South Asia: Interrogating Newness why?

1. South Asia: Interrogating Newness why? Harinda Vidanage PhD

4. The 2012 forecast is unique in that it is not a forecast for one year in a succession of years, all basically framed by the same realities. Rather, it is a year in which the individual forecasts point to a new generational reality and a redefinition of how the world works. 2012 may not be the conclusion of this transformative process. Neither was 1991 the conclusion. However, just as 1991 was the year in which it became clear that the old world of the Cold War no longer functioned, 2012 is the year in which it will become clear that the Post-Cold War world has come to an end, being replaced by changed players and changed dynamics. http://www.stratfor.com/forecast/annual-forecast-2012

5. Trivia • Over the next few decades, almost all of the world’s growth in energy consumption, urbanization, automobile usage, airline travel, and carbon emissions will come from emerging economies. By mid-century, the number of people living in what will be (by then) high-income economies will rise to 4.5 billion, from one billion today. Global GDP, which currently stands at about $60 trillion, will at least triple in the next 30 years. • By mid-century, India and China will account for 2.5 billion of the 3.5 billion additional people with advanced-country incomes. By themselves, they will cause global GDP to at least double in the next three decades, even in the absence of growth anywhere else. • For India and China separately, and certainly together, sustainability is no longer mainly a global issue; it is a domestic challenge to long-term growth. Their growth patterns and strategies, and the tradeoffs and choices they make with respect to lifestyle, urbanization, transportation, the environment, and energy efficiency, will largely determine whether their economies can complete the long transition to advanced-income level (Spence 2011)

6. Context Asian Century Vs. Pacific Century New competition, New alliances, New ideological framings (Democratic Vs Authoritarian or Governance ) Use of Soft and Smart power Globalization / Transnationalism: Internal and External features

7. Asian Century Asia’s return to the center of world affairs is the great power shift of the twenty-first century. In 1750, Asia had roughly three-fifths of the world’s population and accounted for three-fifths of global output. By 1900, after the Industrial Revolution in Europe and America, Asia’s share of global output had shrunk to one-fifth. By 2050, Asia will be well on its way back to where it was 300 years earlier. (Joseph Nye 2011)

8. Indian Ocean The Indian ocean region is more than just a stimulating geography. It is an idea because it provides an insightful visual impression of Islam, and combines the centrality of Islam with global energy politics an the importance of world navies, in order to show us a multi-layered, multi polar world above and beyond the headlines of Iraq and Afghanistan; its also an idea because it allows us to see the world whole, with in a very new and yet old framework, complete with its own traditions and characteristics, without having to drift into a bland nostrums about globalization (Kaplan 2010)

9. What is changing? The cold war forced an artificial dichotomy on area studies in which the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and the Pacific rim were separate entities. But as India and China became more integrally connected with both South East Asia and Middle east through energy, trade and security arrangements, the Map of Asia is re-emerging as a single organic unit, just as it was during the epochs in history – manifested now by an Indian Ocean map. ( Kaplan 2010)

11. Asia today is home to some of the poorest nations and most of the fastest-growing nations in the world. Nepal, Afghanistan and Bangladesh are among the poorest nations in the world’s league table in terms of per capita GDP. India is home to the largest number of people who live on less than one dollar a day. At the same time, in terms of annual growth rate of per capita GDP over the last two decades, the fastest growing nation in the world is China, followed by Vietnam and India. In terms of population growth Asia’s phase of rapid increase is probably in the past; the African nations are the ones putting on the fastest additions to population nowadays. (Basu 2009)

12. http://www.project-syndicate.org/ Will Pakistan implode? Whatever happened to "Asian values"? Is there a Pacific arms race? Will China's rise swamp Asia's smaller economies? Will the Taliban's revival bring chaos to Central Asia? Can Japan ever establish relations of trust with its neighbors? Sixty percent of the world's population resides in the countries extending from Afghanistan to the micro-states of Oceania. Immense and immensely diverse, Asia now confronts the simultaneous challenges of modernization and globalization. This compels not only awareness of the wider world, but also accommodations that may clash with embedded values. Modernization offers real material gains, but also incites serious internal divisions.

13. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks on "America's Pacific Century" at APEC Leaders Week in Honolulu, Hawaii on November 11, 2011 Video America's Pacific Century Hilary Clinton November 2011 The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century

14. New Competitions/New Alliances • Emergence of a new alliance in Asia Pacific • Possible new Cold war • Call to look beyond Middle East as a security strategy • China’s String of Pearls • Indian expansion of blue water navy • Cultural shaping • Economic structures • Global imaginary and migratory movements

15. Soft and Smart Power • Focus on new forms of power distribution in new global arrangements • Same is important to look at national and regional power arrangements. (Ex working of democracy, social movements) • Charm offensives based on cultural products (Cultural centers / Cinema)

16. Globalization/ transnationalism • Markets, brands, image • Internal/ External Dichotomy • People’s movements Actual/Virtual • Identity: national, regional, global, gender, class, race, religion, sexual orientation, avatar, social network • Peoples lives and futures increasingly bound together by common challenges and the global consciousness.