Asian Values and the United States: How Much Conflict? (Csis Panel Report)

Prompted by their own new-found self-confidence and U.S. pressures on human rights, trade, environment, and labor standards, Singaporean and some other Asian leaders are reasserting Asian values and emphasizing differences between "the West and the rest." They urge the U.S. in particular to stop leaning on East Asia and solve its own far graver social problems. Harvard's Samuel Huntington believes this sort of criticism presages future conflict, which he believes will occur globally along cultural fault lines; he warns of a "clash of civilizations."

Hitchcock questions both Huntington and "the Singapore School." Based on over 100 interviews in seven East Asian countries, he reports that although some differences over values remain, as well as considerable irritation with Western--mainly American- -pressures, common threads are developing between East and West that are more significant than the differences. Rather than "gang up" on the West, Asians are seeking a synthesis of the best from the West and from their own traditions. A united cultural "front" to fend off the West could only develop if the United States does not adapt more closely to the pace and rhythm of social and political change in East Asia (while maintaining its goals.)

The concerns of Asians over values and the loss of a moral compass are not so different from America's worries, Hitchcock concludes. The United States should develop responses with East Asia to the stress and strains in societies on both sides of the Pacific. We can learn from Asia, as they have learned from us. Civilizational differences should not be seen as a precursor of new clashes, but as an opportunity to reach out for synthesis, to reinforce the commonality of interests.