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.