Sovereignty and Intervention in the International Society of East Asia – historical legacies and new dynamics
On Friday and Saturday 11-12 June, the Modern East Asia Research Centre (MEARC) had the pleasure of running a major international conference entitled, ‘Sovereignty and Intervention in the International Society of East Asia – historical legacies and new dynamics’. The conference was graciously hosted by the recently established Leiden University College The Hague (www.lucthehague.nl), and involved twenty-three internationally renowned academics from across the globe.
The conference focused on East Asian understandings of and approaches towards the key concepts of sovereignty and intervention in the field of International Relations (IR). The necessity to undertake such a conference became apparent not only in terms of the increasing influence East Asian states have over decisions to intervene in the sovereign affairs of other states, but also in terms of how East Asian perspectives concerning sovereignty and intervention can challenge, as well as provide alternatives to, Western-centric IR theories.
There was certainly a sense at the conference that Western states and peoples fail to understand East Asian perspectives on sovereignty and intervention. For example, there has been a reluctance in the mainstream IR literature to consider how imperialism shaped the reluctance of Chinese governments to support armed interventions, or characterizations in the Western media of North Korea as an irrational, hermit state that endeavours to keep the international community from intervening in its sovereign affairs, even if it is the North Korean people who ultimately suffer. As a result, this MEARC conference set out to challenge such perspectives and bring to light and explain alternative East Asian conceptualizations of sovereignty and intervention.
Such alternatives are key not only to understanding the practice of sovereignty and intervention, but also how scholars theorize these issues. In particular, this conference opened up new avenues for the English School theory of IR that has grown in popularity across the globe since Barry Buzan’s call to reconvene the School in 2001. Notably, Buzan’s call has been met by East Asian scholars eager to evolve their own national theories of IR. By exploring the recent contributions of the China and Japan Schools of IR, this conference highlighted the need for cross-cultural dialogue that seeks to cultivate IR theories that are more inclusive.
Conference participants also debated a number of East Asian ideas, philosophies and concepts concerning sovereignty and intervention with a view to developing the English School’s notion of an international society. In particular, the conference participants noted the importance of several historical legacies that have generated particular East Asian approaches to sovereignty and intervention, such as non-military contributions to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKOs) by successive Japanese governments who are wary of stirring fears amongst their East Asian neighbours of a return to the Japanese militarism of the 1930s. Such approaches further emphasized the need to expand the concept of an international society, beyond the original English School concept of a universal international society, to include regional international societies. By so doing, it becomes possible to identify why the international relations of a particular region function in distinct ways.
MEARC intends to compile several of the conference papers into an edited volume to be offered for publication as part of the MEARC/Leiden series in Modern East Asian History and Politics (Routledge).
The conference organizers would like to extend their sincere thanks to all conference participants, the audience, The Japan Foundation, the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Professor Chris Goto-Jones, the Dean of Leiden University College the Hague, for making this conference possible.
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