East Asian International Politics POL1008/2011East Asian International Politics POL 1008/2011
Overview: At the dawn of the 21st century, there are three techno-economic and strategic cores—Europe, North America and East Asia. Of these, East Asia is the fastest growing and most dynamic. Although these three regions are of approximately equal economic size, East Asia is thus pulling ahead. East Asia includes China, the world’s fastest growing continental economy, Japan, the second or third largest economy, the largest source of global capital, and a technological leader, South Korea, a technological leader, and Southeast Asia, a rapidly developing region. East Asia is also becoming increasingly important militarily. The world’s second and third largest military budgets are to be found in this region. Increasingly, Asian strategic issues affect even geographically distant great power relations, including the trans-Atlantic relationship. The issue of whether the EU lifts its arms embargo against China has risen to the highest levels of trans-Atlantic discourse.
This course will focus on the international relations of this crucial region. It begins by tracing the legacy of the Sino-Centric tributary system, a relatively hierarchical international relations system quite different from the anarchical Westphalian system. Then, it considers the impact of the arrival of Western Imperialism, the rise and fall of Japanese Imperialism, and the Cold War. The balance of the course focuses on the post-cold-war decade of the 1990s, the rise of techno-economic dynamism in East Asia, the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, the rise of regional multilateral institutions, East Asia under unipolarity and the War on Terrorism, the rise of China, its complex relations with Japan and the US, China Japan and more generally, Asia’s, relationship with Europe. The course concludes by considering several scenarios for Asian regional politics and this region’s place in, impact on, the global system over the next decade.
Course Requirements: 1000 Level course: 8 page paper and written examination
2000 Level course: 25 page paper and oral examination
Textbooks: Michael J. Green, Japan’s Reluctant Realism: Foreign Policy Challenges in an Era of Uncertain Power, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
Suisheng Zhao, ed., Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior (M.E. Sharpe, 2004). |
