Structural Change on East Asia: Hegemonic Stability Theory

Asih Purwanti

2018

Abstract

Looking at East Asia today can be seen that there is a structural change happens in this region. During the Cold War time, people believed that the U.S. and Japan are acting as a hegemonic power served in the region. But today, people may see several important phenomena occurred in the region: (1) the rising power of the PRC both in economy and military in the region, (2) the growing threat from the North Korea, (3) the decline economy strength of Japan, (4) the reluctant U.S. under Trump administration towards East Asia’s intra-region problem. These conditions had left both South Korea and Taiwan at the most vulnerable position. Therefore it is easy to argue that there is a structural change occurs in East Asia region. But using Hegemonic Stability Theory as a lens, I argue that there are no structural changes in East Asia. It can be argued that although Trump is trying to convince the world that the U.S. will be no longer to serve as a hegemon in the world, the U.S. is still serving as a leader in East Asia. Japan is also still having their economic power as the major power in the region. South Korea and Taiwan are maintaining their traditional relations with the U.S. and Japan. And for the PRC, although its growing economic and military power is clear, but PRC is not acting as a hegemon who sacrifice their attributes to serve as a leader in the region.  At last, even though North Korea is now acting unexpectedly with their nuclear weapons, East Asia region remains stable because the U.S. still performs as one hegemonic actor who is willing to maintain the stable relations among actors in the region.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Purwanti A. (2018). Structural Change on East Asia: Hegemonic Stability Theory. In Proceedings of Airlangga Conference on International Relations - Volume 1: ACIR, ISBN 978-989-758-493-0, pages 139-142. DOI: 10.5220/0010274300002309

in Bibtex Style

@conference{acir18,
author={Asih Purwanti},
title={Structural Change on East Asia: Hegemonic Stability Theory},
booktitle={Proceedings of Airlangga Conference on International Relations - Volume 1: ACIR,},
year={2018},
pages={139-142},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010274300002309},
isbn={978-989-758-493-0},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of Airlangga Conference on International Relations - Volume 1: ACIR,
TI - Structural Change on East Asia: Hegemonic Stability Theory
SN - 978-989-758-493-0
AU - Purwanti A.
PY - 2018
SP - 139
EP - 142
DO - 10.5220/0010274300002309