ASIANISATION OF ASIA: CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS IN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Systemic shift, in which the weight of the global economy has shifted away from the Euro-Atlantic eastwards, is increasingly underlined by what is referred to here as the ‘Asianisation of Asia'. Asianisation is a process in which Asia's diverse regions steadily converge around shared economic agendas. Japan, followed by the so-called ‘Asian Tigers’, were the pioneers of the Asian process, which began in earnest in the mid-1960s. China and India, drivers of the pre-modern world economy, are emulating the strategies of the early Asianisers this century and are building parallel pan-Asian relations of their own. Nowhere is this more evident, and indeed significant, than in relation to China and Iran, the Asianisers par excellence. Their relations are arguably critical to the process, a process which is infused with the legacy and their collective memories of the ancient Silk Road which had shaped pan-Asian relations for centuries before the rise of European power.