SINGAPORE — Can Asia leverage its growing weight in the global economy into a more influential leadership role in the world? This will be tested soon.
Prospects are more promising than before. Many of the intra-Asian tensions that bedeviled community-building efforts in recent years are contained, if not resolved. But the road ahead is bound to be bumpy and there are still minefields to be defused. Most involve territorial disputes.
While China is a stage manager in the geopolitical drama that is about to unfold, Japan and South Korea have been cast as leading actors. Both have new leaders who are looking beyond Northeast Asia and their longtime alliances with the United States to the rest of Asia.