World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

In “The Multiplicity of Asia,” the author discusses the developments in South and East Asia including regional history, European and Japanese colonialism, key challenges, and foreign policy styles. He focuses on the following categories: “Asia and Europe: Different Concepts of Balance of Power,” “Japan,” “India,” and “What Is an Asian Regional Order?” The author covers the subject of China in the subsequent chapter of its own.

According to Kissinger, Asia differs from Europe in its perception of the balance of power. Even the term “Asia” itself unites a very diverse region. This diversity is cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism are the major religions there. In the 19th century, many Asian countries were subjected to European control because “the European states built colonies and justified their actions under various versions of their so-called civilizing mission” (172-173). The process of decolonization and a subsequent change in regional order in Asia was violent. This process ranged from the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) and the Korean War (1950-1953) to the four Indo-Pakistan Wars in the period from 1947 to 1999 and the Khmer Rouge brutality in Cambodia (1975-1979). At the end of this process, a “national-interest-based foreign policy seemed to have prevailed in Asia” (177).