Japan in a Dynamic Asia

Japan in a Dynamic Asia
Author: Yoichiro Sato
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2006-05-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0739156691

Japan in a Dynamic Asia examines a new phenomenon in Japanese foreign policy: Japan's increasing activism under the Koizumi administration. Behind this policy shift are the end of the Cold War, drastic growth of China, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and new transnational security threats. This book updates our understanding of Japan's rapidly changing foreign policies in the contexts of the new regional power balance and security concerns. Unlike most books on Japanese foreign policy, which focus mainly on U.S.-Japan relations, this book analyzes Japan's relations with individual Asian countries and sub-regions. The role of the United States - when relevant - is discussed in the contexts of these bilateral and multilateral relations. Editors Yoichiro Sato and Satu Limaye have gathered an impressive array of essays that will interest students of Japanese politics, foreign policy, and international relations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Beyond Japan

Beyond Japan
Author: Peter J. Katzenstein
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2018-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501731114

Have Japan's relative economic decline and China's rapid ascent altered the dynamics of Asian regionalism? Peter Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi, the editors of Network Power, one of the most comprehensive volumes on East Asian regionalism in the 1990s, present here an impressive new collection that brings the reader up to date. This book argues that East Asia's regional dynamics are no longer the result of a simple extension of any one national model. While Japanese institutional structures and political practices remain critically important, the new East Asia now under construction is more than, and different from, the sum of its various national parts. At the outset of a new century, the interplay of Japanese factors with Chinese, American, and other national influences is producing a distinctively new East Asian region.

Dynamic Asia

Dynamic Asia
Author: Ian G. Cook
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2018-10-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429866135

Published in 1998, this book examines the challenges and opportunities for international business and trade in the Asia-Pacific region, highlighting the dynamic and complexities of the region.

How Asia Works

How Asia Works
Author: Joe Studwell
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2013-07-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0802193471

“A good read for anyone who wants to understand what actually determines whether a developing economy will succeed.” —Bill Gates, “Top 5 Books of the Year” An Economist Best Book of the Year from a reporter who has spent two decades in the region, and who the Financial Times said “should be named chief myth-buster for Asian business.” In How Asia Works, Joe Studwell distills his extensive research into the economies of nine countries—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China—into an accessible, readable narrative that debunks Western misconceptions, shows what really happened in Asia and why, and for once makes clear why some countries have boomed while others have languished. Studwell’s in-depth analysis focuses on three main areas: land policy, manufacturing, and finance. Land reform has been essential to the success of Asian economies, giving a kick-start to development by utilizing a large workforce and providing capital for growth. With manufacturing, industrial development alone is not sufficient, Studwell argues. Instead, countries need “export discipline,” a government that forces companies to compete on the global scale. And in finance, effective regulation is essential for fostering, and sustaining growth. To explore all of these subjects, Studwell journeys far and wide, drawing on fascinating examples from a Philippine sugar baron’s stifling of reform to the explosive growth at a Korean steel mill. “Provocative . . . How Asia Works is a striking and enlightening book . . . A lively mix of scholarship, reporting and polemic.” —The Economist

Network Power

Network Power
Author: Peter J. Katzenstein
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 418
Release: 1997
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801483738

This collection of scholarly papers examines the influence of Japanese dominance on the politics, economies, and cultures of Southeast Asia. A major question probed is whether Japan has now attained, through economic power, the predominance it once sought through military means. Japan's hegemonic system is not the first to work over the area--before it were those from China, from Britain, from the United States. This collection's comparative perspective acknowledges the distinctiveness of Asian regionalism and Japan's changing role with it. As the subtitle of this book indicates, it is concerned with Japan and Asia and not with Japan in Asia, thus suggesting a complex and at the same time problematical regional identity for Japan.

Burning and Building

Burning and Building
Author: Brian Platt
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1684174015

"Soon after overthrowing the Tokugawa government in 1868, the new Meiji leaders devised ambitious plans to build a modern nation-state. Among the earliest and most radical of the Meiji reforms was a plan for a centralized, compulsory educational system modeled after those in Europe and America. Meiji leaders hoped that schools would curb mounting social disorder and mobilize the Japanese people against the threat of Western imperialism. The sweeping tone of this revolutionary plan obscured the fact that the Japanese were already quite literate and had clear ideas about what a school should be. In the century preceding the Meiji restoration, commoners throughout Japan had established 50,000 schools with almost no guidance or support from the government. Consequently, the Ministry of Education’s new code of 1872 met with resistance, as local officials, teachers, and citizens sought compromises and pursued alternative educational visions. Their efforts ultimately led to the growth and consolidation of a new educational system, one with the imprint of local demands and expectations. This book traces the unfolding of this process in Nagano prefecture and explores how local people negotiated the formation of the new order in their own communities. "

The End of the Asian Century

The End of the Asian Century
Author: Michael R. Auslin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2017-01-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 030022446X

An urgently needed risk map of the many dangers that could derail Asia s growth and stability Since Marco Polo, the West has waited for the Asian Century. Today, the world believes that Century has arrived. Yet from China s slumping economy to war clouds over the South China Sea and from environmental devastation to demographic crisis, Asia s future is increasingly uncertain. Historian and geopolitical expert Michael Auslin argues that far from being a cohesive powerhouse, Asia is a fractured region threatened by stagnation and instability. Here, he provides a comprehensive account of the economic, military, political, and demographic risks that bedevil half of our world, arguing that Asia, working with the United States, has a unique opportunity to avert catastrophe but only if it acts boldly. Bringing together firsthand observations and decades of research, Auslin s provocative reassessment of Asia s future will be a must-read for industry and investors, as well as politicians and scholars, for years to come.

Imperial Gateway

Imperial Gateway
Author: Seiji Shirane
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2022-12-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1501765582

In Imperial Gateway, Seiji Shirane explores the political, social, and economic significance of colonial Taiwan in the southern expansion of Japan's empire from 1895 to the end of World War II. Challenging understandings of empire that focus on bilateral relations between metropole and colonial periphery, Shirane uncovers a half century of dynamic relations between Japan, Taiwan, China, and Western regional powers. Japanese officials in Taiwan did not simply take orders from Tokyo; rather, they often pursued their own expansionist ambitions in South China and Southeast Asia. When outright conquest was not possible, they promoted alternative strategies, including naturalizing resident Chinese as overseas Taiwanese subjects, extending colonial police networks, and deploying tens of thousands of Taiwanese to war. The Taiwanese—merchants, gangsters, policemen, interpreters, nurses, and soldiers—seized new opportunities for socioeconomic advancement that did not always align with Japan's imperial interests. Drawing on multilingual archives in six countries, Imperial Gateway shows how Japanese officials and Taiwanese subjects transformed Taiwan into a regional gateway for expansion in an ever-shifting international order. Thanks to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Program and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Japan’s Security Renaissance

Japan’s Security Renaissance
Author: Andrew L. Oros
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2017-03-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231542593

For decades after World War II, Japan chose to focus on soft power and economic diplomacy alongside a close alliance with the United States, eschewing a potential leadership role in regional and global security. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the rise of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan's military capabilities have resurged. In this analysis of Japan's changing military policy, Andrew L. Oros shows how a gradual awakening to new security challenges has culminated in the multifaceted "security renaissance" of the past decade. Despite openness to new approaches, however, three historical legacies—contested memories of the Pacific War and Imperial Japan, postwar anti-militarist convictions, and an unequal relationship with the United States—play an outsized role. In Japan's Security Renaissance Oros argues that Japan's future security policies will continue to be shaped by these legacies, which Japanese leaders have struggled to address. He argues that claims of rising nationalism in Japan are overstated, but there has been a discernable shift favoring the conservative Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party. Bringing together Japanese domestic politics with the broader geopolitical landscape of East Asia and the world, Japan's Security Renaissance provides guidance on this century's emerging international dynamics.

Southeast Asia in the New World Order

Southeast Asia in the New World Order
Author: Bruce Burton
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1349246735

This multi-authored book looks at one of the most dynamic regions of the Third World within the context of the rapidly changing international system of the 1990s. Among the many themes it explores are ASEAN's new political roles and new modes of economic cooperation, the growing importance of ecological and human rights issues, the policies of the major external powers towards the region, the Cambodian and Spratly conflicts, and the relevance of Southeast Asian experience in the 'New World Order' to the ongoing theoretical debates about democracy, the market, the state and multilateralism.