An Analysis Of The Influence Of Culture On The Regional Cooperation In East Asia

After the cold war, regional integration and globalization havebecome the two main trends of world development at the present age.Regional economic organization has been established respectively inEurope and North America, and regional cooperation develops vigorously.In the future, inter-region competition may substitute for inter-countrycompetition. Compared with the West, East Asian cooperation develops lateand slowly. Up to now, East Asia does not still establish an economiccooperative organization over the whole area. East Asia region still has nostrength to parallel America and Europe. So many factors affect the regionalcooperation in East Asia, and culture is an important and deep one.Seen from international relation angle, culture has great influenceon international cooperation. Same-quality cultures promote internationalcooperation as important foundation, medium and means. Different-qualitycultures, on one hand, bring out and worsen international conflicts so as toblock international cooperation. On the other hand, different-qualitycultures can also communicate and exchange on their collisions, and formcultural identification among different behavior bodies for regionalcooperation.The region of East Asia, in general, has two-layer culture: unitand region. Unit culture is national culture, and it is a synthesis ofcharacters, customs, habit, feelings, quality, aesthetic way, content andlanguage, thought etc. that a nation developed in long-term historicalprocess. Region culture consists of psychology, viewpoint of value,ideological form and corresponding rule, system etc. that all the regions andthe nations in East Asia have and identify together. It includes not only thecommon part of cultural tradition, but also the accomplishment that nationsachieved by exchange and mutual learning in the social development. In theregion of East Asia, national cultures are obviously diversiform, and regioncultures are unified relatively and multiple-leveled. The cultural factors ofEast Asia make a dual impact on the regional cooperation in East Asia, andtwo-level cultures are playing roles at the same time.Multiple-leveled region culture plays a very positive role in theregional cooperation in East Asia as a pusher: First, Confucian Culture is the common cultural gene of nationsof East Asia and the firmer bond of cooperation. In history the nation-statesin East Asia were influenced by Chinese culture, especially ConfucianCulture to different extent. Same or similar culture is helpful for mutualcommunication and understanding, Confucian Culture is the foundation ofregional identity. Second, the consciousness and values of East Asia, whichappeared outstandingly with the soar of economy, became the ideologicalfoundation of regional cooperation in East Asia. Those facilitate theexpansion of the economic relations among the nations in East Asia, andmake the cooperative relation of area close and tight. Third, along with the development of society, nations in East Asiafaced common difficulties that emerged constantly so as to establish a closecontact. The collective benefit came into being, and the old concept changed.At the same time new conception of security, new concept of benefit, newregionalism occurred and became the inner pushing force of cooperation. Forth, multiple-leveled cooperative mechanism with relatedstandard, criterion, system and identity ,achieved by learning among nationsand being structured with cooperative process, is a part of region culture ofEast Asia Though the force of those mechanisms is limited, they play apromote role in cooperation of East Asia. Multivariate culture combined with multiplicity of politicalsystem and disequilibrium of economy brought on a huge discrepancy,which inevitably made great trouble for regional cooperation in East Asia,along with all kinds of national and religious issues, and turned into anunderlying factor causing area conflict. Multivariate culture with its issue isa handicap to regional cooperation: First, discrepancy of national cultures is an obstacle tocooperation. In Southeast Asia, the differences of economy, politics, culturaltradition, values, religious custom and history etc. stop internal suitablevalue of ASEAN from developing, and stop ASEAN mechanism from...