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New generation' free trade agreements now include 'Trade and Sustainable Development' (TSD) chapters designed to improve environmental provisions within overall trading arrangements. The wide-ranging European Union (EU)-Japan agreement of 2018 represents the culmination of a trend towards the greater inclusion of such TSD elements, and, as it covers one-third of global GDP, the significance of this agreement for trading relations cannot be understated. Comparing it with other agreements involving Japan and the EU, I argue that greater attention to sustainable development in trade connections, notwithstanding tangible significant environmental improvements, further embeds an anthropocentric narrative of trade-environment linkages and supports a 'win–win' linkage between enhancing economic growth and ensuring environmental protections. Through an eco-centric critique, I seek to challenge the fundamental anthropocentric assumptions underpinning such inclusions and explore the ways in which the language of environmental protection and climate change has been depoliticised by a particular framing of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'climate leadership' became popular in the 1990s, in relation to international negotiations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental mitigations. Since that time, international attention – borne out by scientific study and a rapidly changing planetary climate - has shifted from global warming, the ozone layer and greenhouse gas emissions, to energy production, scientific innovation, and, by the 2020s, a strong focus on decarbonisation and securing net zero carbon output by the middle of the century. One important strand of negotiation has been the annual Conferences of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which have witnessed different states playing lead roles at different times. By interrogating the main academic debates about climate leadership, this article examines Japan's participation in the COP process along a structural-normative axis. In so doing, it charts the path from Japan's apparent success at Kyoto in 1997 and its growing green reputation, to its subsequent 'fall from green' in later years and in the wake of COP26 in 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the articles that follow considers the impact of the apparent decline of the West and the likely impact of China's rise on the region in this period of surprising flux. We provide a brief analysis of the main issues that are affecting the Asia-Pacific's three most significant states - the United States, China and Japan. Key questions for all of them and for the rest of this collection are about the very nature and identity of the region itself, and its relationship to the global sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on peacekeeping activities of Japan. The author says that the country's responses to peacekeeping have been reactive and ad hoc, including from being moved by the U.S.-led international union in the aftermath of the 1991 to 1992 Gulf War to U.S. calls for support over Iraq in 2003. He argues that these actions raise debate on how Japan can respond to international crises.

Japanese government interests in Southeast Asia continue to expand. Official speeches refer to the growth of a 'community that acts together', while institutional linkages have been strengthened with the creation of the ASEAN Plus Three process and by a proliferation of bilateral arrangements. These developing networks raise questions about Japan's future orientation towards its wider region. This article assesses recent developments, by challenging some of the fundamental assumptions about Japan's regional behaviour. First, it examines how a tendency to render mutually exclusive bilateral and multilateral forms of behaviour serves to obfuscate a focus on the fundamental processes of regional engagement. Second, this article delineates Japan's changing orientation towards the region as part of a process of 'complex regional multilateralism', in which a range of often ad hoc engagements have resulted in a loose framework for interaction. In so doing, it suggests that Japan's current policy-making approach towards Southeast Asia may be regarded as a continuation of policy that is, nevertheless, being buffeted by a range of - primarily regional - external influences. The resulting set of perceived strategies demonstrates not an either/or approach to regional engagement but, rather, shows how the Japanese government manages changing circumstances to carve out a new role for itself in Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At first sight, the East Asian financial crisis represents an instance of Japan failing the test of regional leadership - as evidenced by its abandonment of initial proposals for an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) in the face of US and Chinese opposition in 1997. However, if a second look is taken, and one which is sensitised to the fundamental characteristics of its diplomacy, then Japan can be seen as far more effective in augmenting its regional leadership role than previously imagined. Indeed, this article demonstrates that Japanese policy-makers have resurrected, over the longer term and in different guises, AMF-like frameworks which provide a potential springboard for further regional cooperation. Hence, the aims of this article are twofold. The first is to demonstrate the overall efficacy of Japanese regional economic diplomacy, and its ability to control outcomes through steering East Asia towards enhanced monetary cooperation. The second is to explain the reasons behind Japan's distinctive policy approach towards the financial crisis and general lessons for understanding its foreign policy. The article seeks to do so by asking three fundamental questions about the 'what', 'why' and 'how' of Japan's regional role: 'what' in terms of the dominant behavioural patterns of Japan's economic diplomacy; 'why' in terms of the motivations for this behaviour; and 'how' in terms of Japan's instrumentalisation of its regional policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kosovo crisis of 1999 took place on the European continent and was dominated by US-led NATO actions aimed at assisting Kosovo in its struggle against what was considered to be ethnic cleansing by the Serbian government. While many observers may be unaware that the Japanese government had a role to play in the unfolding events, this article examines how and why that participation is important for an understanding of Tokyo's contemporary foreign policy orientation. To this end, the article assesses how Japanese participation in the international efforts aimed at restoring peace to the region were channelled through specific multilateral fora. In particular, it assesses the development of Japan's role as part of the United Nations, NATO and the G7/8 processes, and it examines the opportunities introduced by the cessation of NATO bombing raids after May 1999. The article also explains how this participation can be understood to illustrate an orientation towards 'complex engagement', as the Tokyo administration seeks to assert its international profile more actively in the pursuit of non-military objectives. This concept, which is developed throughout, will be shown to represent an underlying trend in the changing formulation of Japanese foreign policy. Its still tentative foundations rest upon a state-society cooperation used to eschew the pursuit of active military diplomacy in favour of a multi-layered, non-military orientation which rests upon the notion of human security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with the status of Japan's foreign relations with Europe with regards to the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). Role of Japan in ASEM; Benefits of the development of further relations with Europe to Japan; How the 1998 ASEM summit held in London offered solutions to the Asian currency crisis.