National movements
National movements have contributed to a number of new
sovereign states. The Arabian Peninsula (except Yemen) was
united into one kingdom, Saudi Arabia, all in 1927. The
other Arab territories that were mandated from 1918 gained
independence in the 1930s, namely Iraq in 1932, Lebanon and
Syria in 1941 and Jordan in 1946. A new Jewish nation state,
Israel, was created in 1948. The Philippines, which became
American possession in 1898, gained its independence in
1946. Burma became an independent state in 1947. India
became independent in 1947, and divided into two states,
India (Republic of 1950) and Pakistan (Republic of 1953;
East Pakistan made itself independent as the Republic of
Bangladesh in 1971).
Indonesia became a sovereign republic in 1949, and the
same year the Kingdom of Laos became independent. Cambodia
gained its sovereignty through a separate agreement with
France in 1953, Vietnam the same year after an eight-year
war and with a fateful split into two zones along the 17th
latitude, reunited in 1975 after the end of an American
intervention war (see Vietnam War). Malaya became a
sovereign state in 1957. A new and larger federation, which
also included Singapore and the two British colonies of
North Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah), was established in 1963
under the name Malaysia. In 1965, however, Singapore
resigned from this federal state.
As long as national movements nourished anticolonial
currents, the idea of cooperation was strong. It reached a
climax with an Afro-Asian congress in Bandung in 1955.
Later, the special interests of the individual nation states
have repeatedly hampered regional cooperation efforts. New
nationalism has also given rise to serious armed conflicts,
such as between India and China in 1962 and between India
and Pakistan in 1965.
The tension between the United States and the Soviet
Union in the latter half of the 20th century (the Cold War)
was also reflected in the security policy situation in many
places in Asia. Through the revolution in China in 1949 and
the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the superpowers
gained new frontlines in Asia. Vietnam was hit by a bloody
civil war between the South and the North from the mid-1950s
to 1975 (the Vietnam War). The United States was actively
involved in the war on South Vietnam, but suffered defeat.
After the country was reunited as the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam in 1976, it was the dominant power in Indochina,
with Pro-Vietnamese regimes in Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam's
armed intervention in Cambodia in 1978–1989 intensified its
opposition to China.
China's relations with the Soviet Union were exacerbated
by the Soviet intervention war in Afghanistan in 1979-1989.
Tensions were dampened when Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia,
and the Soviet Union retreated from Afghanistan in
1988-1989. China officially "normalized" its relationship
with the Soviet Union in 1989 and with Vietnam in 1992.
However, China-India relations are characterized by
centuries of suspicion and rivalry, as is the case between
China and Vietnam and between China and Korea. The
relationship between China and Japan is complex on both
sides, based on common cultural features, a bloody Japanese
occupation (1932–1937) and two Sino-Japanese wars
(1894–1895) and (1937–1945).
Partnership Organizations
The region has also seen visionary, peaceful
collaborative projects grow. The alliance-free movement got
its start in Indonesia in 1955 (the Bandung Conference). In
1967, regional cooperation took on a specific form in a
Southeast Asian organization, ASEAN (Association of
Southeast Asian Nations). In 1985, seven countries
formed the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC), a loosely organized forum to
promote economic and other cooperation. In 2003, they signed
a free trade agreement that includes India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. Check
Countryaah.com for more countries.
Asian countries have also joined cooperative
organizations both east and south, including Australia and
countries in North and South America (APEC) and west with
the EU (ASEM). APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation)
was formed in 1989 as a forum for countries in the Pacific
region; in 1998, membership increased to 21 countries,
including heavyweights such as the United States, Japan,
China and Russia. In 1994, ASEAN began the implementation of
the AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area) free trade
area, while APEC made a decision in principle on full
free trade in "Pacific Asia" by 2020. However, the
countries' very different development steps are slowing down
the dismantling of the customs walls.
Development Strategies
Very different strategies for economic development have
been followed and followed in Asia. In common, the
development is aimed almost at industrialization everywhere.
For the economically managed countries, the general
development model has long been based on Lenin's idea that
agriculture must provide food for the population and provide
the savings with which the industry is to be built. For
China, the idea took on a slightly smoother design,
expressed by Mao's principle of "walking on two legs": thus
initiating a tailored, simultaneous development of both
agriculture and industry. In recent years, after the
collapse of the USSR, both there and in China, an opening
has been introduced to the market economy, but still with
strong government control. The Chinese economy is
experiencing strong growth. In other states, market economy
principles for development have long been followed; for
example, India has pursued an import substitution industrial
policy. This encouraged domestic production of goods that
had to be imported. In order to help the construction
process, the infant industry was protected from foreign
competition. Under the policy pursued, it has proved
difficult for the locally produced goods to achieve a
quality on par with foreign products at the same price.
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and some other
countries have pursued various types of market economy
policy that have gone into trying to make money on the world
market for their own development. This has succeeded in many
places and has been seen as a model that can be used
everywhere. However, there are many indications that the
great success has been achieved on different, specific
conditions. Thus, for example, Japan had a basis in a
well-educated, but low-paid and disciplined population, an
efficient corporate structure and national capital. This
pattern has partly been found in the other high-growth
countries, and in the early 1990s, East and South Asia is
becoming more and more like the world's future economic
powerhouse.
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