heir apparent, Anwar Ibrahim, while condemning Western
"arrogance" has been making conciliatory speeches calling on
Asians not to go for knee-jerk anti-Westernism.

"It is shameful, if not ingenuous, to cite Asian values as an
excuse for autocratic practices and denial of basic rights and
civil liberties, "he said in Hong Kong in early December.

At a conference looking at the Asian definitions of human
rights in Kuala Lumpur a week later, Anwar said: "Development
cannot be used as an apology for authoritarianism."

Many see the backlash against Western thought, media and big-
business as a sign of affluent Asia's search for its soul and
understand the motivation that drives it.

David Howell, chairman of the British House of Commons foreign
affairs committee, is clear what is happening: a shift in the
center of gravity in human affairs away from Eurocentric thought
and skills that dominated the world for 300 years to East Asia.

"It seems that the rise of Asian power, both economic and
political dwarfs even the fall of the Berlin Wall," Howell
writes.

"Western thinkers and the political leaders who follow in
their tracks must stop and reconsider. Something is fundamentally
wrong not just with their economics but with their assumptions of
moral superiority."

To be sure, the Asian concept of human rights and democracy
has been a ruse for many autocrats in the region to hold on to
power.

It is also true that Asian autocrats have achieved phenomenal
economic results, but South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and even the
Philippines are now showing the governments do not necessarily
need to curb pluralism and muzzle the press to spur their
economies.

Then there are the Western expatriate commentators in Asia
like Liam Fitzpatrick of Hong Kong's Eastern Express newspaper,
who are fed up with all this "Asia Uber Alles' stuff.

"Barely a summit goes by without some batik-clad diplomat
rabbiting on about how Asian his Asian values are," Fitzpatrick
writes. "There is nothing un-Asian about wanting to be free from
arbitrary punishment, or the desire for free political, artistic
and religious expression."

East Asia's affluence in large measure came about because
their people were willing to sacrifice a degree of individual
freedom so pro-growth policies could take hold in an environment
of political stability.

In 1995, Communist Party-governed China and Vietnam and junta-
led Myanmar will continue to emulate the authoritarian capitalist
model of Singapore and Malaysia.

But there is enough evidence to show that Asia's rising
prosperity during this decade must be matched with greater
political openness, and that freedom and economic growth need not
be mutually exclusive.

Across East Asia there now a serious search for political,
economic and cultural alternatives to Western models, and these
could have universal applications in the next century.