Asian Economic Trends and Their Security Implications

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Following the analysis of these longer-term economic and military trends, the report considers the security implications of these trends with respect to alternative security environments in the region, changes in the intraregional balance of military and economic power, and such other issues as prospects for multilateral security cooperation, support for forward-based U.S. forces in the region, and alliance burden sharing. While acknowledging the major uncertainties inherent in these as well as other forecasts, the authors use the gross domestic products (GDPs) and accumulated stocks of military capital as rough proxies for the respective economic and political power of each of the five countries, thereby drawing several inferences from the estimates including the following: Japan's relative economic and military power will diminish appreciably in the region over the 2000-2015 period. China's economic and military power will diminish somewhat relative to those of India.