Pacific Asia

Asian region bordering the Pacific Ocean

Not to be confused with Asia–Pacific.

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An image of the very similar Far East.

Pacific Asia is the region along the east coast of Asia bordering the western Pacific Ocean. It constitutes most of East Asia, Northeast Asia, and Southeast Asia.[1][2][3][4][5]

The region is contested by China, America, and Japan, with India recently engaging as well as part of its Act East policy and overall rise on the world stage.[6][7][8]

## History

[edit]

Further information: Nanyang (region)

World map in outline centred on Pacific Asia and Australia.

In ancient times, the central country in much of the region was China, with the Chinese diaspora creating economic integration throughout.[9]

### Modern era

[edit]

The Japan-Philippines baseball game from the 1917 Far Eastern Games. Baseball has served as a trans-Pacific pastime from the 19th century onward, having reached the western Pacific along with America's contemporary expansion.[10]

Columbus's 1492 voyage to the Americas marked the beginning of the European expansion which would lead to trans-Pacific contact between Asia and the West.[11][12] Europeans began colonizing Southeast Asia from the 16th century onwards (though the vast majority was only colonized starting in the mid-19th century),[13] with China also having some of its territory split up between the colonial powers. The Chinese artisans found themselves losing out to Western mass production, with China becoming an insignificant economic player in Pacific Asia.[14]

The allure of easier access to and spreading civilizing influence over territories throughout the Pacific Rim incentivized America to expand westward,[15] with its borders and influence reaching Asia by the mid-to-late 19th century in a kind of extended "Manifest Destiny",[16] and America taking over Guam and the Philippines and dispelling the Spanish Empire from Pacific Asia in 1898.[17] Japan, having been forced to open up by American naval force in the 1850s,[18] became an industrial power and also played a role in conquering Pacific Asia around the same time, reaching the peak of its power when it drove European powers out of the region during World War 2.[19]

### Contemporary era

[edit]

See also: Pacific Century

In the aftermath of World War 2 and Allied victory over Japan, America participated heavily throughout Pacific Asia, tolerating the authoritarianism that characterized the regimes in the region due to its need for anti-communist allies to prosecute the Cold War in Asia,[20][21] and later for the War on Terror.[22]

Pacific Asian territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Deng Xiaoping's reforms in late-20th-century China led to the country becoming more economically important, re-assuming a central role in Pacific Asia during the 2008 financial crisis.[14] In the 21st century, Pacific Asia has become an economically interconnected region, trading more within itself than the EU or America, having significant intermigration throughout the region,[23] and having significant solidarity in its votes and stances at the UN.[24] Tensions have emerged between Pacific Asian countries around the South China Sea (such as regarding Taiwan) and regarding the Korean conflict,[25] with Japan having somewhat of a leadership role in the region but also being rejected at times due to other Pacific Asian countries' reaction to colonial-era Japanese war crimes,[26] with America being asked to maintain influence in the region as a counterweight to Japan.[27]

The desire of Pacific Rim countries to counterbalance China has led to India's increasing involvement in multiple coalitions throughout the region as part of the broader Indo-Pacific.[28]

## See also

[edit]

* East Asia Economic Caucus
* Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, historical region
* Indo-Pacific Asia
* East and Southeast Asian relations with Northeast India
* Global Southeast, which intersects with Pacific Asia in Southeast Asia
* Pacific Rim, the entire region of the world surrounding the Pacific

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Borthwick, Mark (2018-04-20). Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-97452-6.
2. ^ Drakakis-Smith, David W. (2002-01-31). Pacific Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-91354-1.
3. ^ Huang, Xiaoming; Young, Jason (2017-09-16). Politics in Pacific Asia: An Introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-137-46650-1.
4. ^ Gietel-Basten, Stuart (2019-06-07). The "Population Problem" in Pacific Asia. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-936108-3.
5. ^ McCargo, Duncan (2003). Media and Politics in Pacific Asia. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-23374-3.
6. ^ Scott, David (April 2007). "Strategic Imperatives of India as an Emerging Player in Pacific Asia". International Studies. 44 (2): 123–140\. doi:10.1177/002088170704400203. ISSN 0020-8817.
7. ^ Scott, David (2008-02-15). "The Great Power 'Great Game' between India and China: 'The Logic of Geography'". Geopolitics. 13 (1): 1–26\. doi:10.1080/14650040701783243. ISSN 1465-0045.
8. ^ Is India an East Asian Power? Explaining New Delhi’s Security Politics in the Western Pacific C. Raja Mohan
9. ^ "Atlantic and Pacific integration — A comparative study of postwar Western Europe and East Asia". ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
10. ^ Guthrie-Shimizu, Sayuri (2012-04-04). Transpacific Field of Dreams: How Baseball Linked the United States and Japan in Peace and War. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-8266-5.
11. ^ "GPB GA Studies". georgiastudies.gpb.org. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
12. ^ "2.1: Europe in the Age of Discovery - Portugal and Spain". Humanities LibreTexts. 2018-10-29. Retrieved 2024-07-28.
13. ^ Margolin, Jean-Louis (2016), Lee, Sunkyoung (ed.), "Connecting through colonisation?", Connectivity: Facts and Perspectives, Connecting Asia and Europe, vol. II, Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), pp. 297–314, retrieved 2024-08-06, "It should be acknowledged that there were two very contrasting phases during the five centuries of European presence. Until around 1850, for more than three centuries, the European sphere of direct domination in Southeast Asia was geographically and demographically limited. After the mid-19th century, the capacity of European powers and colonists to impose their will was much stronger, even if it only lasted until the momentous coming of the Japanese army in 1941-2."
14. ^ a b Womack, Brantly, ed. (2023), "Sharp Connectivity: Western Modernization and De-centered Pacific Asia", Recentering Pacific Asia: Regional China and World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 77–106, doi:10.1017/9781009393867.005, ISBN 978-1-009-39386-7, retrieved 2024-05-04
15. ^ Chang, Gordon H. (2012). ""China and the Pursuit of America's Destiny: Nineteenth-Century Imagining and Why Immigration Restriction Took So Long"". Journal of Asian American Studies. 15 (2): 145–169\. doi:10.1353/jaas.2012.0012. ISSN 1096-8598.
16. ^ Clark, Dan E. (1932). "Manifest Destiny and the Pacific". Pacific Historical Review. 1 (1): 1–17\. doi:10.2307/3633743. ISSN 0030-8684. JSTOR 3633743.
17. ^ Adams, Paul Vauthier (2017). "Toward a World History of Small Countries: The Philippines as a Global Connector". World History Connected. 14 (3). doi:10.13021/whc.v14i3.3832. ISSN 1931-8642.
18. ^ Flynn, Dennis O.; Latham, A. J. H.; Miller, Sally M. (2002-09-11). Studies in the Economic History of the Pacific Rim. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-75344-4.
19. ^ Drakakis-Smith, David W. (2002-01-31). Pacific Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-91354-1.
20. ^ Parsons, James Graham (1960). The American Role in Pacific-Asian Affairs. Committee of One Million (Against the Admission of Communist China to the United Nations).
21. ^ The changing nature of democracy (PDF).
22. ^ Thompson, Mark R (September 2004). "Pacific Asia after 'Asian values': authoritarianism, democracy, and 'good governance'". Third World Quarterly. 25 (6): 1079–1095\. doi:10.1080/0143659042000256904. ISSN 0143-6597.
23. ^ Dixon, Chris; Smith, David W. (2002-09-26). Economic and Social Development in Pacific Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-93405-8.
24. ^ Ferdinand, Peter (November 2014). "Foreign Policy Convergence in Pacific Asia: The Evidence from Voting in the UN General Assembly". The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. 16 (4): 662–679\. doi:10.1111/1467-856X.12019. ISSN 1369-1481.
25. ^ "The Indo-Pacific versus Pacific Asia". China-US Focus. 2023-12-14. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
26. ^ Young Jo Lee. "Insertion of the Pacific Asian Countries into International Trade: Key Features".
27. ^ Doner, Richard F. (2007-12-01), 5\. Japanese Foreign Investment and the Creation of a Pacific Asian Region, University of Chicago Press, pp. 159–216, doi:10.7208/9780226260242-007 (inactive 12 July 2025), ISBN 978-0-226-26024-2, retrieved 2024-05-05`{{citation}}`: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
28. ^ Ladwig, Walter C. (2009-06-05). "Delhi's Pacific Ambition: Naval Power, "Look East," and India's Emerging Influence in the Asia-Pacific". Asian Security. 5 (2): 87–113\. doi:10.1080/14799850902886476. ISSN 1479-9855.

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