Conflicts in Hong Kong and Kashmir: The New Asian Disorder

Little time? At the end of the text there is a summary.

The 21st century, it is said, will be the century of Asia. So far, this prospect has been perceived as an economic challenge in the West, not as a political threat. The Asians are too interested in their economic advancement, their governments are too pragmatic to want to fight themselves and others.

Other than close, the Far East is full of "ambitious, ambitious, energetic people who scrape and scratch every day to build businesses, get education and jobs," said former US President Barack Obama. "They do not think about how to kill Americans." Asia, as most Europeans see it, is a continent of progress and of the future, not of conflict and the past.

But that could be a mistake.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is traveling to China next week for the twelfth time. She will visit Beijing and Wuhan, an Elf million metropolis on the Yangtze River, which, like so many cities in China, stands for the diligence and productivity of its people.

For the first time, Merkel will face an acute and serious crisis on a China trip. For almost three months, people in Hong Kong have been taking to the streets to protest against the restriction of autonomy rights that Beijing promised to the former British Crown Colony over 20 years ago.

On both sides hardened the fronts. On Thursday, Hong Kong police banned a mass rally planned for Saturday. The organizers are determined to march anyway. Meanwhile, Beijing is tightening its threats. The riots of the past few days "undermine the fundamental interests of Hong Kong and our country," said a senior Communist Party official. "If we allow them to spread further, Hong Kong threatens to sink into an abyss."

Asia's major powers are experiencing staggeringly similar crises

The signs point to a further escalation rather than a speedy resolution of this conflict. A direct intervention by Beijing is not excluded: On October 1, China commemorates the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic and plans a major army show on Tiananmen Square. Very unlikely that the leadership will tolerate further rallies in Hong Kong on this occasion.

It may be a coincidence that Asia's other great power, India, is experiencing a crisis that is strikingly similar to that in Hong Kong. At the beginning of August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi deprived the state of Jammu and Kashmir of the autonomy rights enjoyed by the majority of Muslim territory since 1950.

ARSHAD ARBAB / EPA-EFE / REX

Anti-Indian protests in Pakistan: Beijing and New Delhi intervene in "internal affairs"

It is not a political coincidence. Like Beijing in Hong Kong, New Delhi tries to impose its will on Kashmir, a region on the periphery - democratic India being even tougher than authoritarian China so far in Hong Kong: for the past three weeks there has been a de facto curfew in the Kashmir valley Internet connections are cut, hundreds are under house arrest, including three former heads of state.

More at SPIEGEL +

Atul Loke / The New York Times / Laif Cashmere Crisis "You Can Do What You Want With Us"

Just like Beijing, Delhi refuses any outside interference. The "reorganization" of Kashmir is an "internal affair". China, which itself controls one-fifth of the former principality of Kashmir, sees this differently and argued with Pakistan that the Kashmir crisis was being discussed in the UN Security Council.

Yet another conflict, unexpectedly tough, is troubling Asian experts these days: In January, South Korea's Supreme Court condemned a Japanese company for the compensation of a man who had been used as a forced laborer during the Second World War. The ruling triggered a cascade of reactions and counter-reactions: Japan removed South Korea from its list of "preferred trading partners," Seoul relented, halted a military maneuver, and even announced the intelligence cooperation of the two closest US allies in East Asia last week.

Late consequences of a largely untapped story

As far as these three acute conflicts are geographically separate - they have one thing in common: they are, like the crises over North Korea's nuclear program and the territorial dispute in the South China Sea, the aftermath of a politically still powerful, but largely unresolved, history in Asia Goes back to colonial times. They are driven by forces that Europe knows from its own history: nationalism, cultural and denominational dominance, anti-democratic, even authoritarian tendencies.

In addition, Donald Trump's election as US President has weakened an important, stabilizing factor over decades in Asia. Washington's hegemony on the Pacific has always been controversial, but from a Western perspective it has created a political framework for the economic advancement of many Asian states.

Experts such as the Indian-American political scientist Parag Khanna qualify this view and also see opportunities in the new Asian disorder. The continent has "despite the plethora of conflicts in recent decades, a comprehensive stability," he writes in his forthcoming in German book "Our Asian Future". Asia's conflicts, "the past, current and future - and their mediation are thus part of the process of building an Asian system."

Chancellor Angela Merkel will soon be able to explore at another location whether this system will create a durable peace order or divide Asia into a multitude of "internal affairs". In autumn, after her trip to China, she will travel to India.

In summary: In the coming week Angela Merkel travels to China in the midst of the Hong Kong crisis. In the fall, the Chancellor will visit India. Both states are currently cracking down on protest movements in Hong Kong and Kashmir. The two conflicts could be harbingers of a conflict-filled future in Asia.