Pacific Asia



Pacific Asia is the region of Asia bordering the Pacific Ocean. It constitutes East Asia, Northeast Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The region is contested by China, America, and Japan, with India recently engaging as well as part of its Act East policy and overall rise on the world stage.

History
In ancient times, the central country in much of the region was China, with the Chinese diaspora creating economic integration throughout. European colonization of Southeast Asia in the modern era led to a splintering of the region into rival blocs, with China itself having some of its territory split up between the colonial powers. The Japanese Empire also played a role in conquering parts of Pacific Asia. The Chinese artisans found themselves losing out to Western mass production, with China becoming an insignificant economic player in Pacific Asia. America expanded westward through the Pacific in a kind of extended "Manifest Destiny", conquering regions such as Guam and the Philippines and dispelling the Spanish Empire from the region. In the aftermath of World War 2, America participated heavily throughout Pacific Asia, tolerating the authoritarianism that characterized the regimes in the region due to its need for anti-communist allies to prosecute the Cold War in Asia, and later for the War on Terror.

21st century
Deng Xiaoping's reforms in late-20th-century China led to the country becoming more economically important, re-assuming a central role in Pacific Asia by the 2007–2008 financial crisis. In the 21st century, Pacific Asia has become an economically interconnected region, trading more within itself than the EU or America, having significant intermigration throughout the region, and having significant solidarity in its votes and stances at the UN. Tensions have emerged between Pacific Asian countries around the South China Sea (such as regarding Taiwan) and regarding the Korean conflict, with Japan having somewhat of a leadership role in the region but also being rejected at times due to other Pacific Asian countries' reaction to colonial-era Japanese war crimes, with America being asked to maintain influence in the region as a counterweight to Japan.