Christopher W. Hughes

New regionalisms in the global political economy

Preface and Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations List of tables and figures Chapter 1. Regions in Comparative Perspective Chapter 2. Regionalism and the Emerging (Intrusive) World Order: Sovereignty, Autonomy, Identity Chapter 3. Theorising the Rise of Regionness Chapter 4. The Trade-Environment Nexus and the Potential of Regional Trade Institutions Chapter 5. Governance after Financial Crisis: South American Perspectives on the Reformulation of Regionalism Chapter 6. Regionalism and development after the global financial crisis Chapter 7. Regionalism and Asia Chapter 8. Asian multilateral institutions and their response to the Asian economic crisis: the regional and global implications Chapter 9. Europeanisation and globalization: complementary or contradictory trends? Chapter 10. Austrias and Swedens accession to the European Union: a comparative neo-Gramscian analysis Chapter 11. Discovering the frontiers of Regionalism: Fostering Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Competitiveness in the European Union

Japan's New Security Agenda

New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has only been in office since late September, but already the outlines of his administration are becoming clearer, both in expected and unexpected directions. Abe’s administration is proving to be conservative and revisionist, and even more so than that of his predecessor Junichirō Koizumi. Abe has certainly moved to improve ties with China and South Korea—Beijing and Seoul the October destinations for his first overseas visits within two weeks of taking power—and thereby to limit the damage wrought by Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine and bilateral wrangling over Japan’s colonial history. However, the general thrust of Abe’s diplomacy is built upon much of the legacy left by Koizumi, and is attempting to shift it on to a yet more pro-active and assertive path.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons : implications for the nuclear ambitions of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan

This article evaluates the nuclear intentions of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in the wake of North Koreas October 2006 nuclear test.

Japan's Military Modernisation: A Quiet Japan–China Arms Race and Global Power Projection

J apan’s security trajectory, in the period following the administration of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichirō, has once again come into question. Japan under Koizumi’s administration demonstrated startling new proactivism in responding to the events of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing “war on terrorism.” Japan despatched the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) from November 2001 onwards to provide logistical support in the Indian Ocean for US and international coalition forces engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom. Japan further demonstrated its new pro-activity through the despatch of the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) and Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) on non-combat reconstruction missions as part of the US-led “coalition of the willing” in Iraq and Kuwait from 2004 onwards. Japan and the US then concluded the 2006 Defence Policy Review Initiative (DPRI) which facilitated the realignment of US bases in Japan, promoted the greater integration of US forces and the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), and now opened the way for the US to utilise its bases in Japan for projecting power globally. Japan was seen to be moving towards the increased militarisation of its security stance, and to be emerging as a more assertive or “normal” military power and reliable US ally.

Not quite the ‘Great Britain of the Far East’: Japan's security, the US–Japan alliance and the ‘war on terror’ in East Asia

Japan, in responding to US expectations for support in the ‘war on terror’, has displayed a degree of strategic convergence on global security objectives, thus prompting policy-makers and observers to dub it the ‘Great Britain of the Far East’. This article argues, however, that Japan is far from assuming this role. For Japan, the ‘war on terror’ serves more as a political pretext for legitimating long-planned changes in military security policy that are often only marginally related to the USs anti-terrorism agenda. Instead, Japan has focused much more on using the terror threat rationale as a means to push forward its response to the regional and traditional security challenges of North Korea and China, even if at times it attempts to depict both as ‘new security challenges’ or as involving elements of counterterrorism. The final conclusion is that US military hegemony may be weakened by Japans and the Asia-Pacifics potential divergence from the US global security agenda.

Japan's subregional security and defence linkages with ASEANs, South Korea and China in the 1990s

In the post‐cold war period, the security situation in the Asia‐Pacific region and in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia is undergoing a transformation with the emergence for the first time of multilateral security dialogue. One of the most striking features of this transformation is Japans new role as a sponsor of multilateral security dialogue in the early 1990s. Japanese policymakers are also working to create security and defence linkages with Asian nations at the subregional level. Evidence gathered from diverse sources reveals that the Japanese Defence Agency and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are experiencing varied success in extending these types of linkages to the ASEAN nations, South Korea and China. Linkages with the ASEAN nations have been slow to emerge but look set to progress further as suspicion lessens of Japans role in Southeast Asian security, and as Japans role in peacekeeping expands. Remarkable progress has been made between Japan and South Korea in establishing security and defence linkages, and the strategic uncertainties of the instability of North Korea and the commitment of the US to Northeast Asia look likely to push Japan and South Korea towards closer co‐operation on security matters. By contrast, Japans repeated efforts to involve China in a closer dialogue on security have met with limited success, and immediate progress is hampered by the issues of missile and nuclear testing, Chinese attempts to intimidate Taiwan with military exercises in late 1995 and early 1996, and, more generally, the problem of ‘transparency’ in security relations. Indeed, the evidence from Japans attempts to create subregional security and defence linkages suggests that the most crucial factor in the success of this policy is the existence of a degree of ‘transparency’ in relations between Japan and the ASEAN nations, South Korea and China.

The Slow Death of Japanese Techno-Nationalism? Emerging Comparative Lessons for China's Defense Production

Abstract Japans defense production model is often portrayed as an exemplar of techno-nationalism, but can it serve as a model for China to follow in pursuit of technological military catch-up? Japan in the past has exploited civilian industrial strengths to create a defense production base with footholds in key technologies. However, Japans defense production model is now displaying structural limits – constrained defense budgets, deficient procurement management, limited international collaboration – with the risks of civilian industry exiting the sector, the loss of even basic competency in military technologies, and the consequent weakening of national security autonomy. Japans case thus offers emerging comparative lessons for China to study in what to do and not to in pursuing civilian–military integration.

Japan-North Korea Relations From the North-South Summit to the Koizumi-Kim Summit

Prime Minister Koizumis visit to Pyongyang has enabled Japan to dig itself out of an ever deepening and divisive policy rut with regard to North Korea. However, the ability of Japan to exploit the opportunities opened up by the summit still remains indeterminate. So states Christopher Hughes, senior research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick, UK, in the following article. Japan in the past has constructed around itself a framework of international and domestic policy constraints that have impeded and remain a latent impediment on its ability to fully engage North Korea. Hughes suggests that, Koizumis visit to Pyongyang is a bold policy initiative worthy of praise and one which sets Japanese policy on a surer footing than at any time over the past decade. Nevertheless, Japan could still find itself as the most reluctant and least able of the trilateral partners to fully engage the North due to international constraints, domestic policy splits, and anti-North Korean sentiment in Japan.

Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, the changing nature of terrorism, and the post‐cold war security agenda∗

Events such as the Aum Shinrikyos sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1994 have placed terrorism at the top of the post‐Cold War security agenda and have caused policy makers to sense qualitative change and new dangers in the terrorist threat to industrialised societies. By examining the case of the Aum Shinrikyo and comparing it in detail with Japanese terrorism during the Cold War period, this article demonstrates that terrorism has indeed undergone qualitative change in the 1990s due to terrorisms enhanced non‐specificity, expansion in destructive potential, greater erosion of the barriers between internal and external security, and ability to corrode the legitimacy of existing security institutions. The article then goes on to argue that Aums characteristics as a terrorist phenomenon reflect the nature of the post‐Cold War security agenda as a whole, and that the policy lesson of the Tokyo subway attack is that, in the 1990s, in order for security institutions to detect new security chall...

Tumen River Area Development Programme: Frustrated Micro-Regionalism as a Microcosm of Political Rivalries

Following the end of the Cold War, region-building has held out to many – academic commentators and practitioners alike – the prospect of creating new avenues for economic cooperation and security, and for restructuring the international order to cope with the onset of the pressures of globalization. As is well documented, the revitalization in the late 1980s and 1990s of the European Union’s (EU) project of regional integration across the three dimensions of economics, politics and security, also helped at the same time to spur on regional projects in the Asia-Pacific and Northeast and Southeast Asia. Regional projects such as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) certainly differ significantly from European examples in being predicated primarily upon cooperation in the economic dimension, and emphasizing the development of ‘soft’ rather than ‘hard’ institutional arrangements (Katzenstein 1997: 12).