LESSON 2: FORMATION OF INTERSTATE SYSTEM

 An autonomous interstate system has been at work in East Asia since the 1990s. Southeast Asian
countries have played a leading part in forming it since the mid-1970s. For starters, there were
only two Asian countries that were independent in the pre-war time: Japan and Thailand. Shortly
after World War, other Asian countries gained independence including the Philippines (1946),
India (1947), Burma and the two Koreas (the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea – 1948), China (the founding of the People's Democratic Republic of China as
a complete sovereign state ending its former status of a semi-colony) and Indonesia (1949), Laos
and Cambodia (1953), Malaya (1957), and Singapore (1965). Then, Vietnamese independence
struggles led to first Indo-Chinese War in November 1946, and the Geneva Agreement that ended
the conflict in July 1954 created two Vietnamese republics (the Vietnamese Democratic Republic
in the north and the State of Vietnam/Vietnam Republic in the south). Thus, for the establishment
of an Asian interstate system, those countries' independence was a necessity.
 The founding of an independent Asian interstate system got delayed because of the wars in Asia
wherein the establishment of the three socialist countries of North Korea, China, and North
Vietnam had a significant impact on East Asian international politics. Domestic war between
North and South Korea turned destructive and international as United States and China (the
Chinese People's Voluntary Forces) got involved. Indochina’s national liberation war entered and
intensified in 1962 involving US supporting South Vietnamese Government and its forces, and
second Indo-Chinese (Vietnamese) war between South Vietnam with United States and the South
Vietnamese National Liberation Front and North Vietnam on the other.
 The international milieu surrounding Asia has radically changed sincevthe early 1990s. Needless
to say, the ending of the Cold War in the early 1990s brought about a completely new set of rules
to this area as well. Furthermore, as a result of its spectacular economic growth, the Asian region
has rapidly become a new center, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), created in
1989, is a major example of economic cooperation schemes in the Asia-Pacific. Furthermore, the
term "Asia-Pacific" has grown to be regarded as a geo-economic concept in this context. Thus, by
the 1990s, the international environment had been solidly established for the promotion of an
Asian interstate system.
 Since the 1970s, Asian politics has become bipolar or tripolar. The Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the new pole. It was created in 1967 by its founding members
(Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines), and Brunei joined in 1984. The
founding members of ASEAN also worked for the establishment of the Asia-Europe Meeting
(ASEM) in 1996, which functions as a consultative organization based on the idea of equality
among Asia's and Europe's main countries. ASEM illustrates Asian countries' current rise as
major players in global politics, which is in stark contrast to the past.
 The West then pretended to be colonial powers, whereas most Asian countries were colonized by
them. East Asia, which can be divided into China on the one hand, and Korea and Japan on the
other, is the traditional pole(s) in Asian politics. In other words, East Asia is thought to have one
or two poles in a restricted sense. As a result, East Asia as a whole can be classified as bipolar or
tripolar. In any case, we can now recognize the ASEAN member countries' powerful political
voices, which would have been impossible fifty years ago. Their activities have played a
significant role in the development of Asia's interstate system.
  Finally, in the political realm, most Asian countries have come to be governed by authoritarian
regimes sooner or later after independence. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore have been
economic superpowers since the late 1970s, thanks to their success in export-oriented
industrialization. Their objective was to combine development politics, or dictatorship, with rapid
economic growth. Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia followed suit in the 1990s, as did the United
States.
 In the late 1970s, Communist China began to implement the 'Reform and Open Policy.' In terms
of politics, democracy came to the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand in the late
1980s and early 1990s, and Indonesia in the late 1990s, while authoritarian governments still
persist in North Korea, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore. Domestic politics in
most Asian countries has grown increasingly dynamic for economic progress and democracy in
recent years. Economic developmentalism, in particular, has established a cultural norm in Asia,
promoting an interstate system.
 The conclusion of the Cold War in the early 1990s created a worldwide environment that was
conducive to the establishment of an East Asian interstate system. Furthermore, North Korea does
not appear to be as volatile as is commonly assumed, as it appears to be seeking more favorable
international conditions. Finally, Japanese Asia experts see an Asian region as possessing local
international or world systems, each of which, in their opinion, has integrity but has many and/or
overlapping functions. Although its functions are formal, basic, and fixed within its area, the
interstate system in East Asia is deemed to represent a case in this regard.
Formation of an Asian Interstate System

 By adding together all of the bilateral diplomatic relationships, such as the six cases mentioned
above, we can get matrices of interstate relationships in Asia. The matrices provide some insights
on the formation and deformation of an East Asian interstate system. In the mid-1960s, the region
was dominated by the Cold War framework, with the Communist and 'Liberal' blocs firmly
defined. Some kind of interstate system should have been developed on the initiative of ASEAN
member nations in the mid-1970s, especially following the unification of Vietnam (1976). The
new dynamism, however, was destroyed by Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia (at the end of 1978).
As a result, in the 1980s, under the leadership of Hen Samrin and Hun Sen, respectively, Vietnam
and Cambodia became isolated from the rest of Asia. Asia's emergent system degenerated into
chaos. Since the end of the 1980s, however, Japan, China, Thailand, and other ASEAN nations
have engaged in a concerted diplomatic effort to persuade Vietnam to withdraw its military forces
from Cambodia and political factions in Cambodia to work together to restore order in a timely
manner. In September 1989, the Vietnamese soldiers returned home, and the United Nations
Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was established in March 1992 as an intermediary
for the country's reconstruction. The Kingdom of Cambodia re-established itself in September
1993. In the 1990s, the Indo-Chinese Peninsula's détente, as well as the end of the Cold War and
the domestic and international collapse of the former Soviet bloc, created the conditions for East
Asia to build an interstate system based on equality. On the surface, the system looked to work in
the late 1990s, as long as Taiwan had informal (economic and cultural) rather than formal
(political) contacts with all of the region's countries, and North Korea had diplomatic relations
with all Asian countries except South Korea, Japan, and Myanmar. Thus, a network of diplomatic
contacts has been constructed in theory, connecting practically all East Asian countries.