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1. How Japan matters in the evolving East Asian security order

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
This article argues that Japan matters crucially in the evolving East Asian security order because it is embedded both in the structural transition and the ongoing regional strategies to manage it. The post-Cold War East Asian order transition centres on the disintegration of the post-Second World War Great Power bargain that saw Japan subjecting itself to extraordinary strategic constraint under the US alliance, leaving the conundrum of how to negotiate a new bargain that would keep the peace between Japan and China. To manage the uncertainties of this transition, East Asian states have adopted a three-pronged strategy of: maintaining US military preponderance; socializing China as a responsible regional great power; and cultivating regionalism as the basis for a long-term East Asian security community. Japan provides essential public goods for each of these three elements: it keeps the US anchored in East Asia with its security treaty; it is the one major regional power that can and has helped to constrain the potential excesses of growing Chinese power while at the same time crucially engaging with and helping to socialize China; and its economic and political participation is critical for meaningful regionalism and regional integration. It does not need to be a fully fledged, 'normal' Great Power in order to carry out these roles. As the region tries to mediate the growing security dilemma among the three great powers, Japan's importance to regional security will only grow.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, and East Asia

2. Institutions and the great power bargain in East Asia: ASEAN's limited 'brokerage' role

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
This article argues that in the post-Cold War strategic transition in East Asia, ASEAN has helped to create a minimalist normative bargain among the great powers in the region. The regional norms propagated through the 'ASEAN way', emphasizing sovereignty, non-intervention, consensus, inclusion, and informality were extremely important in the initial stages of bringing the great powers – especially China and the United States – to the table in the immediate post-Cold War period. During this time, ASEAN helped to institutionalize power relations legitimizing the role of the great powers as well as the 'voice' of smaller states in regional security management. But the process of institutionalizing great power relations contains further steps, and what ASEAN has achieved is well short of the kind of sustained cooperation on the part of the great powers that is so necessary to the creation of a new stable regional society of states. Moreover, ASEAN has provided the great powers with a minimalist normative position from which to resist the more difficult processes of negotiating common understanding on key strategic norms. At the same time, ASEAN's model of 'comfortable' regionalism allows the great powers to treat regional institutions as instruments of so-called 'soft' balancing, more than as sites for negotiating and institutionalizing regional 'rules of the game' that would contribute to a sustainable modus vivendi among the great powers. As such, ASEAN's role is limited in, and limiting of, the great power bargain that must underpin the negotiation of the new regional order. This is a task that the regional great powers (the United States, China, and Japan) must themselves undertake.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, and East Asia

3. Hierarchy and the role of the United States in the East Asian security order

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
To construct a coherent account of East Asia's evolving security order, this article treats the United States not as an extra-regional actor, but as the central force in constituting regional stability and order. It proposes that there is a layered regional hierarchy in East Asia, led by the United States, with China, Japan, and India constituting layers underneath its dominance. The major patterns of equilibrium and turbulence in the region since 1945 can be explained by the relative stability of the US position at the top of the regional hierarchy, with periods of greatest insecurity being correlated with greatest uncertainty over the American commitment to managing regional order. Furthermore, relationships of hierarchical assurance and hierarchical deference help to explain critical puzzles about the regional order in the post-Cold War era.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, India, and East Asia

4. Great Powers and Southeast Asian Regional Security Strategies: Omni-Enmeshment, Balancing and Hierarchical Order

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The small and medium-sized states in Southeast Asia have undergone significant geostrategic changes with the end of the Cold War and the rise of China. There has been a lively debate over the last decade about whether these countries would balance against or bandwagon with China, and how their relations with the other major powers in the region would change. Recent works that argue against the simple dichotomy of balancing versus bandwangoning are correct in asserting that Southeast Asian countries do not want to choose between the two major powers, the U.S. and China. But this paper goes further to present the results of an empirical study that fleshes out the conceptual thinking that underlies this avoidance strategy. It finds that instead of merely adopting tactical or time-buying policies, key Southeast Asian states have actively tried to influence the shaping of the new regional order. It argues that key Southeast Asian states in fact have (a) distinct coneptualisations of two main pathways to order in the region–omni-enmeshment of major powers and complex balance of influence; and (b) a concrete vision of the preferred power distribution outcome, which is a hierarchical regional order.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
China and Southeast Asia

5. In Search of 'Suitable Positions' in the Asia Pacific: Negotiating the U.S. China Relationship and Regional Security

Author:
Evelyn Goh
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
This paper argues that the crucial determinant of Asia-Pacific security is whether the US and China can negotiate their relationship and their relative positions and roles in such a way as to produce sustainable regional stability. It examines three alternative models to assess some of the possible processes and outcomes in negotiating Sino-American coexistence. (I) Power transition, in which there is a significant structural shift in the regional system as a rising China challenges US dominance, with a range of possible outcomes; (II) The maintenance of the status quo of US strategic dominance over the region, which China does not challenge concentrating instead on inernal consolidation and on developing its economic power; and (III) Negotiated change, by which the two powers coordinate to manage a more fundamental structural transformation, either through froming a concert (duet) of power, or by moving towards a regional security community. The paper suggests that Model II is likely for the short-to medium-term; Model III for the medium term; and Model I for the long term.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, China, Israel, and Asia