The biggest turmoil the region has seen in the past seventy years was by far the disastrous Chinese Civil War. The Middle Realm has been shattered, with a large chunk in the northern and easternmost regions remaining.
The People's Republic of China
The People's Repubic itself is still intact, and has recovered remarkably well from the biggest – political – crisis of the continents history since Imperial Japans terrible onslaught in the past century. China itself belongs to the worlds strongest nations, in the fields of economic and military strength at least. It's people live prosperous lives, the one-party system still being intact, but reformed into a less corrupt and burocratically topheavy behemoth than before the Civil War. The country might still be a long shot away from the social and political freedom the western world enjoyed immediately after the Cold War, yet things are comparably good in China.
Though there still are problems, interior and foreign. The Civil War has left deep wounds in the Chinese national mentality which haven't all healed up yet. There are several interests in action inside the PLA to forcefully annex the stray regions. Also there still are remnants of the “Shattering Spirit” present, especially among younger people who now feel to have “missed” the great uprising, vowing to take the main idea behind the Civil War to it's final destination, to dismantle the Middle Realm once and for all into a collection of smaller, independent states, following whatever meme the individual group might seek after.
These “stubborn seperationists” are much more numerous than the Politburo would ever admit, yet they are not (yet?) unified, usually warring amongst themselves as much as with the powers that be, in this case the Chinese Secret Services of the Interior. China is home to a lot of differing ideologies these days, and most of them won't get their followers into trouble any longer. Though most ideologies just refer to politics or religion, the bigger memes of the modern world were not yet able to take up roots in this nation that is still thunderstruck and inward looking after the disaster of the War.
The South East Asian Defense Alliance
Due to the high instability of the region, the wake of the Chinese Civil War did not only see the emergence of a number of smaller states, but also the founding of the South East Asian Defence Alliance, an economical and military pact that spans from Japan all the way down to Thailand.
The member states of the SEADA got together to keep the newly formed political landscape from falling into total chaos after the civil war.
The SEADA States are – next to Bigger China – the most stable and prosperous countries of the region. Japan, unified Korea, Thailand and Singapore were the founding members in 2041, the Alliance has been expanding ever since. The member states are mostly on friendly terms with the League of Infosocialist Nations, holds a somewhat tense but peaceful relationship with Bigger China, while being constantly in diplomatic disarray with the USA. The European Union is a trusted economical partner of the Alliance, while the newly emerged Nationalistic Bloc is seen as a threat to the entire region. Also the relationship with Australia and the Federated States of Micronesia are somewhat strained since the Luzon war.
The current SEADA members beside the four founders are all the members of the New Democratic Federation, which in turn consists of the Ningde city state, Guangdong, and the two city states of Yongzhou and Jian. Other member states include Hong Kong, Malaysia and Cambodia.
The intended goals of the Alliance are economic and national stability of its individual member states, while the further balkanization of the former southern Chinese provinces and subsequent destabilization of the region are seen as the biggest obstacles the Alliance as to work against, as well as against every entity – political, corporate or otherwise – which could or would benefit from that process. The Alliance has since its inception in 41 put up one of the worlds biggest and most advanced military forces, which acts and is intended as guardian of peace, order and stability in the region. This of course is a course of action which is seen sometimes with worry and sometimes with outright aggression and hostility by other states. As stated before, the US see the SEADA military as a somewhat unfairly positioned competition to its very own private armies. Especially Starkwater is constantly lobbying in the region against a too strong dependency on SEADA forces.
Hong Kong
When Hong Kong declared itself independent from what was left of China in 2043, the city state and the defiant PLA troops present pleaded the SEADA for military help – the small state was not able to defend itself without any kind of existing own armed forces. In one of the SEADAs first bigger crisis, it took the case of Hong Kong to show the rest of the world, and especially China, that it was not just a loose collection of failed states, deviants and the three giants – Korea, Japan and Singapore. As the Chinese government itself had a lot of similarly urgent matters on its hands at the time, there was no big incentive coming from Beijing to keep Hong Kong as a part of the People's Republic. Still, the Hong Kong Crisis involved a bit of saber rattling, yet it was resolved entirely on the diplomatic battlefield.
Ever since, Hong Kong is and has been standing member of the SEADA, providing training and material support for the alliances DigiWeb enforcement agencys. In return, the SEADA keeps the city state under its military protection.
Former Southern Chinese Provinces
The Splinter States are a noisy lot. The southern Pacific Rim is a hotbed of low scale cross border skirmishes between some of the newfound nations, still leading to the typical symptoms of ongoing warfare amongst the populace, though these regional conflicts utterly pale in comparison to the horrors of the Subsaharan Wars.
The Fujan crisis
Fujan, the splinter state supposedly responsible for the nuclear attack and subsequent obliteration of Silicon Valley, is probably the most problematic remnant of Bigger China. Shortly after the Silicon Valley Blast the US responded with a swift “police action” against the prospering – nano-socialist – splinter state, which has since grown into a long term occupation of the former Chinese province. An occupation carried out mainly by the US corporate military of the Starkwater coporation, which ever since has been expanding its activities in the East Asian theater – being a huge thorn in the side of the SEADA states.
Even today, the Fujan Occupation fuels the – terrorist and otherwise – underworld of the pacific rim. Even after seven years there still are people left in the Fujan underground who receive enough outside support to hire their own PMCs, or just simply buy huge amounts of weapons (including dolls, shells and info-weaponry) and conduct surgical strikes against the foreign oppressor. Having been a pending member of the League of Infosocialist States, the SEADA formerly never had any official ties with Fujan, thus the Alliance never had any incentive of supporting the splinter state, at least not officially.
Refugees
One of the regions biggest problems, even two generations after the Chinese Civil War are the waves of refugees which the war caused practically everywhere. Especially Japan had huge problems with ever growing numbers in the 40. After the dust had somewhat settled over the region, the refugees made for the big metropolitan areas, especially in the south. Nowadays Guangzhou, Shenzen, Hong Kong and Fouzhou have the biggest concentrations of displaced people, often times living in the second or even third generation without any kind of national identity.
Of course, these are not the only refugees washed up on the shores of Pacific Rim Metropoli. The Subsaharan Wars have wandered to western Africa in the recent years, so there is no longer a current of fresh refugees in the pacific as it was in the past decades, but the slums are still filled with big numbers of east africans. The refugee cities around the Pacific Rim are amongst the most dangerous yet socially most interesting places in the region, as they oftentimes see a total redifinition of national ideas, being not only hotbeds for small scale street level violence (and breeding ground for terrorists and organized crime alike) but also for new radical ideas and memes of mobility and national identity.
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