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Popularly represented as the phenomenon of "land grab," changes in the acquisition, exploitation and significance of land across the world encapsulate myriad needs, motivations, and strategic ambitions. What is becoming clear is that these diverse burgeoning twenty-first-century phenomena in the name of land increasingly define and structure many of the decisions made by states and international institutions today. Despite being one of the most pressing regional and international problems of the current era, however, the issue of land grab is not on the agenda of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Member states of this association have acknowledged the transboundary effects of many contemporary phenomena and work together to alleviate security concerns and enhance collective economic opportunities, and yet they face both institutional and cognitive barriers to any attempts to address collectively the problems related to land grabbing. This article aims to examine the contemporary political space navigated and contested within ASEAN and to define the problems inherent in finding a collective action solution to this complex dynamic set of issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese government faces many competing challenges as it seeks to balance its multilateral and bilateral relationships within and beyond the region: whilst addressing its rapidly changing contentious domestic politics, there is pressure for it to realign relations with the USA, manage the rise of China, strengthen links with its region and continue to deal with its lingering historical legacy. All of these demands are now set against the backdrop of a so-called 'lost decade' of economic woes and global economic recession. This article demonstrates how the Japanese government is apparently adopting a de facto multilevel foreign policy, attempting to engage in a range of bilateral and collective initiatives simultaneously and to assume a regional leadership role whilst having to manage difficult bilateral relations, notably with the USA and China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many examples today of transnational advocacy groups, and much scholarship to identify how their growing presence contributes to understanding new and complex forms of global governance. This article seeks to present a corrective to the general trend to regard the “transnational” as a specific site of political engagement, and instead it draws principally on the work of Henri Lefebvre and scholarship from Human Geography to find ways to examine transnational advocacy as the ongoing process resulting from intersecting and diverse experiences of individuals and groups. In so doing, it aims further to redefine the spatiality of activism, by questioning how advocates determine the physical borders within which they function alongside those cognitive borders to which they attach themselves, and how those very borders are constantly redefined by their interactions. Using illustrative examples from Asia, this article proposes the need to rethink the transnational along three intersecting dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

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.