This edited collection analyzes the innovative changes in Japan’s foreign policy. Pursuing new relationships with South Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, Japanese initiatives include regional peace-building and human security activities, Asian multilateralism, and the Indo-Pacific concept. This collection focuses on these evolving international relationships through Japan’s unique approach to political change and continuity.

This student-friendly text provides a detailed and up-to-date assessment of Japan's foreign policy since 1945, including policy options and choices that Japan faces in the twenty-first century. Using information based on interviews with policymakers in Japan, the author provides new insight into Japan's foreign policy options and analyzes the nation's evolving role in international affairs. The book begins with a brief overview of major issues related to Japan's foreign policy since the mid-nineteenth century, and then focuses on the direction of Japanese foreign policy from 1945 to the present. It examines issues such as Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution, national security needs, the way Japan views the world around it, the role of nationalism in setting policy, and the influence of big industry. It also includes material on Japan's response to 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Designed for both undergraduate and graduate level courses, the text includes Discussion Questions, maps, a detailed bibliography with suggestions for further reading, and an Appendix with the Japanese Constitution for easy reference.

Japanese Foreign Policy in Asia and the Pacific aims to provide a broadened framework for examining Japan's foreign policy making by looking at conversion and diversion of interests among Japanese and American policy actors. These include governmental and non-governmental as well as domestic and transnational actors. Utilizing this theoretical framework, the contributors examine the role of U.S. pressure and its interaction with Japan's domestic and Japan-based transnational actors' interests through geographically or thematically focused case studies from Asia and the Pacific regions.

The post–World War II paradigm that ensured security and prosperity for the Japanese people has lost much of its effectiveness. The current generation has become increasingly resentful of the prolonged economic stagnation and feels a sense of drift and uncertainty about the future of Japan's foreign policy. In J apanese Foreign Policy at the Crossroads, Yutaka Kawashima clarifies some of the defining parameters of Japan's past foreign policy and examines the challenges it currently faces, including the quagmire on the Korean Peninsula, the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance, the management of Japan-China relations, and Japan's relation with Southeast Asia. Kawashima—who, as vice minister of foreign affairs, was Japan's highest-ranking foreign service official—cautions Japan against attempts to ensure its own security and well-being outside of an international framework. He believes it is crucial that Japan work with as many like-minded countries as possible to construct a regional and international order based on shared interests and shared values. In an era of globalization, he cautions, such efforts will be crucial to maintaining global world order and ensuring civilized interaction among all states.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Politics - Region: Other States, grade: 72% - First Class Honours, University of Greenwich, language: English, abstract: This paper argues that because of the new reality of the twenty-first century where the United States is beginning to decline, China is rising and North Korea has acquired nuclear capabilities, Japan may need to rethink its foreign and security policy which are deeply anchored on its alliance with Washington. In the light of these new challenges, this paper considers potential problems and constrains in Tokyo’s current strategy and suggests it may not be in Japan’s best interest to continue pursuing them. Finally, alternatives to Japan’s security policy are considered and this paper concludes that no single alternative could replace the U.S.-Japan alliance as an effective security policy in the foreseeable future. Rather, all the alternatives pursued together would potentially lead to an efficacious option, consequently providing Japan’s foreign policy with greater independence from the United States.

The new edition of this comprehensive and user-friendly textbook provides a single volume resource for all those studying Japan's international relations.