Emma's Paper Check

Retrospectively, the West may have successfully eliminated East Asia from ever becoming a hegemony during their imperial days. Countries such as China, Japan, and North and South Korea were all once ancient empires whose borders today were drawn by Western hands—hands that came from a world away and understood little of the intermingling cultures that existed there before their arrival. The West introduced East Asia to colonialism, nationalism, and industrialism, and the seeds were planted. From the 1800’s until today, those seeds have sprouted and flourished into three highly organized and efficiently maintained governments: one pseudo communist state, one constitutional monarchy, and one constitutional republic (Ebrey, Walthall, & Palais). As of now, nationalism is what keeps each government in power, and nationalism is what allows the government to manipulate the people into maintaining record highs in rates of productivity; thus, making China, Japan, and South Korea formidable economic giants in the international system. However, if the population growth in the countries continues at a negative rate, technological innovations are still only adopted never created, and they refuse to get past their own national pride and begin to work together, the future prospects of East Asia will fall very short of where current hype estimates them to be.

At a glance, being worried about population rates in a place like China is almost laughable; however, shocking statistics in the last decade have exemplified that worried is exactly how China should feel. Not only is the population growth rate slowing, but a dangerous trend in gender ratios has been hugely skewed. In the nineteenth century, the Yellow River experienced two major floods ...

... middle of paper ...

...hy amounts of citizens and keep them under the same kind of control that they have now. Many signs are pointing at a plateau for China’s economy and decline in Japan’s is already happening rapidly. South Korea may still be a hold out to persuade a unification due to their attractive soft power and electronic innovation, yet they are plagued with the problem of North Korea. East Asia is in an opportunistic time; the seeds planted years ago have grown strong so far. But a super-region will not be possible with out major cooperation and conceding on all sides, which neorealists claim to be only possible in a fleeting liberalist utopia. Furthermore, there is no country that wants to make sure that Japan and South Korea stay away from a union with China more than the United States, but rather ironically, the United States was the one planting the seeds in the first place.