Asia Looks Seaward

peace cooperation activities.’’ These missions are intensively maritime in nature,

running the gamut from disaster reliefto missile defense, but resources are

lagging commitments. To keep naval means aligned with political ends, Tokyo

sorely needs to revive its tradition of maritime strategic thought, whether by

looking to the West or by working out its own synthesis of Western and Eastern

sea-power theory.

Finally, John Garofano appraises the security dynamics of Southeast Asia in

the context of a rising, energy-hungry China. Garofano distinguishes between

the politics of Northeast and Southeast Asia, observing that the nations ringing

the South China Sea are less affluent and less well-armed than those to their

north. More importantly, they do not share the ‘‘historical animosity and related

baggage toward a rising China’’ that suffuses Japan’s relations with the giant to its

west. The equanimity with which Southeast Asians view China could prove

problematic, says the author, particularly once the Taiwan question is settled

and Beijing is free to reorient its energies toward other nearby seas. The coming

years could witness the emergence of a more assertive Chinese policy toward

Southeast Asia, given the critical sea lanes traversing the region and the conflict-

ing maritime territorial claims—including a Chinese claim to virtually the entire

South China Sea—that promise to roil regional politics.

Some Concluding Observations

For well over a decade, and more or less breathlessly, analysts have hailed the

coming of a ‘‘Pacific century.’’ The Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 curbed this

enthusiasm for a time. The concept of a Pacific century has regained much of its

luster, however, as the economies of the region resume their former vitality with

the benefit of China’s swift rise. Notably, this concept is premised on the oceanic

medium binding the Western Hemisphere to the East Asian littoral. The Pacific-

century narrative usually centers on the economic dynamism of Asia and on the

prospect of stronger political leadership from Beijing, Tokyo, and other regional

capitals. This implies what one of our contributors calls a ‘‘saltwater perspective’’

on regional affairs. Even so, the security implications of Asian ascendancy—

particularly implications relating to maritime matters—remain largely absent

from such analyses of the past and present. We contend, therefore, that the time

is ripe for a broad assessment of the nautical dimensions of the expected

(or delayed) Pacific century.

The foregoing analysis suggests that the emerging Asian maritime order could

fundamentally challenge the assumptions that have underwritten the security of

the region since World War II. In particular, the entry of China and India into

the oceanic realm at nearly the same time—an unprecedented event in Asian

maritime history—presents both challenges and opportunities. If both states

view sea power through the bellicose lens of Mahan, a competitive element could

14 Asia Looks Seaward