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Although Sino–Japanese relations have been on a recovery course, the deterioration of ties in the first one and a half decades since 2000 should not be forgotten. This article aims to unpack China's perception formation mechanism toward Japan during these turbulent fifteen years by introducing the perspective of strategic perception. Because China's strategic perception toward Japan is largely derived from its overall perceptions of the international system, this article focuses on China's strategic elites to systemically trace the evolution of China's perception of Japan and its policy implications, and to provide a new perception equilibrium that reduced the US factor in the formation of a mutual Sino–Japanese perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of nationalism and interstate frictions on international economic relations by analyzing market reaction to adverse shocks to Sino-Japanese relations in 2005 and 2010. Japanese companies with high China exposure suffer relative declines during each event window; a symmetric effect is observed for Chinese companies with high Japanese exposure. The effect on Japanese companies is more pronounced for those operating in industries dominated by Chinese state-owned enterprises, whereas firms with high Chinese employment experience lower declines. These results emphasize the role of countries' economic and political institutions in mediating the impact of interstate frictions on firm-level outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents the importance of political factors in the development of China-Japan economic relations over the last four decades. The China-US reconciliation and the rise of the pro-China Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei (1972–1974) led to the normalization of China-Japan relations in 1972. The bilateral political rapport was further consolidated in the face of the common threat in the Soviet Union. With the strengthening political relations, the bilateral economic exchanges were gradually developed. Nonetheless, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, mounting Sino-US tension, China's growing assertiveness, and rising nationalism in both China and Japan, the Sino-Japanese bilateral political relations have been deteriorating. The escalating political tensions have impacted bilateral economic relations, including declining Japanese investment in China, weakening bilateral trade, and decreasing Japanese visitors to China. Despite improving bilateral political relations in recent years, it is uncertain how long these friendly gestures by the leaders of the two countries may last given several unsettled territorial and historical issues. The growing tension between the United States and China further adds uncertainty to China-Japan relations in the future. Without strong political relations, weakening economic ties cannot be easily restored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transport advantage, assembly hub under global value chains, technology advantage, and home-market effect are the four main factors contributing to the emergence of trade hubs in East Asia. Using a region-specific trade "hub-ness" measure, we examine the evolution of trade hubs in the East Asia. A China-Japan twin-hub pattern was found in the 1990s, but the twin hub began to divide in the beginning of the 21st century because of a rising China and declining Japan. We also show that ASEAN as an integrated region may lead to the emergence of another trade hub in East Asia, because of the enlarged ASEAN home-market-size effect, for the highly fragmented automatic data processing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of the paper is that of the role of transportation “hubs" in the pattern of interregional and international trade. It is mentioned that twin-hub trade regime since the beginning of 21st century is empirically reconfirmed using our modified hub index and identify the rising China-hub along with a declining Japan-hub. The article focuses on global value chains and their effects on trade in East Asia and ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).

Elite and public doubts in Japan about the country's economic and security relationships with both the United States and China, changes in the regional threat environment and the enhanced influence of revisionist conservatives in leadership positions over the past five years make conditions ripe for more muscular internal and external balancing by Japan. Despite this, recent changes to Japan's overall grand strategy and military posture remain incremental and focused on longer-term transformation. We argue that despite a degree of convergence in threat perceptions between the Japanese public and elites—and despite a greater tolerance of debate on controversial security issues—the increased political influence of revisionist conservatives arouses suspicion owing to the interlinkages between their political, social and security agendas. This, in turn, the article argues, complicates moves towards a more robust, responsive and flexible Japanese deterrence posture and an approach to alliance deepening suitable for minimizing contemporary geopolitical vulnerability and risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his paper "Collective Memory in Advocating Peace. The Nanjing Incident as a case study," Idham Badruzaman provides an example of how to build a peaceful Asian Community. The Foundation is establishing forms of bilateral cooperation at the educational level; mostly in universities and higher education institutions across the world. These programs are contributing to create cross-cultural ties within the Asian Community and across the world, surpassing national interests and boundaries, fostering inter-culturalism, and promoting tolerance amid differences. By focusing on the Nanjing Incident, the paper provides an example of how the building of collective memory can help reconciliation, showing the efforts made by Japan and China to maintain a neighbor-relationship. The study collects information about the different actions undertaken to create a collective memory of the Nanjing Incident in order to turn this public recollection into reconciliation. There have been at least seven efforts made to make public recollection about the Nanjing Incident. They include the following activities: publishing a book about Nanjing, building the National Memorial Hall, Annual Commemoration, setting up a National Memorial Day, registering the inscription with UNESCO, establishing the Peace and Research Institute, and eventually registering the city of Nanjing to become A City of Peace. In addition, there are many other events and elements that are worth-remembering as part of the collective memory for both the Chinese and the Japanese people. All of them are directed to the normalisation of neighbour relations, in the spirit of peace and reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, and its implications for the bilateral economic and trade cooperation between China and Japan. Topics discussed include the five major goals of this initiative including policy coordination, facilities connectivity, and people-to-people bonds. Also discussed are areas where China and Japan can pursue cooperation under the Belt and Road including the area of exploring third-party markets, the logistics channel and financing.

The study analyses the influence of technical barriers to agricultural trade carried out by Japan on China's fruit exports. In order to measure the tariff equivalents of technical barriers, the price wedge method is utilized. Based on the utility function specified in the study, the constructed model is adopted to evaluate the elasticity of substitution between the imported fruits and Japanese domestic fruits, and the consumers' preference parameters for different kinds of fruits. Sample data are chosen from the beginning of 2002 to the end of 2015. Based on the estimated preference parameters and elasticity of substitution, the results show that Japanese consumers prefer domestic fruits to the imported fruits. Besides, the results reveal that although the substitution and preference parameters are higher for the improved quality of imported fruits in the context of the positive list system, the scales of tariff equivalents of technical barriers are larger than the regular custom tariffs, and the technical barriers would cause extra huge costs for the imported fruits. Especially, in the three consecutive years after the implementation of the positive list system, tariff equivalents of technical barriers almost reached 150%, and then gradually decreased in the following years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to explore the Sino-Japanese rival and interdependent relations in East Asia through stressing their competitions for the regional "leadership." The article suggests that the regional leadership requires strong national strength and other regional countries' acceptance. Thus, to gain these competitive capitals, China and Japan have to treat each other as rivals to win relative capitals within East Asia. Therefore, China and Japan are playing zero-sum games. Moreover, making a bigger "regional" pie also could enhance both countries' capitals, especially given the transnational character of non-traditional security; therefore, China and Japan have to be interdependent on one another, which is playing positive-sum games. This article concludes that rival and interdependent are measures for both countries' leadership aspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the relational IR literature on identity politics and Sino-Japanese relations. Theoretically, we develop Rumelili's framework for studying modes of differentiation by incorporating the sectoral characteristics of key discourse signs. Empirically, we apply this framework to the construction of Self and Other in the official Japanese security discourse regarding the Senkaku Islands dispute from 2010-2014, a period of dispute climax that is meaningful for studying the (re)production of Japan's understanding of China. The inclusiveness of the discourse signs that Japan uses to construct China possibly opens up for a positive evolution of Sino-Japanese relations, as there is space for progress if China's behavior-and Japan's interpretation of it-proves to be more peaceful, transparent, and law-abiding. The findings also suggest, however, that the strong sense of superiority in Japan (and China) vis-à-vis a subordinate Other may not bode well for Sino-Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Abe cabinet enjoys rich tangible political resources particularly in the aftermath of the overwhelming victory in the Upper House election in July 2016. However, Abe is also constrained by the less visible intangible uncertainties of his intangible political resources. From the perspective of Japanese internal dynamics, Sino-Japanese relations tend to be on a track of new normal of continued tension with low intensity and sustained dialogue of low quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares patterns of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) for Japan and China over similar periods of their integration into the global economy. From a statistical perspective, China's recent pattern of OFDI flows (2004-2010) differs from Japan's OFDI flows during a similar period of growth and emergence onto the world scene (1976- 1982). While acknowledging that the world economy is a much different place today than it was in 1982, we nevertheless argue that these differences in OFDI flows constitute an important component in any understanding of the nature of development followed by these two important Asian economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the stance of China on free trade-related intellectual property in the context of the China-Japan-Korea (CJK) free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations. It analyses the intellectual property provisions in FTAs and discusses the consistent stance of China on intellectual property in FTAs by reviewing the intellectual property provisions under existing FTAs involving China. The article then examines into major factors that influence China’s stance on intellectual property: its stage of economic development, innovation capacity and level of intellectual property enforcement; and explores China’s stance on intellectual property from the perspective of the CJK FTA negotiations and beyond. It finds that though China expressly stands against the TRIPS-plus standards for intellectual property enforcement, its attitude towards intellectual property issues in FTA negotiations is fairly flexible. It further argues that with intellectual property becoming increasingly important for its innovation-driven economy and with higher standards of intellectual property enforcement being incorporated in such influential FTA as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), China’s stance on intellectual property in future FTA negotiations will eventually change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on historical topics which includes military service and pension compensation of African American Civil War Soldiers, economic and historical relations between China-Japan, and 19th century beliefs of Letts regarding witchcraft.

The Forum on Asia-Pacific Security (FAPS) of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) hosted two days of Track 1.5 meetings in Beijing from October 19–20, 2015. This report is not so much an effort to summarize the rich discussion at the trilateral meeting, as it is an effort to analyze the complex and fragile nature of trilateral relations today and to offer suggestions to all three sides for improvement in their ties with each other. The meeting focused on the interactions between and among the bilateral relationships that comprise this trilateral and the policy agenda for cooperation in ensuring stability in the Asia Pacific during this time of geostrategic change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the foreign direct investment (FDI) of Japan as of 2015. Topics include the impact of FDI on domestic employment, the influence of dividend exemption on profit repatriation, and the characteristics of Japan's outward and inward FDI. It mentions the top 20 countries that host the FDI of Japan in 2012 including the U.S., China, and Thailand.

The article discusses the state of bilateral relations between Japan and China and the efforts Japan has been taking to improve its military capabilities and relations with countries in the region to counter China. Topics include Chinese aggression especially when it comes to maritime disputes with Japan with initiatives like the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), statistics on the economic and military rise of China when compared to Japan and the shift in Japan's defense focus to its southwestern islands.

As the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between China and Korea is completed, and one among China, Japan and Korea (CJK) is being discussed, a renewed attention is given to the three countries' efforts to establish a Northeast Asian regional standards cooperation mechanism. In this paper, two ICT-oriented standards cooperative programs among the three countries, CJK-SITE and CJK-ITSM, are selected as a research setting and examined. The analysis indicates that the slow progress of CJK ICT standards cooperation can be explained by two conflicting perspectives: techno-regionalism and techno-nationalism. From the techno-regionalism perspective, standards cooperation will position CJK at a more strategic standing to effectively respond to the ever-intensifying global standards wars over the international ICT market. However, there exist significant gaps among the three countries as to why and how to purse the standards cooperation. The authors attribute the gaps to techno-nationalism which dominates the agenda of each country's national standardization policy. Despite the apparent rationales for regional cooperation, as a Chinese proverb says, it seems that the three countries go to 'the same bed with different dreams'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at political conditions in Japan after the election of Abe Shinzo as the Prime Minister. It discusses Abe's reforms in the economic, security, and diplomatic arenas and the challenges posed by rising unrest in Northeast Asia and by the advances in China. It also discusses the growth strategy implemented by Abe known as "Abenomics" and the five-year defense procurement plan. It is mentioned that the U.S. and Japan, after the election of Abe, have decided to revamp their bilateral defense cooperation, taking into account the unstable security situation in Northeast Asia.

This article explores why the People's Republic of China employed a surprisingly soft and lenient policy to ward Japan in the 1950s despite their historical and political animosities. Relying on a relatively new concept in the study of in ternational relations, I argute that China's conciliatory policy toward Japan represented a wedges trategy that was designed to detach Japan from the United States and weaken the US-Japan alliance. The logic of the theory also reveals that China's policy was in line with its "united front" against the United States during the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Chinese strategic perceptions of Japan during the China-U.S.-Japan triangular relations in the post-cold war era which includes information on the end of Cold War in 1995, smile diplomacy and the rise of American Unilateralism.

Historical interpretation has been a political battlefield in East Asian relations before and since World War Two. In contending for the hearts and minds of thenpopulations, governments in Japan, China, and Korea have waged war by other means to attain tactical and strategic advantages. The struggle has been both to unify domestic populations and secure international sympathy for specific political ends. Not surprisingly, the realpolitik dimensions of manipulated remembrance have achieved little in bringing about lasting postwar reconciliation among the region's peoples generally. While the official memory created by government approved textbooks, mainstream journalism, and formal immigration policies has tended to work against reconciliation, counter efforts have emerged from within civil societies in all three nations. These efforts can be perceived like a small but clear, steady, and building counter-theme in the discordant symphony of state-to-state relations. In recent years, they have become better organized, broader in scope, and now engage Japanese, Korean, and Chinese citizens in the reconciliation project. This paper focuses on the latest efforts of international scholars and educators to create a new narrative as an additional step toward creating an accurate regional history. It analyzes the main themes in the 2013 work, The New East Asian Modern and Contemporary History ... and the new historical interpretations offered in this text. It also considers how this effort came about and the prospects for its acceptance in competition with other, officially endorsed, histories of modem East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike those who blame the other side or structural forces beyond one's control for the current Sino-Japanese tensions, this paper offers a theoretical insight about the coevolution between China and Japan to explain why the two Asian great powers that had a better relationship in the past are now experiencing greater tensions when their much closer economic and people-to-people ties should facilitate greater cooperation. The two nations have coevolved over millennia with increasing intensity over time. They avoided serious tensions in the 1970s-1990s partly thanks to each being situated in a different niche. But that separation has diminished in a globalizing world and the two countries are becoming more integrated, which has triggered a backlash. The earlier generation of proponents of Sino-Japanese friendship succeeded in forging strong economic and social ties, but the current generation finds it difficult politically and psychologically to manage the new reality in their relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China accumulates more power, Japan is often overlooked as being capable of affecting China’s continued trajectory because of material differences and narratives of Japan being a reactive state. Yet, Beijing’s strategic planning cannot ignore Tokyo because Japan has the ability to affect the region’s security environment. Feeling its presence and influence becoming relatively smaller, Tokyo has been increasingly proactive in its effort to expand its strategic space and shape the regional environment in ways conducive to its interests. A review of Japan’s approach to China since 1972 reveals that it has shifted away from its traditional engagement policy toward first a soft hedge, followed by a harder hedge that continues to this day. Today’s mix of partnerships and capabilities enable Japan to complicate China’s freedom of action and frustrate its continued rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economically, Northeast Asia is the most dynamic place in the world, but the security situation in the region is dire and precarious. Even though cooperation and rivalry have long coexisted there, recently the latter has been overshadowing the former as three sets of rivalries have come to haunt this region collectively. In addition to the decades-old inter-Korean rivalry, the old Sino-Japanese rivalry has been revived, and the rivalry between China and the U.S., a perennial phenomenon, has also come to take center stage in Northeast Asia. Although the three sets of rivalries have their own unique causes and ramifications, they have close connections. Among all the conflicts and confrontations, the Sino-U.S. rivalry is now playing a defining role. Given the lack of mutual trust, absence of inclusive regional security institutions, unaddressed historical grievances, and unfulfilled leadership aspirations, the three set of rivalries will not go away in the foreseeable future and might reinforce each other to make the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia the most volatile and dangerous place on earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China and Japan have been deepening economic interdependence over the last two decades, while China has recently shown territorial ambitions and initiated disputes with Japan. This runs contrary to the commercial liberal literature that argues that trade promotes peace. On the other hand, the realist theory also does not fully explain Sino-Japanese relations because Sino-Japanese relations are not always in conflict. The rise of China and the relative decline of Japan might explain increasing tensions in the rivalry relationship, but what drives Chinese leaders to initiate disputes? I address the importance of domestic politics to examine Sino-Japanese disputes. I argue that the recent deterioration of the bilateral relationship could be explained by the power struggle in the Chinese leadership. To support the logic of this argument, I use a game-theoretic model, which accounts for how the type of Chinese leadership influences foreign policy outcomes in Sino-Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role and shape of international trade agreements is changing. No longer simple devices for easing the movement of goods across borders, they are becoming both an instrument of integrated economic regulation at the supranational level and a tool of international relations within the emerging global economic order. The recently expanded scope of negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership ("TPP") serves as a case in point, one that focuses both on the trilateral relations between Japan, the United States, and China, and on the form of competition for control of the language of supranational economic regulation. The focus of this Article is on the decision by Japan to join the U.S.-led negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership, even as it pushes ahead with a Free Trade Agreement with China and Korea. This decision represents a critical new aspect of Japanese trade relationships that is likely to have significant economic and geopolitical effects. I will first describe the TPP from its genesis as an effort by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore to better integrate their economic relationships into current efforts to create a powerful free trade area of the Pacific that excludes China. I will then elaborate on the central strategic considerations that follow from this important decision in the relationships between Japan, the United States, and China, with emphasis on the way in which this affects contests for control of international rulemaking within the structures of economic globalization. For Japan, the TPP may represent a means to use a necessary containment of its own policy autonomy within complex networks of multilateral arrangements to protect its sizeable investment in China, at least temporarily, and to permit it to leverage its power to influence global trade rules. For the United States, the TPP presents an opportunity to leverage power as well, by creating an alternative to the World Trade Organization ("WTO") for moving trade talks forward in ways that serve U.S. governance interests more comprehensively. For China, the TPP represents an additional layer of containment, meant to constrain its economic power and to limit the value of the country's form of state capitalism. The TPP represents the next wave of plurilateral comprehensive agreements that will shape the framework of global economic governance. It also suggests the growing importance of international agreements as the space within which the structures of economic regulation will be determined, to the detriment of state power. Within these structures, the TPP also reaffirms that Japan stands uncomfortably close to the fissure that separates the United States from Chinese interests, and must continue to rely on the internationalization of rulemaking to protect its interests. An independent path for Japan is unlikely to be an option worth considering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the bilateral relations between Japan and China as of 2013. China marked the first anniversary of Japan's nationalization of the Senkaku Islands on September 11 by reasserting its claims to the islands and conducting Coast Guard patrols in the area. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe repeatedly called attention to China's military modernization that included 10% increases in the defense budget for over 22 years and its intrusions into Japan's air and sea space.

The article discusses Japan-Korea relations which show heightened economic interactions but a lack of coordinating policies toward China and North Korea. It states that the pressure points between Japan and South Korea are more issue-driven than relationship-driven which are identifiable through codewords as comfort women, Yasukuni Shrine, and Dokdo/Takeshima. A chronology of Japan-Korea relations for the months of May to August 2013 is presented.

This article analyzes the impact of employment institutions on Japanese-, British-, and Chinese-owned textile firms in China during the 1920s and 1930s. Despite Britain's domestic position as a world productivity leader, Japanese firms enjoyed a 70 percent productivity advantage over both British and Chinese competitors. The divergent performance of Japanese and British investments in China is explained by differences in management practice. Japanese firms had domestic experience with employment institutions similar to China's and applied labor management strategies that functioned well under these institutions. British firms lacked the institutional experience necessary to adapt management strategies to Chinese institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The large and rapidly growing trade relationship between Japan and China has occurred against a backdrop of political tensions. This study measures performance of the trade relationship, benchmarking it against other trade flows worldwide, and examines the impact of the politics on bilateral trade performance. To do this, a frontier gravity model is estimated using core determinants of trade. This gives a benchmark against which to measure trade performance, explained using resistances to trade. While the economic relationship is not independent from the politics, an important conclusion is that trade has not been diminished or disturbed by politics to a significant extent. China's commitment to the global trading system from the mid-1980s and its accession to the WTO in 2001 has meant that tensions in the political relationship with Japan from time to time have not derailed, but rather have increasingly come to be dominated, by the economic relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quarterly panel data on seventy-one industries from 1999 to 2007 are used to estimate China's exports with a view to exploring the driving forces behind China's remarkable export growth, particularly to the United States and Japan. The results indicate that there are some similarities and differences between the determinants of China's exports to these two countries. For example, an appreciation in the real exchange rate of the renminbi tends to have a significant negative impact on China's exports to both countries. However, the impact is much greater on Sino-U.S. trade than on Sino-Japanese trade due to China's higher dependence on Japan's intermediate goods. Empirical evidence also reveals that differences in income elasticities and economic growth rates might account for the more rapid increase in China's exports to the United States than to Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang) in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 is often explained as a consequence of Nationalist fiscal incompetence during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which led to the collapse of the Nationalist state. In this paper, I argue that from 1937 until 1940, GMD fiscal policy managed to preserve a degree of relative stability even though, by early 1939, the Nationalists had already lost control over ports yielding 80 per cent of Customs revenue which, during the Nanjing decade (1928–1937), had accounted for more than 40 per cent of annual central government revenue. The loss of this revenue forced the Nationalists to introduce wartime fiscal instruments, taxation in kind, and transit taxes, both previously condemned as outdated and inequitable by the Nationalists. Further territorial losses led to the introduction of deficit financing, which in turn became a cause of hyperinflation. The introduction of war-time fiscal instruments led to administrative changes in the revenue-collecting agencies of the Nationalist state, and to the demise of the Maritime Customs Service as the pre-eminent revenue-collecting and anti-smuggling organization. The administrative upheavals of the war facilitated the rise of other central government organizations nominally charged with smuggling suppression, which in fact frequently engaged in trade with the Japanese-occupied areas of China. Hence, administrative reforms at a time of fiscal collapse, far from strengthening the war-time state, created one of the preconditions for the disintegration of the Nationalist state, which facilitated the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) victory in 1949. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses Japanese involvement in Chinese mass media markets. Japanese popular culture, the creation of pan-Asian popular culture and media markets, and pan-Asian collaboration are examined. Cultural labor, labor costs, and media exports are discussed and the effects of globalization, consumerism, and capitalism are explored. Japan's increased disinterest in China, Japanese concerns regarding increased Chinese political and economic strength, and the effects of glocalization are also examined.

The paper presents an analysis of the economic relationship between the two most important economies in Asia. Over the last decades, the Chinese and Japanese economies have become more economically interdependent, a development which will, in the long run, impact the countries' political relationship. The paper seeks to answer the question: How can China and Japan gain from the current economic situation, further enhance their relationship and increase their synergies for regional economic development? Data on trade and Foreign Direct Investment are used in combination with primary data from interviews with Japanese and Chinese companies on how they perceive the current business situation and future potential. The result of the data analysis shows that the countries have much to gain from their economic interdependence. The firms see great potential in their respective markets but are concerned about political turbulence. Three possible scenarios for the future economic relationship are presented, including fierce competition on all markets and a leveraging of resources for mutual development between Chinese and Japanese companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis that the economic relationships between China and her major trading partners have changed over the past 20 years with the industrialisation of China, and the emergence of Japan as a source of investment and network trade in sophisticated manufactures, and the US as a source of finance and investment assets, supplier of services and an apparently inexhaustible demand for consumer and intermediate goods. Has this changed the size and direction of spillovers in the region, and has it curtailed or eliminated American economic leadership? We use time-varying spectral methods to decompose the links between the two leading Asian economies and the US. We find: (a) the links with the US have been weakening, while those based on China have strengthened; (b) that this is not new—it has been happening since the 1980s, but has now been reversed by the surge in trade; (c) that the links with the US have been rather complex, with the US able to shape the cycles elsewhere through her control of monetary conditions, but the China zone able to control the size of their cycles; (d) that Japan remains linked to (and dependent on) the US; and (e) there is no evidence that pegged exchange rates encourage convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can economic interdependence reduce conflicts among states in East Asia? The so-called 'cold politics and hot economics' has become a defining feature of Sino-Japanese political-economic relations. This puzzling pattern of interaction is clearly illustrated in the sovereignty dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. The island dispute has unfolded in five rounds of distinct clashes thus far. From one perspective, the competitive elements in the island dispute make it difficult for both Japan and China to give way to the other side on the territorial and maritime issues. At the same time, the two countries have successfully managed to contain their respective territorial and maritime claims thus far. Drawing on the liberal peace theory, this article systematically demonstrates that economic interdependence has repeatedly fostered the de-escalation of Sino-Japanese conflict over territorial and maritime rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the shift of financial power toward Asian markets and on the possibility of U.S.-China-Japan trilateral cooperation. It states that as a result of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the U.S., European, and Japanese economies are simultaneously in a recession while China's economic growth has slowed. It comments on the growth of anti-globalization sentiments and protectionist policies as a result of the financial crisis and fears that the election of Barack Obama as U.S. President may result in increased protectionism in U.S. policy. It talks about China funding U.S. deficits and the possible role it played in U.S. regulatory failures that led to the financial crisis. It mentions Japan and China are both suspicious of each other concerning global governance.