This book examines Japan’s foreign policy and its emerging identity as an important participant in conflict prevention and peacebuilding in Southeast and South Asia, demonstrating that Japan has increasingly sought a positive and active political role commensurate with its economic pre-eminence.

Japanese and Australian writers examine the roles of their countries in building peace in the Asia-Pacific region.

Faced with significant security challenges, in recent years Japan and South Korea have both sought to raise their international profile through peacebuilding, development, humanitarian assistance, and human security. This book assesses the past, present, and future potential of these niche diplomacy initiatives undertaken by Japan and South Korea, largely in Southeast Asia. The book concludes that not only do such nontraditional security channels have the potential to achieve meaningful change for partners and beneficiaries, but they could also form the basis of future confidence-building and security cooperation between Japan and South Korea, which have to date achieved little in the field of traditional security cooperation, despite facing many shared challenges. Working across disciplines and national boundaries, the contributors to this volume argue that policy prioritization in the fields of peacebuilding, development, and human security by Tokyo and Seoul could have the potential to accrue wider benefits not only to the Northeast Asian actors and the Southeast Asian partners, but also to wider regional and even global security communities. At a time when the role of so-called middle powers is receiving increasing levels of attention both domestically and internationally, this book will be of considerable interest to scholars of Japan and the ROK, as well as development, security, and foreign policy researchers more broadly.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Japan’s Asian diplomacy under Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. Under the Kantei-centred policymaking system, Shinzō Abe has implemented assertive foreign policies with a slogan of ‘diplomacy taking a panoramic perspective of the world’. The analyses in the book cover the traditional and emerging fields of national security and international political economy. While its empirical examination is based on field-specific research, it also incorporates the analysis of Japan’s bilateral relations with China, the US, India, and others. In addition, the book provides a solid, theory-driven analysis of Japan’s external policy and relations. In an independent chapter, this work sets up integrative theoretical frameworks for empirical analyses by relying on key concepts drawn from the three international relations theories of realism, liberalism and constructivism. Going forward, research in this book also explores the development of key regional affairs. Maritime security and space security are two of major security-related affairs, in which the states in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific have to engage, including the development of the TPP (TPP-11) and RCEP, as well as infrastructure development and development cooperation, which are crucial in relation to China’s initiatives in the BRI and AIIB. Lastly, the book provides valuable references to regionalism in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific by analyzing regional integration/cooperation through free trade agreements and the development of regional connectivity. This includes the evolution of cooperation and conflict within key regional frameworks such as the East Asia Summit and APEC, as well as key regional visions such as the Free and Open Indo-Pacific. It also takes into account the possible influence of ideational factors such as norms, principles, and rules on the development of regional cooperation.

Ch. 1. Unpacking Japanese foreign policy : the case against conventional wisdom -- pt. I. A modern historical background. ch. 2. Tumultuous Japan : regional diplomacy 1868-1965. ch. 3. A junior partner : Japanese entanglements with the United States and Asia 1965-1980. ch. 4. Rising power : Japan attempts to recapture its traditional role in the 1980s -- pt. II. The 1900s - case studies in diplomacy. ch. 5. Becoming a full-fledged power in the 1990s : the purpose behind peacekeeping operations. ch. 6. More peacekeeping operations : the case of East Timor. ch. 7. Hampered diplomacy : Japanese overtures to North Korea. ch. 8. Using economic diplomacy : Japan and the Asian meltdown. ch. 9. Intellectual leadership : Japan's relationship with Vietnam. ch. 10. The consequences of Japanese diplomacy -- pt. III. The economic and political context of Japanese foreign policy. ch. 11. Tatemae and Honne : understanding the post-war Japanese economy. ch. 12. The long arm of the Japanese economy :the role of foreign direct investment in post-war Japan.