Drawing upon case study material and primary research, including interviews with officials and security analysts, the book presents a chronological analysis of Japan's sea lane security.

This is the first major English-language study to explore the broad and longstanding connections between Japan’s national security and the safety of its sea lanes. Tracing issues from pre-and post-1945 eras, the book explores how Japan’s concerns with sea lane protection have developed across such diverse fields as military strategy, diplomacy, trade policy, energy security, and law enforcement. Drawing upon case study material and primary research including interviews with officials and security analysts, the book presents a chronological analysis of Japan’s sea lane security. While Japan’s security policies have recently undergone relatively rapid change, a historical treatment of sea lane security issues reveals long-term continuity in security policymakers’ perceptions and responses regarding Japan's defence and foreign policy. Revealing a neglected but important aspect of Japan’s military and economic security, the book investigates why officials and analysts continue to portray the defence of Japan’s sea lanes as ‘a matter of life and death’.

Japan, the geopolitical lynchpin in the East Asian region, has developed a unique maritime security policy and interpretation of the law of the sea. Japanese Maritime Security and the Law of the Sea examines Japan’s domestic laws and its approach to international law.

This book sheds light on the changing nature of contemporary Japan by decoding a range of political, economic and social boundaries. With a focus on the period following the inauguration of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichirō, the book grows out of a recognition that, with the Koizumi administration playing a more proactive role internationally and moving ahead with deregulation and the ‘structural reform’ of the economy domestically, a range of boundaries have been challenged and reinscribed. Here ‘boundaries’ refers to the ways in which contemporary Japan is shaped as a separate entity by the inscription and reinscription of political, economic and social space creating insiders and outsiders, both internationally and domestically. The central argument of the book is that, in order to achieve the twin goals of greater international proactivity and domestic reform, the government and other actors supporting Koizumi’s new direction for Japan needed to take action in order to destabilize and reformulate a range of extant boundaries. While boundaries often remain invisible, the aim of this book is to promote an understanding of their significance by uncovering their pivotal role. Decoding Boundaries in Contemporary Japan brings together contributions from leading and emerging scholars from the UK, Japan and the United States. It will appeal to scholars and students of Japan as well as social scientists with an interest in borders and boundaries, political scientists interested in Asia.

The main focus of the contributors of this volume is to analyze closely major aspects of energy security, energy diplomacy, and maritime security in East and Southeast Asia. Specifically, they examine the current state of energy security and maritime security of China and Japan, as well as Southeast Asia.

China’s reaction to the United States’ new maritime strategy will significantly impact its success, according to three Naval War College professors. Based on the premise that preventing wars is as important as winning wars, this new U.S. strategy, they explain, embodies a historic reassessment of the international system and how the United States can best pursue its interests in cooperation with other nations. The authors contend that despite recent turbulence in U.S.-China military relations, substantial shared interests could enable extensive U.S.-China maritime security cooperation, as they attempt to reach an understanding of “competitive coexistence.” But for professionals to structure cooperation, they warn, Washington and Beijing must create sufficient political and institutional space.

Japan's Foreign Relations in Asia has been specifically designed to introduce students to Japan’s foreign relations in Asia since 1990, a period in which there have been dramatic developments in Japan, including the reinterpretation of the Constitution and expanded US–Japan defence cooperation. The geopolitical dynamics and implications of these new developments are profound and underscore the need for a new textbook on this subject. Covering not only the key regional players of China and the Koreas, this textbook also encompasses chapters on Japan’s relations with India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand, along with its multilateral engagement and initiatives. Combined with transnational chapters on critical issues, key themes covered by this book include: An historical overview of key post-war developments. Japan’s evolving security policy. Analysis of the region’s escalating maritime disputes. An evaluation of Japanese soft power in Asia. Written by leading experts in accessible, jargon-free style, this new textbook will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Japanese politics, international relations and foreign policy and Asian affairs in general.