Arab analysts should wake up and recognise the trends moving the centre of world history from the West to the East, writes Anwar Abdel-Malek How, if possible, can people arrive at a realistic -- not to say accurate -- awareness of events in a world caught up in the winds of war? This was the question participants in the Arab Media Summit in Dubai on 7 and 8 October sought to address. Hamdy Qandil offered a few words of wisdom. The noted journalist asked our American colleagues to stop lecturing us on a free and objective press. They hardly have a leg to stand on, he said, given that the performance of American media during the invasion of Iraq differed little from that of the Arab media during the June 1967 War. In 1967, he relates, he had just seen for himself Israeli fighters level Egypt's Fayid Air Force Base, only to turn on the radio to hear a military bulletin proclaim that Egyptian forces had downed 100 enemy aircraft. This brings me to the image projected by Arab and Western media -- at least most of it -- of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok. APEC's mission is to strengthen the bonds of economic partnership between the countries of East Asia and the countries of North and South America. This year, for the first time, US President Bush was in attendance, seemingly to divert the meeting's agenda from economic cooperation to the war on terrorism. After two days of heated debate between him and most Asian leaders (notably outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed), the conference issued two separate closing statements instead of the customary one. The first focussed on economics, the second on international politics. Although the 20 signatory parties agreed that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction imperil the international economy, the message from the Pacific -- if not heeded by the US -- is that the political agenda must serve to protect booming economies, and not constitute an object in and of itself. Though analysts rightly observed sharp disagreement over how this joint political-economic objective was to be accomplished, why wasn't the Bangkok meeting contextualised within its surroundings? Why were we not duly reminded that the Organisation of Islamic Conference Summit in Malaysia on 16 to 18 October adopted the "call to strengthen dialogue between Muslims and other cultures" as its very banner against US hegemony? There is an underlying logic to what occurred behind the scenes in Bangkok: one which though not emphasised has surely been observed, at least in part, in the serious press in the West, and in the US in particular; one concerning the major turnabout in the foreign relations of Asian countries. These countries, from Korea to Indonesia, have long been the US's major market on the other side of the Pacific. The New York Times noted the first wave of this change when, on 9 October, it commented on the impact of "the first major outing [of the new Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao] with his Asian colleagues". In the course of this year's summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in which China, Japan and Korea participated, Jiabao "unfurled what has clearly become a basic tenet of China's foreign policy: friendly, even superfriendly, relations with its neighbors", reassuring his counterparts that China's growth and expanding trade only heralded good things for the region. At the heart of this new development was China's accession, on 8 October, to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, which codifies good etiquette for Southeast Asian nations. Beijing took this occasion to announce that it has abandoned its militant stand over islands in the South China Sea and, instead, has chosen, "for the time being", to pursue a "cooperative" solution. That China has recently launched its first mission into space has also greatly impressed its Asian neighbours. Shortly after that landmark event, Chinese president and secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Jintao, made his way to Bangkok, arriving a day in advance of President Bush, amidst a warm and admiring welcome. In short, China's star is rising as US status ebbs across a continent that contains two-thirds of the world's population. "Last year, for the first time," writes The New York Times, "Japan's imports from China surpassed its imports from the United States. At the same time, Japanese exports to China surged by 39.3 per cent. China has now become South Korea's largest trading partner." The same article relates, "In a direct challenge to the US, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao urged Southeast Asian nations last week to achieve $100 billion in trade with China in two years, nearly double the current $55 billion volume. Trade between the US and the 10 members of ASEAN was $120 billion in 2001." Also as part of this drive to boost its regional trade, China 18 months ago offered to institute a free-trade agreement with ASEAN by 2015. Although US officials -- notably its trade representative Robert Zoellick -- attempt to play down the long range impact of the Chinese drive, in a major speech two weeks ago, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong envisioned a redistribution of power in Asia, with "all Asian leaders", looking ahead, "to the relentless economic march of China". This from one of America's closest friends in the region. Then came the presidential visits to Australia. President Bush arrived first, and was greeted with a storm of angry protests and a frigid reception in the Australian parliament. President Hu Jintao arrived 24 hours later. On 24 October, he delivered a historic address to the Australian parliament in which he appealed to Australia to place its trust in the UN and "its commitment to plurality". The Chinese president went straight to the punch, harshly criticising the go-it-alone US-British invasion of Iraq, to which Australia committed 2,000 troops. Also in his speech, President Hu stressed that China remained determined to solve the problem of Taiwan -- "an integral part of Chinese territory". That the "complete unification of China should be realised soon," is an aspiration, he said, "and fixed resolve shared by all the Chinese people [and] also serves the common interests of all nations in the region, including Australia." Shortly afterwards began the signing ceremonies for an array of bilateral agreements. China is to import large quantities of natural gas, iron and aluminum from Australia, offer a range of facilities and incentives to Australian investment in China, and launch an ambitious development project in western and northern Australia. Of these, the agreement over natural gas -- which China desperately needs to fuel its economic growth -- perhaps best illustrates the depth of the change that is taking place. The 25-year agreement, worth $21 billion dollars, is the largest export agreement Canberra has ever signed and comes less than a year after a similar bilateral deal worth $17 billion. The list of China's achievements goes on, as noted by Ernest Bower, president of the US-ASEAN Business Council, who observed, "I have never seen a time when Southeast Asia is so much in transition and open to ideas, and never seen a time when the US is so distracted from the region. In contrast, China is focussed on the region like a laser beam. I do feel the Chinese Monroe Doctrine is being built here in the region. As the Chinese get their act together and play on the world stage, this region is the first of a series of concentric circles." So, what does all this mean? East Asia is the largest economic and technological power circle in the world apart from the US. It includes the three leading industrial nations -- China, Japan and South Korea. It also comprises ASEAN, which, with Singapore and Malaysia at its lead, represents one of the most advanced productive regions of the world. For these countries to shift their attitudes towards China in such a remarkably positive way heralds increasingly closer economic, technological and monetary ties between this group of rising powers and the Chinese giant, as well as with Japan and South Korea. In other words, a new Eastern Asia is in the making. And, there is a powerful and determined engine at its core. According to recent figures, China attained a growth rate of 9.2 per cent over the first three months of 2003. China has also refused to revalue its currency, in spite of repeated US demands to raise its value in order to stem the flood of cheap Chinese exports into the American market. Japan, too, has incidentally refused to bow to similar pressures. In his statement following the meeting in Bangkok, the Chinese president summed up the current climate: "Our population of 1.3 billion offers an enormous market to the rest of the world. I strongly believe that reform, open doors and rapid economic growth in China will be of great mutual benefit to the whole world." That history has yet to be written. But why is there no evidence -- in our media -- of a greater awareness of the significance of what is taking place in Asia and its impact on the region which makes up two-thirds of the inhabited world? That the Arab media is burying its head in the sand is what first pops to mind. The media in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia reflects to varying degrees the profound shift in the balances of power in that region. This myopia, then, is particular to the Arab cultural circle, and markedly so. But why? In large measure this is due to the fact that a broad segment of analysts and opinion makers do not want to come to terms with the fact that our fate is inseparable from that of the societies that make up the Eastern civilisational circle, which we began to approach from the Pandong Conference in 1955 and to which we drew closer through the Non-Aligned Movement, until 1978 when oblivion set in. We must take a new step. The main reason for the failure to fathom the true nature of the change taking place in the world -- the shift in the centre of gravity and source of impetus to the Eastern civilisational circle -- resides in the failure to comprehend that the world has a history and that history is in constant flux. It is wise, perhaps, to remember President Harry S Truman's words: "There is nothing new in this world, except the history you do not know." Our lack of the objective distance necessary to understand the current process of change in our era has its roots in the fact that the contemporary Arab circle is an offshoot of the traditional global order that emerged in the West in the 16th century and that culminated with US global dominance following the collapse of the bipolar order. Perhaps this explains why many cling to the impression that the centrality of the West is a permanent, everlasting phenomenon, forgetting that history before the 16th century testifies to the rise of many other great empires from Egypt of the Pharaohs, to China, to the vast Islamic empire. However, the power of Western media is also instrumental in shaping contemporary Arab mentalities. As long as the status quo is eternal there, there is no need to search for alternative modes and processes to achieve change. There is no need to look beyond the phased transitions within the sphere of Western hegemony -- such as the transition from an industrial to an informatics society. True, this transition is important within the central power sphere and the sphere of developing nations in its orbit. However, more important by far is the soaring rise of the civilisational East -- in Eastern Asia in particular and with China at its centre -- to the forefront of the process of shaping a new world.
