A Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (GEACPS) 2.0?

Abstract

Contesting International Society in East Asia. Edited by Buzan Barry, Zhang Yongjin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 272 pp., $95.00 hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-107-07747-8). In a collection of fine essays, this book asks a timely question: Is there an (emerging) international regional society in East Asia? Two scenarios/interpretations of the “Western–global international society” are first introduced: the “globalization” view in which the Western systems and values triumph in some form, and the “postcolonial” view in which the “regional” international society will assert itself (pp. 5–6). In theory, however, a third interpretation should also be possible: the emergence of a non-Western “global” society. The book also seeks to conceptualize the international relations of East Asia from the perspective of the English School. Indeed, there is quite a strong link between the book under review and The Expansion of International Society edited by Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (⇓) but not just because the latter is generally regarded as a foundational text of the English School. The seemingly unlikely link is an essay by Ali Mazrui (⇓:289–308) entitled: “Africa Entrapped: Between the Protestant Ethic and the Legacy of Westphalia,” which basically articulates what the editors of Contesting International Society in East Asia , Barry Buzan and Yongjin Zhang, would call “a core-periphery view of Western–global international society” (pp. 5–6). Mazrui argues that Africa was a miracle of diversity, that it interpreted and practiced “primary institutions” differently, that it had no dominant core, …