2009-05-21b

*Disclaimer: Written in less than a day, in an awake-for-30-hours-stupor, therefore ridden with flaws and should not be taken seriously as an academic essay.

Abstract: The term “Asia-Pacific” has received increasing attention over the past couple of decades as an influential international region of cooperation. However, it had been criticized on various ends for being an ambiguous label that does not depend on specific geographical boundaries as the name alone suggests, but rather on various definitions based on selective relationship networks. The essay explores some of such views as a contemplation of the term as an invented regional structure.

Asia-Pacific as an invented regional structure

“Asia-Pacific” as a label for a regional area is imprecise in the indication of its geographical encompassments. “In a fundamental sense, there is no Pacific region that is an ‘objective’ given, but only a competing set of ideational constructs that project upon a certain location on the globe the imperatives of interest, power, or vision of these historically produced relationships.”  (Dirlik, 1992)

The usage of the Asia-Pacific label is so imprecise that one of the most internationally renowned regional cooperation under the label – the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) – includes countries not traditionally classified as “Asia-Pacific” such as the United States of America, Chile, Peru, Canada, Mexico, etc, but excludes many other countries typically classified within the “Asia-Pacific” region.

A quick examination of the list of member economies in the APEC reveals that they are mainly countries which are relatively economically stable and developed, as opposed to the developing economies of the many excluded Asia-Pacific countries. This reveals the exclusivity in the classification of who belongs and who does not even though the excluded parties may also be classified under the same regional label. The regional label prefixed to the economic cooperation is thus not equivalent to inclusion criteria as compared to the European Union or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which, though not completely inclusive of all nations in the region, has members limited within the specific regions.

In Rachel Lee (1999)’s discussion of the Asia-Pacific, she describes it to be “one of several ways to represent organizations of capital in the late twentieth century”, viewing from one aspect the Asia-Pacific idea to be “the subset of a particular type of global discourse: transnational economism – as distinct from internationalism or humanism”. On a broader perspective, she cites Dirlik in that “that the terms [of the Pacific Rim] represent ideational constructs that, although they refer to a physical location on the globe, are themselves informed by conceptualizations that owe little to geography understood physically or positivistically”.

Discussions on Asia-Pacific entities, therefore, are often issues of ambiguity, since the subjects of discussion are not delineated definitely. It therefore also give rise to the reminder that discussions should not be dependent on supposed physical geographical boundaries but also require the need to include specific definitions of purpose and geographical demarcation. The definition of relationship networks in the discussion is essential as it is apparently what accounts for various classifications of what constitutes Asia-Pacific.

References

Dirlik, A. (1992) The Asia-Pacific Idea: Reality and Representation in the Invention of a Regional Structure. Journal of World History. 3.1:55 – 79.

Lee, R. (1999) Asian American Cultural Production in Asian-Pacific Perspective. boundary 2. 26.2: 231 – 254.