Acharya, Amitav. "Can Asia lead? Power Ambitions and Global Governance in the Twenty First Century’, International Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 4 (2011): 851-869.

 Acharya, Amitav. "Can Asia lead? Power Ambitions and Global Governance in the Twenty First Century’, International Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 4 (2011): 851-869.

• Asian nations, including both middle powers like Singapore and Malaysia alongside the major players of China, India, and Japan, are demanding a larger role in international affairs. This greater role has not seen Asian countries, even major powers, take on additional global governance responsibilities, with these states instead being concerned with their own national ambitions (851).
• Ambitions to make larger contributions to global governance are limited for each of Asia's major powers. In Japan, its constitutional limitations on power and an utter lack of regional legitimacy or popularity; in China, a Third Worldist outlook; and in India a Third Worldist outlook and a dearth of necessary resources (852).
• These policy orientations are not necessarily permanent, however, as they all already represent significant deviations from Japanese, Chinese, and Indian foreign policy goals during the 1950s (852).
• Asia lacks a cohesive continental identity, as Europe has generated. So all Asian states put further distinctly national foreign policies, meaning we cannot talk about an 'Asian foreign policy' (852). 
• Most Asian states, and all of its major powers, have remained firmly in a self-interested mindset that has rejected playing a larger regional or global role. Asian foreign policy ambitions do not encompass the sort of responsibility that qualify as global governance (867).
• The independence leaders of most Asian nations were concerned with expelling the last traces of European colonialism and establishing independent economic and political systems. This led Asian states to focus on 'defensive sovereignty', an outlook which colors their international policies and may continue to do so as Asia rises in power and influence (851).
• The terms realist and idealist -- the latter derived mainly from the liberal school of IR theory -- do not fit well onto Asian leaders, whose ideas and outlooks have traditionally incorporated ideas from both camps, with many Asian realists still engaging in multilateralism (853). The author instead proposes thinking of Asian states as conformist, revisionist, or adaptive (854):
• Japan was a conformist nation, as it adopted Western institutions and practices and was recognized as a 'civilized nation' by the European powers. After WWII, Japan continued a conformist foreign policy, seeking to participate in Western institutions and endorsing Western values (854).
• China was the textbook revisionist power, as it challenged the legitimacy and practices of the entire Western international system after the Communist victory in 1949 (854).
• India was an adaptive nation, as Jawaharlal Nehru rejected the European realist system of IR, including plans to place an area under Indian domination, and endorsed a hypothetical system based on the mutual equality of nations, to which end it organized the 1947 Asian Relations Conference and the 1955 Bandung Conference. He refused plans of China, however, to create an organization in direct opposition to Western institutions (854).
• The Southeast Asian countries were primarily adaptive, with the exception of brief revisionist spells in Indonesia in the 1960s and Vietnam after Communist victory there. These countries generally supported the existing order while trying to guard their own sovereignty and promote some values over others in that international system (855).
• The lack of unity in the foreign policy outlooks of Asian states prevents the creation of any grand political projects in the region, as demonstrated by the failure of Japan's wartime East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. These different outlooks explain why there is not a common Asian foreign policy (855).
• Wider difference emerged between the Asian powers in the aftermath of WWII, as India adopted a more socialist economic policy that distanced it from Japan. The initiatives of Asian unity in the 1950s only succeeded in Southeast Asia, where ASEAN was formed, and that was precisely because the great powers were absent from the organization (855).
• The situation for Asian regional unity and multilateral improved significantly following the end of the Cold War, as all the major powers adopted economic policies based on capitalist development. The period was also seen the growth of groups like the East Asian Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum, through which all three major powers have accepted multilateral norms and moved towards a conformist position as status quo actors (855-856).
• This movement towards common foreign policy outlooks has not, however, produced great cooperation among Asian countries, and competition between India and China remains particularly intense. There also remain considerable disputes among the rest of Asia over the values of international integration or democracy (856).
• China is the most active of the great powers in theorizing about the future international system, largely because it is the most powerful of these countries and has an interest in making sure that China's effect on the global order is positive. The initial Chinese position was that a multipolar world would develop in which China would play a significant part (856-857).
• China began to reconsider this multipolar position as soon as the US victory over Iraq in 1991, and changed its foreign policy to focus more on the idea of China's 'peaceful rise' (857). It has also altered its regional foreign policy is stress cooperation and harmonious coexisting among different states (859).
• The greater Chinese involvement in upholding and participating in the global international order has not, however, seen a commensurate increase in Chinese leadership. This because of China's desire to protect its sovereignty, diverse domestic interest groups, and its recognition that other countries are threatened by it. This all means that China has been reluctant to take global leadership roles, as it refused to do during the 2008 financial crisis (859-860).
• This reluctance to assume global leadership position has not been reflected in Chinese regional foreign policy, in which China has taken leadership roles. It is undoubtedly a leader in the SCO or the East Asian Community, but even there it is careful to avoid the impression of dominating these bodies (860).
• Since the end of the Cold War, and demonstrated by the publication of 'Blueprint for a New Japan' in 1993 by Ozawa Ichiro, the head of the Democratic Party of Japan, Japan has sought to reclaim its status as a 'normal country' able to use create a military and deploy it in UN-sponsored operations. Under Prime Minister Koizumi in the early 2000s, this goal became an attempt to guarantee Japanese security in the event of an American withdrawal from East Asia (860).
• Some reactions to this push for normalcy have been positive, as many point out that Japan would be able to contribute to international efforts to fight terrorism and piracy. It would also allow Japan to take on more security commitments, particularly in terms of pulling its weight in its alliance with the USA (860-861).
• Japan has historically been an avid participant in regional politics and a major force pushing for cooperation in the Asia Pacific. It was the leader behind Asian Pacific economic development from the 1950s through the 1980s and created institutions that underpinned this order. It also played a major role in coordinating post-Cold War security cooperation, including organizing conferences of Defense Ministers through ASEAN starting in 1993. Further Japan-led cooperation has only be lessened by American opposition to some projects, like the Asian Monetary Fund, that would have challenged the American role in the region (861).
• Japan remains primarily a conformist power, as its international efforts seek to built up and support the existing international order rather than create an alternative order. This was demonstrated in the 2008 financial crisis, when Japan sought to assist IMF relief plans rather than pursuing its own course or taking a leader in developing solutions (862).
• At least since a major 2005 speech by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, there was been talk about India as a global power and loud endorsement of the concept by the Indian press and public (862). India foreign policy has moved away from its non-aligned and Nehruvian roots to embrace a realist geopolitical perspective that emphasizes India's power as a country in the Asian heartland and a counterweight to China. India desires expansive powers in its region and the Indian Ocean (862-863).
• India has not expressed an interest in a greater role in global governance, instead seeking an enhanced role in regional politics on the basis of its economic growth and nuclear capabilities. These ambitions have been thusfar rebuffed, as India has been repeatedly denied a larger role in regional affairs or global governance, as seen by repeated rejection from the UNSC and the Nuclear Club (863).
• Leadership of the Asian continent depends on political will, resource capability, and regional legitimacy. No major power has had all three. After the Second World War, India had high legitimacy and political will, but no capacity for leadership, whereas Japan had the capacity for leadership but neither the political will nor the regional legitimacy. At the time of the Communist victory in the civil war, China had neither the resources, political will, nor legitimacy to lead Asia (863).
• Japan, China, and increasingly India now have the resource capacity to lead Asia, but all lack the necessary legitimacy: due to memories of Japanese imperialism, fear of China, and the arrogance of India. Moreover, their mutual rivalry prevents any one state to become the regional leader (863-864).
• Regional leadership thus rests with the minor states of Asia, collectively represented in ASEAN. This organization cannot, however, manage to dominate Asia as it includes none of its major powers, who between them have massive economies and nuclear capability (864).
• The 2008 financial crisis, and the subsequent creation of the G20, has given Asian states new opportunities to become involved in global governance. Although the G20 membership was decided by the US Treasury Department the German Deutschesbank, it included seven Asian countries: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Indonesia, China, Japan, and India (864).
• Participation in the G20 is seen by many Asian countries, including middle powers like South Korea and Indonesia, as a way to advance from Asian regional politics directly to impacting global politics. To this end, they often support distinct national positions (866).
• These Asian participants, although many of them attended the 1955 Bandung Conference together and consider themselves developing nations, are not alike in their foreign policies. In fact, the lack of unity among the Asian members of the G20 have allowed American and European powers to set the agenda (864-866).
• These divisions occur even among nations with similar positions, as China and India share on climate change. Both states resist attempts to sharply limit carbon emissions, since they consider these emissions essential to economic development. They have still taken slightly different stances and, with short exceptions, broadly rejected cooperation (866).
• Relations have more broadly remained competitive, as seen in the unwillingness of China to support UNSC seats for either Japan or India. This extends beyond the great powers, as minor Asian powers resent each others' regional initiatives or the status given to G20 countries (866-867).
• Asia is home to a unique and distinct form of regionalism, defined by ASEAN, that lacks a core hegemon. It is strong despite lacking strong and legally-binding institutions, and it is an open and inclusive system (868).
• This system could serve as a model for other countries in the developing world, as it has been very successful and lacks the pressure towards unification that exists in the European model (868).
• This ASEAN-based system has not, however, succeeded in solving many of the major security issues in Asia, as the India-Pakistan conflict, the Korean War, and Chinese maritime disputes remains unresolved. It also has failed to promote human rights or democracy (868).
• Despite all this, the system has developed in the 21st Century and succeeded in coping with a number of natural disasters, pandemics, financial crises, and terrorist attacks (868).