Wessels/ISA2005/p. 17
public religion—in the Pacific Rim and demonstrate how religions and cultures
generate capacities for global politics there. The former two are stock issues in the
repertoire of international relations and international studies more generally, while the
latter one has been treated less, though that defect has been overcome somewhat in
recent years. Capacities may be realized in action, or remain as potential forces in the
political process. In either case, I suggest that global politics is involved, with
dynamics peculiar to the globalized conditions of the contemporary world rather than
limited to some national or local scene.
Traditional questions of state security are involved in the confrontations
between the divided nations of East Asia, China and Korea. The involvement of other
powers, including the United States, Russia, and Japan is evident, but both the
China-Taiwan and South Korea-North Korea dyads show how cultural and ethnic
capacities in the dyads themselves exert a powerful influence on security issues.
Despite various incidents and disputes, these polities have avoided major war for
several decades. Economic ties between mainland China and Taiwan have grown
among people with shared family and cultural bonds. Within a wider regional and
global economy, and with ethnic Chinese connections throughout Southeast Asia and
beyond, these bonds explain much about the past maintenance of security between the
antagonists despite their geopolitical confrontation. Likewise, the two Koreas, while
hostile and wary, have demonstrated particularly over the last decade that their ethnic
and cultural affinity keeps them talking to each other sufficiently to overcome the most
destabilizing insecurities in their own relationship and in the changing world around
them.
Terrorism is another major item on the global security agenda, not least in the
Pacific Rim. Clearly, some of the negative capacities for security (or sources of
insecurity) relating to terrorism, especially in Southeast Asia, are linked to groups with
religious as well as political ambitions. Among perpetrators of insecurity in Indonesia,
the Philippines, and Thailand are Islamist terrorist networks. While there are no
simple solutions to overcoming these religiously-inspired groups, positive religious
understanding and cooperation at local and global levels could significantly undercut
Convention