Publisher's Synopsis
These two volumes dealing with political change in East Asia are organised around a simple intellectual concern ? the task of analysing complex change. This formulation represents a particular view of the scope and possibility of social scientific enquiry and is thus the most appropriate way to access the extensive debate on the politics of East Asia. The two volumes will deal with a series of present-day key issues: The implications of the end of the Cold War in East Asia are of great significance. We can note two matters: first, the residual problems of the Cold War (the China/Taiwan relationship, the division of Korea, the security architecture of the region and the changing relationship between the three big regional powers: China, Japan and the USA); and, second, the newly emergent agendas of regional economic interchange (where it is clear that over the last twenty years or so an integrated regional economic space has been developing). The implications of the emergent regionalism for the countries of the area are significant. It means increasing economic interchange (with businessmen, politicians and tourists travelling more routinely) and the slow creation of the conditions for increasing political interchange (all the meetings, evidenced in all the acronyms). Relatedly, as the region develops, a new spread of relationships with the wider global system will emerge. The new pattern of internal regional relations revolves around the economic positions of the various countries: the strength of Japan is not in doubt, nor is that of the NICs. The countries of ASEAN continue to develop and have embraced Indo China. The key novelty is the rapid opening of China. The new pattern of trans-regional relations looks to the development of a tripolar global system, a matter which has found acknowledgement in the establishment of APEC and ASEM. In sum, the new pattern is centrally geo-economic, not geo-strategic.
