Abstract
In one of his short stories about colonial Burma, George Orwell describes how he reluctantly went out and shot an elephant which had gone ‘must’ and was threatening to ravage the bazaar.1 He did not do this of his own volition but rather because it was clearly expected of him by the threatened bystanders. He was the ranking colonial official and had a gun, so he felt compelled to take on a role with which he was not very comfort-able. The argument advanced in this paper has some parallels to the situation in which Orwell found himself. Over the last decade or so, changing circumstancesi n the Asia-Pacificr egion in general, and in Southeast Asia in particular, have led some countries of that region, especially the members of the Associa-tion of South-East Asian Nations (asean) – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand – to put increasing pressure on Japan to play a greater leadership role in helping the region solve its most urgent economic and security problems. Slowly, this pressure to adopt a high-profile role in Southeast Asian affairs is persuading the Japanese government to change the low-key stance it has maintained since the end of the Second World War. Hence, just as in Orwell’s story the expectations of bystanders pressed the reluctant colonial official into playing a particular leadership role in solving their problem, so today the expectant followers in Southeast Asia are forcing the hand of the reluctant leader, Japan.
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