Various scholars have pointed out that, in the process of global modernization, Western values have tended to become dominant.

They argue that Westerners, consciously or unconsciously, tend to promote a universal Western culture, believing that non-Western people should commit themselves to the Western values of democracy, free markets, human rights, and individualism, equality and justice, and should embody these values in their institutions.

Asia's rallying call for "Asian values", in the late decades of the twentieth Century, should be seen as Asia's determined search for its cultural identity, an Asian search for Asia's own vision of modernity.

Our Asian values - the collective strength we derive from being who we are - have served us well, helping us withstand other challenges of every conceivable kind, from natural disasters such as typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis, to epidemics and plagues such as SARS and bird flu. In times of stress, our common values and common cause all of which stem from our cultural roots, reign paramount over personal interest.

Culture is the wall against which we place our backs when we confront such threats. Today, however, it is the wall itself, the very structure that each of our societies has built, that is being challenged, and so it is now our obligation to return the favor, to protect, to reinvigorate and to re-examine the culture that has so long stood us in good stead.

How then, in the face of globalization, can our respective Asian cultures respond to the needs of the modern world and rise to the challenges posted by the global tide of Westernization? We have witnessed the episodic spasms of intellectual awakening and internal reflection in the form of May 4 Movement in China in 1919. But the age of modern Asian enlightenment has yet to come. How would our indigenous traditions stand to brave the wind of change?

Professor Pan Gong-kai, president of China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, describes in his book The Road of Chinese Modern Art four possible alternatives that we can consider as a consequence to this awakening or enlightenment:

1. to embrace Western values as prevailing benchmarks of modernization and to align our tradition with the enlightenment values resulting from a universalization of Western culture; or

2. to emphasize increasingly both the distinctive cultural identities of Asian countries and the traditional commonalities of Asian cultures and sharply distinguish them from Western culture; or

3. to understand and develop a healthy relationship between Western culture and other Asian cultures. In an effort to select from among our indigenous values the most congruous elements to synthesize with the modern Western wave, we will establish a new paradigm embracing both East and West, but at the same time neither East nor West; or

4. to go along with the masses and let the community decide what it wants to hold as the value of the day and of the time.

Asian modernity then can be interpreted as any one, or any combination, or all of the above considerations put together. As Francis Fukuyama has observed, "this modernity in Asia, is not only built around individual rights, but around a deeply ingrained moral code that is the basis of strong social structures and community life."

Indeed, what is happening today in East Asia is the alternative modernity, or Asian modernity in the making, and Hong Kong is just the perfect example of such a modernity.

The author is former secretary for home affairs of the Hong Kong SAR government.

(HK Edition 08/17/2010 page2)