Gilbert Rozman

Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji

In this book social scientists scrutinize the middle decades of the nineteenth century in Japan. That scrutiny is important and overdue, for the period from the 1850s to the 1880s has usually been treated in terms of politics and foreign relations. Yet those decades were also of pivotal importance in Japans institutional modernization. As the Japanese entered the world order, they experienced a massive introduction of Western-style organizations. Sweeping reforms, without the class violence or the Utopian appeal of revolution, created the foundation for a modern society. The Meiji Restoration introduced a political transformation, but these chapters address the more gradual social transition.Originally published in 1986.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

South Korea and Sino-Japanese rivalry: a middle power's options within the East Asian core triangle

Abstract South Korea is a middle power in a region where its scope of action can rise and fall quickly and diplomatic flexibility is needed. Neither realist responses to threats nor idealist trust in integration meet its needs for adjusting triangular ties with China and Japan, as their relations become the principal great power divide in Northeast Asia. Its optimal choice is as a facilitator biding its time when tensions over both security and national identity clashes are intense, while preparing for opportunities. Four conditions would give it a favorable environment: forward-looking foreign leadership; security challenges brought under some control; subsiding preoccupation with national identities; and its own strategic planning with care not to overreach. Multiple possibilities emerge if it can rebuild ties with Japan as part of a triangle with China as well as one with the United States and also synchronize ties with China to other ties. Even amidst recurrent tensions, the core East Asian triangle offers Seoul a chance to take advantage of changing dynamics in the worlds most ascendant region.

Flawed regionalism: Reconceptualizing Northeast Asia in the 1990s

Abstract The goal of regionalism in Northeast Asia seemed within reach early in the 1990s, but plans clashed and territories failed in their objectives. This paper reviews the shared dreams in Russia, China, and Japan and identifies some of the problems that left plans in tatters by 1994. It summarizes the principal misjudgments during the start‐up phase both in the three national capitals and in three local areas. While local areas acted impulsively with unrealistic expectations, the national capitals hesitated without leading the way or let one‐sided national interests overwhelm regional planning. The preconditions to regionalism are still not in place. Efforts to find a new, realistic model point to the need to address the great power balance, localist‐nationalist contradictions, mutual understanding, and multilateralism, including a division of labor acceptable to all sides.

Japan and Korea: should the US be worried about their new spat in 2001?

The downturn in relations between Japan and Korea in 2001 largely resulted from new middle school textbooks in Japan, but deeper forces are at work. Public opinion in each country remains negative, while the history question endures in many forms. Close economic ties and deepseated cultural affinity lack indispensable elements of integration. The two states have pursued markedly different geopolitical strategies of late. The North Korean diplomatic initiative of 2000 aroused doubts in each country about the other. Now that the US has declared the North part of an ‘axis of evil’, it must do more to bridge the gap between the South and Japan, finding a way to balance new pressure on the North with suitable enticements that will ease the way for its two allies to work together.

Chinese strategic thought toward Asia

Overview Chronology Chinese Strategic Thought in the 1980s Chinese Strategic Thought 1990-1995 Chinese Strategic Thought 1996-2000 Chinese Strategic Thought 2001-2009 Geography Strategic Thought on Russia and Central Asia Strategic Thought on Japan Strategic Thought on the Korean Peninsula Strategic Thought on Southeast and South Asia Strategic Thought on Regionalism

Post Cold War Evolution of Chinese Thinking on Regional Institutions in Northeast Asia

A review of four periods and a comparison of three regional institutions provide evidence for how serious China has become about multilateralism with its neighbors in Asia. Approval for multilateralism does not mean that China is ready to endorse strong regional organizations that bind their members, especially when it has reservations both about institutions that could undermine its narrow notion of sovereignty and norms that could support US or even Japanese efforts to impose long-feared universal values. If China calculates that limited multilateralism now provides a variety of benefits, to date its support reflects specific circumstances, not general trust in this format. Focusing on the Six-Party Talks as the presumed foundation for regionalism in Northeast Asia offers a concentrated view of strategic thinking toward the area most vital to Chinas security. In the standoff between North Korea and the United States we are able to assess the degree to which China accepts working with four or five states and the prospects for its active support, if circumstances permit, for the establishment of a peace and security mechanism through the fifth working group that originated in the Joint Agreement of February 2007.

The Crisis of the Russian Far East: Who Is to Blame?

The Russian Far East has failed to real ize its potential as a regional economic and political power. Until leaders stop shifting the blame and take a concerted stand, Russia’s gateway to the Pacific will remain closed.

Strategic Thinking About the Russian Far East: A Resurgent Russia Eyes Its Future in Northeast Asia

Moscow is more interested in blocking U.S. influence in Asia than in promoting regional integration.

Japanese Strategic Thinking on Regionalism

As the cold war ended in 1989–90, the first rumblings of regionalism were felt in Japan, both with the establishment of APEC inclusive of the United States and with talk of the “Japan Sea economic rim” and of the EAEC (East Asian economic caucus) exclusive of the United States. In December 2005 the first meeting of the EAS (East Asian Summit) rekindled Japanese hopes for regionalism, now with careful attention to preventing China’s dominance. Over more than 15 years we can trace Japanese interest in regionalism,1 transcending bilateral relations while requiring some delicate balancing of relations involving first the United States and later China.2 Different assumptions could be found on the political Right and Left, initially among those who placed a high future value on U.S. relations and those who were impatient for “normal” foreign relations that limit the U.S. role, and eventually among those who sought to forestall China’s leadership in Asia and those who accepted the need for Japan to “reenter Asia.” This chapter focuses on the strategic calculations operating in the background as approaches to regionalism changed.

Japan and Russia : the tortuous path to normalization, 1949-1999

Introduction PART I: RELATIONS: 1949-1984 The San Francisco Peace Treaty and the Definition of the Kurile Islands H.Wada The Soviet-Japanese Postwar Peace Settlement in Retrospect B.Slavinsky Reconciliation in the Fifties: The Logic of Soviet Decision-Making A.Zagorsky Two Decades of Soviet Diplomacy and Andrei Gromyko P.Berton Japan-Soviet Political Relations from 1976 to 1983 H.Kimura PART II: RELATIONS: 1985-1999 Japan-Soviet Relations under Perestroika: Perceptions and Interactions between Two Capitals N.Shimotomai Russian Decision-Making on Japan in the Gorbachev Era L. L.Tarlow A Japanese View of Japan-Russian Relations between the August 1991 Coup and President Yeltsins State Visit of October 1993 S. Edamura A Russian View of Russian-Japanese Relations in 1991-93 G.Kunadze Why Did Russia and Japan Fail to Achieve Rapprochement in 1991 to 1996? T.Hasegawa Cross-Border Relations and Russo-Japanese Bilateral Ties in the 1990s G.Rozman Russo-Japanese Relations after Yeltsins Re-election in 1996 K.Sarkisov Japanese-Russian Relations in 1997-99: The Struggle against Illusions S.Hakamada PART III: MUTUAL INFLUENCES AND COMPARISONS Factors Shaping the Formation of Views on Japan in the USSR in the Postwar Period S.Verbitsky Japanese Perceptions of the Soviet Union and Russia in the Postwar Period T.Hasegawa Overcoming the Legacy of History: Japanese Public Relations in Russia, 1990-94 A.Kawato Nihonjinron and Russkaia Ideia: Transformation of Japanese and Russian Nationalism in the Postwar Era and Beyond T.Anno Japan and Russia: Great Power Ambitions and Domestic Capacities G. Rozman