The end of Asia – the WTO-column

(Later also in Chinabiz; some overlap with an earlier entry, but the issue seems interesting enough)

When I started to develop an interest in Asia, way back in the 1980s, three publications were a must for all those who wanted to stay informed about the region: both the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) and Asiaweek were the leading print publications. For those focusing on China the South China Morning Post followed on the third place. In the 1990s the daily still wanted to become a leading print publication in the region.

In different ways all those publications have lost most of their grip on Asian audiences, with the exception of the South China Morning Post who is still doing reasonable well, but has retracted to Hong Kong and abolished its greater-Asian aspirations. I have not seen any article of FEER after it downgraded from a weekly to a monthly publication. Asiaweek was simply killed after its publisher Time Warner was taken over by AOL. Of course we – I used to write a few years for Asiaweek – we blamed at the time the ignorant peasants at AOL for that thoughtless murder, but, in all honesty, we can ask ourselves now whether Asiaweek would have survived anyway.

The argument is still interesting, since at least once a year a publication, in print, TV or online with an Asian focus, appears or is discussed about. Perhaps it is time to put that whole discussion in the valuable archives of Asia’s history.

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai gave last week his own thoughts on the demise of the English-language publications in Asia. Without mentioning the word itself, he sees it as a necessary phase in the decolonization of Asia. Increased information freedom and the appearance of stronger local publications have eroded the privileged position those English-language publications had in the region in the last decades of the 20^th century. But there is more, Lai writes (here in a translation by ESWN):

“In the 1990's, the people in charge of those publications can see the red lights flashing for their business. They tried many times to re-organize their business without success. Their management approached me. Some of them sought a joint venture while others asked me for advice on how to revive their business.

“No matter which publication it was, I poured cold water on them. I told them frankly that their situation was helpless. In my view, current affairs publications are "emotional products." There is no such thing in the world known as the Asian emotion, so how can a weekly magazine with Asia as its market create resonance? How can a current affairs magazine without resonance have a market?

“People in Hong Kong do not care about what happens in Taiwan. Similarly, people who live in Taiwan will not care about what happens in Indonesia -- except for the tsunami in which many people died. But it is disastrous if a publication has to rely on huge disasters -- how often does a disaster like the tsunami happens?”

The concept ‘Asia’ has been invented by the Europeans and has never really rooted among those who were called ‘Asians’. A publication has to be an “emotional product”, Lai argues. When those emotions are lacking, they might find it very hard to really get an audience that also brings in the needed revenue.

For products that need such an emotion to be successful – media, politics, culture – abolishing the term ‘Asia’ is the most logical step. Dealing with decolonization has always been tough, since it means you have to leave some longstanding, trusted values. It might hurt, but is long overdue.

Fons Tuinstra