Challenges

1Since the end of the Cold War, a number of French institutions were created, which demonstrate a worthy commitment to promoting and disseminating French multidisciplinary research on this vast continent of Asia : five of the 27 Instituts français de recherche à l’étranger (IFRES) are located in Asia – in Bangkok, Bichkek, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Tokyo, in addition to important satellite locations, such as Taipei – ; several centers for specialized research on Asia were created in France : like Asia Centre in 2005, the Center of contemporary history (University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) in 2008 ; and the “Asian Network” was launched in 2001, which became a “GIS Asie” in 2013, among many others. Regardless, there is still a lot of work to do, especially in the field of history of international relations (IR), even though it is a reputable and dynamic historic subfield. French internationalist historians have had little interest in Asia, except for the Indochinese conflicts and the regional powers which were involved in these conflicts. Many great treatises on the history of contemporary international relations, for example on the Cold War or on French foreign policy, indicate a coverage of Asia that is both insufficient and excessively Eurocentric. More than any other region, Asia fully justifies Robert Frank’s statement of the “difficulties of internationalizing the history of international relations”, although Asia has experienced some of the deadliest wars since 1945, and also the highest rates of growth in the world. Frank’s edited book, Pour l’histoire des relations internationales (2012), has sought to remedy this disparity.

2How can we explain such a deficiency ? It is truly difficult to learn the language and access the archives of these countries, regardless of the nature of their political regimes, but these obstacles may be overcome. Is it possible that as a result of the Indochina wars and the postcommunism disillusions, a generation of intellectuals – and maybe also historians – were deterred from studying Asian political-strategic issues because they were tired of violence, totalitarian regimes, and Boat People ? More profoundly, can the rejection of both events and current events be interpreted as a symptom of the pervasiveness of the “Annales” legacy ? Inspired by this dominant historical school of thought, much of the study of the Asian continent has been focused on its enduring economic, social, and cultural structures. Would it be possible that the entanglement of imperial history and Asian history, initiated by the venerable École française d’Extrême-Orient, curbed the development of an authentic Asian history of international relations ? With impressive research works like those of Deny Lombard on the “Javanese crossroads” (1990), did the more recent vogue on imperial and global histories supplanted the history of IR ?

Océanie.

Milestones

3Nevertheless, the first steps had already been taken. The first one by Pierre Renouvin, the master of the French school of international relations which he helped rebuild with Jean-Baptiste Duroselle in the 1950-1960s. In a small book imbued with colonial history on “The Far-East issue between 1840 and 1940” (La Question d’Extrême-Orient 1840-1940), published in 1946 while Asia was still a terra incognita for contemporary historians, Renouvin foresaw the importance of Asia in IR and he called for the “asianization” of the contemporary history of Asia. Unfortunately, it was over forth years later that François Joyaux wrote his “the New Far-East Issue” (La nouvelle question d’Extrême-Orient). This first history of IR in a region that extended from the Indo-Burmese border to Korea, although limited, provided a history from 1945 onward that was exclusively devoted to the diplomatic relations and political-strategic issues.

4Yet François Joyaux did not set a precedent. Whereas Geopolitics, Political Science, Economy, were deeply engaged in studying Asia, French historians of IR were falling behind compared to the rise of historiography in the USA and Asia, particularly on the crucial period of the Cold War. Several joint initiatives tried to reduce the gap, including the Institute Pierre Renouvin and the Center for contemporary Asia (University Paris I), EHESS and Sciences Po Paris. These initiatives have enlightened certain aspects in the history of Asian intra-regional and international relations, and also managed to build fruitful inter-university cooperation with Asia, but they mostly focused on Indochina. The French Ministry of Defense, seeing the growing importance of Asia, created in 2010 a new inter-disciplinary institute, the Institute for strategic research at the Military Academy (IRSEM), to broaden its politico-strategic studies to other regions : Afghanistan (2010), Southeast Asia (2012), the Korean peninsula (2013). Because IRSEM includes researchers in both history and political science, IRSEM was also able to investigate topics that receive more media attention : China, South China Sea, etc.

5Current events only emphasize the need to study Asia. Every world and regional power has its own “pivot toward Asia”, in a regional environment characterized by a rapid increase in Chinese power and laced with tensions nurtured by a vibrant nationalism that sees history as a tool than an academic discipline. The current importance of political-strategic, economic and cultural stakes in Asia ; the place taken by internationalist French historians in the construction of knowledge, all justify our hope for a new and authentic historiographical dynamic.

New perspectives

6How do we define the limits of Asia ? Rather than the very expandable definition given by the authors of this website, should we include only the countries on the Pacific coast ? This is what Hugues Tertrais suggests in his L’Asie pacifique au xx^e siècle (“Pacific Asia in the xx^th century”, 2015), by offering his own concept of “Pacific Asia”. “Pacific Asia,” as defined by Hugues Tertrais, is different from the older concept of “Asia-Pacific”, which includes North and South-East Asia, Oceania, and the Pacific side of North and South America. Indeed, the “Asia Pacific” countries play a key role in inter-regions relationships and Asian regional development, because they have strong rates of growth and they are located along the major maritime lines, which over time have replaced the Cold War front. These countries are also at the heart of power rivalries and border tensions full of uncertainty. Unfortunately, French historians have failed to take a clear stance on these key topics in which history is continuously exploited by the various protagonists. Their traditional interest in state actors and bilateral relations should be expanded to non-traditional actors, whose role is constantly growing – multinational companies, transnational networks, religious, regional and international organizations… The relations of the Pacific Asian countries with the other parts of the world should also be included, at least to account for the ripple effect of the economic and financial power of China and some of its Asian rivals. Similarly, attention should be given to Latin America (often neglected for Africa), and Oceania. In fact, as evidenced in a recent international symposium organized by Jean-Marc Regnault, Sémir Al Wardi and Jean-François Sabouret, in late November 2016 at the University of French Polynesia, trust territories and microstates of the Pacific have also become a region for strategic investments and rivalries between Asian powers.

7The history of international relations is essentially a transnational and trans-regional history. Its recent focus on multilateral organizations and relations is expected to be expanded to Asia itself. Although very prolific on the European regionalism, historians should not neglect the history of ASEAN, the only exclusively Asian organization, or the cooperation settled by concentric circles around it (ASEAN + 3, +6, etc.), or the relations that ASEAN has established with other regional organizations like the EU, or sub-regionalisms which have developed within or around ASEAN. New initiatives have already emerged. A first international symposium, organized in June 2016 at the University Paris I and published in the latest issues of Relations internationales (167 et 168), has developed new thinking on the history of Euro-Asian relations, especially the history of EU and ASEAN inter-regionalisms (Asia Europe Meeting), which is still at an early stage. A second conference, hosted by the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 on 30-31 th March 2017 for the 50 th anniversary of the creation of the ASEAN, will focus on conflicts, cooperation, peace and regionalization processes since 1947, within the strategic triangle U.S./China/Southeast Asia.

8“Internationalize” and “Asianize” the history of international relations, or why not “Asianoceanize” according to Ambassador Christian Lechervy’s neologism, means widen our scope, ask new questions, engage in a search of new sources, vary the scales of analyzes, study new actors and periodicities, build new cooperation, especially with our Asian colleagues. This huge construction site will need many skilled workers, among which French historians of international relations will have to find their right place between a restrictive imperial history and a necessary but sometimes ever-expanding global history. Today like yesterday, as mentioned in the title of a forthcoming essay in which Pierre Grosser rightly re-estimates the major contribution of Asia to the history of international relations in the twentieth century, history is being made in Asia.