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East Asia (here consisting of China, Japan, North and South Korea, and the ten states of the ASEAN) is increasingly being considered as a region which is a potential crucible for conflict. Even the most optimistic authors recognise that there is the potential for security tensions to develop into more comprehensive kinetic actions. In the context of the growing trade tensions between China and the United States, which is drawing in other regional actors, the potential for economic interdependence to mitigate these tensions is reducing. Despite the context in this region we do, however, see evidence of cooperation and coordination emerging within the arena of (so-called) non-traditional security challenges. These papers explore different aspects of the cooperation that we see, and collectively they present the conditions under which there are positive cooperation outcomes in the areas of humanitarian assistance (HA) and disaster relief (DR) and/or peacekeeping operations (PKO). Collectively, they identify that mid-range theories have great explanatory power in exploring and researching this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an increasing regional integration and development, there are many competing ideas of, and proposals for, regional development in Asia. This article examines the historical evolution of the idea of regionalism, the meaning of Asian regionalisms, variations of Asian regionalisms and their impact on regional cooperation in East Asia. It discusses Mahathir's idea of neo-Asianism, Japanese new Asianism. Chinese ideas of regionalism, and variations of Korean ideas of regionalism. It also examines a normative basis of religionalism with special reference to the sovereignty question. The paper concludes that behind East Asian regionalism is nationalism which constitutes drilling force5 for regionalism; that two competing orders (Asia-Pacific regionalism versus pan Asianism) create different expectations and visions of how East Asia region should evolve and they are in tensions and lead to different directions; and that East Asia lacks a convincing and acceptable normative framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the comments elicited by Ross Garnaut's report on Australia and its relations with Northeast Asian countries particularly Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. In his report, he suggested that Australia should not be threatened by the growing economies of these countries but rather it should establish a beneficial relationship with them. The report suggests that Australia should adopt a set of appropriate policies that focuses on education and research that helps in the understanding of the language, cultures, and economics of Asia. The article mentions five papers published within the issue that are drawn from the Garnaut Report.

Relatively few systematic and categorical studies have been conducted on the variant responses by East Asian states to the rise of China, and even fewer dealt with reasons for such intra-regional variations. This study seeks to fill the void by examining the strategic responses by 15 East Asian states for the period of 2011–2016. This period merits close scrutiny because China became more explicitly assertive. The research proceeds in two phases. First, by way of reading into the expert assessments in academic journals, the strategic responses of the 15 states are categorised into balancing, hedging, or bandwagoning. Second, statistical analyses are conducted to see how the intra-regional variations are related to unit-level factors. Of the seven variables analyzed, three – geographical proximity, democracy, and identity – turn out to be crucial in determining the East Asian states' strategic responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The special issue this article opens engages with an apparent conundrum that has often puzzled observers of East Asian politics—why, despite the region's considerable economic integration, multilateral economic governance institutions remain largely underdeveloped. The authors argue that this ‘regionalism problématique’ has led to the neglect of prior and more important questions pertaining to how patterns of economic governance, beyond the national scale, are emerging in East Asia and why. In this special issue, the contributors shift analytic focus onto social and political struggles over the scale and instruments of economic governance in East Asia. The contributions identify and explain the emergence of a wide variety of regional modes of economic governance often neglected by the scholarship or erroneously viewed as stepping stones towards ‘deeper’ multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article considers the regional order-building challenges that Australia presently confronts in the Indian Ocean region (IOR). The author argues that while regional stability within the IOR constitutes an increasingly important Australian security interest, policy makers will struggle to translate the order-building strategies they have previously pursued in East Asia into an Indian Ocean context. In East Asia, Australia has historically pursued a ‘dual track’ order-building strategy centred on its participation in a US-dominated ‘hub and spokes’ alliance system alongside multilateral regional engagement. The absence of an equivalent alliance system or an established tradition of multilateral security diplomacy conversely precludes an extension of this strategy into the IOR. Growing tensions between the USA and China and between China and India, meanwhile, further complicate IOR security dynamics, while underscoring the urgent need for a more coherent approach to regional order-building. With these challenges in mind, the author concludes by proposing a range of bilateral, minilateral and multilateral initiatives that Australia should pursue to stimulate the emergence of a more cooperative IOR security environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Political elites in East Asia tend to view the concept of human security with scepticism. On the one hand, broader notions of security are acknowledged. However, traditional views on sovereignty and deeply embedded norms relating to non-intervention and consensus politics have fostered conservative views towards parts of the human security agenda that challenge state/elite perspectives. This article identifies and explores this tension, and comments on the potential for different ‘strands’ of human security to inform future regional cooperation and dialogue, and concludes that human security's breadth continues to fuel an endless debate about its clarity and utility in East Asia. Such confusion is a challenge for its future relevance in the region, both as a conceptual tool and as a policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses Japan-Australia security cooperation in the context of changing regional dynamics in the Asia-Pacific. The combined influences of the rise of China, the US position in the world after two years under an Obama administration, and the changing structure of regional cooperation are setting new challenges and a historically distinct context for security relations between Japan and Australia. After examining each of the above regional changes, this article discusses the effects of political transitions over the last several months in both Japan and Australia. It then highlights three natural areas for Japan and Australia to pursue increased cooperation: denuclearisation, addressing China's policy on territorial integrity, and the rise of China's military, in particular in terms of naval power. The article concludes by providing the author's perspective on Japan-Australia security cooperation and suggests the future direction of relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing concern that the Asia-Pacific region is institutionally and architecturally ill-equipped to cope with changing regional dynamics and global power shifts that are presently under way. The idea of building a regional 'community' has been floated-and criticised-among various policy makers and analysts. Critics argue that the degree of cultural, political and religious diversity of the region and the mixed success of existing institutions undermines the prospect of any European-style security community emerging in East Asia. This article challenges those assumptions. The development of close and multidimensional bilateral and multilateral relationships between different countries in the region based on areas of mutual interest is a positive indicator that a regionally unique security community can emerge in this part of the world. Managing resource distribution emerges as a key variable for shaping norms predicated on mutual security assurances and deepening cooperation throughout the region. This is demonstrated by the development of the Australia-Japan bilateral security relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most critics argue that ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Plus Three regional surveillance is limited by its peer review process because governments reject external interference in matters of domestic economic management. This article suggests that surveillance's limits also arise because of a more fundamental conflict over how financial/economic risk is problematised. The governmentality framework and the East Asian experience reveal how the process of constituting economic/financial risk using disciplinary knowledge is inherently subjective and, consequently, political and open to contestation. In addition to the contested nature of disciplinary knowledge, three other phenomena—the prevalence of imitative behaviour in markets, the value of practical knowledge for governance and the problem of 'ambiguous economics'—complicate surveillance and make it difficult for surveillance processes to deliver objective and neutral assessments, despite a genuine demand for them. In view of these realities, the ideal institutional form for surveillance appears to be a non-hierarchical setting in which dialogic interactions take centre stage, thereby allowing surveillance participants to debate assessments, offer reasons for adopting particular practices, exchange practical experiences and collectively work out responses to contested issues. However, these are precisely the features of the present surveillance structure that critics argue ought to be changed in favour of a more hierarchical mechanism. This article's analysis of surveillance using the governmentality framework leads to the counter-intuitive insight that surveillance is best structured as a form of Habermasian 'public sphere'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northeast Asian countries have been engaged in disputes over history. While their historical contentions have caused suspicion and friction among them, I argue that they have also served as a medium of dialogue that helps establish a common understanding about the individual countries' contemporary reality and future direction. Historical contentions contribute to such a dialogue if and only if two conditions are met: regional actors recognise each other as legitimate participants in a dialogue about the salient past; and they contend over the past within a common framework of meaning. Northeast Asia, through historical contentions in the 1980s and 1990s, produced an embryonic form of a regional public sphere that made possible transnational communications about the region's future and each nation's desires, but it now stands at a fork between strengthening the regional public sphere and fracturing it into a contentious regional sphere.* [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reveals the realities that have been changing the East Asian regional order that has been built around the alliance between the United States and its Asian partners. Challenges to American hegemony; War on terrorism; Rise of China.

Focuses on the issue of international relations in Australia. Degree of public support for a throughgoing policy of regional engagement; Perception of difference between the country and East Asia through the postulation of convergence; Approaches to the foreign policy process.

Any discussion of the United States' alliances in East Asia and the Pacific should include an understanding of the role that China plays in regional security in general, and the influence of such a role on the alliance system in particular. The 'China factor' in the contemporary US alliance system can be understood by asking the following questions: (1) what are China's perceptions of and concerns regarding the US alliance system as a whole and regarding specific bilateral military alliances of the US?; (2) where does China figure in the American post-Cold War worldview, and what role does the United States itself see its alliances playing in relation to China?; (3) to what extent are the current bilateral alliances of the US directed against China, in the view of US allies; and (4) how might the reshaping of the international security environment following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States affect China's perceptions and attitudes towards future alliance developments? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifies the factors influencing Australia's international legal relations with the countries of East Asia. International legal activism of Australia under different governments; Analysis of the legal systems of East Asian societies; Expansion of international law in East Asian countries during the 20th century; Aspects of the East Asian societies which affect their active participation in international law.

Presents a synthetic approach for regional security in East Asia. Cause of poor relationship of East Asian nations; Effects of cultural and historical factors to the Japan-Korea relations; Importance of cooperation and transparency on the internal security of the region.

Presents information on East Asian industrialization, and why features of this industrialization failed in their application in the Caribbean area. Summarization of the features of industrialization in four East Asian Newly Industrializing Economics; Reasons these features failed in the Caribbean; Development consequences of the features in the Caribbean.

An essay is presented about the possibility that security thinking operates within the conceptual frameworks in the Asian region. It is noted that the security situation in this region become much more fluid with the end of the Cold War. Most of its countries are closely watching China's actions, not only in the Spratlys Island but elsewhere. Moving away from the war's discourse to security opens a potential new security conceptions.

The article focuses on the criticisms of the Garnaut Report. The author notes that the article is more on the mythical arguments that are attributed to the Report. It offers criticisms on the topics of the Report which includes the economic change in the East Asia, and the cultural ties between Australia and Europe which the Report sees as an asset to the relationship of Australia with the Northeast Asia and the Pacific. Critics who reviewed the Garnaut Report include Bruce Grant, Fitzpatrick, and Mckay.

The article presents a discussion and critique on the geopolitics of the Garnaut Report. It observes the geopolitical themes discussed by Garnaut as national/international versus imperial/inter-imperial levels of analysis and Cold War versus pre-Cold War and post-Cold War historical frameworks. The article cites the economic development of East Asian countries particularly Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and China after the Cold War. It mentions the United States' role in the security and growth of these countries that led Garnaut to acknowledge US hegemonic tendencies. The article concludes that geopolitical issues are not the central concern of the report but argues that questions of geopolitical restructuring are relevant to judgments about large-scale economic restructuring in the current era.