Recentering Pacific Asia : Regional China and World Order

The Pacific Rim of Asia – Pacific Asia – is now the world's largest and most cohesive economic region, and China has returned to its center.

China's global outlook is shaped by its regional experience, first as a pre-modern Asian center, then displaced by Western-oriented modernization, and now returning as a central producer and market in a globalized region.

Developments since 2008 have been so rapid that future directions are uncertain, but China's presence, population, and production guarantee it a key role.

As a global competitor, China has awakened American anxieties and the US-China rivalry has become a major concern for the rest of the world.

However, rather than facing a power transition between hegemons, the US and China are primary nodes in a multi-layered, interconnected global matrix that neither can control.

Brantly Womack argues that Pacific Asia is now the key venue for working out a new world order.