Northeast Asia in the Multipolar World-System

NORTHEAST ASIA IN THE MULTIPOLAR WORLD-SYSTEM* Immanuel Wallerstein The period of United States hegemony in the world-system is now definitively at an end. The slow decline since the 1970s was transformed into a precipitate decline brought about by the self-defeating tactics of the presidency of George W. Bush.1 We are now living in a world-system in which there are emerging eight to ten centers of relative geopolitical autonomy. The word “relative” should be underlined. The four strongest such centers are located in what is sometimes called the global North. They are in my opinion the United States (which continues of course to be an extremely strong power center, if far less powerful than previously), Western Europe (based on the critical France-Germany tandem), and Russia. The fourth such center is Northeast Asia, by which I mean China, Korea, and Japan, the group meeting here as the Asia Economic Cooperation Forum. The strength of these four centers can be measured by the overall combination each one has assembled of military strength, economic strength, and political/ideological strength. The proportion of each of these factors is of course different for each of the four, but each combination adds up to considerable strength. * Keynote address at the 2nd Asia Economic Cooperation Forum, Incheon, Korea, November 7-9, 2010. 1. See my “Precipitate Decline: The Advent of Multipolarity,” Harvard International Review, Spring 2007, pp. 54-59. ASIAN PERSPECTIVE, Vol. 34, No. 4, 2010, pp. 191-205. Special Contribution The relatively autonomous centers in the global South are no doubt less strong overall than these four. Nonetheless, the geopolitical power of each is not negligible. And together, even without any collective organization, they are likely to play an increasingly important geopolitical role. A world of eight to ten relatively autonomous geopolitical centers is, almost by definition, chaotic. In such a situation, no one center can thrive in isolation or in arrogant disregard of the others. Each therefore is forced to seek to maintain and improve its relations with other centers. The question for each is, with which other centers? We are at the stage where all the centers are seeking to maintain relatively good relations with all the other centers. This is of course impossible in any medium term, but this is a fair description of the current policies of the multiple eight to ten centers. In addition, none of these centers is internally unified in a very stable fashion. All are torn by conflicts, not only about their internal structures but also, perhaps especially, over what they believe ought to be their global strategy. In this kind of situation, what we are witnessing is a constant zigzagging of these centers, both internally and in their relations with other centers. Indeed, the zigzagging is so intense that those who seek to analyze what is going on are in very little agreement. We are regularly being offered quite opposite and often fastchanging appreciations of the world situation—by the governments , by the media, and by public opinion in general. This is why what is going on merits the label of a chaotic situation. No one likes a chaotic situation. It breeds intense anxiety and therefore often a quite unreasonable degree of anger and lashing out at scapegoats. How may we expect those in positions of state power to handle this kind of chaotic situation? Their first consideration will clearly be to look for ways to strengthen their own hand vis-à-vis other centers. This means trying simultaneously to deal with internal divisions and to find the particular paths that will augment their comparative standing in the world-system. This is not at all an easy task for governments . And the missteps of the governments quite frequently 192 Immanuel Wallerstein lead to strong reactions from their own public opinion, which expresses itself in different forms in the various centers of geopolitical power. In none of them is it easy to be an incumbent in power because public opinion rapidly blames the incumbents, even for matters beyond the power of the incumbents to control. Worldwide, there is a low level of public tolerance for their own governments. I propose to discuss the five...