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In the post-war period Australian Prime Ministers have played a proactive role in formulating foreign policy towards Japan. This paper explores the role of executive leadership towards Japan and its impact on the bilateral relationship. The Howard period and current Rudd-led initiatives on whaling, nuclear disarmament, climate change and regional architecture are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the evolution of Japan-Southeast Asia security relations over the Cold War and the post-Cold War periods. It makes two main points. First, Japan's relationship with Southeast Asia is slowly overcoming its traditional aversion of security affairs in defining its relations with Southeast Asia in the post-Cold War period. Japan has moved beyond economics to gradually carve out a more proactive role in the security affairs of Southeast Asia in the areas of multilateral security dialogues, peacekeeping missions, disaster relief provision, combating piracy, and others. Second, Southeast Asian states have become more amenable to Japan assuming a security role in the region. Not only have the new security roles contributed to enhanced trust and confidence between Japan and Southeast Asia, but Japan has also achieved the status of being a core security actor in Southeast Asian affairs. This role will continue to flourish in the post-Cold War period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores changes in Japan's conception of and policy toward security multilateralism 1 in the Asia-Pacific region after the end of the Cold War with special reference to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). It makes the observation that notwithstanding Japan's active role behind the establishment of the ARF in the early 1990s and continuing public expression of strong support for Asia-Pacific security multilateralism since that time, in actuality, Japan's enthusiasm for it has dwindled from the late 1990s onwards. This article argues that this has been due primarily to Japan's disappointing experiences in the ARF, evinced by its abortive efforts to promote meaningful cooperative security measures and the failings of multilateral security diplomacy in addressing its security concerns. Consequently, Japan's conception of regional security multilateralism has shifted from an optimistic liberal to a more pessimistic realist perspective from which the ARF can, at best, be seen as a venue contributing only to a minimal level of confidence building among regional countries or, to put it more cynically, ‘a talking shop’. This has made Japan's ARF policy more tentative and less energetic. Japan's enthusiasm has also been diluted by a number of internal and external constraints on ARF policy, including US misgivings about Japan's tilt toward regional security multilateralism, its domestic organizational limitations, growing dissent within the Japanese government over the value of security multilateralism, the lack of political support for bureaucratic initiatives and the unexpected frictions between bilateral and multilateral security approaches in Japan's overall security policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the early post-war era, a Japanese revival was a source of profound concern to members of the Commonwealth, especially Australia and New Zealand. Britain, having abdicated the leading role in the Western Pacific to the United States, attempted to retain some influence in the region, but economic frailties and lack of Commonwealth unity undermined these efforts. Under American guidance, diplomatic, commercial and (to a lesser extent) security ties with Japan were later promoted, but elements of cooperation and competition persisted in Commonwealth relations with their former enemy. Ultimately, Britain, Australia and New Zealand placed their respective regional identities ahead of their Commonwealth loyalties. Japan took advantage of this situation to promote its own national interests. Hence, the wider aperture of the 'Commonwealth lens' throws into sharp relief the contours of a number of members' bilateral relationships with Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]