Peter Mauch

Superpower, China?:Historicizing Beijing's New Narratives of Leadership and East Asia's Response Thereto

This book sets out to answer how Chinas rise can best be understood from both East Asian and Western perspectives. It also assesses the prospect of realignment away from the US hegemony in East Asia in light of persistent regional rivalries. Throughout the book, the authors show that for Chinas neighbours, as well as for its own intellectuals, historicizing the countrys rise provides one way of understanding its current ascendant trajectory, on the one hand, and acute social problems, on the other.To which historical precedent should one turn? Did Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo get it right when he recently likened the contemporary Sino-Japanese relationship to that of Germany and Britain on the eve of World War I? Is Harvard Law Schools Noah Feldman correct in his assertion that China and the United States are on the verge not of a Cold War but of a i°Cool War,i± in which a i°classic struggle for power is unfolding at the same time as economic cooperation is becoming deeper? The authors examine these questions and also focus on other observations that becloud Chinas rise.

A completely star performance? : Australian minister Richard Gardiner Casey in Washington, March 1940-March 1942

The Australian government in January 1940 appointed Richard Gardiner Casey minister to the United States. He sought both U.S. support for Britain in its war against Nazi Germany, and a U.S. guarantee to preserve Australian security in the face of an aggressive and threatening Japan. When Casey’s mission ended in March 1942, the United States had entered war in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The limits to Casey’s ministerial influence were such, however, that one hardly can credit him with having delivered U.S. belligerency. The existing literature nonetheless locates merit in Casey’s ministerial mission, particularly in his highly effective public diplomacy and also in his ability to remain abreast of key U.S. decisions and strategy. This essay takes no particular issue with these findings. Instead, it finds value elsewhere in Casey’s mission, and in particular in the delicate balance he struck between his twin loyalties, to both Australia and the British Empire. It also departs from the existing literature insofar as it identifies a number of issues and episodes that call into question Casey’s accomplishments and acumen.

Japanese Intellectual Responses to China’s Rise

One of Japan’s leading daily newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun, carried an interview on December 12, 2012 with Dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Modern International Relations Yan Xuetong. In the course of that interview, Yan made a number of interesting observations. First, he made clear that he regarded Sino—American ‘conflict and rivalry’ as ‘inevitable’. Second, he suggested that the United States and China should ‘drop’ the idea of ‘mutual trust’, and that they should instead seek ‘cooperation without mutual trust’. Yan also seemed certain that China need not lose out to the United States in a competition for the world’s hearts-and-minds. Arguing that China’s ‘political morality’ is at a higher level than that of the West, Yan argued that the ancient Chinese emphasis on ‘fairness’ trumps ‘equality’; similarly, ‘civility’ surpasses ‘freedom’; and also, ‘justice’ is better than ‘democracy’.

Documentary Discovery: Japan’s Armed Services’ Revisions to the Draft Understanding between Japan and the United States, April 1941

This essay reproduces in its entirety a translated version of a hitherto neglected document from 1941, entitled “Armed Services’ and Foreign Ministry’s Revised Draft, April 21.” The revisions pertain to the so-called “Draft Understanding between Japan and the United States,” a plan for peace in the Pacific which Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō submitted to U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull on 14 April, and then to Japanese Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro on 17 April. The revisions – or, to be more exact, the scarcity of revisions – suggest that even the Imperial Japanese Army viewed the Draft Understanding with an equanimity that has escaped previous scholarship. In so doing, the reproduced document raises important questions about the gulf separating Japan’s armed services and hardline Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke.