INTRODUCTION
To say that there is such a thing as Asian values, with the implications of uniform socially dominant values, is highly contentious given the religious, political, economical, and historical diversity that exists in Asia. As such, making the claim for ‘Asian Values’ is an inherently political statement as a claim is being made that a united perception of values exists within such a diverse region.
Therefore, I put forward the assertion that promoting the idea of ‘Asian Values’ is a deliberate political act by many of the regions political leaders; this is what is meant by the ‘politics of Asian Values’.
DEFINING ASIA
Central to the emergence of the ‘Asian Values’ concept in the international realm is the difficulty of defining Asia as a region. Although ‘where does Europe end?’ may also be a tricky question, Europe is still far easier to define than Asia. For example, are Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan part of Asia? They are defined in many an Atlas as being in a place called ‘Central Asia’. Furthermore, some may wish to anthropologically define Asia in relation to the spread of peoples of ‘Asiatic appearance’, however, the Hazara people of Afghanistan are of Asiatic appearance and are the indigenous people of Afghanistan.
Therefore, difficulties in defining Asia geographically are by passed by uniting Asia through so-called ‘Asian Values.’ A pertinent question exposing the politics behind what is currently called ‘Asian Values’ is asking how similar are the values of Hazara Shia Moslems, Bangkok Buddhist Thai’s, and North Korean communists; or even between the Chinese and the Japanese?
Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’, is aptly subtitled ‘Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism’, and is of particular relevance here insofar as imagining of a community is consistent with the political goals of nationalism. I propose that similar political motive, but in the context of regionalism, is apparent in the ‘Asian values’ discourse of modern political actors and commentators. Furthermore, the use of ‘Asian Values’ rhetoric to imagine a regional Asian community, is a deliberate attempt by political actors of a certain persuasion to favourably shape such values (and politics) in any arising regional community.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF VALUES
The centralisation of ‘Asian Values’ in the political discourse imagining regional Asia is notable in contrast to the position of history, religion, politics, and economy in the same discourse. One could argue that APEC and ASEAN show the centrality of economics to Asian regionalism, but economics may only be a uniting force of such strength in the modern era of economic globalisation. Furthermore, economic integration such as in the EEC is currently impossible in Asia due to the economic disparity between different Asian states. Simply compare the average annual income of people living in East Timor, China, Indonesia and North Korea, to those living in Japan and South Korea.
So, what of history, religion, and politics? Shouldn’t these forces be shaping ‘Asian Values’, as they have done in other regional areas? In Europe, it can be argued that European values spring from a common history, religion, and politics, this is not the case in Asia. Where European countries share Christianity, liberal democracy, the enlightenment, a monarchical history, classical antiquity and many other ‘value forming’ commonalities, Asia does not.
Of these forces religion is perhaps most commonly believed to be a force that shapes peoples values. In contrast to the almost complete domination of Europe by various forms of Christianity, Asia has great diversity in religions, there is Confucianism, Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, tribalism, and some would add communism to this list. It is easy to draw interesting cultural differences between Asian states that are associated with religion, while rival leader Anwar Ibrahim sat imprisoned in Moslem Malaysia for sodomy, Thai’s underwent gender reassignment in Buddhist Bangkok.
Similarly, politics vary enormously across Asia in comparison to Europe. Asia is a source of much political study due to the existence in the one region of monarchies, liberal democracies, authoritarian democracies, Stalinist communism, modern communism, and Military dictatorships. Again, certain conclusions may be drawn about how values have developed in relation to the political environment. It could be said that the Chinese value family and commitment to community, whereas Japanese value western style individualism.
With such variation in religion and politics it is not surprising that the history of Asian states also varies tremendously. Japan has a long history of asserting its hegemony over others; much of Asia has been colonised as part of European empires, such as the Dutch, Portuguese, British, and French empires, and then there are others, such as Thailand that has mostly avoided these difficulties through exceptional diplomacy.
Furthermore, historical changes in state sovereignty have led to a diverse range of languages in use throughout Asia. Not only indigenous Asian languages, such as Bahasa Malaysian, Lao, and Japanese abound, but also those of the colonisers, such as Dutch, English, and French. Additionally, the long and still current history of tribalism in certain areas has given rise to a great many languages within a small geographical area, such as in Papua New Guinea where English is the official language (although it is not widely spoken) there are 715 local languages.
However, if you look more broadly at Asia’s history there are some similarities to explain the rise of authoritarian government, most notably the threat of communism during the cold war (or capitalism depending on whose side you’re on) and the need for rapid economic development. This history instilled in many Asian political actors a need for greater centralised power, thus giving rise to authoritarianism. Such a history caricaturises political opposition as being either threatening (communist) or destabilising for the economy. Taking this into consideration one can see how certain political leaders would espouse a certain set of conservative ‘Asian Values’; nevertheless, these values are not shared throughout Asia and therefore should not be called ‘Asian Values’.
If religious, political, economical, and historical forces shape our social and cultural values, then evidence for similar formative processes towards a uniform Asian set of values appears virtually non-existent. It is very pertinent to ask, on what basis is there a claim for a general consensus on Asian values within Asia? When looking at the sources one would expect to produce such value consensus, there appears to be very little to draw upon. In fact, the opposite appears true, that so much diversity within a region would lead to a range of values, not value consensus. This appears to be the case, that Asia has a host of greatly differing values due to the differences in politics, religion, history, and economics.
THE ORIGIN OF ASIAN VALUES
The use of ‘Asian Values’ to counter the spread of liberal democracy first appeared in Singapore in 1976. Seah Chee Meow proposed that the failure of parliamentary democracy in new Asian states was indicative of a lack of appreciation, relevance, or desirability of the majority of Asian peoples towards such systems of governance.
Interestingly, early discourse on ‘Asian Values’ identified the diversity of ‘Asian Values’, as much of this essay thus far has been at pains to express. Ho Wing Meng wrote: “It is therefore more appropriate to use the term ‘Asian Values’ to denote not a particular set of attitudes, beliefs and institutions which all Asian people share in common, but rather to refer to the great diversities which characterize Asian values as such, and which in the context of this discussion, pose serious difficulties to the task of modernizing Asia for social, economic and political development” (Subramaniam, Surain, 2000, ‘The Asian values Debate: Implications for the Spread of Liberal Democracy’ Asian Affairs, vol 27, no 1).
Central to the discourse on Asian values is Singapore’s ‘first minister’, Lee Kuan Yew who has expressed distaste for “the fads and fetishes, disorders and aberrations of contemporary Western societies” in relation to the modernisation of his country. Having only recently gained its independence in 1965 it’s not surprising that Singapore should seek for new ways to define itself. It is clear that Lee Kuan Yew felt that Singapore was in danger of becoming overly Westernised; his affirmation of Asian values can then be seen as a response to western cultural imperialism. In only a short time the articulation of Asian values by Lee Kuan Yew had spread beyond Singapore and had become part of the rhetoric used by many other Asian leaders.
Although the term ‘Asian Values’ clearly suggests homogenous values throughout Asia, it can also be understood to be a pragmatic political position taken by Asian leaders to find the best systems of governance for their specific state. This is quite a generous idea as leaders such as Lee Kuan Yew could have used ‘Singapore Values’ instead of ‘Asian Values’ if they really wanted to represent the unique values in their own state.
However, ‘Asian Values’ discourse has germinated in the minds of many conservative leaders throughout Asia. A general definition of ‘Asian Values’ can now be understood to contain the following: “Respect for authority, strong families, reverence for education, hard work, frugality, teamwork, and a balance between the individuals interests and those of society” (quote from – David I. Hitchcock, Asian Values and the United States: How Much Conflict? Washington D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1994, 2)
THE POLITICS OF ASIAN VALUES
Traditional Western liberal political thought has individualism at its centre; however, the aforementioned definition of ‘Asian Values’ includes “a balance between the individuals interests and those of society” (ibid). In reality however, the Singapore school of ‘Asian Values’ generally asserts that “the collective economic prosperity of society … outweigh(s) the rights of the individual” (Vatikiotis, Political Change in Southeast Asia, 91). Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party has no qualms in setting the moral and ethical standards of society, this is in direct opposition to traditional Western liberal values, which asserts the neutrality of governments in these areas.
An honest reason for the ‘Asian Values’ position, particularly as expounded by Singapore’s PAP, would be “a principled defense of their reluctance to broaden political participation” (Fukuyama, “Asian Values and the Asian Crisis,” 24). Given the PAPs vice like grip on power this is one of the more believable reasons conservative values that put the individual’s rights in a subordinate position to the state would be promoted. Subramaniam states that “most proponents are representatives of the leadership elites in these ‘Asian-style’ democracies”, furthermore, that “the Singapore regime uses the notion of the existence of a unique set of ‘Asian Values’ as a basis for the rejection of continued democratic reforms” (See – Christopher Lingle, Singapore’s Authoritarian Capitalism: Asian Values, Free Market Illusions, and Political Dependency, Fairfax, Va.: Locke Institute, 1996). South Korea’s Kim Dae Jung is a strong liberal democratic voice amongst Asian leaders whose career is marked by his opposition to authoritarianism, his universalist stance is at odds with the proponents of ‘Asian Values’, Kim Dae Jung writes: “Asian authoritarians misunderstand the relationship between the rules of effective governance and the concept of legitimacy. Policies that try to protect people from the bad elements of economic and social change will never be effective if imposed without consent; the same policies, arrived at through public debate, will have the strength of Asia’s proud and self-reliant people” (Kim Dae Jung, “Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia’s Anti-Democratic Values,” Foreign Affairs 73, no. 6, November/December 1994, 189-94).
Of particular relevance in the ‘Asian Values’ debate is the idea that ‘liberal democracy’ is actually two things, ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’. In understanding the misuse of the word democracy George Orwell is illuminating: “In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning” (George Orwell, Politics and the English Language. Accessed on the internet at http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html).
This eloquent statement of Orwell’s seems to counter the argument put forward by Emmerson that “… the debate about them (Asian Values) must be taken seriously by students of ‘democracy’ because it challenges us to consider what we mean by that term [democracy]. For if differing societies may democratically implement differing views of the relative importance of social order versus individual rights, it follows that alongside rights-tilted or liberal democracies there could be nonliberal–or at any rate less liberal–variants of democracy” (Emmerson, “Singapore and the `Asian Values’ Debate,” 96).
In comparing Orwell and Emmerson’s position I am more inclined to agree with Orwell, to apply his ideas to this issue I would suggest that the absence of a definition of democracy does not necessarily mean a state is a democracy just because it says so. For example, I assert that Singapore is not a democracy and that the term ‘illiberal democracy’ as some propose (Most notably proposed by Daniel A. Bell, David Brown; Kanishka Jayasuriya, and David Martin Jones, eds., Towards Illiberal Democracy in Pacific Asia, Oxford: St. Martin’s Press, 1996) is an oxy-moron, ‘illiberal’ and ‘democracy’ just do not go together. While there is a wealth of academic literature espousing the historical and theoretical differences between constitutional liberalism and democracy, there is an inherent danger in too broadly defining democracy and thus rendering it useless. In the case of Singapore not only does the government overrule liberal norms, but also the level of interference in the electoral process, through government action against legitimate opposition, brings the whole notion of Singaporean democracy into disrepute.
If we grant Singapore international legitimacy by calling it a democracy I suggest we are fooling ourselves indeed. Other academic work supports this idea, that without liberalism there can be no real democracy: “although constitutional liberalism has led to democracy, the reverse is seldom true. Democracy does not necessarily bring about constitutional liberalism” (Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 6, November/December 1997: 22-43). On this basis I assert that thinking about liberalism separate from democracy is a path away from true democracy (whatever that is), if we take up Orwell’s challenge to define democracy I suggest that any satisfactory definition will necessarily include reference to liberalism.
The Asian values discourse then, is in my opinion, an attempt to deceive the international community into believing that countries such as Singapore are in fact democracies, the same could also be said of Malaysia with its imprisonment of Anwar Ibrahim. These countries are not democracies; they are using the falsehood of homogenous ‘Asian Values’ to support authoritarian regimes when in fact Asia is a multicultural heterogenous diverse region. This deception, having been successful in securing international democratic status for Singapore, Malaysia, and others, is now being used to place conservative authoritarian values in a regional context.
Of great relevance to this debate is the use of ‘Asian values’ to marginalise political opponents within Asia, as the concept of Asian values gains ground in the political domain, those who disagree with some aspects of these values are being categorised as ‘un-Asian’ (sound familiar?). Moreover, the conservatism inherent within these ‘Asian Values’ means that the tag of ‘un-Asian’ applies more to progressive and less conservative political actors (see – Rodan, Garry, 1996, “The Internationalisation of ideological conflict: Asia’s new significance”, The Pacific Review, vol 9, no 3). In this context it is easy to draw some similarities with what it means to be ‘un-Australian’, and we can see how such Asian values are part of the rhetoric of nationalism. Furthermore, apart from marginalising internal political opponents within Asia, ‘Asian values’ also undermines external political influence.
CONCLUSION
In rejecting the Singaporean school of ‘Asian Values’ one is led to look for alternative consistent values throughout the region, one early commentator noted that “the most obvious signs of unity in Asia are, paradoxically, those of Western influence” (see – Steadman, John; 1969, The Myth of Asia, London: Macmillan). Given Asia’s diversity, the more homogenous Western influence would stand out, then fear of Western cultural imperialism is significant in the development of ‘Asian Values’.
The additional political mileage of being able to marginalise political opponents as ‘un-Asian’ is a bonus, a bonus that has been pounced upon as a way of legitimating authoritarian rule. Yet I suggest that there are ‘Asian Values’ that are completely different to the conservative values being pushed at present, I refer again to the earlier quote by Ho Wing Meng where the diversity of Asia is expressed. This Asian diversity has developed a high degree of tolerance in the region through a history of interacting with differing religions, cultures, languages, and politics. It could be argued then that Asian values are actually pluralistic and not conservative.
To support this idea one has only to look at political developments throughout Asia from the 80s onwards, which has seen a general collapse of authoritarianism. Beginning with the end of the Marcos regime in the Philippines; followed by the fall of military and civilian dictatorships in South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand; and the events of Tiananmen Square in China. The 90s began with the National League for Democracy winning 392 out of 485 seats in Burma; Taiwan has elected the pro-independence democratic candidate China most disapproved of; the Soeharto regime finished in Indonesia and regular democratic elections now take place; and Hong Kong citizens demand more democratic autonomy, more vociferously every year since the handover of sovereignty to China. Irrespective of the push for conservative ‘Asian Values’, more Asian people are demanding more liberal democracy with every passing year.
Two significant forces appear set to push Asia further along the path towards Western liberalism, rapid development and globalisation. Both these forces are responsible for the opening of new political space throughout Asia, private business owners, middle classes, NGOs, labour organisations, women’s movements, and others, are all today exercising political power in the new spaces that have appeared.
As these forces continue to provide supranational, subnational, and transterritorial space for individuals and organisation to act, so I predict we will see a liberalising of Asia. As the strains of ‘The Internationale’ remind us “change will not come from above”, so too will authoritarian governments fail to adapt and change in relation to these forces. More often the world will see the likes of Aung San Suu Kyi making use of the new political spaces to empower Asian people to define their own values. It is my contention that these values will emerge as pluralist. So long as ‘Asian Values’ are defined as conservative they will fail to represent Asian peoples. In the long run I predict a victory for the natural tolerance and diversity throughout Asia.
Finally, I assert that it is of global importance that Asian people find their voice above the rhetoric of politically motivated conservative ‘Asian Values’. Such a voice will be important for the West that has moved excessively to the right, away from liberalism and towards capitalism, following the end of the cold war. In the end I predict a triumph for the Universalists in the debate over ‘Asian Values.’
To finish, in contrast to the denunciation of the West by Lee Kuan Yew who places the blame on ‘values’, Aung San Suu Kyi espouses what ‘genuine Asian Values’ (or is it Universalism?) may have to offer the West as a necessary critique of the modern age.
“Many of the worst ills of American society, increasingly to be found in other developed countries, can be traced not to the democratic legacy but to the demands of modern materialism. Gross individualism and cut-throat morality arise when political and intellectual freedoms are curbed on the one hand while on the other fierce economic competitiveness is encouraged by making material success the measure of prestige and progress” (Aung San Suu Kyi, 1994, ‘Empowerment for a culture of peace and development’, address to a meeting of the World Commission on Culture and Development. 21 November, presented on behalf of the author by Corizon Aquino).
