Seeking Political Reconciliation: Case Studies in Asia—Introduction

Abstract

SEEKING POLITICAL RECONCILIATION: CASE STUDIES IN ASIA* INTRODUCTION Mumin Chen Looking Beyond Realism Since the end of the Cold War, the scholarly community has seen tremendous changes in the meaning of and approaches to security. Security studies today encompass various theoretical propositions, ranging from the “broadening” school that stresses the economic and environmental dimensions of security to the “deepening” approach that challenges the legitimacy of statecentrism and military security. The September 11 terrorist attacks and the ensuing U.S. campaign against international terrorism further strengthened the need for exploring new ways to respond to new and unconventional threats to human lives and welfare. Yet unlike other regions where scholars and policy makers have shifted their focus of security issues from military to non- * The author would like to thank Atena Feraru and Alex Littlefield, both Ph.D. students in the Graduate Institute of International Politics, National Chung Hsing University, for their assistance in editing this special issue. ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 34, No. 4, 2010, pp. 7-18. conventional perspectives, security in East and South Asia is still largely defined by realist characteristics. Concerns about security on the Korean peninsula and tensions between India and Pakistan often lead scholars to conclude that military security is the critical element in determining peace or war in both regions, and that maintaining a balance of power among rival players—i.e., the United States, China, Japan, and even India—is the only attainable way to achieve regional stability. But where does rivalry come from? Realist theorists are often reluctant to discuss this question, as their traditional approach is based on assumptions of an anarchical structure of the international system and the power-driven instinct of sovereign states. Over the years realists have carefully defended their position by adding more conditions such as balance of threat, and differentiating defensiveness from offensiveness.1 As a result, scholars of Asian security continue to adopt realist assumptions to justify military approaches in responding to rising threats without even asking whether power balancing is the only attainable way to peace and stability. This strategy has been quite effective, as many scholars are convinced that Asia’s stability is largely a function of behavior and relations among the major powers. With a closer look, however, one finds that realism alone is not enough to explain the complicated nature of the security environment in Asia. Simply put, certain developments do not meet realist predictions. For instance, President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan played brinkmanship during 2004 and 2008 presidential elections by advocating a referendum, an act interpreted by 8 Mumin Chen 1. For a discussion of the realist paradigm as a self-restraint and defensive research program, see John A. Vasquez, “The Realist Paradigm and Degenerative versus Progressive Research Program: An Appraisal of Neotraditional Research on Waltz’s Balancing Proposition,” American Political Science Review, vol. 91, No. 4 (December, 1997), pp. 899-912. For “balance of threat” concept, see Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987). On the concept of offensive realism, see John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001). both Beijing and Washington as provocative and irresponsible. If it is great powers that decide the security order of East Asia, why did political leaders of Taiwan bother to challenge it? In South Korea, Presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun orchestrated the Sunshine policy toward Pyongyang throughout their tenure, amid the latter’s nuclear and missile tests and occasional exchanges of fire between both sides. An analysis of Asian security also has to take the following facts into consideration: • East Asia is perhaps the only region in the world where no major war has occurred since the 1970s, when the wars in Indochina and the China-Vietnam war of 1979 were fought. But virtually none of the older military confrontations has disappeared—those on the Korean peninsula, in China-Japan relations, in TaiwanChina relations, and in the South China Sea, for example. • Compared to the rest of the world, East and South Asian countries have so far enjoyed the highest economic growth rates since the end of the Cold War. One can attribute this achievement...