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The article is devoted to the topical problem of energy security in East Asia under the context of the unfolding struggle of the major powers in this region for priority access to energy sources from Russia, the Middle East and fields in the East China and South China seas. The problems of bilateral and multilateral energy cooperation, ways of its institutionalization in the context of the prospects of the formation of a common regionwide energy space are depicted in this article. The authors note that the territorial disputes between China and Japan over the Senkaku Islands, as well as the disputes over the ownership of the Paracel Islands, which have repeatedly led the countries of East Asia to the brink of a military confrontation, have a strong natural resources background, because either there are large deposits of hydrocarbons, or there are strategically important ways of transporting oil and gas from the Middle East. The confrontation between China and Japan, the world largest economies and powerful military powers at the same time the countries with lack of oil and gas reserves and that have been experiencing a severe shortage of this strategically important for the functioning of their industry natural resources for the last two decades represents grave danger. The current military and political situation between China and Japan, characterized by the intensification of their struggle for regional leadership and often accompanied by the manifestation of force, calls for intensified efforts of the two governments to establish political cooperation and to reach compromise solutions. According to the authors, the common interests of energy security and stable development of energy cooperation in East Asia suggest the creation of responsible structural department within the existing regional integration associations that would directly deal with energy issues and would allow their depoliticization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the problem of militarization in the East Asian region in the context of the unfolding crisis in Japan-China relations. Numerous territorial disputes between China and Japan and other countries in East Asia being divided into two hostile sides in the recent past, the complicated history of the last century along with innumerable military conflicts, the deficiency of effectively operating security organizations in this region, the inequality of economic development between countries, all these factors in the combination with active military policy of the United States and Russia entered a new era of global confrontation, cause conflicts and contradictions of interstate relations in this region. According to the authors, the majority of Asian Pacific countries held a steady course for the accelerated strengthening of the military capability of national armies, and the dominant principle of interstate relations was the ancient Roman principle: "Wish for peace - be prepared for war". A special place in the study was given to compare the military capability of the great powers of East Asia and military plans of the United States. The US determination to establish the missile defense system in East Asia including Taiwan and South Korea in addition to Japan causes an extremely negative reaction in China, Russia and North Korea and their readiness to resume alliance of the Cold war period, and it will provoke a new "arms race" between the major regional powers. The authors note that all the sides have to develop multilateral directions of cooperation in security and defense field and to sign a number of agreements on strategic arms restriction and disarmament; Japan should refuse to pursue U.S. policy, less appropriate to Japanese interests; and China should reduce the sharpness of historically strong anti-Japanese rhetoric and adopt a more compromising stance on territorial issues to overcome the precritical situation. In the modern era, both countries have a special role in preventing a new Cold war, because its resumption will change precisely East Asia into the main arena of rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is devoted to the urgent problem of economic cooperation between China and Japan in the era of the "World Financial Crisis". The global economic crisis of 2008, which became a powerful blow for the capitalist world since the Great Depression and inflicted a heavy blow on the economies of the United States and Western Europe, did not have such a strong impact on East Asia, China and even Japan, despite their greater involvement in the world financial and economic system. It confirmed the fact that the center of the world economy, its core, the core of global growth and development has been gradually moving to East Asia whose largest economies are Chinese and Japanese ones. Political relations between the two countries have been extremely tense over the past more than a hundred years, constantly escalating into open clashes, but it did not prevent them from finding mutually beneficial economic cooperation and jointly resisting the challenges of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. Over time, Japan became the second-third most important trading partner of China, China became Japan's first partner. Currently Japan-China economic cooperation is increasingly exposed to political factors. The geopolitical clash of the two countries threatens to violate close industrial cooperation and scale down the mutual trade. Trade wars between China and Japan affect all new spheres. The global financial crisis has become a catalyst for the divergence of foreign economic strategies between the two countries reinforcing the desire of the parties to form a single center for the region's economic development around themselves, institutionalizing and consolidating their economic power in various regional integration structures. China and Japan have been arguing for years around the format of the East Asian community and the conditions for the creation of a free trade zone in the region. The economic competition of the two countries, which started in the early 2000s, is gradually coming to an end with China's convincing victory, but in the authors' opinion, its moving from the economic plane to the political struggle can radically change this trend due to the US siding with Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]