Japan And East Asia

Examining the pivotal relationship between Japan and Southeast Asia, as it has changed and endured into the Indo-Pacific Era

In the decades since her defeat in the Second World War, Japan has continued to loom large in the national imagination of many of her East Asian neighbours. While for many, Japan still conjures up images of rampant military brutality, at different times and in different communities, alternative images of the Japanese ‘Other’ have vied for predominance – in ways that remain poorly understood, not least within Japan itself. Imagining Japan in Postwar East Asia analyses the portrayal of Japan in the societies of East and Southeast Asia, and asks how and why this has changed in recent decades, and what these changing images of Japan reveal about the ways in which these societies construct their own identities. It examines the role played by an imagined ‘Japan’ in the construction of national selves across the East Asian region, as mediated through a broad range of media ranging from school curricula and textbooks to film, television, literature and comics. Commencing with an extensive thematic and comparative overview chapter, the volume also includes contributions focusing specifically on Chinese societies (the mainland PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan), Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. These studies show how changes in the representation of Japan have been related to political, social and cultural shifts within the societies of East Asia – and in particular to the ways in which these societies have imagined or constructed their own identities. Bringing together contributors working in the fields of education, anthropology, history, sociology, political science and media studies, this interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to all students and scholars concerned with issues of identity, politics and culture in the societies of East Asia, and to those seeking a deeper understanding of Japan’s fraught relations with its regional neighbours.

Written with rare mastery and a sure sense of the essential, this concise general history of modern East Asia offers students and general readers an understanding of this dynamic region from a global perspective. It is the ideal introductory text for college survey courses in Asian and international studies.Following an introductory discussion of the regional concept, the first two chapters lay the foundations. Chapter 1 describes East Asia's geographical, human, cultural, economic, social, and political setting as it has evolved over the past several millennia, and the three major belief systems - Confucianism, Buddhism, and Islam. Chapter 2 presents a panoramic view of the region ca. 1800. The chapter introduces the "dramatis personae" - the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Indonesians, Filipinos, and others - and describes their interactions with each other and with Imperial China.The following three chapters deal with European expansionism and East Asians' responses to the civilizational challenge; the stirrings of nationalism in reaction to European colonial rule; and the remarkable rise of Imperial Japan. Chapters 6 and 7 trace Japan's bid to lead a pan-Asianist revolt against the twin threats of Western liberalism and Soviet communism, and the ensuing Pacific War. Chapters 8 and 9 span the cold war era, from postwar U.S. hopes for a "Pax Americana" to the division of East Asia into communist and anti-communist blocs. The Sino-Soviet split and the Sino-American rapprochement of the early 1970s open the way to the "East Asian miracle" and a resurgence of East Asian regionalism, surveyed in Chapter 10. A concluding chapter considers the prospects for continued economic dynamism and the balance of nationalism and pan-Asian trends in shaping the future.

In 40 years Japan has developed from a war-devastated and poverty stricken country into the second largest economy in the world. This book analyzes how Japan attained its current financial and technological status and argues that Japan's supremacy over world economies will expand further.

Have Japan's relative economic decline and China's rapid ascent altered the dynamics of Asian regionalism? Peter Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi, the editors of Network Power, one of the most comprehensive volumes on East Asian regionalism in the 1990s, present here an impressive new collection that brings the reader up to date. This book argues that East Asia's regional dynamics are no longer the result of a simple extension of any one national model. While Japanese institutional structures and political practices remain critically important, the new East Asia now under construction is more than, and different from, the sum of its various national parts. At the outset of a new century, the interplay of Japanese factors with Chinese, American, and other national influences is producing a distinctively new East Asian region.

In these original essays, distinguished scholars of modern East Asia distill from long years of research interpretive accounts of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century China, Japan, and Korea. All of the contributors describe particular features of the modern experience of East Asian countries, while also addressing common themes.