"Japan 2015: Confronting East Asia's Geopolitical Game of Go," in Asia Maior 2015, Vol. XXVI, M. Torri and N. Mocci eds., The Chinese-American Race for Hegemony in Asia, Roma: Viella, 2016: 93-132 (original) (raw)
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This chapter focuses East Asia’s evolving mix of regional institutions as an important response to recurrent uncertainties about US commitments. Specifically, it considers “regional community” as an analytical lens, normative ideal, and policy objective that has informed the emergence and development of regional institutions in East Asia. While theoretically and practically contested, such community regional conceptualizations have also intervened to broaden East Asian conceptualizations of regional order beyond the US-centric conceptualizations of the past. In this sense, the real significance of community conceptualizations – even if contested – lies in their projection of regional order that is more China-inclusive, that gives a greater standing to smaller and middle powers, and that equates “security” with more than “stability” compared to the US system of alliances and relations that defined East Asia’s Cold War system. The result is a system of mixed community and deterrence security logics. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the US “rebalance to Asia” under the Obama presidency as indicative of East Asia’s different logics – logics that compete but also now condition the other.
Pacific Review, 2019
This paper analyses the evolution of Sino-Japanese rivalry in the security sphere concentrating on the Chinese perspective, and placing it within the wider context of complex interstate rivalry between China, Japan and the United States. From a theoretical viewpoint, this research contributes to the literature on interstate rivalry from multiparty perspective, which has been overlooked in existing research. China-Japan-US complex interstate rivalry includes elements of positional, spatial and ideological rivalry simultaneously. When rivalries mix two or more rivalry types, they become more difficult to resolve. The two broad trends of China's military build-up and deepening US-Japan alliance evolve in tandem intensifying rivalry dynamics and increasing positional elements of rivalry. There are many indications on various levels that for China, controlling Japan's international ambitions has become less important and more attention is paid to ways in which Japan helps the United States in reaching its objectives in Asia through their alliance agreement. The cases analysed to display complex interstate rivalry include the Taiwan question, territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, and the North Korean nuclear issue.
Visions of Order: Japan and China in U.S. Strategy (Strategic Forum, Number 220, June 2006)
2006
The United States seeks to engage Japan and China in building a peaceful international order at the regional and global levels. The Bush administration has articulated two conceptual approaches to this challenge, one centered on Japan and the other on China. The first approach, associated with former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, emphasizes Japan's potential role as a global partner. Armitage begins with the U.S.-Japan partnership and works outward to the regional and global levels, emphasizing shared values and democracy as the foundation of the alliance. This vision highlights Japan's potential regional and global contributions, while viewing China as a possible challenge to regional order. The second approach, associated with Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, emphasizes China's potential as a responsible stakeholder in the international system. Zoellick starts with China's global significance and works inward to consider that nation's impact on regional security and its future domestic political evolution. This vision highlights shared U.S. and Chinese interests and managing disputes within a larger cooperative framework. The chief concern is about China acting as a free-rider that gradually undermines the existing international and regional order. The 2006 U.S. National Security Strategy combines elements of both approaches to international and regional order in articulating a "hedge strategy" toward China. This essay highlights some conceptual and policy questions that arise from efforts to integrate the Armitage and Zoellick approaches to Asia.
The Asia Pivot as a Strategy of Foreign Policy: A Source of Peace or a Harbinger of Conflict?
2017
The Obama Administration’s Asia Pivot strategy has sought to strengthen the United States’ (US) bilateral security alliances in Asia, intensify working relationships with regional states and the US, and boost regional trade and investment. This paper investigates whether the Obama administration’s Asia Pivot has fulfilled its strategy of enhancing peace and cooperation in the Pacific, or whether it has in fact magnified the potential for regional conflict. In doing so, it seeks an answer to the following, interrelated questions: What have been the costs and benefits of the Asia Pivot strategy for the United States and regional actors? Is the Asia Pivot strategy an example of foreign policy success, or failure? For the purpose of this paper, foreign policy is understood as a multi-dimensional concept that takes into account degree of goal attainment, the costs to the user; the costs to the target; and an identification of who has most at stake in the issue. In doing so it will argue ...