China, red or green -- Countering Japan -- Five ragged islands -- The golden years -- Japan says no -- Asian values -- Apologies and their discontents -- Yasukuni respects -- History's cauldron -- The Ampo mafia -- The rise and retreat of great powers -- China lays down the law -- Nationalization -- Creation myths -- Freezing point -- Afterword

Many policy analysts believe China-Japan-U.S. relations to be the key triangle in world politics of the 21st century. The ten essays in this book probe the interrelations of the three major powers of the Asia Pacific region. Experts from China, Japan, and the United States examine the evolving nature of trilateral relations by analyzing the impact on their interactions of such international events as the Asian financial crisis, the situation on the Korean peninsula, and the new nuclear arms race in South Asia occasioned by India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests. Recognizing that the continuing prosperity and security of Asia Pacific is largely contingent upon enhanced cooperation between China, Japan, and the United States, the authors examine the ways in which the three countries can collaborate to resolve specific troublesome regional issues and ways in which bilateral relations among the three can be improved. The Asian financial crisis, the South Asian nuclear tests, and the exchange of visits between President Bill Clinton and President Jiang Zemin appear to have drastically changed the context for discussion of trilateral relations. The warming of Sino-U.S. relations in particular has caused some analysts to question whether in the next century the United States might make a strategic choice to downplay its close security and economic relations with Japan in favor of a broadened and deepened relationship with China. China's rise, particularly if it is perceived as having come about at Japan's expense, will call into question the objective of trilateral dialogue: Is it to develop equidistant relations, or to reinforce current bilateral relationships while maintaining the status quo? These new dimensions of the China-Japan-U.S. relationship point to the importance of developing a sustained trilateral dialogue to manage the psychology of trilateral relations, for the benefit of the three countries and the region, as well.

This book examines the transformation of the Sino-Japanese relationship since 1989.

A rich empirical account of China's foreign economic policy towards Japan after World War Two, drawing on hundreds of recently declassified Chinese sources. Amy King offers an innovative conceptual framework for the role of ideas in shaping foreign policy, and examines how China's Communist leaders conceived of Japan after the war. The book shows how Japan became China's most important economic partner in 1971, despite the recent history of war and the ongoing Cold War divide between the two countries. It explains that China's Communist leaders saw Japan as a symbol of a modern, industrialised nation, and Japanese goods, technology and expertise as crucial in strengthening China's economy and military. For China and Japan, the years between 1949 and 1971 were not simply a moment disrupted by the Cold War, but rather an important moment of non-Western modernisation stemming from the legacy of Japanese empire, industry and war in China.

3 From Asian financial crisis to Jiang Zemin's visit to Japan -- 4 Development of multilateral diplomacy and increase of frictions -- 6 Japan-China relations at the start of the twenty-first century: the rocky path to a strategic mutually beneficial relationship -- 1 From start of the Koizumi administration to start of the Hu Jintao administration -- 2 Yasukuni visit problem and anti-Japanese protests -- 3 Formation, development, and limits of strategic mutually beneficial relations -- 4 Japan-China GDP trading places and Senkaku Islands -- 7 The current state of Japan-China relations: navigating a fragile relationship -- 1 Start of new administrations and stagnation of Japan-China relations -- 2 Political bargaining over Japan-China summit at Beijing APEC -- 3 Japan-China relations 70 years after the war's end -- Guide to further reading in English -- Chronology of key events -- Index -- Index of names

A collaborative effort by scholars from the United States, China, and Japan, this volume focuses on the period 1972–1989, during which all three countries, brought together by a shared geopolitical strategy, established mutual relations with one another despite differences in their histories, values, and perceptions of their own national interest. Although each initially conceived of its political and security relations with the others in bilateral terms, the three in fact came to form an economic and political triangle during the 1970s and 1980s. But this triangle is a strange one whose dynamics are constantly changing. Its corners (the three countries) and its sides (the three bilateral relationships) are unequal, while its overall nature (the capacity of the three to work together) has varied considerably as the economic and strategic positions of the three have changed and post–Cold War tensions and uncertainties have emerged.

As the relationship between China and the United States becomes increasingly complex and interdependent, leaders in Beijing and Washington are struggling to establish a solid common foundation on which to expand and deepen bilateral relations. In order to examine the challenges facing U.S.-China relations, the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding (iGCU) at Peking University brought together a group of leading experts from China and the United States in Beijing and Honolulu to develop a conceptual foundation for U.S.-China relations into the future, tackling the issues in innovative ways under the banner of U.S.-China Relations in Strategic Domains. The resulting chapters assess U.S.-China relations in the maritime and nuclear sectors as well as in cyberspace and space and through the lens of P2P and mil-to-mil exchanges. Scholars and students in political science and international relations are thus presented with a diagnosis and prognosis of the relations between the two superpowers.