The changing political realities of the Pacific rim

Abstract

With hindsight, the rise of the Pacific Basin as the focus of world economic activity seems inevitable. It was apparent to some at the beginning of this century that the Pacific was the region of the future. Theodore Roosevelt perceived the commercial and political part which it was to play in world history and this formed part of his conviction for the need for the Panama Canal. Today, the 34 countries round the Pacific Rim and the 23 island states scattered across the Pacific (Figure 1) contain half the population of the world, much of the material resources of the globe and account for more than half the world's economic growth. In the northwest Pacific, where the USA, USSR, Japan and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are geographically adjacent, and in the strategic location of Southeast Asia between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the region also contains two of the political flashpoints on the globe. Up until the 16th century the Pacific had no significance in world history. By then, the geographical location of economic and politi- cal power and communication networks had largely migrated from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic from which the great colonising powers of Europe set out to establish overseas dominions. Even when the Pacific Ocean was discovered by Europeans, the sheer extent of it precluded any conception of an overall unity as time and distance imposed seemingly insuperable obstacles. Various powers endea- voured to dominate it, beginning with Spain (Spate, 1979) but the countries of the Asiatic rim were either resistant to foreign influ- ences leading, for example, to the self- imposed isolation of Japan from 1636 to the visit of the 'black ships' of Commander Perry in 1853 or indifferent as in the case of China. From east and west, via North America and Siberia, Europeans made their way to its shores, usually to satisfy the demands of the fur trade and this led, in time, to economic rivalry in the North Pacific between the British, the Russians and the Americans in the 19th century.