> > In other words, East Asia should become yet another capitalist
neo-empire,
>
> It already is a capitalist neo-empire.
I beg to differ. The only thing approaching an integrated regional political-economic structure is ASEAN, which does not include the four largest Asian economies and has a combined GDP roughly equal to that of S.Korea. (One could argue that ASEAN was only made possible by the fact that none of the parties could be as dominant as Japan, China or India would be; if one of these was included, it would be like the US joining the EU.) A significant amount of ASEAN capital (esp. Singaporean, Thai and Malaysian), is being invested elsewhere, including Australia and Africa; on balance, however, it is more accurate to describe ASEAN as a site for investment by global capital, and therefore more "imperialised" than imperial.
> India,
> which may well become East Asia's newest industrial periphery
As I'm sure Ulhas (et al.) will point out, India is nobody's "periphery" (a word which tends to make me reach for the sick bag); it is already a major international economic power, based on its huge domestic market and burgeoning high tech and other manufacturing sectors.
> > These will be
> > real obstacles to enhanced accumulation in the near future, and will
only
> > be resolved by further expansion of the EU (something which appears to
> > have finite cultural barriers) and/or war (whether between classes or
> > empires).
>
> So far, expansion seems to be the order of the day. The EU is not only
> expanding by leaps and bounds, it's also setting up vast trade, economic
> and cultural networks, e.g. the Euro-Med program, association agreements
> with the Ukraine and Russia, etc. If this trend continues, it's not
> impossible to imagine Tunisia, Turkey and Russia joining the EU in fifteen
> years.
Even Turkey is a long way from being admitted; I recall that Morocco applied for EC membership about 15 years ago and was quickly dismissed as "not European". Chris has already said that the probability of a new community of ex-Soviet states is not strong, because of fears of Russian dominance, and my guess is that Russia's chances of being admitted to the EU are also not good, because Russia's population, GDP and domestic politics would, overnight, totally change the character of the EU. Even membership for Ukraine alone would increase the EU's population by 13% and would necessitate a dramatic re-working of policies which are fundamental to the EU (i.e./e.g. witness the angst that the structure of Poland's agriculture caused prior to its accession).
Grant.