Remembering and forgetting in East Asia: Strategic dimensions in history

In the following article, Professor Gerrit W. Gong, Freeman Chair and Director of the Asian Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC, explores how four themes of "remembering and forgetting" may shape East Asia's future and its influence on the alignment of the global system in the twenty-first century. Because the future remains to be determined, Gong argues, the past should be respected without holding the future hostage to perceptions or demands that may cause misalignment in East Asia or elsewhere in the global system.