New Perspectives on U.S.-Japan Relations
New Perspectives on U.S.-Japan Relations

Author: Curtis, Gerald L.

Publisher:

Published: 2000-12

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How relevant today is an alliance that was forged between a powerful United States and a weak Japan in the context of a cold war struggle with the Soviet Union? In what ways have the changes in the relative power positions of the two countries and the structural changes in the world economy created new challenges to the U.S.-Japan relationship and how are the two countries responding to those challenges? These are some of the important questions addressed by the eight Japanese and American authors of this volume. Their focus ranges from issues of military relations, trade and financial management, and shifting security perspectives to the roles of the mass media in the bilateral relationship. A truly binational effort, the book brings together the thinking of some of the best-trained younger political scientists to focus on the present and future of one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world.

Japan’s Reluctant Realism
Japan’s Reluctant Realism

Author: M. Green

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2001-05-17

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 031229980X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Japan's Reluctant Realism , Michael J. Green examines the adjustments of Japanese foreign policy in the decade since the end of the Cold War. Green presents case studies of China, the Korean peninsula, Russia and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the international financial institutions, and multilateral forums (the United Nations, APEC, and the ARF). In each of these studies, Green considers Japanese objectives; the effectiveness of Japanese diplomacy in achieving those objectives; the domestic and exogenous pressures on policy-making; the degree of convergence or divergence with the United States in both strategy and implementation; and lessons for more effective US - Japan diplomatic cooperation in the future. As Green notes, its bilateral relationship with the United States is at the heart of Japan's foreign policy initiatives, and Japan therefore conducts foreign policy with one eye carefully on Washington. However, Green argues, it is time to recognize Japan as an independent actor in Northeast Asia, and to assess Japanese foreign policy in its own terms.

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons
Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons

Author: Dr. Jeffrey Record

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2015-11-06

Total Pages: 105

ISBN-13: 1786252961

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.

Dilemmas of a Trading Nation
Dilemmas of a Trading Nation

Author: Mireya Solis

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2017-08-01

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0815729200

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The balancing of competing interests and goals will have momentous consequences for Japan—and the United States—in their quest for economic growth, social harmony, and international clout. Japan and the United States face difficult choices in charting their paths ahead as trading nations. Tokyo has long aimed for greater decisiveness, which would allow it to move away from a fragmented policymaking system favoring the status quo in order to enable meaningful internal reforms and acquire a larger voice in trade negotiations. And Washington confronts an uphill battle in rebuilding a fraying domestic consensus in favor of internationalism essential to sustain its leadership role as a champion of free trade. In Dilemmas of a Trading Nation, Mireya Solís describes how accomplishing these tasks will require the skillful navigation of vexing tradeoffs that emerge from pursuing desirable, but to some extent contradictory goals: economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability. Trade policy has catapulted front and center to the national conversations taking place in each country about their desired future direction—economic renewal, a relaunched social compact, and projected international influence. Dilemmas of a Trading Nation underscores the global consequences of these defining trade dilemmas for Japan and the United States: decisiveness, reform, internationalism. At stake is the ability of these leading economies to upgrade international economic rules and create incentives for emerging economies to converge toward these higher standards. At play is the reaffirmation of a rules-based international order that has been a source of postwar stability, the deepening of a bilateral alliance at the core of America's diplomacy in Asia, and the ability to reassure friends and rivals of the staying power of the United States. In the execution of trade policy today, we are witnessing an international leadership test dominated by domestic governance dilemmas.

Regionalism and Rivalry
Regionalism and Rivalry

Author: Jeffrey A. Frankel

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-12-01

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 0226260240

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As Japan's newfound economic power leads to increased political power, there is concern that Japan may be turning East Asia into a regional economic bloc to rival the U.S. and Europe. In Regionalism and Rivalry, leading economists and political scientists address this concern by looking at three central questions: Is Japan forming a trading bloc in Pacific Asia? Does Japan use foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia to achieve national goals? Does Japan possess the leadership qualities necessary for a nation assuming greater political responsibility in international affairs? The authors contend that although intraregional trade in East Asia is growing rapidly, a trade bloc is not necessarily forming. They show that the trade increase can be explained entirely by factors independent of discriminatory trading arrangements, such as the rapid growth of East Asian economies. Other chapters look in detail at cases of Japanese direct investment in Southeast Asia and find little evidence of attempts by Japan to use the power of its multinational corporations for political purposes. A third group of papers attempt to gauge Japan's leadership characteristics. They focus on Japan's "technology ideology," its contributions to international public goods, international monetary cooperation, and economic liberalization in East Asia.

Asia's Reckoning
Asia's Reckoning

Author: Richard McGregor

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0399562672

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

China, red or green -- Countering Japan -- Five ragged islands -- The golden years -- Japan says no -- Asian values -- Apologies and their discontents -- Yasukuni respects -- History's cauldron -- The Ampo mafia -- The rise and retreat of great powers -- China lays down the law -- Nationalization -- Creation myths -- Freezing point -- Afterword

By More Than Providence
By More Than Providence

Author: Michael J. Green

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 760

ISBN-13: 0231542720

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Soon after the American Revolution, ?certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation's political philosophy and material realities. Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history's major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America's stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.

Japan's Foreign Relations in Asia
Japan's Foreign Relations in Asia

Author: James D.J. Brown

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-01-02

Total Pages: 600

ISBN-13: 1351678574

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Japan's Foreign Relations in Asia has been specifically designed to introduce students to Japan’s foreign relations in Asia since 1990, a period in which there have been dramatic developments in Japan, including the reinterpretation of the Constitution and expanded US–Japan defence cooperation. The geopolitical dynamics and implications of these new developments are profound and underscore the need for a new textbook on this subject. Covering not only the key regional players of China and the Koreas, this textbook also encompasses chapters on Japan’s relations with India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand, along with its multilateral engagement and initiatives. Combined with transnational chapters on critical issues, key themes covered by this book include: An historical overview of key post-war developments. Japan’s evolving security policy. Analysis of the region’s escalating maritime disputes. An evaluation of Japanese soft power in Asia. Written by leading experts in accessible, jargon-free style, this new textbook will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Japanese politics, international relations and foreign policy and Asian affairs in general.

Japan, South Korea, and the United States Nuclear Umbrella
Japan, South Korea, and the United States Nuclear Umbrella

Author: Terence Roehrig

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-09-19

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0231527837

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For close to sixty years, the United States has maintained alliances with Japan and South Korea that have included a nuclear umbrella, guaranteeing their security as part of a strategy of extended deterrence. Yet questions about the credibility of deterrence commitments have always been an issue, especially when nuclear weapons are concerned. Would the United States truly be willing to use these weapons to defend an ally? In this book, Terence Roehrig provides a detailed and comprehensive look at the nuclear umbrella in northeast Asia in the broader context of deterrence theory and U.S. strategy. He examines the role of the nuclear umbrella in Japanese and South Korean defense planning and security calculations, including the likelihood that either will develop its own nuclear weapons. Roehrig argues that the nuclear umbrella is most important as a political signal demonstrating commitment to the defense of allies and as a tool to prevent further nuclear proliferation in the region. While the role of the nuclear umbrella is often discussed in military terms, this book provides an important glimpse into the political dimensions of the nuclear security guarantee. As the security environment in East Asia changes with the growth of North Korea's capabilities and China's military modernization, as well as Donald Trump's early pronouncements that cast doubt on traditional commitments to allies, the credibility and resolve of U.S. alliances will take on renewed importance for the region and the world.

The Japan–South Korea Identity Clash
The Japan–South Korea Identity Clash

Author: Brad Glosserman

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2015-05-26

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 0231539282

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Japan and South Korea are Western-style democracies with open-market economies committed to the rule of law. They are also U.S. allies. Yet despite their shared interests, shared values, and geographic proximity, divergent national identities have driven a wedge between them. Drawing on decades of expertise, Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder investigate the roots of this split and its ongoing threat to the region and the world. Glosserman and Snyder isolate competing notions of national identity as the main obstacle to a productive partnership between Japan and South Korea. Through public opinion data, interviews, and years of observation, they show how fundamentally incompatible, rapidly changing conceptions of national identity in Japan and South Korea—and not struggles over power or structural issues—have complicated territorial claims and international policy. Despite changes in the governments of both countries and concerted efforts by leading political figures to encourage U.S.–ROK–Japan security cooperation, the Japan–South Korea relationship continues to be hobbled by history and its deep imprint on ideas of national identity. This book recommends bold, policy-oriented prescriptions for overcoming problems in Japan–South Korea relations and facilitating trilateral cooperation among these three Northeast Asian allies, recognizing the power of the public on issues of foreign policy, international relations, and the prospects for peace in Asia.