Conflict And Cooperation In The Indo Pacific

This book explores the most important strategic questions about the emerging Indo-Pacific region by offering an incisive analysis on the current and future patterns of competition and cooperation of key nations in the region. Examining emerging policies of cooperation and conflict adopted by Indo-Pacific states in response to a rising China, the book offers insights into the evolving Indo-Pacific visions and strategies being developed in Japan, India, Australia and the US in reaction to shifting geopolitical realities. The book provides evidence of geopolitical advances in what some see as a spatially coherent maritime zone stretching from the eastern Pacific to the western Indian Ocean, including small island states and countries that line its littoral. It also analyzes the development and operationalization of Indo-Pacific policies and strategies of various key nations. Contributors provide both macro and micro perspectives to this critically significant topic, offering insights into the grand strategies of great powers as well as case studies ranging from the Philippines to the Maldives to Kenya. The book suggests that new rivalries, shifting alliances and economic ebbs and flows in the Indo-Pacific will generate new geopolitical realities and shape much else beyond in the twenty-first century. A timely contribution to the rapidly expanding policy and scholarly discussions about what is likely to be the defining region for international politics for coming generations, the book will be of interest to policymakers as well as students and academics in the fields of International Relations, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Diplomacy and International Law, East and South Asian Studies, East African Studies, Middle East Studies, and Australian Studies.

The term ‘Indo-Pacific’ is being used increasingly in the global strategic/geo-political discourse in recent years. The rise of China as an economic giant and a rising military power has led to the consequent shift of international politics and relations to Asia as the fulcrum. It has turned the whole region of Indo-Pacific as one security complex. Countries that are part of the region but also countries that are adjacent or outside the region, but also the countries adjoining the oceans look for a mechanism in accordance with a rule-based order. International law that would protect the rights of the nations to pursue global commons was emphasized. This timely volume presents a collection of articles by leading scholars on the subject from the region. It addresses the faultlines of both traditional and non-traditional security issues. Military modernization, especially of the naval forces of a number of powers, national ambitions of power projection, and plans to build ports in strategic locations are exacerbating insecurity and greater arms race. It also poses the question, whether the Indo-Pacific region will become a theatre of tension and instability, or a contributor to peace and prosperity for the larger populations that reside herein? Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

This edited volume is an outcome of the first major collaborative project between Japanese economists and political scientists, funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The authors of the individual chapters show that Asian states play games of conflict and cooperation strategically by creating, changing, or destroying institutions. For them, conflict and cooperation are inseparable phenomena and are integral parts of states’ strategic interactions under constraints. Through the establishment of appropriate institutions that coordinate states’ actions, present conflict can be turned into stable cooperation in the future. No discernible difference exists in the extent of rationality between the East and the West, but substantial variations between regions or even within a region are found in institutions that are influenced by history and culture. Historical and cultural variations divide contemporary Asia, making regional institutional cooperation difficult and prompting some Asian states to use global or inter-regional arrangements in order to obtain benefits of cooperation. Qualifications are provided for this line of argument in the first chapter, which also discusses the affinity of international relations theory and game theory, with special attention to Japan and Asia. The following ten substantive chapters are developed based on the conceptual framework and, for integrity and coherence, are sub-grouped into four parts that correspond to major issues in international relations scholarship: (1) conflict management, (2) arms control, (3) trade, and (4) currency.

The new, fully updated second edition of The New Global Politics of the Asia Pacific builds on its coherent framework for understanding the complex international and global politics of the Asia Pacific. The textbook provides an introductory guide for the main frameworks needed to understand the region (realism, liberalism, critical theory), which is reader-friendly while still offering sophisticated competing interpretations. Key content includes: the US in the Asia Pacific; China and Japan in the Asia Pacific; Southeast Asia in the Asia Pacific; India in the Asia Pacific; Russia in the Asia Pacific; Australia in the Asia Pacific; Europe in the Asia Pacific; globalization, regionalism and political economy; Asian values, democracy and human rights; transnational actors; region security order and the impact of terrorism on the region. A highly topical account, which provides an overview of the main actors, institutions and contemporary issues such as security, terrorism and transnational actors, the book is required reading for undergraduate students of Asian studies, international politics, and anyone interested in the region.

Resource security is a new battleground in the international politics of the Asia-Pacific. With demand for minerals and energy surging, disputes are emerging over access and control of scarce natural resource endowments. Drawing on critical insights from political economy, this book explains why resources have emerged as a source of inter-state conflict in the region.

Now in its new and fully updated third edition, The New Global Politics of the Asia Pacific continues to provide a compelling analysis of a region undergoing dramatic changes. Based on new research and offering fresh interpretation, this edition evaluates the prospects for continuing US dominance in the ‘Asian Century’. Whilst presenting evidence for a multifaceted ‘Beijing Strategy', which aims to counter the US by building an alternative regional order, it also explains Japan’s definitive departure from its limited military role. Providing an introductory guide for the main frameworks needed to understand the region, including realism, liberalism and critical theory, this new edition is reader-friendly, and offers sophisticated competing explanations. Key content includes: Intra-regional conflicts in the South China Sea and the Korean peninsula, The different responses within the Asia-Pacific to the globalization of Western ideas of democracy and political economy, The underappreciated success of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in building a regional identity, The European Union’s soft power in the region. A highly topical account, which offers an overview of the main actors, institutions and contemporary issues in the Asia-Pacific, the book will be essential reading for undergraduate students of Asian Studies, International Politics, and anyone interested in the region.

This book analyses four major long-standing and intractable conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region (the Korean Peninsula; the Taiwan Strait; the South China Sea (Spratly Islands); and India-Pakistan), and aims to identify the mechanisms used to manage these conflicts. International Conflict in the Asia-Pacific brings together in one volume four major international conflicts that have shaped the region, and studies how they evolved and how best to manage them. The book seeks to find a pattern common to the four conflicts and their management as well as taking note of variations among them, hereby aiming to establish what might be called the 'Asia-Pacific way of managing intractable conflicts'. This book will of much interest to students of international conflict management, Asian politics, security studies and IR in general. Jacob Bercovitch is Professor of International Relations in the Political Science Department at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Widely regarded as one of the most influential scholars in the field of international conflict resolution, he is author of more than 15 books and numerous articles. Mikio Oishi is a Visiting Fellow with the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (NCPACS), University of Otago and a Research Fellow with Political Science Programme of University of Canterbury.