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The article focuses on history of power transitions, discussing international relations between China and the U.S. It discusses studies that indicate correlation between power transition and war. It examines premodern histories including Imjin War (1592-1598) and Ming-Qing transition (1644-1683). It states that U.S. retreat from leadership in East Asia may cost U.S. position in East Asia due to challenges posed by China and increasing regional security issues due to threats posed by North Korea.

The article focuses on changes in U.S. foreign policies against nuclear weapons and its effect on Northeast Asia. It discusses U.S. security commitments to allies and its aggressiveness to nuclear adversaries that may lead to cascade of nuclear proliferation. It highlights argument related to U.S.nuclear monopoly since post World War II and its threat of a counterproliferation strike. Example of Taiwan and Taipei nuclear efforts and U.S. threats of abandonment, is highlighted. Topics include commitment of the security by the U.S., its relation with adversary North Korea and its position as security sponsor of Japan and South Korea.

Many states partially relinquish sovereignty in return for physical protection from a more powerful state. Mainstream theory on international hierarchies holds that such decisions are based on rational assessments of the relative qualities of the political order being offered. Such assessments, however, are bound to be contingent, and as such a reflection of the power to shape understandings of reality. Through a study of the remarkably persistent US-led security hierarchy in East Asia, this article puts forward the concept of the ‘epistemic community’ as a general explanation of how such understandings are shaped and, hence, why states accept subordinate positions in international hierarchies. The article conceptualises a transnational and multidisciplinary network of experts on international security – ‘The Asia-Pacific Epistemic Community’ – and demonstrates how it operates to convince East Asian policymakers that the current US-led social order is the best choice for maintaining regional ‘stability’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims to ascertain whether direct macroeconomic linkages exist between some East Asian (EA) countries on the one hand and the United States (US) and Europe on the other, based upon quarterly real gross domestic product (GDP) series spanning from the early 1990s. Long-run and short-run lead-lag relations are explored within a trivariate modeling framework. Contrary to popular belief, the empirical evidence suggests generally either very nominal or no direct links at all between these EA countries and the US in terms of GDP. Direct links with Europe are completely ruled out. All these would allude to a very limited susceptibility of these EA economies to shocks in the US and Europe, barring a global economic crisis of catastrophic proportions. The growing belief that if China sneezes, the world catches the flu is also not borne out by the empirical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Russia and the American sports diplomacy under the presidency of Jimmy Carter. It examines the various responses to the boycott in South Korea, the Philippines and the People's Republic of China. It discusses China and Taiwan's use of the boycott to defend its sovereignty amid the growing international isolation and democratic movement. It also examines the impact of the boycott on the American diplomatic efforts in East Asia.

In the race for establishing trading architecture consistent with new landscape of the global economy, the US is ahead of the game by concluding the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 countries. To make it reality, the ratification is essential. In the battle for ratification in the US, declining globalism confronts rising protectionism. This paper models the ratification process as contest between globalism and protectionism, and analyzes the optimal timing for ratification. Based on this framework, various ratification scenarios are analyzed. The paper argues less likelihood for the lame-duck session passage and more likelihood for prolonged and protracted delay, due to changing political dynamics and declining intellectual support for globalism. Hence, the future of Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement may prove different, compared to the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, both of which were renegotiated and ratified eventually. Then, the US would lose the first move advantage. The paper also discusses strategic implications of delayed ratification on the evolution of trading architecture in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) expanded its institutional outreach to span the broader Asia Pacific and new policy areas, a dominant orthodoxy has placed the organization at the center of the region's international order. More recently, uncertainty in the context of China's rise sheds doubt on ASEAN's apparent centrality to its proced- urally driven transformation of foreign relations across East Asia. While theories of cooperation explain why and when minor powers choose to pool their resources, the reverse logic has hardly been considered. This paper shows that the particular type of ASEAN regionalism is not only a product of weak states' cooperation but that the lack of capacity also sets the limits for the regional project. Two case studies on intramural security elicit the limited effectiveness of ASEAN's endeavor to develop into a security community. Meanwhile, as an examination of the South China Sea dispute demonstrates, its attempt to export its norms has rendered it vulnerable to the intervention of more powerful actors and increasingly side-lined by the evolution of great power rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) made its annual fact-finding visit to Taipei, Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo from October 13–27 to discuss the current troubled security environment in East Asia with officials, scholars, and think tanks. This report highlights the findings of this mission and puts forth a number of policy recommendations for official consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the relationship between the U.S. and the Asia-Pacific region after the cold war era. Topics discussed include optimism regarding the relationship due to economic growth, democracy and stable balance of power; and realists pessimistic about the relationship because of trade tensions between Japan and the U.S., sociopolitical and economic issues of China; and uncertainty regarding the American military policy. Other topics include interest of East Asia in the U.S.

This paper posits four ranked, generic goals of state foreign policy, maps them against the American ‘pivot,’ and concludes with possible handicaps of that shift. Drawn broadly from realism and liberalism, those abstract goals are as follows: national security, economic growth, prestige among the community of states, and the promotion of cherished national values. Applying this framework specifically to Northeast Asia, the USA, regarding security, is likely to increasingly ‘hedge’ China, and its North Korean client, with regional allies, off-shore balancing, and a shift toward AirSea Battle. On trade, the USA will continue its decades-long effort to reduce Asian mercantilism by tying Asian traders into multilateral, neoliberal rule sets. Regarding prestige, the ‘Beijing Consensus’ is a growing challenge to US soft power which the pivot seeks to refute. In addition, on values, the USA will continue to nag especially China to conform to US standards of law and human rights. The USA will continue to push the broad liberalization of Asian polities and economies. The democratic peace and liberal trade are the ideological frame and motivation of the pivot. Nevertheless, significant US handicaps may slow the pivot: American cultural distance from Asia means little public support and understanding of its necessity; strong regional allies will tempt the USA toward offshore balancing on the cheap; and the dire US budget shortfall will reduce the resources necessary to fund it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the defense policy of Japan between 1969-1976, focusing on the internal and external factors that have shaped the development of Japan's defense policies. Other topics include how the U.S. foreign policy under former President Richard Nixon, or the Nixon Doctrine, impacted Japan's military policy, how U.S. relations with China and the Soviet Union impacted relations in East Asia, and the role of Japan in international security.

The article focuses on changes in the national planning of the U.S. with regards to East Asia. The article looks at national security interests which have changed the East Asia's foreign relations with the U.S. It also examines China's rise in post-Cold war era. The article also discusses President Barack Obama's initiatives in East Asia and the impact of these initiatives in relations between China and the U.S.

The 2012 election resulted in a major victory for President Obama and while his Democratic Party improved its Congressional strength, the House of Representatives remains under Republican control. The election revealed the depth of America's political and voter divisions with each party showing dramatically different areas of strength and weakness. Yet the election did not hinge on foreign policy leaving the Obama administration likely to continue most of its earlier policies toward East Asia as marked by the multilayered ‘pivot’ toward Asia. Relations with China and North Korea are likely to remain difficult to manage while US–ROK links should be far smoother. Of particular concern is the economic sluggishness and rising nationalism in Japan which could well cause bilateral problems with the US and regional problems with Japan's neighbors, including US ally, South Korea. And at home the bipolar divisions over how best to deal with America's economic revitalization could well impede US abilities to exert a convincing multi-dimensional role in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the mega regionalism and commercial agreements including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) between the countries in Asia Pacific Region. It states that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has a major contribution to mega regionalism. It reports on the increasing members including Japan, China and the U.S. It informs about the implications of the policies in agreements between the nations and trends occurring with time.

The U.S. strategy toward Asia in President Barack Obama's first term features pivoting or rebalancing. This article traces the development of the U.S. pivot to Asia from power cooperation to balance of power and analyzes its key components featuring Indo-Pacific linkage, high military profile, and forward-deployed diplomacy in selected multilaterals, minilaterals, and bilaterals. The U.S. pivot has provided misleading reassurance to some U.S. allies and partners, has created a “side-taking” dilemma for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has increased mutual distrust with China, and has disrupted ongoing regional processes. The article argues that it is the pivot, or rebalancing toward Asia, that has, to a considerable extent, de-balanced the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the multilateral free trade agreement (FTA) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in relation to competing efforts by China to promote the economic integration of East Asia. It is said that the TPP is being used to the U.S. to contain China's role in the Asia-Pacific region. Other topics include Chinese use of FTAs to advance its foreign policy interests, tensions between China and nations in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the impact of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) on its foreign policy.

This article discusses economic growth and the foreign relations in Mongolia during 2011. Topics include the Third Neighbor Policy utilized by Mongolia to balance external influence on the country in partnerships with Japan, the U.S., and Korea, the creation of a think tank with Russia regarding the creation of free-trade agreements between the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) and Mongolia, and the economic boost prompted by profitable mining endeavors such as the Oyu Tologoi mine project and the Tavan Tolgoi coal mine.

This article investigates how commercial ties affect the cohesiveness of US alliances with East Asian nations. While the conventional wisdom views their effects as positive, we argue that economic interdependence does not markedly reinforce East Asian alliances because the alliances have an asymmetrical structure. To evaluate these competing arguments, we examine the impact of bilateral trade on the US alliances with Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea, over the past quarter-century. Our empirical analysis provides little evidence for the conventional view, while supporting our argument. Based on this finding, the article offers some practical implications for the free trade agreement and the security alliance between South Korea and the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the foreign policy orientation by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama towards East Asia in 2010. They contend that Obama is aiming to revise bilateral alliances. The challenge posed by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to the U.S.-Japan alliance is explored. A discussion on the strength of the U.S.-China relations is detailed.

The article offers the author's insights regarding the relation between the U.S. and East Asia and the history of the journal "The Journal of American-East Asian Relations." It provides a brief historical overview on how the journal was established, in which it mentions that the American Historical Association has established a Committee on American-East Asian Relations to cover the issues in Asia during the 1960s. It states that Ernest R. May from Harvard University has led the committee of the "American-East Asian Relations" as chairman during the 1960s, followed by Kira Iriye and James C. Thomson, Jr. Furthermore, it says the first issue of the journal was published in the spring of 1992 under founding editor Michael A. Barnhart.

The most important factor determining the structure of East Asia will continue to be the strategic relationship between the USA and China. It is the key component of the six party talks on the North Korean problem as well as nuclear nonproliferation. Japan is obviously a lesser strategic player, which is in a position to encourage middle-power security cooperation among the East Asian countries breathing between the USA and China. There is a conceptual, if not geopolitical, competition between Japan and China over an ideal future of East Asian regionalism, which the East Asian countries and the USA should join in a constructive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan and China's ability to manage their bilateral relationship is crucial for the stability of the East Asian region. It also has a global impact on the security and economic development of other regions. For just as China's rise has inevitably involved an expansion of its global reach, so Japan's responses to the challenges posed by China have increasingly taken a global form, seeking to incorporate new partners and frameworks outside East Asia. Japan's preferred response to China's regional and global rise in the post-Cold War period has remained one of default engagement. Japan is intent on promoting China's external engagement with the East Asia region and its internal domestic reform, through upgrading extant bilateral and Japan–China–US trilateral frameworks for dialogue and cooperation, and by emphasizing the importance of economic power to influence China. Japan is deliberately seeking to proliferate regional frameworks for cooperation in East Asia in order to dilute, constrain and ultimately engage China's rising power. However, Japan's engagement strategy also contains the potential to tilt towards default containment. Japan's domestic political basis for engagement is becoming increasingly precarious as China's rise stimulates Japanese revisionism and nationalism. Japan also appears increasingly to be looking to contain China on a global scale by forging new strategic links in Russia and Central Asia, with a ‘concert of democracies’ involving India, Australia and the US, by competing for resources with China in Africa and the Middle East, and by attempting to articulate a values-based diplomacy to check the so-called ‘Beijing consensus’. Nevertheless, Japan's perceived inability to channel China's rise either through regional engagement or through global containment carries a further risk of pushing Japan to resort to the strengthening of its military power in an attempt to guarantee its essential national interests. It is in this instance that Japan and China run the danger of a military collision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on China's regional rise reveals divergent understandings of why China changed its regional strategy and when such a transformation occurred. There are also different understandings of the extent of China's power in the region—or more often, the extent to which US power in East Asia is already challenged by China's regional rise. Nevertheless, there is a consensus of sorts over how Chinese policy has changed with an emphasis on a combination of proactive diplomatic initiatives and ever increasing economic interactions. After providing a brief overview of the existing literature, the main part of this article considers the role of China's ‘soft power’ in reconfiguring power relationships in East Asia. It suggests that while the US might have lost some of its ideational appeal, it is through working within existing frameworks and ‘norms’ (rather than establishing new revisionist alternatives) that China has had most success in assuaging fears of the consequences of its rise. However, the way in which others conceive of China's rise and Chinese power (and subsequently act) does provide a form of ‘non-hard’ power that might help China's leaders attain their regional objectives particularly in light of the continuing global economic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of China is seen by some observers as a precursor of inevitable hegemonic competition in East Asia. At the very least, it seems likely that China's influence in East Asia will grow at the expense of the United States. Whether this will eventually amount to a form of hegemonic transition is far less clear. It is, therefore, an opportune moment to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of China and the US in East Asia. This paper suggests that the nature of hegemonic competition and transition is more uncertain and complex than some of the most influential theoretical understandings of hegemony would have us believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines U.S. foreign relations in Asia, especially relations with China. Under President George W. Bush, U.S. policy is seen as having been a series of reactions to events, particularly in its efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The development of a strong regionalism in East Asia and China's efforts to become a co-operative regional partner with its neighbors are seen as the most important changes in the region in the 2000s. It is argued that these developments offer the U.S. an opportunity to work with China bilaterally on issues of mutual interest, and through China to work with other Asian countries.

South Korea is Japan's most logical ally in East Asia. Both nations share the same primary military benefactor, the United States. Their geographic proximity makes them natural allies in offsetting China's growing power and unknown intentions. In spite of the many reasons to ally, relations remain strained, primarily because of Japan's historical occupation of Korea. In this article, the authors examine the political issues that must be resolved for Japan and South Korea to work together and the potential for such reconciliation in light of South Korea's on-again/off-again drift away from the United States and Japan's open embrace of U.S. protection and occasional political distancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the emerging 'post-Washington Consensus' era, neo-liberalism is searching for alternatives that once again emphasise the state. Yet neither Latin American dependencia nor East Asian developmentalism - two development models actually practised 'on the ground' - shares the basic assumptions of the liberal, rationalist state. First, there persists a significant ontological divide over the purpose of the state. Developmentalists and dependentists advocate deep, dynamic state agency rather than the hands-off, liberal, 'night-watchman' state. Second, development theory has unfolded within a modern liberal framework of science, democracy, the interests of US foreign policy, and increasingly a commitment to poverty alleviation. Dependency and developmentalism reject these neo-liberal benchmarks in the interests of state consolidation and autonomy. The persistence of dependentist and developmentalist understandings of the state precludes a uniform, post-neoliberal reversal in development theory back to the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural differences are likely to affect the extent to which and the ways in which audiences appreciate foreign media products. Not all media products travel across cultural and national boundaries equally successfully. When media contents are highly culturally specific, a high level of relative cultural discount and a loss in cross-culture performance predictability are likely to result. Based on these arguments, this study empirically examines: (1) how US movies of various genres, presumably with content of varying levels of cultural specificity, perform in seven East Asian countries and the world market at large, and (2) whether audiences in East Asia exhibit similar patterns of reception for Hollywood movies of different genres. With a data set of 489 US movies between 2002 and 2006, the analysis shows that there are indeed commonalities both among the East Asian countries and between East Asia and the world at large in terms of how certain movie genres are received at the box office. The theoretical and strategic implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of the U.S. in the geopolitical development in East Asia. It explores the relationship between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which contributes to peace and prosperity in the region. It also discusses the five pillars of the U.S. policy in East Asia namely, China, ASEAN, Japan, Korea, and Asia-Pacific.

The article examines the developments in U.S. foreign policy toward East Asia since the publication of the "United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region," also known as the "Nye Report," in February 1995. It references a similar report by Yoichi Funabashi. It describes the state of international relations in East Asia in 1995. A discussion on the options that the U.S. had for a grand strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region is offered. Also noted were the challenges faced by the U.S. in maintaining a formal alliance with Japan and China in 2001.

The article looks at the foreign economic relations of the U.S. with East Asian region. It notes the issue concerning the country's narrow efforts to mitigate the merchandise trade deficit in the region, and mentions the favorability of economic trends in East Asia for American suppliers and investors. Charts are also presented depicting gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates in East Asia, as well as East Asian exports to the U.S. from 1975-1992. Moreover, it explores the trends in investment flows and trade balance in the region as influenced by the trade relations of the U.S. and Japan.

To construct a coherent account of East Asias evolving security order, this article treats the United States not as an extra-regional actor, but as the central force in constituting regional stability and order. It proposes that there is a layered regional hierarchy in East Asia, led by the United States, with China, Japan, and India constituting layers underneath its dominance. The major patterns of equilibrium and turbulence in the region since 1945 can be explained by the relative stability of the US position at the top of the regional hierarchy, with periods of greatest insecurity being correlated with greatest uncertainty over the American commitment to managing regional order. Furthermore, relationships of hierarchical assurance and hierarchical deference help to explain critical puzzles about the regional order in the post-Cold War era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]