HYDERABAD, Nov 5: Former Ambassador Shamshad Ahmad Khan has said that Asian regions have always had a prominent place in the global matrix of geo political, economic and strategic interests and world powers have looked at this part of the world with anxiety and concern in the context of our regions turbulent political history, economic potential and the vast array of security issues.

He was delivering his key note address titled ‘The Emerging Asian Century: Challenges and Opportunities’ at the inaugural session of a one-day international seminar on ‘The Emerging Asian Centuries: Plans, Problems and Priorities for Pakistan’ organised by Area Study Centre Far East and South East Asia, University of Sindh, on Wednesday.

Sindh University Vice-Chancellor Mr Mazharul Haq Siddiqui presided over the seminar attended by scholars from Pakistan, China, UK and Consul-General of Korea Dr Koung KIM and Acting Counsel-General of Indonesia Mr Trigustono Suporiyanto and a large number of students and faculty members.

Mr Khan said the post 9/11 world had seen an unprecedented change in the nature and gravity of its problems and growing complexity of inter-connected global challenges, including recurrent threats to international peace and security.

He said Asias major regions remained global hot spots and added that ramifications of tensions and instability in some parts of Asia for global peace and security were immense.

He said that long standing Asian issues included the Middle East crisis, the Palestine question, the Kashmir issue, the Korean Peninsula situation, the strait of Taiwan and the triangular relations among Japan, US and China or in an expanded regional context, pentagonal relations among those three powers plus Russia and India.

He said that with globalisation of all sorts of traditional threats, there was a great deal of convergence of interest among the major powers as was evident from the US, Japan, China and Russia joining together and meeting regularly in G-8 and APEC summits.

He said China represented Asia’s only ray of hope and added that emerging as a pillar of strength for the world community, China was shouldering heavy responsibilities.

He said China was a major stabilizing force in global economic and fiscal system and had become an important part of the international cooperation in combating terrorism.

He said regional cooperation in our part of the world was not a recent phenomenon as that journey was started in 1964 when Pakistan, Iran and Turkey motivated by a regional impulse had established RCD.

Mr Khan said our recognition in the comity of nations was only as a breeding ground for religious extremism and militancy and as a country afflicted with a culture of violence and corruption. “We are today politically unstable, economically week and socially fragmented,” he said.

“Let us not blame America or India for all our problems,” he said and added that “we ourselves are responsible for being where we are today”.