America is nowhere near as popular in Asia as most Americans think. From Eamon McKinney at strategic-culture.org:
It is the history of Asia that when white men with guns show up professing good intentions, Asians suffer.
The Asia Pacific region has come in for much attention in recent years. Most of it a transparent attempt to contain China and its spectacular rise, remember Obama’s pivot to Asia? The dominant narrative is that China poses an imminent threat to its near neighbours. Rarely do we ever hear from the inhabitants of the region regarding their feelings about the threat. For Westerners who are constantly bombarded with the anti-China rhetoric, it is understandable that they think the Asians are terrified of China and are grateful to their Western guardians for protecting them. Let us examine that.
To understand the mindset we must revisit some inconvenient history. With the exception of Thailand, all of the S.E. Asian countries have been the victim of Western colonisation. Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and China all suffered mightily under Western oppression. The Philippines, South Korea and Japan still host American bases and are de-facto client states as a result. Overwhelmingly the citizenry of these countries greatly resent this fact, countless anti-imperial demonstrations have made this plain, all ignored by minority factions in Government. It is the history of Asia that when white men with guns show up professing good intentions, Asians suffer. This has been the case for more than four hundred years and it persists to this day. Western rhetoric falls on deaf ears in Asia, every promise ever made to them by the West has been broken and they know that the west doesn’t regard or treat them as equals. Once again, they can see that they are being expected to suffer to serve Western imperialist interests.
Over the last 40 years the region as enjoyed a period of peace, stability and prosperity unprecedented in its long history. To be clear, there is much historical enmity in the hemisphere, Japan and Korea, Japan and China and others have a tragic history of conflict. There is little love and much residual resentment among them. There are disputes regarding the South China Sea, many of the countries have overlapping claims. The sea treaties that define the current maps are disrupted by all and recognised by none. These treaties were drawn up in the West in the post WWI era and were done without a single Asian present. They represented Western imperial interests, not those of the Asians. In the Asian way, they resolve these differences through diplomacy, no one is prepared to go to war over it. All still enjoy freedom of navigation, it is not the big issue that it is made out to be in the West.
