【外交学者APAC 2020】APAC—Top 10 Stories of Decade （亚太地区----十年间最具代表性的十件事）

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原文链接：http://apac2020.the-diplomat.com/feature/apac%e2%80%94top-10-stories-of-decade/
编撰：The Diplomat （外交学者）

The Diplomat looks back over the past decade in the Asia-Pacific and selects the 10 events most critical to the region’s future.

War, terrorism, emerging power powers, natural disasters and blockbuster movies…..the Asia-Pacific created more than its share of headlines over the decade and bolstered the argument that we are living in the Asia-Pacific Century. The Diplomat takes a look back at some of the biggest stories of the past ten years and what they could mean for the decade to come.

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1、The Rise of China January 1, 2000 –


After a miserable century, this was China’s decade. Overcoming viruses, earthquakes and myriad internal tensions, China enjoyed an astonishing economic boom–its GDP more than tripled over the ten years to 2009–and surged into global consciousness as a major power. With its shock-and-awe opening ceremony, the 2008 Beijing Olympics was an appropriate international coming out party. But it was the global financial and economic meltdown that soon followed that underscored China’s new place in the world order.

Conventional wisdom in 2009 is that China is ascendant and on its way to eclipsing a United States in relative decline. We’re sceptical. For one thing, as any Lehman Brothers shareholder will tell you, extrapolating past trends isn’t always a good predictor of future performance. For another, we’ve heard it before: remember the hype surrounding Japan Inc. 20 years ago? China’s economy in 2009 shows signs of the same industrial overcapacity and incipient bad debt that has hobbled Japan for much of the past two decades. And it has troubles all of its own–from corruption through pollution to a clutch of border disputes. Still, China’s growing strength–economic and military–is undeniable, and it’s a safe bet that all eyes will be on how it wields its growing power over the next 10 years. Will Beijing be a responsible member of the international community, or will it throw its weight around, ratcheting tensions up to excruciating levels in flashpoints around the region? And with unpaid workers rioting in late 2008, what happens when China’s growth slows? One sleeper issue: China’s interests in resource-rich Siberia.

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2. War in Afghanistan October 7, 2001 –


Prior to September 11, 2001, Afghanistan was in the grip of the Taliban, a hard-line Islamic regime with a 9th century perspective on human rights, known to be harbouring Osama bin Laden yet barely registering on the world’s news radar. But within weeks of the attacks on America, the Taliban had been ousted from power by an international coalition dominated by a smallish US force of mostly elite soldiers working with anti-Taliban tribal leaders. Yet despite a devastating show of US force, Taliban leader Mullah Omar slipped away (he is believed to be in Quetta) and bin Laden is thought to have escaped during the battle at Tora Bora. And with Washington’s attention diverted by its disastrous adventure in Iraq, the Taliban has since regrouped from its new base in Pakistan’s wild northwest.

By the time incoming US President Barack Obama began prosecuting ‘the right war’, he faced what many observers believe is an unwinnable situation, with beleaguered US soldiers propping up a corrupt regime and ineffectual local military from Kabul while the Taliban consolidates gains throughout much of the rest of the country. As if to prove the maxim that generals always fight the last war, the approaches that worked (sort of) in Iraq have been imported almost wholesale–think ‘COIN’ and ‘surge’–and supported by Obama in an unconvincing plan announced after much cogitation late in 2009. With the support of Pakistani intelligence, the US has at least had some notable successes in strikes against the al-Qaeda leadership, with the first-ever widespread (and controversial) deployment of unmanned aircraft. There’s too much at stake here for Washington to contemplate an easy exit, and Obama’s call for a 2011 drawdown may be unrealistic. All of which means US Vice President Joe Biden’s preference for a more narrowly defined strategy in the region–just go after al-Qaeda–could look more attractive as the new decade goes on.

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3. Sonia Gandhi Steps Aside May 18, 2004


Although China got most of the attention, India’s economy this decade has been almost as impressive. Much of the growth has been under the pragmatic leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a technocrat who unexpectedly rose to power in 2004 when the Indian National Congress pulled off an upset election victory and leader Sonia Gandhi declined the top job. The Italian-born Ghandi averted a major brawl with nationalists opposed to a foreign-born leader, paving the way for Singh to continue the economic modernization he began as a popular finance minister in the 1990s. In 2009, India’s economy was nearly triple the size of a decade earlier and it was increasingly being courted as a great power counterweight to China.

Still, poverty remains rampant in India and in both absolute and per capita terms it lags far behind China in economic prowess. But it does have some advantages. India’s democracy may be messy, but emancipation offers a social pressure valve that China doesn’t have. And with English widely spoken, India has been able to plug into the global services sector. While it faces its own threats–demonstrated by the Mumbai attacks in 2008 and a brutal insurgency by Maoist separatists–India still doesn’t face quite the same array of internal and external challenges that China does. The 2010s could well be to India what the 2000s were to China, and could also be a decade of rising tensions between the two emerging giants, with potential triggers including an ongoing border dispute.

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4. Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami December 26, 2004


The earthquake that struck on Boxing Day off the west coast of Sumatra was the second-largest ever recorded on a seismograph, with an estimated magnitude of 9.3. The tsunami it triggered was easily the deadliest natural disaster of the decade, and one of the most devastating in history, with nearly 230,000 people killed across eleven countries. The human, economic and environmental impact will be felt for decades to come. The disaster prompted a massive humanitarian response from the public and private sectors, with the world providing more than US$7 billion in aid to the affected regions, led by a US$760 million aid package from Australia to Indonesia. With scientists predicting devastating climate-related events in the decades to come, the tsunami was a reminder–if ever one was needed–that nature reserves the final word for itself.

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5. Assassination of Benazir Bhutto December 27, 2007

Daughter of a prime minister and herself twice holder of that post, Benazir Bhutto had returned to Pakistan in 2007 after eight years in exile to reclaim her somewhat tainted legacy. Her life was always going to be at risk: a suicide bomb attack killed 139 on the day of her homecoming. She survived that attack, but on December 27, while leaving a campaign rally ahead of the 2008 parliamentary elections, shots were fired at her vehicle, quickly followed by the detonation of a device by a suicide bomber. Controversy remains over what exactly happened to Bhutto: reports suggest she was either shot or else fractured her skull in the bomb blast. What is certain is that the attack underlined the severity of the national security issue that Pakistan was now facing with militant extremists, a problem exacerbated by the US invasion of Afghanistan, following which the ousted Taliban moved their base of operations into the Pakistani province of Waziristan. (Less reported: a secessionist movement in Balochistan.) By decade’s end, however, with Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari as head of state, government forces were beginning to score some successes against the insurgents, in the Swat Valley and elsewhere. Pakistan nonetheless remains one of the region’s true trouble spots.

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6. Bali Bombing October 12, 2002


Patrons of Paddy’s Pub, a popular nightspot in the tourist haven of Kuta, on the island of Bali, likely felt a world away from terrorism as they partied into the night of October 12, 2002. That presumption was shattered just after 11 pm, when a suicide bomber detonated a device in his backpack. Many patrons raced outside, only to be met with a much more powerful explosion. The blasts killed 202 and injured many more. Three men were later sentenced to death and executed by firing squad. For countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, devastating suicide bombings would become a regular occurrence. But the Bali bombs not only introduced the world to a local terror group, Jemaah Islamiyah, they were a precursor to subsequent troubles in the region–home to more than 60 percent of the world’s 1.57 billion Muslims, the vast majority moderate–that ranged from China’s Xinjiang province to the beaches of Sydney. They were a reminder if one were needed that the roots of Islamic fundamentalism and Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ are not just planted in the Middle East.

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7. SARS November 2002 – July 2003

SARS, bird flu, swine flu…this was a decade of killer global viruses, which are rapidly becoming the preferred scenario of global snuff writers everywhere. SARS was the first, emerging from the south of China in late 2002. Short for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, SARS saw rapid transmission and a high mortality rate (9.6%), with no effective treatment for victims, who initially suffer flu-like symptoms. SARS is now contained, bird flu is still relatively rare, and the swine flu outbreak of 2009 was not as severe as first feared, but health authorities worry about new outbreaks, with many eyes again on East Asia as a possible source. As the source of SARS, China was roundly criticized by the international community for its delays in reporting the outbreak, hindering initial efforts to contain the spread. China later apologized and received a lesson in the impossibility of cover-ups on such a scale in an age of globalization. There were tentative signs later in the decade that Beijing may have learned something, if some of the Chinese media reporting on the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 is any guide. Why, China even unblocked access to The Diplomat website in 2009, surely heralding an era of great openness and exchange. Or maybe not.

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8. North Korea Tests Nukes October 9, 2006 and May 25, 2009


On October 9, 2006, North Korea detonated a nuclear device underground at a site in the northeast of the country. The yield, estimated at less than 1 kiloton, suggested the test was a dud, and left open questions about just how much progress the Hermit Kingdom had made with its nuclear weapons program. After international condemnation, Pyongyang returned to the six-party disarmament talks on October 31, continuing its ongoing game of brinksmanship. Three years later, after Kim Jong-il appeared to have suffered at least one stroke, North Korea tested again, this time with more success. Speculation mounted that Kim was taking a hard-line stance to smooth the way for his son to take over in the event of his death. The UN imposed sanctions, North Korea responded with bellicosity. All of which has begun to prompt speculation of a possible end game for North Korea. An increasingly frail-looking Kim suggests at some point in the next decade a transfer of power will be required, and indications are that it won’t go as smoothly as it did in the 1990s, when the Dear Leader took over from his father, the Great Leader. (If Kim’s son does take power, it will be interesting to see if his PR handlers go saccharine or bombastic for the modifying adjective.) Dealing with any regime change could be one of the most delicate issues of the next decade, given the threat Pyongyang represents in conventional as well as nuclear terms. The key player here will be China, which will want to prevent a flood of refugees from crossing the border into its territory, yet will likely be uncomfortable with a unified, pro-West Korea.

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9. The LDP Falls in Japan August 30, 2009


The two main protagonists of the Japanese general elections of 2009 were the incumbent Prime Minister Taro Aso and his main challenger, Yukio Hatoyama. They were contesting an election that was in some ways a referendum on a political system created in part by their respective grandfathers in the 1950s. That fact tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Japanese politics in the interim. Ossified does not begin to describe a system that in recent years threw up a series of smug and incompetent premiers presiding over two decades of economic decline. The deeply conservative Japanese public was astonishingly forgiving of the failings of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which drew on the ever-diminishing goodwill it earned for steering Japan’s unprecedented economic rise in the four decades following near destruction in World War II.

But by 2009, as the country flirted with industrial output and stock price levels not seen in a quarter of a century and with a particularly gaffe-prone and unpopular politician in power, Japanese had had enough. On August 30, the LDP was handed a drubbing and Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan led a coalition to an historic victory. The outcome was almost entirely the work of Ichiro Ozawa, a one-time LDP power broker who for nearly two decades had been fighting to fulfil his pledge to overturn the political status quo. Denied the premiership because of a funds scandal (and always more comfortable operating behind the scenes) Ozawa is nonetheless the seminal figure in recent Japanese politics. Japan still matters on the global stage–even after two decades of stagnation, it remained the Asia-Pacific’s largest economy in 2009, and it’s showing a growing confidence in regional security matters. But the country needs radical surgery to avoid terminal decline. Holding its leaders accountable in elections like those seen this year would seem a good first step.

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10. Sinking Islands January 1, 2000 –


The people of the Carteret Atoll, a group of low-lying islands located in the South Pacific, are not accustomed to dominating the world’s headlines. But if the warnings of scientists are even half correct, their story could have the most far-reaching implications for the century. These are the world’s first climate-change refugees, forced to relocate because their homes are sinking into the ocean. While world leaders struggled to save face in Copenhagen in December 2009, many–mostly poor–were already paying the price of inaction.

History has shown that human folly is matched only by our capacity for achievement. With war, terror, fundamentalism, greed, environmental destruction and reality television, this hasn’t been our finest decade. Let’s hope we find our better selves in the next ten years.

It is, of course, impossible to cover all of the important stories in such a vast, varied and dynamic region over a ten-year period. But it’s been interesting trying.

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