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Japan?s quest for regional order-building has a mixed historical record. During the first half of the 20th century, the country pursued its vision of a Japan-centered regional order, termed as the Grater East Asia Co-prosper Sphere, excluding the United States, only to bring total catastrophe to the region. Four decades later in the early 1990s, it conceptualized the ?multi-tiered? structure of regional security, with the US-Japan alliance as the linchpin, and rather quietly promoted it with some success. Despite such stark contrasts, the two instances show one commonality?Japan was an ascending power. With this backdrop, the paper examines Japan?s current attitude toward the question of the emerging regional order. Is Japan, now far from being an ascending power thanks to decade-long economic stagnation, and in the face of a new, rapidly ascending power, China, still committed to regional order-building? If so, does Japan still maintain a ?multi-tiered? regional order, in which the position of China is unspecified. Or has the country conceived of a new kind of regional order to reflect the current power balance in Asia? Through addressing these questions, the paper seeks to articulate the factors that shape Japan?s perspective of a regional security order and assess the possible implications for the country?s relations with other regional countries, especially China, overall intra-regional relations, and the ongoing discussion on the recently proposed East Asian Community. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of the Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) in establishing cooperative security in Northeast Asia. It explains that the idea of cooperative security involves cooperation based on the definition of scholars Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry and John D. Steinbuner. The strategy of cooperative security as a realistic approach is also tackled. It argues that the ODA can establish its security through bilateral and regional relations in the region.

Abstract: Japan has had two strategic directions of forging its relations with the US across the Pacific Ocean and of developing its relations with Asia including China, Korean and ASEAN. Multilateralism in Asia lies at the cross road of these two strategic orientation.This paper tries to examine the role of multilateralism for Japan as a strategic choice, with a focus on Japan?s involvement in East Asia community building and Northeast Asia six party talks. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, Japan has made a significant foreign economic policy shift in the way in which it approaches Asian regional institutional building in financial and monetary cooperation. Prior to the Asian financial crisis, Japan ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is to examine the impact of Japanese public opinion on the former Japanese Prime Minister (PM) Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visits to Yasukuni War Shrine, which literally stirred the international relations of Northeast Asia. By referring to Paul Midford's (2006) five seminal assumptions about public opinion in Japan's foreign policy making, I will closely examine public opinion polls during the Koizumi term (2001-2006). How had the Japanese public reacted to PM Koizumi's visits? Are there any discernible majority opinions that are consistent over the years? Compared to Japan's other memory issues (i.e., historical understanding about and sense of remorse to Japan's pre-War invasion and atrocities in Asia), do the Yasukuni Shrine and PM Koizumi's visits induce different reactions from the public? If so, how? And, why? Although PM Koizumi continued to visit the Shrine, I would claim that public opinion in Japan still does matter. Its overall impact is rather subtle, yet never negligible. More theoretically, along with the studies that emphasize facilitating as well as constraining functions of public opinion (cf. Sobel 2001; Holsti 1996), the treatment of Japanese majority opinion in this study tallies V. O. Key's (1961) classic notion of public opinion as a system of dikes. Emphasizing the subtle yet important function of majority public opinion in terms of atmosphere, my study tries to discern society's dominant beliefs and attitudes to be observed in public opinion. Is the Yasukuni case uniquely unique? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, Japan has made a significant foreign economic policy shift in the way in which it approaches Asian regional institutional building in financial and monetary cooperation. Prior to the Asian financial crisis, Japan endorsed “open regionalism” to trade, investment, and monetary cooperation in a loosely institutionalized APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation). In stark contrast, Japan has been the leading advocate of the “exclusionary” regional institutional building in monetary and financial affairs since the late 1990s (by “exclusionary” it is meant that Japan excludes the U.S. from membership): Japan proposed and helped materialize two major exclusionary Asian monetary institutional building measures, the Chiang Mai Initiative (2000) and an Asian Monetary Fund (1997 and 2007). What explains such a major policy change? In addressing this question, I adopt and test (and possibly revise) Jeffrey Legro’s (2005) “synthetic” theoretical framework designed for the explanation of foreign policy change. By “synthetic” it is meant that foreign policy change derives from the dynamic interaction of national collective ideas with the demands of strategic circumstances and domestic political pressure. Going beyond constructivist-rationalist divide, I will demonstrate how this synthetic approach can offer a better account of Japan’s foreign economic policy change in comparison to purely power or interest-based rationalist explanations as well as purely idea-based constructivist ones. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]