This is the third edition of the Asia-Pacific Annual, a work that has been devised as a useful tool to help Spanish-speaking readers understand the current situation of a continent that possesses increasing importance in global dynamics. Once again, a large part of the book is given over to analyses linked with the transformation of China. However, this new edition also focuses its attention on India’s role as an increasingly consolidated power, and one which could soon follow in China's footsteps, given the subcontinent’s spectacular annual growth rates that it has sustained over time. The Annual stresses that these two countries symbolise a reality that could be expanded to include much of the continent ─ great potential for growth and enormous dynamism, set against colossal obstacles that have to be surmounted, and which are, in some cases, developing parallel to the growth; these include the fight against corruption, the challenge for new governance, the introduction of measures to alleviate growing economic inequality, chaotic urban development, new forms of poverty, overexploitation of resources and the degradation of the environment. Some countries are also experiencing the phenomenon of growing internal dissent of a violent nature, which in a worst-case scenario could degenerate into armed insurgency and take on international ramifications. All of these are factors that are capable of destabilising societies that are already experiencing rapid changes in their value systems and social structures, while they attempt to orientate themselves towards an interpretation of their own modernity.

The publication also includes articles dedicated to recent current affairs subjects such as nuclear proliferation in North Korea, the rise in terrorism, the challenge of Iran, the intensification of the conflict in Afghanistan, the political crisis of the ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia and the enormous environmental challenges facing the tiny island states of the Pacific.

ISSN: 1699-8111
ISBN: 84-87072-52-6

591 pp.

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