Security in Asia

Abstract

Intuitively, we might expect that security would be broadly conceived in the same way across the world. And yet even the way the security of the state is understood is quite different from the predominant ‘Western’ model in some parts of Asia in particular. Indeed, the constituent parts of broadly conceived ‘security governance’ reveal surprising and illuminating differences about a concept we might otherwise expect to be universal. Nowhere better illustrates this possibility than the East Asian region, which has come to be associated with a distinctive notion of ‘comprehensive security’, which embraces a range of factors beyond conventional military concerns. To understand why East Asia is different we need to consider the region’s specific history and the contemporary challenges it faces. Paradoxically enough, however, the region may be beginning to demonstrate some patterns of behaviour and security concerns that are reminiscent of an earlier ‘Western’ era, raising important theoretical and comparative questions in the process.