Читать книгу Asia Past and Present - Peter P. Wan - Страница 11

Asia Past and Present aims to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the long course of history formed by Asia’s inhabitants, both indigenous and foreign. This will involve identifying and explaining the broad contours of cultures that emerged in Asia, geographically from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia in the west to Japan and Papua New Guinea in the east, and chronologically from prehistory to the early twenty‐first century. It will necessarily include a discussion of the interactions among Asian cultural elements and the subsequent development of two core cultures—Indian and Chinese—that became foundational models for the rest of Asia. It will also examine the cultural exchanges within the Asian realm and between the Asian and non‐Asian worlds.

Such interactions indicate Asian history can be divided into three broad categories of cultural development. The formation of core cultures marks the first stage, which stretches from the earliest history to roughly 1200 CE. In Asia, India and China provide these core cultures, classical models of civilization that other peoples of Asia adopted and modified to meet their particular political, social, economic, intellectual, and religious needs. Most importantly, Indian and Chinese concepts of kingship, ideas of religious worship, and methods of writing dominate the cultural landscape of Asia. Generally, South and Southeast Asia embraced Indian ideas and institutions, while Vietnam, Korea, and Japan drew upon Chinese traditional practices. To give one example, the Thai monarchy best reflects Indian political principles, whereas the behavior of Vietnamese emperors clearly demonstrates the considerable influence of Chinese ways.

Notwithstanding the enormous cultural weight of India and China on the rest of Asia, each culture selected those aspects of the core models and adapted those parts to its particular, local needs. Thus Japan adapted the Chinese political concepts of mandate of heaven and dynastic cycle, which produced a succession of dynasties in the Middle Kingdom over the millennia, by retaining just one imperial family in the land of the rising sun. Similarly, the caste system, so crucial to daily life in India, had little impact on Southeast Asian societies otherwise well‐disposed to thought and behavior from the Hindustan cultural core. Moreover, below the literate elite, the circumstances of the common people further dulled the edge of cultural borrowing. Local geography, vernacular languages, religious traditions, and economic practices transformed the original cultural borrowing somewhat, even as the broader contours of culture increasingly resembled the foreign model.

The impact of successful Muslim Middle Eastern, nomadic tribal Eurasian, and Christian European incursions into traditional agricultural Asian civilizations marks the second stage of Asian history. These new arrivals began with the Afghan Muslim conquest of India in 1206, continued with the Mongol invasions of China and much of the rest of Asia in the thirteenth century, and culminated in the European invasions throughout the continent after 1498. As a result, both the core cultures of India and China, as well as those of their cultural pupils in Asia, underwent significant transformations. Though the teachings of the core cultures remained preeminent down to the nineteenth century, two new religions—Islam and Christianity—began to compete for the allegiance of the people. New secular ideas—in the worlds of science, politics, and economics—increasingly caused substantial modifications of Asian thought and behavior.

The most obvious impact occurred in religious beliefs. Indonesia, today the largest Muslim country in the world, embraced Islam. However, it did so only after Afghan Delhi sultans took control of India, the heartland of core wisdom to Southeast Asians. Indonesians had long been aware of Islam through Arab traders, but until that faith came from India, Islam remained little more than a curiosity. The Philippines also underwent fundamental change, again religiously, as the Spanish brought and successfully transferred Catholicism to an Asian setting. Linguistically as well, major changes resulted from non‐Asian sources. Several centuries ago, the Vietnamese adopted the Latin script—due to the influence of French Catholic priests—to replace Chinese characters. More recently, several other Asian nations have replaced Indian‐ or Arabic‐based scripts with the Roman alphabet. The largest numbers of English‐speaking people in a single country reside in Asia: in India. Furthermore, radical ideas contained in the European Renaissance, Reformation, scientific revolution, Enlightenment, agricultural revolution, capitalist business practices, and industrial revolutionary production began to upset traditional Asian verities. So too did the emergence in the nineteenth century of the idea of nationalism and the establishment of the “new imperialism.” However, not until the shocking impact of the industrial revolution sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century did Asia’s elite begin to reexamine their cultural heritages.

Thus, as the nineteenth century unfolded, so too did the third stage of Asian history, illustrated by attempts of various Asian cultures to restore a balance of wealth and power now so clearly dominated by the industrial nations of Europe, America, and Japan. Up to this time, the presence of foreigners in Asia had produced considerable cultural adjustments, but the essence of one’s culture had not been ultimately seriously threatened. The Mongol and Manchu conquests of China failed to dislodge Confucian ways; indeed, the Confucian model was substantially utilized by the frontier nomads to govern agricultural China. Likewise, Hindu India absorbed first the Muslim Delhi sultans, then the Muslim Mughal emperors, and finally the Christian British. Initially, at least, the invaders did most of the adjusting to traditional Indian practices. Not until the full impact of the industrial revolution became apparent in the nineteenth century did Asia’s cultural leadership seriously reassess traditional ways. Most all such leaders wondered why time‐honored ideas and institutions had failed to keep the foreigner at bay, or if not at bay, why the intruder now had both the desire and ability to impose radically new ways of organizing and governing Asian societies.

Reassessment of established “habits of the heart” produced three broad conclusions among Asia’s leadership before World War I. Some argued for a return to traditional ways of life, the departure from which had made their civilizations susceptible to invasion, occupation, and probably transformation. Others contended that adherence to tradition, far from being the solution to the foreign threat, had made their civilizations weak and thus incapable of defending itself. Only by doing away with custom and by embracing the ways of the invader could the necessary wealth and power be generated to dislodge the foreign presence. Somewhere between the world wars, a third conclusion came to dominate elite Asian thinking. Since neither an all‐embracing reliance on tradition nor a complete abandonment of it seemed practicable, utilizing the best of both—foreign and native ideas and practices—appeared to be the best means to the several immediate and more distant ends. Once substantive change became legitimate, the next issue became identifying which parts of tradition justified retention and which disposal. At the same time, recognizing which elements from the outside world to adopt and which to disregard needed to be worked out. This turned out to be no simple task, and much of Asia still grapples with the implications of such choosing.

Although by World War I nearly all of Asia’s elite could agree upon the necessity for independence, the principal means by which to accomplish this task became the topic of heated debate. Out of the discussions and disagreements emerged three usually conflicting approaches. Many advocated legally working within the imperial/colonial system and utilizing the system to ultimately destroy it, others favored nonviolent resistance to the system by undermining it where possible, and some preferred to resist the system through organized violence. Once independence succeeded, then new political and economic arrangements had to be set up.

Before the Great War, capitalism and democracy—broadly defined—seemed the destined, if difficult, paths to economic and political success. The industrial nations did not offer cookie‐cutter guidelines to modernization, the differences among them often being significant. Both Japan and Germany, for example, could at best be considered nations “transitioning” to democratic practice, and both of their economies had modernized with considerable state intervention. Intellectuals across Asia realized this, and indeed many had witnessed it firsthand as students or political exiles in Japan. So long as modernizing prescriptions could be carried on in a flexible framework, particular cultures could pick and choose those aspects of modernization required for success as well as the means by which to internalize them to their nations. By this time, loyalty to one’s nation‐state had surpassed one’s loyalty to its culture. Nationalism, not culturalism, would serve as the chief instrument of liberation and modernization.

World War I upset that default assumption in several ways. First, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia produced a rival communist model of development. Second, the tenuous unity of the imperial powers, particularly regarding Asia, had splintered during the war. Not only did that conflict pit one imperial camp—the Germans and the Central Powers—against another, the Allies headed by Great Britain. But fissures developed in the Allied camp. Ally Japan’s attempted expansion into China—the Twenty‐One Demands of 1915—produced immediate British and American opposition. But even as Japan became democratic in 1919, it had long been harboring and now openly championed a specific Asian model of modernization. And finally, the Great War ushered in waves of pessimism and clouds of doubt as to the effectiveness of not only capitalism and democracy but also Western civilization itself.

The interwar years between 1919 and 1937, when World War II began with Japan’s formal invasion of China, deepened the gloomy outlook. The Treaty of Versailles ending the Great War satisfied almost no one; radical Nazi, Fascist, and Communist movements sprouted up globally; new thought emerging in psychology, physics, philosophy, and the humanities seemed to produce not a comfort caused by greater understanding, but an anxiety rooted in intellectual confusion. The economic depression of the 1930s appeared to seal the fate of capitalism and democracy, as most industrial nations showed signs of heading for some form of state‐controlled societies. That is to say, some form of authoritarianism seemed the likely future. It might not be the outright totalitarianism of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany or the dictatorships of Fascist Italy and Spain, and militarist Japan. But neither would it be the liberal politics and economics of nineteenth‐century Europe and America.

At the same time, global conflict strengthened independence movements. World War I resulted in the European colonial powers withdrawing much of their colonial military and bureaucracy away from the colonies to deal with adversaries threatening the homeland. This allowed anticolonial organizations to expand in a less restrictive environment. World War II eventually resulted in nearly every colonial regime in Asia being removed, initially by Japan and ultimately by the United States and its allies. While Japan dismantled Western colonial regimes, it instituted its own Greater East Asia Co‐Prosperity Sphere. As the war raged on, two developments transpired to insure the end to colonial rule in the near future. First, combatants on both sides attempted to enlist indigenous organizations and individuals to join their fight, and with war’s end, most everyone in Asia had access to weaponry. The second was America’s determination to terminate colonial rule globally. Moreover, Britain’s July 1945 general election brought to power the Labour Party, which had promised to begin the decolonization process.

Imminent independence forced Asia’s leadership—whether traditionalist, reformist, or revolutionary—to put together a comprehensive platform for self‐rule. Most still questioned the efficacy of the capitalist and democratic models of development. Consider some of the more important leaders who did emerge before, during, and after World War II: Mohandas Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Achmed Sukarno, and Mao Zedong—none of them stood tall for capitalism and democracy. And even of those who did accept some variation of capitalism and/or democracy—now redeemed somewhat by victory in World War II—they did so with less than roaring enthusiasm: Yoshida Shigeru in occupied Japan, Jawaharlal Nehru in India, Chiang Kai‐shek in Taiwan, Filipino presidents with the exception of Ramon Magsaysay, South Korean presidents, and Singapore presidents. Colonial Hong Kong and Macao remained such until the 1990s. Even in the early twenty‐first century, several nations have not yet begun or have taken only baby steps toward participatory government—North Korea, Vietnam, and Burma/Myanmar, for example.

Capitalism and democracy slowly emerged in the wake of World War II. The Cold War (1945–1991) between the United States and the Soviet Union energized America’s efforts in Asia to provide counter‐models to communist regimes in North Korea and mainland China as well as to insurgency movements in much of decolonizing Asia. In the process, Washington often put anticommunism ahead of democratic development. These efforts, chiefly in Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and South Vietnam, involved the infusion of much‐needed capital, advanced technology, American markets, and political support—with military assistance, if necessary. Although political support and other aid depended to some extent on local efforts to broaden political participation and enhance economic opportunity, most often American support depended on an Asian ruler being less politically ruthless and more economically effective than the likely alternative. Transitions to democracy and markets, though important to Washington, remained secondary to the clash between “East” and “West.”

The struggle between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies concentrated on winning in three principle arenas: first, military; second, the decolonizing world; and, third, economic growth. Even though military supremacy remained primary, the Cold War setting would be played out between the West’s surrogates and the East’s surrogates, thus hopefully minimizing the likelihood of a direct military confrontation between the United States and Soviet Russia. This contest as well would not be the brief sprint that World War II turned out to be for America. Instead it would be a marathon, seen as such in the 1940s and into the 1980s. As such, it became a test of wills that alone was a leading index of which system, communist or capitalist, would win the hearts and minds of the decolonizing and developing world, including all of Asia. Just as significant as the will to prevail was the ability of one (broadly defined) system or the other to meet the needs of Asia’s newly freed nations and people.

Well into the 1960s, Soviet Stalinist or Chinese Maoist forms of communism appeared to feature all the earmarks of front‐running models, while elsewhere highly statist (India) and/or authoritarian (South Korea and Taiwan) regimes seemed to provide the other prototypes for modernization. America’s withdrawal from Vietnam and at first blush from Asia in the mid‐1970s, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan along with the Iranian occupation of the American Embassy in Teheran in the late 1970s, America’s slumping economy, its Vietnam syndrome, and what President Jimmy Carter called its “malaise” made it all but certain that Washington’s influence globally, and undoubtedly in Asia, would gradually decline. On the surface, at least, competitive politics and markets appeared headed for the endangered species list, Japan being the only likely exception. Those nations not already communist or that had been on friendly terms with the United States beat hasty paths to Beijing and Moscow to acknowledge the expected victorious powers in that part of the world.

Below the surface, however, seismic changes long underway began to ascend. Japan and the “little dragons” of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore had become wealthy through more open market practices, and they had also transitioned to more democratic political arrangements. More than a decade before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Deng Xiaoping’s China began to dismantle the Maoist economic nightmare and usher in some prosperity while gradually transitioning from totalitarian rule to a “soft authoritarian” control. Meanwhile, politics began transitioning from “soft authoritarianism” in Taiwan and South Korea to full‐fledged democracy. In March 1985, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched a reform movement to rescue a collapsing Soviet system. Labeled glasnost (liberalization) and perestroika (reconstruction), these programs gave Vietnam, a client state of the Soviet Union, the opportunity to institute in 1986 its own necessary reforms. Dubbed doi moi, it set up a market‐oriented economy and commenced a less harsh political regime.

The formal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 did not, as Francis Fukuyama has interestingly argued, bring about the “end of history,” by which he meant the global prevalence of some form of liberal politics and market economics. The war on terror provides ample evidence that a significant part of the world resists such a harmonious scenario. Moreover, two major Asian powers, China and Russia, still cling to what appears to be not‐so‐soft authoritarian political practices. And numerous Maoist and other insurgent or separatist movements can be found throughout the continent. Perhaps in the more distant future, Fukuyama’s world of liberal ideas and institutions will prevail in Asia. But the larger issue will likely be not whether liberalism and modernization will triumph, but how some variation of the two will be adapted to each Asian culture.

This search for and adaptation of a new order did not begin in the twentieth century, nor did the processes occur quickly or without turmoil. In 1783 the United States became formally independent, but freedom from British rule merely began a new stage of development. What kind of country would emerge? America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, spoke loudly for small government and agrarian economics, but less than a decade later the Founding Fathers met at Philadelphia to craft a new constitution. The final product gave birth to a stronger central government, whose first leaders favored a more commercial economy. The War of 1812, the “Second War for Independence,” convinced America’s elite that a native industrial infrastructure needed to be built to augment the agricultural base in order for the country to be truly independent of Europe. All the while, the ugly issue of slavery continually forced Americans to raise the question of what kind of nation the people wanted. Even the Civil War failed to fully address that question. The problems involved in becoming modern affected the early industrializing nations of Europe and Japan. To expect the nations of Asia to avoid turmoil is to ignore historical experience.

The people of Asia will ultimately ask and answer the question of what kind of country they desire. The answer to this question will not likely emerge until the basic needs of the citizenry are met. How will the professed traditions of the past and perceived needs of the present combine with modern techniques and standards to produce a livable future? There will be toil and trouble along the road, and it remains uncertain that liberal core beliefs will prevail. But if they do, they will be liberal beliefs with distinctly Asian characteristics, reflecting the goals and principles of each particular Asian but increasingly global culture.