Asia in the rapidly changing global order

Several years ago, when I was the Director of International Relations Department, I was asked by Tom Claussen, then the President of the World Bank, to write a note on the global order. The note would be used by his speech writer to prepare the draft of a talk he was to give at an event in Tokyo. I wrote a note in which I suggested that after the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the world was no longer bipolar with competition for influence by the USSR and the United States. The world had become multipolar. Claussen liked the note and the speech on which it was used was picked by the Western press. Somebody in the Bank revealed that Claussen's speech was based on a note I had prepared. The Economist chided me for using a word that did not exist in English. There were only two poles, north and south. However, it may have been poor English to describe the world as multipolar, but the word caught on and is now commonly used to describe the emerging global order. I mention this to write about the way the world around the large continent of Asia is evolving.

Three sides of Asia – the west, the north and the east separated by thousands of miles of territory – are now dealing with different country influences. Jennifer Kavanagh wrote in an essay published in the opinion pages of The New York Times on Auguist 1, 2026, under the title "A new order is taking shape in the Pacific" that "since President Trump's return to office, uncertainty over his commitment to the defense of Asia has sparked warnings that Beijing could seize the opportunity to be more assertive, pushing U.S. allies to band together. Those wheels are now turning, bringing new risks: Major changes in global security rarely unfold smoothly. At any rate an overextended United States is less prepared to underwrite Asia's security indefinitely than it once was."

The space vacated by the United States in western Pacific is now being occupied by China. China is extending its reach from the Pacific to its east to the Arabian Sea to its west and also to the north of the Asian continent where it is the only country outside Afghanistan to have reached out to the Taliban who now govern from Kabul. In spite of the effort made by Donald Trump, the American president, China is using its growing economic and political power in its immediate neighborhood. In east, its ambition has provoked its neighbours to take action to check Beining. Japan, although having close economic links with China, has strengthened defence ties with Australia, the Philippines and India. Tokyo is also discussing closer cooperation with South Korea, a close American ally. Japan has abandoned its longstanding restrictions in defence expenditure and defence exports and is moving to link with South Korea as a regional supplier of military equipment. Australia is nervous about what it perceives as the aggressive Chinese moves in the waters its shares with Beijing. It has reached out to small Pacific nations and signed defence agreements with them – a challenge that Washington has as yet not confronted.

There are major changes in the way large countries in East Asia look at their security situation. Fear of American abandonment – if not abandonment than downgrading its presence – is likely to quicken the arms race that is already underway in the eastern part of the Asian continent. China is investing large amounts of resources to build its armed forces and expand its nuclear arsenal. Japan has recently begun deploying longer range missiles. South Korea is thinking of developing its own nuclear arsenal, and Australia is investing in nuclear-powered submarines and missile capabilities. Initially it wanted to take these steps with American involvement but Washington, fearing Chinese reaction, did not get engaged and Australians turned to France for help.

On Asia's western shore, the unprovoked American attack on Iran on February 28, 2026 has ignited a complicated defence situation in the Middle which was not anticipated by Donald Trump, the America president. His declared aim was to weaken Iran's military capacity and provoke a regime change in Tehran. The former aim was partly achieved but the latter one worked in the opposite direction. While the combined American-Israeli bombing killed senior Iranian leaders, they were replaced by people who were more hostile to America's Middle Eastern policies. Iran activated its allies in the area that attacked American forces in several small Middle Eastern nations. Most had American bases. The attacks led to nearly a score American deaths.

The ongoing American war in the Middle East has brought war close to Pakistan's borders. While there has been no military activity in Pakistan, the country's citizens have developed poor impressions of American policies. In addition to the expanding problems in the Middle East, Pakistan has to find a way of dealing with its deteriorating relations with Afghanistan, the neighbour on its northwest. The Taliban who now govern from Kabul have close relations with the extremist group Tehreek Taliban Pakistan, the TTP. In recent months this group has used suicide bombers to attack Pakistan's security forces a s well as people in the restive areas of Pakistan's northwest.

Of the country's four neighbours, Pakistan has troubled relation with three – Iran, Afghanistan and India. Pakistan works well only with China which has economic interests in Afghanistan and the countries of Central Asia. These countries have rich untapped mineral resources that China seeks to tap and transport them through the road network they have built in Pakistan. China constructed CPEC, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, that connected its western most Chinese region of Xinjiang with the port of Gwadar on Pakistan's coast. There is now active talk about building CPEC-2 that would take the motorway to Afghanistan. This would provide China with the road that would take minerals extracted from Afghanistan and the countries in the northwest to the processing centres in China.