This book provides a comparative assessment of the material and ideational contributions of five countries to the regional architecture of post-Cold War Asia. In contrast to the usual emphasis placed on the role and centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Asia’s multilateral architecture and its component institutions, this book argues that the four non-ASEAN countries of interest here 3⁄4 Australia, Japan, China and the United States 3⁄4 and Indonesia have played and continue to play an influential part in determining the shape and substance of Asian multilateralism from its pre-inception to the present. The work does not contend that existing scholarship overstates ASEAN’s significance to the successes and failures of Asia’s multilateral enterprise. Rather, it claims that the impact of non-ASEAN stakeholders in innovating multilateral architecture in Asia has been understated. Whether ASEAN has fared well or poorly as a custodian of Asia’s regional architecture, the fact remains that the countries considered here, notwithstanding their present discontent over the state of that architecture, are key to understanding the evolution of Asian multilateralism. This book will be of much interest to students of Asian politics, international organisations, security studies and IR more generally.

East Asia's rapidly changing role in international security, the global economy, development and global governance are expertly accounted for in this much-needed, state-of-the-art text. Xiaoming Huang offers an engaging and informed account of the key concepts, issues and actors working in this area. Ranging from the region's history, to culture and a comparative assessment of the region's states, this text is informed throughout by a compelling theoretical framework. In so doing, it unpicks the often complex relationships both at the domestic level and externally. Only with this understanding is it possible to make sense of the region's complex relationships both internally and externally. Structured around key concepts in international relations of war and peace, economic development and increased contemporary security threats, this text offers an empirically-rich, engaging account of the changing fortunes of East Asia.

This book provides a comparative assessment of the material and ideational contributions of five countries to the regional architecture of post-Cold War Asia. In contrast to the usual emphasis placed on the role and centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Asia’s multilateral architecture and its component institutions, this book argues that the four non-ASEAN countries of interest here 3⁄4 Australia, Japan, China and the United States 3⁄4 and Indonesia have played and continue to play an influential part in determining the shape and substance of Asian multilateralism from its pre-inception to the present. The work does not contend that existing scholarship overstates ASEAN’s significance to the successes and failures of Asia’s multilateral enterprise. Rather, it claims that the impact of non-ASEAN stakeholders in innovating multilateral architecture in Asia has been understated. Whether ASEAN has fared well or poorly as a custodian of Asia’s regional architecture, the fact remains that the countries considered here, notwithstanding their present discontent over the state of that architecture, are key to understanding the evolution of Asian multilateralism. This book will be of much interest to students of Asian politics, international organisations, security studies and IR more generally.

The Northeast Asian security environment is closely linked to Korea’s growth perspectives for the future. The spectacular rise of the South Korean economy in the past half century, also known as “Miracle on the Han River,” has been duly highlighted as one of the most successful cases of economic development worldwide. However, among the factors curbing South Korea’s growth perspectives has been, from the very beginning of its rise, the coexistence of the difficult neighbour to the North, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. While in the cold war this coexistence has been taken as inevitable, after the end of the cold war there were hopes to overcome this obstacle to further growth either through collapse or enhanced cooperation with the North, neither of which became reality. North Korea’s unprecedented aggressiveness and development of long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear devices, made this threat truly an international question with multilateral talks coming into existence as ad-hoc measures to cope with the nuclear crisis. It was then that the idea of a Northeast Asian Security Community was born. The contributions in this book discuss how a peaceful solution of the security problems could not only enhance stability of Korea’s economy and reduce the defense burden considerably (the so-called peace dividend), but would facilitate regional investments safer and regional solutions for common economic problems. When discussing the possibilities of a security framework or, in an institutionalized form, security community, in Northeast Asia, the authors in this volume are realistic as to not fall into the trap of wishful thinking, which so often has characterized approaches to North Korea resulting in disappointment. The past two years again saw the rising of tensions in Northeast Asia and the masterful way in which even an impoverished and isolated country can play its cards. While it seems a new ice age between the two Koreas is possible, nevertheless and maybe even more than ever the search for a stable security framework for Northeast Asia as a precondition for peaceful economic cooperation and development will go on. The chapters in this volume contribute to the ongoing debate to secure peace and development in Northeast Asia, making this book of interest to both academics and policy-makers alike.

The topic of this book deals with a highly relevant empirical issue: East asian security and the dynamics of the respective governance structure or architecture are not only of regional but of global concern. Since the pivot of the American pivot to East Asia and other external actor ́s responses to it the security architecture has changed in form, size and function. In order to analyze and explain these changes, hypotheses derived from IR middle range theories (i.e. soft and hard balancing) will be applied to cases of bilateral and multilateral security governance in East Asia.

"Since September 11, 2001, our newspapers have been filled with the ""war on terror""; our governments have mobilized their resources for ""homeland security""; and people everywhere are braced for more terrorist attacks. Yet while the new threat is genuine, w"

Many scholars of international relations in Asia regard bilateralism and multilateralism as alternative and mutually exclusive approaches to security co-operation. They argue that multilateral associations such as ASEAN will eventually replace the system of bilateral alliances which were the predominant form of U.S. security co-operation with Asia-Pacific allies during the Cold War. Yet these bilateral alliances continue to be the primary means of the United States’ strategic engagement with the region. This book contends that bilateralism and multilateralism are not mutually exclusive, and that bilateralism is likely to continue strong even as multilateralism strengthens. It explores a wide range of issues connected with this question. It discusses how US bilateral alliances have been reinvigorated in recent years, examines how bilateral and multilateral approaches to specific problems can work alongside each other, and concludes by considering how patterns of international security are likely to develop in the region in future.

This edited volume examines contemporary diplomatic, economic, and security competition between China and Japan in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on their respective foreign policies under President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and regional security dynamics within and between Asian states/institutions.

Defining and conceptualizing Northeast Asia’s security complex poses unique quandaries. The security architecture in Northeast Asia to date has been predominately U.S.-dominated bilateral alliances, weak institutional structures and the current Six Party Talks dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. There has been a distinct lack of desire among regional countries as well as the U.S. to follow in the footsteps of Europe with its robust set of multilateral institutions. However, since the late 1990s, there has been burgeoning interest among regional states towards forming new multilateral institutions as well as reforming and revitalizing existing mechanisms. Much of this effort has been in the economic and political arenas, with the creation of bodies such as the East Asian Summit, but there have also been important initiatives in the security sphere. This book offers detailed examinations about how this potentially tense region of the world is redefining certain longstanding national interests, and shows how this shift is the result of changing power relations, the desire to protect hard-won economic gains, as well as growing trust in new processes designed to foster regional cooperation over regional conflict. Presenting new and timely research on topics that are vital to the security future of one of the world’s most important geographical regions, this book will be of great value to students and scholars of Asian politics, regionalism, international politics and security studies.

This volume argues that international security in the Asia-Pacific lends itself to contradictory analyses of centrifugal and centripetal trends. Transitional polycentrism is intrinsically awkward as a description of the security of states and their populations; it implies the loosening of state control and the emergence of newly asserted authority by mixed constellations of intergovernmental organizations and non-state actors. It implies a competition of agendas: threats to the integrity of borders and human security threats such as natural disasters, airliner crashes, and displacement by man-made pollution and food scarcity. Conversely, polycentrism could also imply a return to a more neo-realist oriented international order where great powers ignore ASEAN and steer regional order according to their perceived interests and relative military superiority. This book embraces these contradictory trends as a foundation of analysis and accepts that disorder can also be re-described from the perspective of studied detachment as polycentric order.