The new drivers of Asia’s global presence

The Elcano Royal Institute is a think-tank for international and strategic studies that analyses world events and trends from a Spanish, European and global perspective.

The Analyses of the Elcano Royal Institute (ARI)are short pieces - of around 3,000 words - on aspects of current international affairs considered to be of relevance to Spain, its foreign policy or its security. In broad terms ARIs are intended to have a predictive bearing on events.The pre-eminence of China on the global scene and especially in the economic dimension does not mean that it is the only emerging or Asian country with a consistent participation in the globalisation process, or that the internationalisation of the Asian countries is limited to only the economic sphere.

Data for the overall region show an upward trend in both military and soft presence. While increasing external presence in Asia’s military domain responds mostly to the figures recorded by Japan and China, Asia’s soft presence is scattered among various countries, with South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia all showing increasing shares of soft presence over the 1990-2014 period.