The Pacific Basin Since 1945

The nations of the Pacific Basin - in East and Southeast Asia, Australasia, the Pacific islands and the Americas - make up the world's largest economic zone, and its most culturally diverse region. In recent years its Asian 'Tiger Economies' have suffered economic collapse and unfinished business from the Cold War has produced continuing conflict and instability. The new edition of this pioneering book traces the postwar inter-relationships of all the rim and island nations. It gives a unique impression of the make-up of the region, and the tensions within it. The book integrates a wide range of information from books and articles; from published and unpublished sources, including recently opened Russian and American archives; and from the first-hand experiences of participants, including those of the author, in Pacific Basin affairs. Vigorously written and strongly argued, no other account brings together all the threads of the development of international relations in this complex and fascinating region.

Tracing the postwar inter-relationships of all the rim and island nations of the Pacific Basin since 1945, this text includes expanded coverage of China's relationships with Taiwan and tensions between North and South Korea.

This postwar study of the history of the Pacific Basin links together the interrelationships of the rim nations of east and southeast Asia, Australia, North and South America and the Pacific Islands. It looks at the various different regions and how they all interconnect. It explores major themes such as: the creation of Japan's new economic order in the region; the United States' crusades against communism, real and imagined, in Asia and Latin America; national struggles for independence against colonial rule; and the shifting patterns of conflict and co-operation between the rim states themselves.

Many historians of U.S. foreign relations think of the post-World War II period as a time when the United States, as an anti-colonial power, advocated collective security through the United Nations and denounced territorial aggrandizement. Yet between 1945 and 1947, the United States violated its wartime rhetoric and instead sought an imperial solution to its postwar security problems in East Asia by acquiring unilateral control of the western Pacific Islands and dominating influence throughout the entire Pacific Basin. This detailed study examines American foreign policy from the beginning of the Truman Administration to the implementation of Containment in the summer and fall of 1947. As a case study of the Truman Administration's Early Cold War efforts, it explores pre-Containment policy in light of U.S. security concerns vis-a-vis the Pearl Harbor Syndrome. The American pursuit of a secure Pacific Basin was inconsistent at the time with its foreign policy toward other areas of the world. Thus, the consolidation of power in this region was an exception to the avowed goal of a multilateral response to the policies of the Soviet Union. This example of national or strategic security went much further than simple military control; it included the cultural assimilation of the indigenous population and the unilateral exclusion of all other powers. Analyzing traditional archival records in a new light, Friedman also investigates the persisting American notions of a Westward moving frontier that stretches beyond North American territorial bounds.

In a fast-moving and incisive narrative, Roger Buckley examines America s close and continuous relationship with the Asia-Pacific region from the end of the Pacific War to the first days of the Presidency of George W. Bush. The author traces the responses of the United States government to the major crises in the area through the Cold War decades and the initial post-Cold War years. He demonstrates how the US sought to maintain its dominant regional position through a series of security alliances and its own political, military and economic strengths. Professor Buckley examines the subject from geopolitical perspectives to provide a gateway to the understanding of a complex region certain to be of global importance in the twenty-first century.