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"Felt understanding" is a crucial determinant of positive interpersonal and intergroup relationships. However, the question of why felt understanding shapes intergroup relations has been neglected. In a pre-registered test of the process in intergroup relations with a sample from East Asia, we manipulated felt understanding (understood versus misunderstood by an outgroup) in an experimental study (N = 476). The results supported the expectation that felt understanding would lead to a more positive intergroup orientation and action intention. The results of parallel mediation analyses showed that felt understanding indirectly predicted intergroup outcomes through felt positive regard, intergroup overlap, and outgroup stereotypes. Furthermore, the results of post-hoc sequential mediation analyses indicated that felt understanding indirectly predicted intergroup outcomes sequentially through felt positive regard and intergroup overlap, followed by outgroup stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a transnational network of advocates for Kampō (traditional) medicine in Japan, occupied China, and Manchukuo during the Sino-Japanese War (1931–1945), shedding new light on collaborationism, Asianism, and the modernization of traditional medicine in East Asia. In the 1930s, despite deteriorating Sino-Japanese relations, the Kampō revival movement in Japan joined forces with the struggle to preserve traditional medicine in China. In 1938, the Association of East Asian Medicine was founded in Japan, gathering together Chinese, Korean, and Japanese advocates under the banner of 'East Asian medicine'. This article delineates the evolution of what I call 'medical Asianism' and how it was institutionalized in different parts of the Japanese empire. Participants in this network differed in their priorities and ideological commitments, yet they tactfully utilized the Japanese imperial infrastructure and wartime circumstances to promote traditional medicine. Their work laid important intellectual and institutional foundations for the postwar development of traditional medicine across East Asia. This study also contributes to a more nuanced understandings of collaborationism. The type of collaboration examined in this article was preceded by a long history of intellectual exchange, based on a shared body of knowledge and morals, motivated by mutual empathy, and for a cause that was much valued in postwar Asia. As a result, unlike most Chinese collaborators who were prosecuted as 'traitors', protagonists in this study continued to prosper professionally and became valuable assets in the postwar rebuilding of Sino-Japanese relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Much has been written on how an increasingly assertive China has sought to challenge the incumbent players in the global and regional arenas. Japan, as East Asia's regional hegemon, is said to be throwing its weight behind the US because it has much to lose in an era of China rising. Nevertheless, how much of this resembles reality? This article seeks to unpack some commonly held assumptions, focusing on the political/security as well as economic choices facing Japan. It argues that the Japanese have seemingly forged a rather strong alignment with the US in the sphere of politics/security, often with an eye to limit the influence of China. However, the situation is less clear cut when it comes to opportunities and challenges in the economic realm. Indeed, in some of Japan's most prominent industries, one observes complementarity effects and close interdependence with the Chinese economy. These findings illustrate that China-Japan competition is more complex than commonly portrayed, in addition to raising questions about the complicating effects that economic interdependence can have in a nation's "strategic" policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attitude of France towards the Sino-Japanese War that started in 1937 has given rise to various judgments. Officially neutral, France is often presented as having taken, at least morally, a favorable attitude toward China. Yet the French government had officially prohibited the transit of war materiel en route to China across the Indochinese border. This issue became increasingly important as the Japanese blockade of China progressed and conditioned the capacity of Chiang Kai-shek's government to continue the fight. The diplomatic archives of the United States, greatly concerned by the situation in China, shed more light on France's policy in East Asia. By comparing historical accounts produced by contemporaries and historians with the diplomatic archives of the United States, this article intends to bring more evidence relating to the issue of French "neutrality" during the Sino-Japanese War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions why Japan has taken a neutral position in the Sino‐American trade tensions in 2018, despite its political rivalry with Beijing. It claims that the Japanese strategy towards China between 2012 and 2018 has moved from confrontational competition to competitive cooperation over third‐country markets; this is because of their shared beliefs and methodology regarding regional development. The paper undertakes three major tasks. Firstly, it compares Chinese and Japanese academic discussions regarding East Asia. It finds that experts on both sides admit the significant implications of the politico‐economic divide in the regional system. However, the realistic Chinese tend to consider the divide as a problem to be solved through power, whereas the more liberal Japanese expect it to provide a coordinating function for the regional order as a whole. Secondly, the article reviews the shifts in the Japanese government's behaviours toward China in recent years. It argues that Japan has moved for collaboration with China to maintain the liberal rule‐based order in the region. Finally, founded on the estimate of China's economic leverage over its neighbours, the paper claims that Japan will expand its responsibility in order formation in East Asia in future, becoming more independent from American influences. [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]

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For the last ten years, Japan and China have tried to work together toward a “mutually beneficial relationship” based on common strategic interests but have failed to accomplish this for a number of reasons. The two historical neighbors are separated by no more than a strip of water and have come a long way to be the third and the second largest economies in the world, respectively. Along with political economic aspects, relations between the two countries are of critical importance in regional and global security contexts. With that in mind, the following paper will: (1) overview trends in Sino–Japanese relations over the last ten years; (2) look at trends in China's military capabilities and activities and the implications; and (3) discuss key issues and courses of action for Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Its newly acquired status as the world's second largest economy has entitled China to a more prominent role in global affairs, and increasingly, its behavior has drawn scrutiny from the world in ways that the country is ill-prepared for. The attention to China's rise, however, focuses not only on its economy but also on other aspects, including its military, diplomatic moves, domestic politics and its ‘soft power’, namely, its own image or self-projection and the world's perception or attitudes toward China. And yet, there has been no systematic investigation to evaluate how the world views a rising China. In this article, the authors applied the latest dataset from the Asian Barometer Survey to investigate whether East Asians recognize and welcome the rise of China. The findings suggest that geographical and cultural proximity have a great impact on people's perception of China. Countries which are territorially adjacent or culturally close to China tend to regard China as the most influential country in Asia. With the exception of Japan and Mongolia, most Asian countries hold positive views about the impact of China on the region. However, such benign evaluations are weaker in countries which have potential security conflicts with China, such as Taiwan and South Korea, when only the bilateral impact is considered. The overall picture shows that the rise of China has been largely recognized and welcomed by East Asians, despite some apprehension about China's strategic intentions to its neighboring countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most international relations (IR) research on the role of collective memory and representations of the past gives the impression that these primarily matter for states constrained internationally by their history as aggressors, such as Japan. How former perpetrator states represent the past is seen as important for bilateral relations because it may affect perceptions in previously victimised states. Representations of the past in the victimised states are seldom dealt with. This article argues that war memory in victimised states is also highly relevant for bilateral relations, since it is closely connected to “ontological security”, or the “security of identity”. By analysing Chinese official documents and Japanese parliamentary debates the article shows how the Chinese government has used representations of the past for ontological security purposes, and how in response Japanese political actors have politicised exhibits at Chinese war museums that are seen as a threat to Japanese identity and interests. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers an analysis of China's objectives for Central Asia and the Far East through its actions in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The SCO is an international organization with Russia as another major participant. The exclusion of Japan in the SCO is seen as a way to contained Japan's influence. The importance of Central Asia as an energy source for China, the interest in Xinjiang, the promotion of Renminbi Yuan and the relationship with Russia are explored.

The essay discusses early post-World War II Sino-Japanese relations. Focus is given to Japan's relationship with Chinese Nationalists (KMT), who would come to rule Taiwan following the rise of China's Communist government, based on the Japanese military's and civil society's reaction to defeat in World War II. Also examined is how such dramatic international relations changes in East Asia impacted Japanese and Taiwanese nationalism and national identity in the post-war era.

Although economically interdependent, political rivalry between Japan and China have brought about the inability of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus Three (APT) process to transform itself into an East Asia Summit (EAS) as originally envisioned. The existence of the APT and the EAS as two separate entities not only reflected the politico-security rivalry between the two neighbours but more importantly affected the direction and progress of East Asian regionalism as a whole. Aiming to provide a historical account of the EAS process and examine Japan's role in the development of the EAS framework, this paper argues that Japan has put greater attention on the EAS and made numerous unilateral initiatives to develop it. While Japan does not seek ultimate power, it considers the EAS as an excellent opportunity to: (i) raise its influence in the region vis-à-vis China; (ii) elevate the status of the EAS in region-building and (iii) check Chinese advances by fulfilling its long-held policy of having other Asia Pacific countries, primarily Australia and New Zealand, join. Nevertheless, the decision to expand the EAS to include the USA and Russia will have some adverse effects on Japan's unilateral ambitions and the furtherance of regionalisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Asia is witnessing a power shift with the rise of China and Japan's relative decline. While Sino-Japanese relations have been extensively studied, a systematic examination of the power shift and its implications is lacking. This article attempts to help fill the gap. It begins with a discussion of four dimensions of power, including power as an attribute, relational power, structural power and soft power. It then investigates the shifting power balance between China and Japan in the four dimensions. The following section looks into four possible scenarios for the development of Sino-Japanese relations and their implications for East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Sino-Japanese relations are quite stable presently, it was as recent as 2004–2005 that the two nations slid into the worst bilateral quagmire in decades. When in 2007 Japan was China’s third largest trading partner and China surpassed the US to become Japan’s largest trading partner, what is eating these two otherwise very pragmatic traders? History, nationalism and face, enabled by recent changes in the strategic environment, are the factors that have been most salient in bringing about the plunge in Sino-Japanese relations in 2004–05 and though Sino-Japanese relations have been much better since, these factors hang like a storm front over Sino-Japanese relations today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan and China's ability to manage their bilateral relationship is crucial for the stability of the East Asian region. It also has a global impact on the security and economic development of other regions. For just as China's rise has inevitably involved an expansion of its global reach, so Japan's responses to the challenges posed by China have increasingly taken a global form, seeking to incorporate new partners and frameworks outside East Asia. Japan's preferred response to China's regional and global rise in the post-Cold War period has remained one of default engagement. Japan is intent on promoting China's external engagement with the East Asia region and its internal domestic reform, through upgrading extant bilateral and Japan–China–US trilateral frameworks for dialogue and cooperation, and by emphasizing the importance of economic power to influence China. Japan is deliberately seeking to proliferate regional frameworks for cooperation in East Asia in order to dilute, constrain and ultimately engage China's rising power. However, Japan's engagement strategy also contains the potential to tilt towards default containment. Japan's domestic political basis for engagement is becoming increasingly precarious as China's rise stimulates Japanese revisionism and nationalism. Japan also appears increasingly to be looking to contain China on a global scale by forging new strategic links in Russia and Central Asia, with a ‘concert of democracies’ involving India, Australia and the US, by competing for resources with China in Africa and the Middle East, and by attempting to articulate a values-based diplomacy to check the so-called ‘Beijing consensus’. Nevertheless, Japan's perceived inability to channel China's rise either through regional engagement or through global containment carries a further risk of pushing Japan to resort to the strengthening of its military power in an attempt to guarantee its essential national interests. It is in this instance that Japan and China run the danger of a military collision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dollar dominance in East Asia has depended on its regional support. Japan's supportive policy toward the dollar, however, shifted in the late 1990s as the Japanese government began to address the region's heavy dependence on the dollar, which was regarded as one (but an important one) of the causes of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), by promoting the use of the yen in the region and regional monetary initiatives. Despite emerging signs of those challenges, Japan's domestic resistance and the region's power rivalry between Japan and China still makes the dollar the currency of choice in the medium term future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents analyzes of how the rise of global value chains (GVCs) has changed the patterns of trade in East Asia. It is mentioned that export (measured in value-added) is increasingly sensitive to the capital-labor ratio and high-skilled labor productivity. The article discusses the 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 the role of transportation “hubs" in the pattern of interregional and perhaps international trade. It is also found that free trade agreements do not promote export in East Asia, only export in intermediate goods. The paper presents analyzes the rise of global value chains (GVCs) in East Asia, export is increasingly sensitive to the capital-labor ratio and high-skilled labor productivity and understanding the twin-hub trade regime between China and Japan.

The article discusses the Sino-Japanese trade structure form the perspective of trade in Security Innovation & Technology Consortium (SITC) 7. It cites the opportunities brought by the Sino-Japanese economic and trade relations to companies both in China and Japan. The role of China in the current division of labor in global trade is demonstrated in Sino-Japanese trade structure. It mentions the implications of the growing intraregional trade in East Asia over the past 20 years.