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An examination is made of US policy towards and participation in several key regional multilateral organizations in the Asia–Pacific area, with the aim of establishing how central these organizations are to the overall development of US policy and the extent to which, and how, they influence or constrain US behaviour. The first section of the chapter reviews US strategic goals and briefly discusses some of the domestic and external factors that have led to the development and implementation of these goals in East Asia. The next section discusses multilateral security cooperation in the region, and gives an overview of regional multilateral security organizations, focusing primarily on the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum (ARF), given its all‐encompassing nature and relatively advanced (by Asian standards) stage of development; other US‐instigated multilateral institutions and initiatives (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), and the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) are touched upon briefly to assess how these more narrowly focused approaches also serve American interests. The third section looks at Asia–Pacific multilateral economic cooperation, and here the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) provides the centrepiece of the discussion; its role both in creating an Asia–Pacific economic community and, more recently, as a vehicle for political cooperation through the institutionalization of the US‐instigated Leaders’ Meetings, which bring many of the region's heads of state and government together annually, ostensibly for economic discussions. The conclusion to the chapter briefly evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of these organizations from a US perspective in order to understand better how security and economic multilateralism fits with the largely bilaterally oriented US national security strategy.

This book discusses the discipline of Cultural Studies and its use to analyze the cultural industries in Northeast Asia. It opens with a section considering the discipline itself—perhaps even treating it as a kind of cultural industry in its own right. The book considers the challenges and possibilities that arise from its use in the context of Northeast Asia and when studying it from outside the region, and then follows with essays that use Cultural Studies approaches to analyze cultural industries and their products in Northeast Asia, focusing on film, music, new media, popular culture, and piracy.

This introductory chapter presents an overview of this book's study of Northeast Asia. In the 1930s, American historian and political scientist, Robert Kerner, first studied the region. According to Kerner, Northeast Asia is comprised of the Korean Peninsula, the Manchurian Plain, the Mongolian Plateau, and the mountainous regions of Eastern Siberia. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the region was subject to the Siberian continental weather system, which resulted in long winters. This weather system consequently bred a nomadic civilization based on mobility, hunting, and animal husbandry. Diverse ethnic groups speaking varied languages (Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, and Sinic) were scattered across the region. These people also held various religious beliefs (including Buddhism and Confucianism). Owing to this diversity and an increased fondness for power, the region bred political dynasties that ruled over the four territories of the region in the succeeding decades.

This chapter examines alliance dynamics in U.S.–China relations in Northeast Asia. It analyzes how each nation has used third-party coercive diplomacy to compel the other to restrain its allies' challenges to great power security. A major objective of U.S. policy toward North Korea and the corresponding tension of the Korean Peninsula has been to compel China to exercise greater control over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. A major objective of Chinese policy toward Japan and the corresponding tension in the East China Sea has been to compel the United States to restrain Japanese challenges to Chinese sovereignty claims in disputed waters in the East China Sea. For a brief period, third-party coercion contributed to greater U.S.–China cooperation as each country adjusted its policies toward its respective ally, easing regional tension and U.S.–China conflict.

This part of the book explores the political configuration of Northeast Asia from the twentieth century to the first decades of the twenty-first century. The Russo–Japanese War which resulted in regional divisions happened early on in the twentieth century. Russians were ruling over the North (China and Mongolia) and the Japanese were ruling over the South (Korea). The Russians were interested in Mongolia as a buffer zone against the remaining Chinese and Manchu indigents. Meanwhile, in addition to Korea, the Japanese wanted to expand even further in other Northeast Asian states. So the Japanese incited hostilities but were eventually defeated in 1939. By 1946, the two disconnected states—mainland China and Mongolia—had established a diplomatic relationship based on socialism. The Russians eventually withdrew its hold over Mongolia. Years after the Russian withdrawal, the region developed economically.

This chapter examines the correlation between national cultures and competition policies in Northeast Asia. It presents evidence on culture-competition correlation and discusses the implications of the correlation for the convergence of competition policies. It concludes with some suggestions to promote competition law and policy convergence within Asia.

This part of the book details the nineteenth-century political configuration of Northeast Asia. In the first four decades of the nineteenth century, while the Qing empire reinforced restriction policies against Chinese migration to their territories in Mongolia and Manchuria, the Russian government focused on the reorganization of the administration of Siberia. Amid this internal unrest came the emergence of Christianity—a religion that was initially despised since Buddhism was prevalent among the Mongols and Koreans—and Orthodox Christian beliefs prevailed in Siberia. By the turn of the fifth decade of the century, reinforced by the rise in Christian beliefs, Western states were able to penetrate the Korean peninsula, Manchuria, and Mongolia. The text examines the entry of Western culture and Christianity as they re-configured relations between the Mongols, Manchus, Chinese settlers, Koreans, and the Russians towards the end of the century.

This part of the book details the seventeenth-century political configuration of Northeast Asia. In 1592 the Japanese invaded and this spurred an odd alliance between Korean forces and the Ming armies, which would become more evident in later decades. Meanwhile, in provinces ruled by the Ming, Nurhaci, a Ming vassal plotting an expansionist agenda, incited hostilities. 1610–1620 saw one of the largest battles in the seventeenth century—between the Nurhaci-led Jurchen troops and the Ming armies. The battle ingrained in them the significance of forging alliances with other forces in the region, with a corresponding alliance, the Jurchens' pact which was made with the Mongol groups, and the Mings' with the Koreans. Meanwhile, at the periphery, the Russian Cossacks were expanding in the Baikal region. By the turn of the mid-seventeenth century, the Jurchens' continued attacks successfully overthrew the Ming dynasty. The Jurchens, consequently, founded the Qing dynasty (Manchu dynasty).

This chapter analyzes why rice farming productivity was higher in Taiwan than in the Philippines and Thailand before the Asian Green Revolution of the late 1960s. It focuses on two hypotheses acquired from data collected in the Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan. The first hypothesis implies that the increases in yield of rice and differences in yield among major rice-producing areas within Southeast Asia reflect variations in environmental conditions under which rice is grown, while the second hypothesis points out that differences in rice yield between Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia reflect variations in technological and institutional factors.

Chapter 2 looks at the general nature of the history problem in Northeast Asia, and sets up the analytical framework used to put the problem into a wider context. This framework takes the form of a historical accounting that puts NEA’s history since 1840 into a world historical perspective, seeing it not only as a collective encounter with the West, but also as a dual encounter. From the nineteenth century, China, Japan, and Korea faced not just overwhelming Western power, but also had to deal with the existential challenge to their social orders posed by the nineteenth-century revolutions of modernity that underpinned Western power. These twin challenges took much the same form for both China and Japan, and the starting positions from which they had to make their responses shared many similarities. This perspective exposes two layers of history problem: a global one between NEA and the West, and a regional one within NEA. Focusing on the narrowness and selectivity of the history problem discourse between China and Japan, the chapter sets out the case for constructing a much broader, more globally situated, story of their relationship. The local histories are the main focus of the history problem, and are understandably imbued with intense emotion, both personal and national. The collective global history is colder and more remote, and has largely been left out of the history problem discourse. The two sides of this equation need to be put back together.

This part of the book explores the eighteenth-century political configuration of Northeast Asia. By the beginning of the century, the Qing Empire had no single governance structure in all among their territories. This was due to a growing number of Chinese traders and residents, as well as a feared Russian penetration of the region. In response, the Qing authorities initiated the instruction of Mongolian to its territories and trade caravans with the Russians. By the mid-eighteenth century, despite consolidation efforts, Qing authorities had not effectively managed its growing territorial extent. One of the Qing's main territorial concerns was the Zunghar Mongols' uprising—initiated due to the emperor's refusal of their right to install “khan.” As a consequence, the Mongols were often passed over in favor of the Manchus for the top administrative positions. Meanwhile, at the periphery, Korea's economy was flourishing and Russia was becoming more lenient over their control of Siberian territory.

No region in the world is more important to China than Asia. The future of China’s diplomacy in the potentially volatile region of East Asia will involve a series of interrelated challenges. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, Beijing did well to manage these challenges, but entering the second decade its diplomacy has stumbled as its relations with several key players—most notably Japan, South Korea, and the United States—have all encountered new strains. China’s position in Southeast Asia is also mixed—it has cultivated a few client states (Cambodia and Myanmar), but its relations with the majority of Southeast Asian countries is mixed. Its position among the main southwest Pacific nations—Australia and New Zealand—is also mixed and strained. Similarly, Beijing has also encountered difficult relations with India and other South Asian states.

The Korea–China–Japan Investment Promotion, Facilitation and Protection Agreement is the first treaty in the economic field that binds the three Northeast Asian countries together under a single legal instrument. The existence of effective dispute settlement procedures under the treaty will contribute to the creation of a favourable investment climate in the host country. Nevertheless, there have been fears about frivolous or vexatious claims that could inhibit legitimate regulatory actions by governments. How to compose an investment chapter of the Korea–China–Japan FTA that is being negotiated is a pressing demand for all in the region. Any pertinent answers to such a quest require a thorough comparison of the benefits and drawbacks of any development of relevant rules and governance. In the end, a quest for better international investment governance in Northeast Asia in the future requires sound evaluation of lessons from the past and present.