By Chandra Muzaffar

What role the United States should play in a future East Asian Community was apparently one of the unresolved issues at the recent 16-nation East Asia Summit (EAS) in Hua Hin, Thailand.

The truth is the U.S. is already a significant player in the region. This is not just the result of the deep economic and political ties that the U.S. enjoys with most of the 10 states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Huge American military bases with tens of thousands of soldiers and some of the most sophisticated weaponry on earth, are spread throughout Asia and the Pacific. The U.S. has over the years forged security alliances with some of the governments in the region and continues to sell arms to many of them.

Neither the EAS nor ASEAN plus Three (China, Japan and South Korea) nor ASEAN itself ― the driving force behind the other two formations ― has, at the collective level, questioned the overwhelming U.S. military presence. The U.S. quest for global hegemony ― military power is a critical pillar of this ― has never been on the formal agenda of any of the meetings of these groupings.

And yet, East Asia has also been a victim of the push for global dominance and control. It was because of a tussle precipitated by the desire for hegemony that the Korean Peninsula was partitioned in 1953.

More than four million people were killed mainly in Vietnam, but also in Cambodia and Laos in the 1960 and '70s largely because of the politics of hegemony. In Indonesia, a million people were massacred in the wake of a right wing coup in 1965 related to hegemonic politics.

In the Philippines, U.S. hegemonic power helped to perpetuate the power of a corrupt and greedy dictator for 14 years before he was ousted by a popular uprising in 1986. Other direct and indirect consequences of hegemony also manifest themselves in East Asia.

The global climate change crisis and the global economic crisis are inextricably linked to hegemony just as hegemony is the barrier to both the emergence of global democracy and the universal application of international law in a number of spheres.

It is partly because of U.S. and Western hegemony that the autonomous intellectual development of Asia ― in spite of its profoundly rich philosophical values ― has been stymied.

If the present generation of political leaders in East Asia is generally less critical of hegemony ― compared to, say, a new crop of leaders in Latin America ― it is mainly because the region's relationship with the U.S. appears to have brought a degree of prosperity to segments of society.

It is true that easy access to the huge American consumer market, and massive American investments in East Asia are among the many reasons that explain the spectacular growth of Singapore, Korea, China, and other economies in the region.

Nonetheless, in Hua Hin, East Asian leaders readily acknowledged that they could no longer rely upon the U.S. and the West to consume the cheap goods produced in their region since the latter's economic recovery was slow and impeded by major structural obstacles.

It is worth observing that if cheap consumer goods from Asia help to sustain a certain lifestyle in the West today, there was a time when cheap raw materials from the region propelled the West's industrialization and economic development.

The realization that instead of remaining a mere supplier of goods, East Asia has to strengthen domestic demand and become less dependent upon the West is a positive sign.

What this entails is raising the standard of living of the vast majority of the populace, redistributing wealth more equitably, focusing upon scientific research and technological innovation, and enhancing regional trade and cooperation.

At Hua Hin, it was even proposed that East Asia establish its own currency in order to strengthen its financial independence.

This sort of thinking began developing in the aftermath of the

1998 Asian financial crisis when some governments in the region were rudely awakened to the fact that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ― an instrument of Western hegemony ― was more interested in protecting Western banks than in salvaging the devastated Asian economies.

Governments in East Asia should now demonstrate even greater determination to safeguard their nations' independence and to stave off hegemony for a reason that may seem paradoxical.

U.S. hegemony is declining. Its own economic and social malaise; its inability to impose its will upon others, in spite of its military supremacy, especially in the Middle East; the revolt of the masses against U.S. dominance in much of Latin America; and the ascendancy of a number of other centers of power such as China, India and Russia, all indicate that the era of overbearing U.S. power is coming to an end.

One should not expect this declining power ― to use an analogy from those cowboy movies that were part of its propaganda in the heyday of its hegemony ― to ride quietly into the sunset.

It is not inconceivable that the U.S. will try to perpetuate its hegemonic power by seeking to dominate East Asia, the planet's most dynamic region that accounts for more than 50 percent of the world's foreign currency reserves.

There is a precedent of sorts from recent history. When the British empire ― once the world's most powerful empire ― discovered that though victorious in World War II it was totally emasculated, it sought to resurrect itself by hitching on to the U.S. wagon, the world's most powerful nation. In the last 60-odd years, Britain has played a pivotal role in most of the U.S.'s imperial designs.

We have to be wary of this: hegemonic powers sometimes reincarnate themselves!

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is professor of Global Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia and President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST). He can be reached at muza@just-international.org. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.