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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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor everywhere is assumed to be under pressure as a result of shifts under way in the global economy. This pressure is manifested in the political marginalization of trade unions, the decline of union density, the significant reduction in job and income security, and changes in labor legislation intended to facilitate greater ?flexibility? in labor markets and social pacts. This paper is predicated on the assumption that the extent of, and responses to, these challenges vary significantly for organized labor in the North and South, with the more accelerated shrinking of the manufacturing base creating special problems for union recruitment in the North and the more accelerated growth of informal labor markets creating special difficulties for collective action in the South. The paper offers a paired comparison of the evolution of labor politics in two Asian economies, one of which, Japan, represents the North, and one of which, India, represents the South. Both societies have established formally democratic political institutions with some legal protection for trade union rights and labor standards. Both have made efforts to employ job security and generous enterprise-centered welfare benefits to reward the more privileged components of the workforce and thus maintain some semblance of labor peace in critical sectors (public sector employees in India and regular male workers in large corporations in Japan). Since the mid-1980s, unions in both countries have been facing mounting difficulties in rallying their members and applying meaningful political pressure, as laws and practices have steadily evolved in a direction that favors greater flexibility for business in terms of employment practices. Given the position of their constituencies within the national polity and the global economy, however, unions in the two countries have been responding to the challenges in quite different ways. In Japan, unions have sought to unite under a single umbrella organization (Rengo) with more militant unions left on the margins. Although internal splits have appeared, unification has permitted Rengo a chance to devise new strategies by reaching out to part-timers and temporary workers in order to regain the interest of the working classes. In India, unions remain deeply divided, with the two largest unions being more cooperative with a government committed to liberalization and the leftist unions steadfastly resisting further liberalization. With privatization occurring relatively slowly, there has been little incentive for unions to branch out into new sectors and recruit new categories of workers. However, while Japanese unions seem to be taking a more proactive approach to transforming their organizational structure and grassroots strategies, these changes also point to a fundamental difference in the overall perception of the legitimacy and power of organized labor in the two countries. Although representing a smaller segment of the workforce, India?s unions are better organized, retain ties to political parties that can make or break governing coalitions, remain capable of paralyzing the economy by virtue of their influence in crucial sectors such as the railroads, and still adhere to a discourse of labor relations that evinces clear consciousness of separate working class interests. In Japan, while leftist elements among the unions remain vocal about class interests, the steady shrinking of the manufacturing sector has had the effect of turning Rengo into more of a consultative body that orchestrates largely symbolic acts on the ground while accomodating demands for wage restraint. Thus, the relatively less fundamental transformation of Indian trade unionism reveals not resistance to change but somewhat greater political clout sustained by a still robust conception of class interest in an economy where the public sector and manufacturing still matter significantly. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the major power relationship in Northeast Asia has undergone some significant transition and reconfiguration. Among other things, Sino-South Korean relations began to show some new momentum that has the potential to reshape the geopolitical environment in the region. On a series of important political and security issues, Beijing and Seoul share more common interests than their respective relations with the other two major powers in the region: Japan and the United States. On the war history issue, China and South Korea formed a united front against Japan. On the North Korean nuclear issue, the six-party talks have clearly demonstrated that China and South Korea have more in common in terms of approaches and tactics than they do with both the United States and Japan. On the core issue of China’s national interestâ€"Taiwan, Seoul’s position is much closer to Beijing than both the U.S. and Japan. On the issue of Korea’s reunification, China and South Korea are also more likely to find common ground. In additional, both China and South Korea have territorial disputes with Japan. Both China and South Korea have strong anti-Japanese and to less extent anti-American sentiment in the public. By examining the new dynamics and developments in Sino-South Korean relations, this paper tries to argue that with Japan moving closer to the status of a normal power and China’s sustainable rise, a strategic realignment in the region is inevitable in which a potential China-ROK “strategic partnership” is emerging and will be pivotal to a possible regional security framework in Northeast Asia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disputes over history abound in northeast Asian politics today. Whether it is Chinese and Koreans protesting “revisionist” Japanese histories of World War II, Japanese counter protests about Chinese and Korean history textbooks, or Koreans disgruntled with Chinese accounts of their shared past, history appears to be an endless source of friction in northeast Asia. Yet there has been little research seeking to systematically explore just how such historical disputes matter for international relations in the present. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of nation (China/Japan/Korea), source (ingroup/outgroup textbooks), and valence (positive/negative narratives) on measures of beliefs about the past, emotional response, hostile attribution, and threat perception in present day Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, and Korea-Japan relations. The study will be conducted with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean university students. A 2 X 2 X 2 design will expose randomized groups of students from each country to excerpts and pictures from false high school history textbook accounts of colonial Korea from the 1910s and 1920s, colonial Manchuria of the 1930s and 1940s, and tributary Chosun’s relations with the Ming and Qing Dynasty from 1392-1910. Implications and future research are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchange rate policy cannot be modeled as a simple product of domestic politics, as Jeff Frieden does in his recent work on this topic. Countries deciding whether or not to go on or off the gold standard may have been able to make these decisions separately based on domestic politics, without coordination or bargaining, and small countries may still be able to do so with regard to the dollar or euro in today's monetary regime. But big countries, including the United States, cannot make exchange rate policy on their own. It takes two to float, by which I mean that it is more accurate to model exchange rate policy as a two-level game in which two partners each seek an exchange rate regime and level that reflects domestic political interests and institutions, with the outcome determined by bargaining. The United States cannot make a decision to float vis-a-vis the renminbi without China going along. Japan has learned that it cannot devalue the yen without the United States blessing this policy. The paper lays out the two-level logic of exchange rate bargaining and illustrates it by examining several cases of United States - Asia exchange rate bargaining, including US-Japan since 1980 and US-China since 2000. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This paper aims to explain the position of the U.S.-Japanese alliance in the context of Northeast Asian regional security order. It also examine how strengened ties between the two countries would influence in shaping the future regioanl security order. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are variety of regional institutions on the basis of their own regional concepts such EU based on the European regional concept. Unlike Europe, the establishment of regional economic institutions in Asia have had developed on the basis of different regional concepts. The 1960s saw the establishment of ADB, PAFTAD and PBEC, while PECC APEC were formed in 1980 and 1989 respectively. Subsequently, ASEAN+3, now regarded as an actual regional institution in East Asia, was established in 1997. This paper aims to examine whether there is any particular reason behind the chronological sequences in the development of these regional concepts, beginning with Southeast Asia/Asia, followed by Pacific, Asia-Pacific and East Asia, and, if so, what it is. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines several human security issues and regionalism in Northeast Asia. The level of economic success achieved under the government of Japan has prevented it to reconsider the transition in the nature of national sovereignty. It mentions that prospects of European-type integration and free trade agreement affect the region's economy and politics. It notes that human security and regionalism can provide a more friendly way to better address the new threats to civil society.

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.

The discusses the involvement of Japan in regional integration and Asian crisis management, with a particular focus on the case study of Thailand. The factor that force Japan to involve in rescuing the crisis-devastated economies lies in a growing economic integration and interdependence of the continent. Also demonstrated is the emergence of Asian regionalism under Japanese economic leadership. It adds that the government of Japan showed its commitments to industrial transformation in Thailand.

The author argues that despite recent progress, Japan has been a follower, not a leader, in the long, slow march toward formal-legal regionalism in Asia. He claims that Japan's economic policy-making toward the region continues to be dominated by bureaucrats and business executives who care more about something they call industrial harmonization. He cites the reasons behind the reluctance of Asia to embrace formal-legal regionalism.

The article focuses on transnationalism and the Official Development Assistance (ODA) in Japan. It cites ways in which transnational forces help to form the ODA, such as framing of economic development in transnational terms in Asia. According to the author, the outcomes of the transnational campaign against the overseas environmental behavior of Japan and of the wider shift in transnational norms around the worldwide environment and ODA that took place during the 1980s, should be understood in terms of their interaction with domestic conceptions of ODA.

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]

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]