This edition adds chapters on Burma and Vietnam, and updated material throughout reflects the current economic crisis in the region.

The Asia-Pacific region presents a challenge to international security in the post-Cold War era. Doubts as to the US' military commitment, concern with Japan's security aspirations, build-up of military capabilities and the nuclear ambitions of North Korea have further heightened tension.

The authors analysis of Chinas relations with the countries of East Asia in the post-Cold-War era is seen from the perspectives of neorealism in general and by the utilization of the concepts of balance of power and the notion of strategic culture in particular. It is boldly argued that Chinas behaviour towards other nations in East Asia is a source of great anxiety and tension. China with its military build-up, its provocations, foreign and defence policies and others serve as a major security threat. In the final analysis, the author calls for the United States to play a more assertive role in the region to counter-balance Chinas potential expansionist goals. (http://www.ums.edu.my/ppib/buku_lai.html).

Concentrates on the economic and political aspects of China's security agenda, which have, to a certain extent, been given less prominence in most security studies on China.

For much of the post-war era, the substance and scope of international security was defined by the parameters of the Cold War. But the end of the Cold War has created a new global context. This book seeks to map out the nature of post-Cold War security by exploring the patterns of international conflict, weighing non-state challenges to security, examining inter-state cooperation in the security field and evaluating the security dynamics of the Asia-Pacific region.

This paper was delivered by Professor Michael Yahuda, Elliott School for International Affairs, George Washington University, at the Fourth Asia and Pacific Lecture organized by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore on 24 August 2005. Contents Introduction The Impact of the End of the Cold War in East Asia The Question of Regional Stability The Impact of the Great Powers on Security in Southeast Asia Conclusion.

For more than two decades, the USSR promoted the idea of multilateral security cooperation in Asia. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, this was referred to as "a Helsinki process for Asia" or a "Conference on Security and Cooperation in Asia" (CSCA) to parallel Europe's CSCE. Until the end of the 1980s, such an idea was frozen along the lines of the Cold War. East Asian governments dismissed the idea of a CSCA as Cold War propaganda or, at best, an untransferable European concept ill-suited to East Asia.

In the prevailing climate of uncertainty and apprehension about Southeast Asia's security outlook in the post-Cold War era, this study looks at the question of whether there is an impending arms race in the region. It examines the factors behind the recent trends towards increased defence spending and force modernisation in countries in the region and what efforts should and can be undertaken to ensure that this build-up does not become a threat to regional security and stability.