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If Asia has had a consistent image, it has been that of an unchanging and traditional continent, impervious and insensitive to the impressive technological advances made and prosperity generated in the West. However, for the last half a century or so, Asia has been emerging as a continent of change, challenging its own traditions, and revising its cultural mores. This change is both physical and real, evidenced not only in Japan and South Korea, but is clearly visible in the villages of India, Thailand, Taiwan, and in the oil ports of the Persian Gulf.
On the one hand, Asia still clings to its timeless traditions; on the other, it is groping for a new order. It is engaged in a struggle to balance the pressures and influences of the western civilization. The secular and temporal influences of the West have become increasingly pitched against the Asian religious and moral traditions.
Social and economic values of the West have often come in conflict with the rural and traditional Asian systems. The struggle to synthesize the “tradition” and the “new” orders has not been always happy. As Asia lurches into an uncertain future, religious, social, political and economic conflicts have arisen in most Asian nations.
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In the aftermath of World War II several major developments, each with its implications, have sparked worldwide interest in Asian affairs. The collapse of the European colonial regimes over much of Asia’s lands and peoples was one of the momentous events in history, which unleashed forces dramatically altering Asia’s political and economic environment.
The nationalist forces, which had struggled to bring down the domination of the West, had gained momentum within the countries. These took two divergent paths. One, these forces consolidated the national will and triggered border conflicts with the neighboring countries. The political boundaries, artificially created by the colonial powers, were now challenged and became arenas of conflicts. The festering Israeli-Palestinian confrontation, the Cambodian tragedy, and Vietnamese disputes are some examples.
On the other hand, political consciousness among the ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities within the countries intensified the forces of divisiveness, and plunged the countries into bitter struggles between the groups and weakened the countries’ internal cohesion. Since achieving independence most Asian nations seemed to have lost the unifying political force so essential for their internal cohesion.
Equally uncertain was the situation in the economic field. Although most Asian countries had received many benefits of the colonial rules by way of the establishment of an infrastructure, a system of posts and telegraphs, railroad and road networks, modernized educational facilities and an apparatus of modern western-style governments, there was little overall development, particularly in such areas as mining and industries.
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Most Asian nations, with the notable exception of Japan, were exporting agricultural products to Europe, where those were turned to finished products and re-exported to the Asian markets. Asian economies thus remained imbalanced and neglected, and Asia became a political and economic appendage of Europe.