The wider Eastern Asian region has been one of the economically most vibrant and successful geographic areas of the world recently, but at the same time still faces major political challenges. The objective here is to probe and explore how the changing regional dynamics are reshaping the political landscape in a rising Asia.

The observation of a rising Asia and of rapidly growing economic powerhouses in the region has become a truism. Nonetheless, the impressive economic development stories in the region provide the backbone for the growing political strength and assertiveness of Asian countries. Asia’s economic prowess is rapidly being...

At the dawn of the 21^stcentury, there is still no discernible integrative civility to the diplomacies practised by nation-states inhabiting the panregion stretching from the Kurile Islands in the northern Pacific down to that part of the Indian Ocean rim formed by the contiguous borders of Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and India. A thin community founded upon a negative peace groups these states in the sense that they have not resorted to conventional war to resolve bilateral disputes, but they have yet to foster a political community on the order of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European...

According to a report by the Commission on Global Governance, ‘Governance is the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs’ (1995: 2). It is an ongoing and evolutionary process which looks to reconcile conflicting interests in order to protect the weak from unjust exploitation through the rule of law, and introduce security for all. Governance is also a process through which collective goods are generated so that all are better off than they would be acting individually. Thus governance implies a concern by those who govern with both the human security and...

Northeast Asia’s¹ already high standing in the world order continues to rise. There are now hardly any doubts that this formerly peripheral regional system will shape the global international order in the 21^stcentury. There is a substantial amount of conflict and tension in the region, including flashpoints such as the Korean Peninsula, issues over Taiwan, various territorial disputes, etc. Northeast Asia is still lacking a solid and working system of cooperation to ensure mutual security. What are, then, the principal reasons for this state of affairs?

First, there is a lack of mutual trust, which leads to acute security...

An ASEAN of the People, by the People and for the People— the title of the report of the First ASEAN People’s Assembly — voiced a strong constitutional appeal to Southeast Asian’s political elite (Centre for Strategic and International Studies 2001). The idea of a people-oriented turn in the regional integration process in Southeast Asia was building momentum towards the signing of the Charter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore in November 2007. Over a period of less than seven years, the termpeopleincreasingly permeated both diplomatic and scholarly language (Severino 2006; Tan 2007). The idea that...

Over a decade has passed since the phenomenon of non-official diplomacy emerged as a notable theme in the international affairs of Southeast Asia.¹ The emergence of unofficial diplomats from epistemic communities as well as ‘Track 2’ networks across the Southeast Asian region – such as ASEANISIS (ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies) and CSCAP (Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific), among others – has contributed, among other things, to a more expansive understanding of diplomacy as a multitracked enterprise with governmental as well as non-governmental features (Hernandez 1994; Simon 2002; Woods 1993). Moreover, in the light of ongoing (albeit incipient)...

With the rapid economic growth experienced by both China and India over the last two decades, commentators such as Kishore Mahbubani are confidently proclaiming that the 21^stcentury belongs to Asia (Mahbubani 2008). Consequently, there are also many works predicting the nature and effects, whether benign or belligerent, associated with the concurrent rise of China and India. However, this chapter, unlike existing predicative literature, does not seek to make claims about the consequences of the rise of China and India. This is because the owl of Minerva flies only at dusk; it is only when events are over that we...

Prima facie this appears an accurate appraisal of contemporary Japan. Unlike China, India and others, Japan is certainly not ‘rising’. But there are two strong caveats to this bleak assessment. Firstly, Japan is well endowed with ‘power resources’ that give it the capital to overcome current misfortunes and successfully ‘reinvent’ itself (Morris-Suzuki 1998; Gibney 1992; Gibney 2000; Takao 2008b; Buruma 2004). It has already achieved a fully developed industrialized high-technology economy and society, with its citizens enjoying vastly greater per capita incomes than those of the rising Asian giants, China and India. It must be remembered that Japan is still...

China’s engagement in Central Asia¹ differs uniquely from neighbouring countries with which it shares its border. In parallel with its bilateral relations, China is using a different form of regional diplomacy — an induced multilateral diplomacy in the form of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).² The controversy about the SCO’sraison d’êtrecontinues despite an explicit statement in its charter on the region’s security needs for an institution to guard against non-traditional threats (SCO 2010a).

The key argument I make in this chapter is that the SCO’s regional security identity greatly impacts the national security identities of the member-states. The key...