The Pacific Century is a term describing a potential 21st-century dominance of Pacific Rim countries. [1]
The Pacific Century is a term describing a potential 21st-century dominance of Pacific Rim countries. [1]
The prediction that the Pacific would transcend the Atlantic as a "center of gravity of world commerce" has been credited to Marx and Engels. [2]
Though the concept of an American Pacific Century came to be discussed more towards the 21st century, Christopher Capozzola has argued that an American Pacific Century already happened in the 20th century, with the 1898 American annexation of the Philippines having led into heavy American involvement in the Pacific region. [3] Mark Borthwick has also argued that the 20th century was a Pacific Century of sorts, since the westernization that took place in Pacific Asia at the time paved the way for the region's rise. [4]
The concept of a Pacific Century began to receive greater support in the late 20th century as Pacific Asian economies grew rapidly. [5] [6] [7] By the late 1970s, the concept of a Pacific Century was used in America to describe a potential economic integration of America's West Coast with Japan. [8] The 1989 formation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was seen as a significant turning point for the Pacific Rim towards a post–Cold War era, [6] while by 1991, America's transpacific trade had become 1/3rd greater than its transatlantic trade. [9] A consensus began to emerge that Asia would form a significant part of the future and no longer be economically outpaced by America, especially after the 2007–2008 financial crisis and Great Recession. [10]
In 2011, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the beginning of "America's Pacific Century" under the ambit of a broader shift in American foreign policy known as the Pivot to Asia. Over time, the concept of a Pacific Century has become intertwined with various developments in the broader neighborhood of Asia and the Indo-Pacific, such as the desire of some Indo-Pacific countries to contain China; [11] America has a history of working against other powers achieving regional dominance in the Pacific stretching back to the 19th century, and so tensions between America and China for dominance in the region have become increasingly relevant. [12] This has led to discussion around a potential "Indo-Pacific Century" instead. [13] [14] [15]
Asia is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometers, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Its 4.7 billion people constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.
Superpower describes a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to exert influence and project power on a global scale. This is done through the combined means of economic, military, technological, political, and cultural strength as well as diplomatic and soft power influence. Traditionally, superpowers are preeminent among the great powers. While a great power state is capable of exerting its influence globally, superpowers are states so influential that no significant action can be taken by the global community without first considering the positions of the superpowers on the issue.
In international relations, power is defined in several different ways. Material definitions of state power emphasize economic and military power. Other definitions of power emphasize the ability to structure and constitute the nature of social relations between actors. Power is an attribute of particular actors in their interactions, as well as a social process that constitutes the social identities and capacities of actors.
The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth.
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor.
The Asia–Pacific (APAC) is the region of the world adjoining the western Pacific Ocean. The region's precise boundaries vary depending on context, but countries and territories in Australasia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia are often included. In a wider context, Central Asia, North Asia, the Pacific Islands, South Asia, West Asia, and even Pacific-adjoining countries in the Americas can be included. For example, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) includes five economies in the New World. The term has become popular since the late 1980s in commerce, finance, and politics. Despite the heterogeneity of the regions' economies, most individual nations within the zone are emerging markets experiencing significant growth. Sometimes, the notion of "Asia–Pacific excluding Japan" (APEJ) is considered useful.
The Westphalian system, also known as Westphalian sovereignty, is a principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory. The principle developed in Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, based on the state theory of Jean Bodin and the natural law teachings of Hugo Grotius. It underlies the modern international system of sovereign states and is enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which states that "nothing ... shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."
The Indian Century is a neologism suggesting that the 21st century will be dominated by India, as the 20th century is often called the American Century, and the 19th century as Pax Britannica, as the 17-18th centuries dominated by France and the 15-16th centuries dominated by Spain. The phrase is used particularly in the assertion that the economy of India could overtake the economy of the United States and economy of China as the largest national economy in the world, a position it held from 1 to 1500 CE and from 1600 to 1700 CE.
Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term is often used to denote religious thought about political principled questions. Scholars such as Carl Schmitt, a prominent Nazi jurist and political theorist, who wrote extensively on how to effectively wield political power, used it to denote religious concepts that were secularized and thus became key political concepts. It has often been affiliated with Christianity, but since the 21st century, it has more recently been discussed with relation to other religions.
Dennis Rumley is a political geographer from the ‘Newcastle School’ and a "long time specialist of the Indian Ocean Region and now of the Indo-Pacific Region". He is Emeritus Professor at Curtin University.
Zhongyuan (Chinese: 中原; pinyin: Zhōngyuán), the Central Plain(s), also known as Zhongtu (Chinese: 中土; pinyin: Zhōngtǔ, lit. 'central land') and Zhongzhou (Chinese: 中州; pinyin: Zhōngzhōu, lit. 'central region'), commonly refers to the part of the North China Plain surrounding the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River, centered on the region between Luoyang and Kaifeng. It has been perceived as the birthplace of the Chinese civilization. Historically, the Huaxia people viewed Zhongyuan as 'the center of the world'. Human activities in the Zhongyuan region can be traced back to the Palaeolithic period.
A potential superpower is a sovereign state or other polity that is speculated to be or have the potential to become a superpower; a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to exert influence and project power on a global scale through economic, military, technological, political, and/or cultural means.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) shares land borders with 14 countries : North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. The land borders, in counterclockwise order from northeast to southwest, include the China–North Korea border, the eastern segment of the China–Russia border, the China–Mongolia border, the western segment of the China–Russia border, the China–Kazakhstan border, the China–Kyrgyzstan border, the China–Tajikistan border, the China–Afghanistan border, the China–Pakistan border, the western segment of the China–India border, the China–Nepal border, the central segment of the China–India border (Sikkim), the China–Bhutan border, the eastern segment of the China–India border, the China–Myanmar border, the China–Laos border, the China–Vietnam border. In addition, there is a 30-kilometre (19 mi) internal border with the special administrative region of Hong Kong, which was a British dependency before 1997, and a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) internal border with Macau, a Portuguese territory until 1999.
East Asia is a geographical and cultural region of Asia including the countries of China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. Additionally, Hong Kong and Macau are the two special administrative regions of China. The economies of China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are among the world's largest and most prosperous. East Asia borders North Asia to the north, Southeast Asia to the south, South Asia to the southwest, and Central Asia to the west. To its east is the Pacific Ocean.
A middleman minority is a minority population whose main occupations link producers and consumers: traders, money-lenders, etc. A middleman minority, while possibly suffering discrimination and bullying, does not hold an "extreme subordinate" status in society. The "middleman minority" concept was developed by sociologists Hubert Blalock and Edna Bonacich starting in the 1960s but is also used by political scientists and economists. This idea was further developed by American economist Thomas Sowell.
Pacific Asia is the region along the east coast of Asia bordering the western Pacific Ocean. It constitutes most of East Asia, Northeast Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Afro-Asia is a term describing the combination of Africa and Asia. The term is often used to describe the solidarity between African and Asian nations when they were acting against European colonialism and later also remaining nonaligned during the Cold War.
The term foremost power has been used by political scientists and historians to describe the allegedly greatest power in the world, or in a given region, during a certain period of history. Multiple empires have been described as such, often for the same time period, resulting in a problematic assessment of the conflicting scholarly opinions and points of view on the matter. There is therefore a general lack of consensus between the various authors and scholars in reference to the nations and empires that were allegedly the world's most powerful at various points in history.
Free and Open Indo-Pacific is an umbrella term that encompasses Indo-Pacific-specific strategies of countries with similar interests in the region. The concept, with its origins in Weimar German geopolitics, has been revived since 2006 through Japanese initiatives and American cooperation.
"Western values" are a set of values strongly associated with the West which generally posit the importance of an individualistic culture. They are often seen as stemming from Judeo-Christian values and the Age of Enlightenment, although since the 20th century they have become marked by other sociopolitical aspects of the West, such as free-market capitalism, feminism, liberal democracy, the scientific method, and the legacy of the sexual revolution.