Co-Prosperity Sphere Again? United States Foreign Policy and Japan’s “First” Regionalism in the 1950s
By Hiroyuki Hoshiro
Why are there no legally constituted institutions in the Asia-Pacifi c? Some analysts have argued that this situation is a result of US foreign policy, which promoted bilateralism in Asia in order to ensure its dominance in the aftermath of World War II. Focusing on Japan’s fi rst regionalism during the 1950s, this article aims to show that this line of argument should be modifi ed. A close analysis of US foreign policy in the region during this period reveals that, rather than attempting to contain Asian regionalism, infl uential US policy makers repeatedly pursued it. This pursuit gave impetus to Japan’s attempts to revive its regional agenda, which during the war had taken form as the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and which now seemed possible in a different form, most notably in gaining fi nancial support from the United States, Japan’s former wartime enemy. However, at this particular juncture in history, the diversity of South and Southeast Asian countries and their nationbuilding priorities inhibited regional economic cooperation. A “pan-Asian-feeling” did not exist. Rather, mutual suspicion of each other’s motives and ambitions, and various political rivalries and antagonisms, collectively prevented cooperation between countries in the region. Such different political regimes made it diffi cult, if not impossible, to establish a multilateral institution. These obstacles led the US to abandon multilateralism in favour of bilateralism as its preferred strategy in the Asia-Pacific until the end of the 1980s.
South Korea’s De Facto Abolition of the Death Penalty
By Sangmin Bae
While Asia remains an exception to the global trend towards the abolition of capital punishment, South Korea has suspended executions for the past ten years. The purpose of this article is to explain the change in South Korea’s death penalty practice, which is largely associated with democratic development and the observance of international human rights standards. Who are the leading fi gures in constructing and advancing abolitionist discourse and efforts in South Korean society? What are the major rationales for their advocacy? What signifi cance does the possibility of South Korea’s formal abolition have in terms of Asia’s ongoing practice of the death penalty? This article seeks answers to these questions, highlighting South Korea’s recent abolitionist movement.
Transnational Linkages and Development Initiatives in Ethnic Korean Yanbian, Northeast-China: “Sweet and Sour” Capital Transfers
By Outi Luova
The success of coastal China in mobilizing resources from the overseas Chinese community has been well documented, and is deemed to have played an important role in the expansion of the Chinese economy. This article adopts a new approach by looking at the issue from the point of view of an ethnic minority border region. It 379 explores the mobilization of the Korean minority’s transnational ties in the service of local economic development in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, located in Jilin Province at the North Korean border. These pursuits are conceptualized as “transnationalism from above,” whereby the local government focused on mobilizing, institutionalizing, steering and controlling transnational activities in support of its own specifi c goals. How were these linkages built up and how did the government balance between the positive and negative, or the “sweet and sour” aspects of transnational ethnic capital transfers? The study points to a new mechanism for economic development that is emerging along China’s borders.
The Development of Civility in Taiwan
By David C. Schak
Since the 1990s Taiwan has seen rapid and profound changes in public sphere deportment, labelled below as civility. Prior to that time, despite a government campaign beginning in the 1960s to improve public morality and behaviour, there was little if any change until democratization and the growth of civil society were underway. Aside from better treatment of strangers and caring for public spaces and facilities, the changes include identity shifts from subject to citizen and from belonging to a closed, primordial community to membership in the Taiwan polity, movements which empower minority political interests and benevolent government interactions with the populace. These changes indicate a democratization in Taiwan that has taken root not only at the government level but also at the grass roots.
Reassessing Energy Security and the Trans-ASEAN Natural Gas Pipeline Network in Southeast Asia
By Benjamin K. Sovacool
Regulators within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have heavily promoted investment in natural gas infrastructure to meet burgeoning demand for energy. By 2030, some analysts expect Southeast Asia to become “the Persian Gulf of Gas” and responsible for one-quarter of the world’s gas production and use. Perhaps no single project is more emblematic of the region’s view of energy security and policy than the Trans-ASEAN natural gas pipeline (TAGP) system, a proposed network of natural gas pipelines to connect the gas reserves in the Gulf of Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines to the rest of the region. Advocates of the TAGP expect it to promote economic development, earn foreign exchange, mitigate the risks of climate change, and enhance regional energy security. Drawing from fi eld research and research interviews, however, this article takes a critical look at the region’s drive towards the TAGP and ASEAN’s approach to energy security as a whole. The article argues that plans for the TAGP rest on too simple a notion of energy security: secure access to fuel. This conception of energy security ignores important additional dimensions related to availability, affordability, effi ciency and environmental and social stewardship. In contrast, the paper concludes that the TAGP is insuffi cient, expensive, ineffi cient, and environmentally and socially destructive.
What Makes India Work? The Rudolph’s Lifetime Quest
Review Article
By John Harriss
Books Reviewed In This Issue
Asia General
EUROPE-ASIA RELATIONS: Building Multilateralisms. Edited by Richard Balme and Brian Bridges.
Reviewed by Douglas Webber
THE WILSONIAN MOMENT: Self-determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism. By Erez Manela.
Reviewed by Frank P. Baldwin
THE TRIUMPH OF CITIZENSHIP: The Japanese and Chinese in Canada, 1941-67. By Patricia E. Roy.
Reviewed by Pamela Sugiman
TRUMAN AND MACARTHUR: Policy, Politics, and the Hunger for Honor and Renown. By Michael Pearlman.
Reviewed by Marc S. Gallicchio
China and Inner Asia
CHINA’S OPENING SOCIETY: The Non-State Sector and Governance. Edited by Yongnian Zheng and Joseph Fewsmith.
Reviewed by Stephen Noakes
COMMUNICATION IN CHINA: Political Economy, Power, and Confl ict. By Yuezhi Zhao.
Reviewed by Daniel Lynch
STRONG BORDERS, SECURE NATION: Cooperation and Confl ict in China’s Territorial Disputes. By M. Taylor Fravel.
Reviewed by Andrew Scobell
POWER, ENTITLEMENT AND SOCIAL PRACTICE: Resource Distribution in North China Villages. By Xiyi Huang.
Reviewed by Helen Funghar Siu
CLEARING THE AIR: The Health and Economic Damages of Air Pollution in China. Edited by Mun S. Ho and Chris P. Nielsen.
Reviewed by Jack Patrick Hayes
TOBACCO CONTROL POLICY ANALYSIS IN CHINA: Economics and Health. Edited by Teh-wei Hu.
Reviewed by Björn A. Gustafsson
BEIJING OPERA COSTUMES: The Visual Communication of Character and Culture. By Alexandra B. Bonds.
Reviewed by Joshua Goldstein
POLITICAL CHANGE IN MACAO. By Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo.
Reviewed by Herbert Yee
Northeast Asia
NORMS, INTERESTS, AND POWER IN JAPANESE FOREIGN POLICY. Edited by Yoichiro Sato and Keiko Hirata.
Reviewed by Tsuyoshi Kawasaki
GOVERNING JAPAN: Divided Politics in a Resurgent Economy. By J.A.A. Stockwin.
Reviewed by Daniel P. Aldrich
DEMOCRATIC REFORM IN JAPAN: Assessing the Impact. Edited by Sherry L. Martin and Gill Steel.
Reviewed by Erin Chung
KOIZUMI DIPLOMACY: Japan’s Kantei Approach to Foreign and Defense Affairs. By Tomohito Shinoda.
Reviewed by Thomas U. Berger
RESPONSES TO REGIONALISM IN EAST ASIA: Japanese Production Networks in the Automotive Sector. By Andrew J. Staples.
Reviewed by Ali M. Nizamuddin
INDUSTRIAL INNOVATION IN JAPAN: Edited by Takuji Hara, Norio Kambayashi and Noboru Matsushima.
Reviewed by Ulrike Schaede
JAPANESE PUBLIC OPINION AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM. Edited by Robert D. Elridge and Paul Midford.
Reviewed by Davis B. Bobrow
RUFFIANS, YAKUZA, NATIONALISTS: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan, 1860-1960. By Eiko Maruko Siniawer
Reviewed by James L. Huffman
WAR MEMORY, NATIONALISM AND EDUCATION IN POSTWAR JAPAN, 1945-2007: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy and Ienaga Saburo’s Court Challenges. By Yoshiko Nozaki foreword by Richard Minear.
Reviewed by Julian Dierkes
KABUKI’S FORGOTTEN WAR 1931-1945. By James R. Brandon.
Reviewed by Thomas R.H. Havens
THE AGE OF VISIONS AND ARGUMENTS: Parliamentarianism and the National Public Sphere in Early Meiji Japan. By Kyu Hyun Kim.
Reviewed by David L. Howell
THE ATTRACTIVE EMPIRE: Transnational Film Culture in Imperial Japan. By Michael Baskett.
Reviewed by Sachiko Mizuno
FAITH AND POWER IN JAPANESE BUDDHIST ART, 1600-2005. By Patricia J. Graham
Reviewed by Naoko Gunji
READING FOOD IN JAPANESE LITERATURE. By Tomoko Aoyama
Reviewed by Karen Thornber
MARXIST PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTH KOREA IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY. Edited by Martin Hart-Landsberg, Seongjin Jeong and Richard Westra.
Reviewed by Kyoung-Ho Shin
RECONSTITUTING KOREAN SECURITY: A Policy Primer. Edited by Hazel Smith.
Reviewed by Aidan Foster-Carter
TRADITION, TREATIES, AND TRADE: Qing Imperialism and Chosen Korea, 1850-1910. By Kirk W. Larsen.
Reviewed by Kenneth Swope
STORIES INSIDE STORIES: Music in the Making of the Korean Olympic Ceremonies. By Margaret Walker Dilling.
Reviewed by Simon Mills
South Asia
A MILITARY HISTORY OF INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA: From the East India Company to the Nuclear Era. Edited by Daniel P. Marston and Chandar S. Sundaram; foreword by Stephen P. Cohen.
Reviewed by Andre Gerolymatos
MAKING U.S. FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD SOUTH ASIA: Regional Imperatives and the Imperial Presidency. Edited by Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph.
Reviewed by Achin Vanaik
BLISTERS ON THEIR FEET: Tales of Internally Displaced Persons in India’s North East. Edited by Samir Kumar Das.
Reviewed by Urmitapa Dutta
SHIV SENA WOMEN: Violence and Communalism in a Bombay Slum. By Atreyee Sen.
Reviewed by Uma Chakravarti
Southeast Asia
BANKING REFORM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: The Region’s Decisive Decade. By Malcolm Cook.
Reviewed by John Bonin
MALAYA’S SECRET POLICE 1945-60: The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency. By Leon Comber
Reviewed by Kumar Ramakrishna
Australasia and the Pacific Region
MAORI PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE FORESHORE AND SEABED: The Last Frontier. Edited by Andrew Erueti and Claire Charters.
Reviewed by Fiona McCormack
THE BATTLE FOR WAU: New Guinea’s Frontline 1942-1943. By Phillip Bradley.
Reviewed by John Burton
PULLING THE RIGHT THREADS: The Ethnographic Life and Legacy of Jane C. Goodale. Edited by Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi and Jeanette Dickerson-Putman.
Reviewed by Richard Scaglion
MELANESIAN ODYSSEYS: Negotiating the Self, Narrative and Modernity. By Lisette Josephides.
Reviewed by Susanne Kuehling
ART AND LIFE IN MELANESIA. By Susan Cochrane
Reviewed by Eric K. Silverman
