Power Shifts in Asia: External Involvement in Intra-State Conflicts

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The following remarks made by Palitha Kohona, Sri Lankan foreign secretary, when referring to China’s relationship with Sri Lanka provide a taste of existing perceptions of small Asian countries vis-a-vis their neighbours versus Western players: The new donors are neighbours; they are rich; and they conduct themselves differently. Asians don’t go around teaching each other how to behave. There are ways we deal with each other — perhaps a quiet chat, but not wagging the finger.1 This chapter opens the third part of this book, which addresses regional approaches to external involvement in Asia. First, I start by providing some theoretical background on regionalism and regional hegemony to explain how this fits into the broader debate on external involvement addressed in the second chapter. Second, I deal with the contextual aspect linked to the Asian region, the current regional power shifts and their implications. The emphasis is on the growing material and normative power of a rising China and, to a lesser extent, India. The normative differences between Asian and Western countries are compounded by the rise in the material power of emerging Asian countries and the continuing decline of Western countries’ overall political influence in the global South. Fidler, Kim and Ganguly refer to ‘Eastphalia’, a new East-driven world order, and suggest that ‘material power may give Asian nations the space to engage in global politics not as long-suffering victims of imperialism but as global leaders with strong views on sovereignty, opposed to outside interference in their domestic governance and political affairs’.2