Security, Economics, and Asian Stability After the Crash

Although narrowly defined security problems, such as missile defense, are obviously critical to Asia''s future, the region''s present economic predicament bears direct consideration by those concerned with security and political relationships, not simply those worried about straightforward economic and financial issues.  This chapter details some analytical connections between economics and security in contemporary Asia and rejects analogies to earlier periods of global economic turbulence that have produced security tensions and led to international crises.  Some recent writings on Northeast Asian security have emphasized potential conflicts and the notion that the region is "ripe for rivalry."  If this were true, the economic crisis could be expected to make such tensions worse.  The central argument of this chapter, though, is that contemporary East Asia may fare better than many pessimists expect, in large part because the configuration of factors that have seemed to produce security tensions out of economic despair in the past do not exist in East Asia today:  (1)  prior existence of irredentist claims to territory;  (2)  lack of an outside power to guarantee the peace;  (3)  states'' pursuit of "beggar thy neighbor" resource and trade policies ;  (4)  absence of global export markets.  The prospect of security risks intensifying due to the current round of economic difficulty and its aftermath is far less dire than some have predicted.