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International Relations (IR) scholars have taken China's presumed hegemony in pre-modern East Asia as an ideal case to 'undermine' the field's Eurocentrism. If Eurocentric IR is guilty of 'getting Asia wrong', do students of historical Asia 'get Asia right'? Analysts should avoid exotifying differences between the West and the East and 'exchanging Eurocentrism for Sinocentrism'. This article tries to 'get Asia [more] right' by 'disaggregating' and then 'reassembling' taken-for-granted concepts by time, space, and relationality. When 'Confucianism' is understood to justify both war and peace in competition with other thoughts, it does not dictate peace among East Asian states or conflicts across the Confucian–nomadic divide. When 'China' is unpacked, it does not sit on top of an Asian hierarchy. When Korea's, Vietnam's, and Japan's views of their relations with China are examined rather than presumed, cultural legitimacy is thinned out. When 'Asia' is broadened to cover webs of relations beyond East Asia to Central Asia, Confucianism recedes in centrality and pan-Asian phenomena including Buddhism and the steppe tradition come to the fore. The article concludes that a better challenge to Eurocentrism is not to search for cultural differences but to locate Eurasian similarities that erase European superiority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Russia's position on the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute. It focuses particularly on the claim that Russia and China are forming an anti-Japanese territorial front. Looking closely at official statements and actions, as well as Russian-language media and scholarship, it finds that Russia, while retaining a position of formal neutrality, clearly considers China's claims more favourably. While this could be seen to have alarming implications by arraying China and Russia on one side against Japan and the USA on the other, the article also finds that Russia's support is not without qualifications and that its place in the conflict is not yet entrenched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the military policies and capabilities of various Asian nations, and it mentions the deterrence-related impact that China's increasing maritime and air-warfare capabilities have on U.S. naval deployments. The Chinese military's development of advanced anti-ship cruise missiles is mentioned, along with India's national security concerns and Chinese-Japanese relations. China's defence economics and defence spending across Asia are also examined.

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]

Recently, Japan has been increasing tensions with China regarding the Pinnacle Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Due to the Chinese military development, Japan has been working on its political and military strengthening in Asia. This essay presents two possible scenarios for Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a maritime boundary dispute and potential naval conflict between China and Japan regarding the Senkaku Islands or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea as of January 2014. Topics include the modernization of China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), conflict between the China Coast Guard (CCG) and the Japan Coast Guard (JCG), and China's creation of an East China Sea area Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Japan's naval policy and its alliance with the U.S. are addressed.

This article takes the proposition that cooperation in the area of non-traditional security (NTS) can provide the essential window of opportunity for Northeast Asians to move beyond history. To demonstrate, it explores the development of NTS cooperation in Northeast Asia, paying particular attention to Sino–Japanese cooperation in the environmental and disaster areas. It then examines the relationship between NTS cooperation and the construction of a regional international society in Northeast Asia. It argues that the importance of NTS cooperation is twofold. First, in a region where historical animosities remain high, NTS issues can avoid sensitive areas and find common ground for cooperation that traditional security approaches would be unable to envisage. Second, NTS cooperation has turned people-to-people relations in a more prominent and conciliatory direction, and enhanced human security consideration, thus taking things further than the indirect consequences of functionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an overview of events in politics, government and international relations in the Asia-Pacific region from July 2012-July 2013. Changes in political leadership including the naming of Xi Jinping as leader of China and the elections of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Park Geun-hye of South Korea are discussed. Deteriorating foreign relations between Japan and China are considered. Burma's improved foreign relations are noted.

The article focuses on China's attempts to institutionalize its influence in Asia while Japan attempts to create foreign policy that promotes its own interests and balances its relationships with the U.S. and China. Japan's foreign policy challenges are noted including its deep governmental debt, its aging population, and its loss to China as the world's number two economy. It is noted how Japan has enacted policies promoting China economically as a way of touting Asia as an emerging global power while continuing to promote a strong alliance with the U.S. for security purposes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the changing power dynamics between China and Japan and to assess their implications for the two countries' perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards each other and the changing patterns of security in Asia. It argues that China's expanding power coupled with the recently accelerated emergence of a more assertive or proactive Japan has created the conditions for a deep and decisive turn in Chinese thinking on the character and structure of the U.S.-Japan alliance, the main forces shaping the evolving structure of power in Asia, and the parameters of political and strategic interaction between China and Japan within this structure. It begins by canvassing the Japan-related assumptions that have governed China's expectations of a future regional security order since the end of the Cold War, and how they have been challenged over the last several years by the erosion of Japan's identity as a passive and reactive state, the growing importance of popular opinion to China's foreign policy decision-making, and the transformation and realignment of the U.S.-Japan security alliance. Proceeding from the premise that these developments have cast doubt over commonly offered predictions of the conditions in which conflict and cooperation are likely to result between China and Japan, it then turns to what can be done now to peacefully manage the China-Japan relationship during a period of transition in which profound uncertainty about Japan's security role(s) will probably make it difficult for many Chinese not to see malign intentions in Japan's every move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possible causal relationship of order in Northeast Asia and the peace and instability within it. Three major types of order in Northeast Asia's history are reviewed and are found to be replete with wars, suffering and instability. Peace in the current order in Northeast Asia tends to be temporary and vulnerable because of its Cold War legacies and other factors. The paper argues that regionalism as an alternative order may make for longer peace and stability in Northeast Asia because of its openness and inclusiveness. The paper interprets how China sees regionalism as a process, and how the social and political construction of a new regional order may unfold itself in the region, taking China-Korea and China-Japan relations as two cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]