ABSTRACT
Asia is a persistent idea. Despite its shifting political and geographical contours, it has gained a seemingly secure place in the modern geopolitical vocabulary. Yet ‘Asia’ is also persistently represented as something supplementary: as an idea dependent on and derivative of the ur-continent of Europe. Ravi Palat (2002: 687) assures us that, ‘[s]imply put, Asia’s unity derives from, and derives only from, its historical and contemporary role as Europe’s civilisational other’. Grounding the argument in etymology, Sakai adopts a similarly commonsensical tone: ‘It is well known that the word Asia was coined by the Europeans in order to distinguish Europe from its eastern others’ (2000: 791). Leo Ching theoretically elaborates the point as follows:
The principle of [Asian] identity lies outside itself, in relation to (an)Other. If one can ascribe to Asia any vague sense of unity, it is that which is excluded and objectified by the West in the service of its historical progress. Asia is, and can be one, only under the imperial eye of the West.
(1998: 70)