BUZAN. Contesting International Society in East Asia-Cambridge University Press (2014) PDF

Contesting International Society in East Asia
Bringing together some of the most innovative scholars in both the

English School of international relations and East Asian studies, this
volume investigates whether or not significant and distinct international
social structures exist at the regional level represented by ‘East Asia’, and
what this can tell us about international society both regionally and
globally. The book’s main finding is that the regional dispute over how
its states and peoples should relate to the Western-dominated global
international society makes the existence of East Asian international
society essentially contested. While this regional–global social dynamic
is present in many regions, it is particularly strong in East Asia. This book
will appeal to audiences interested in developing English School theory,
the study of East Asian international relations and comparative
regionalism.
b a r r y b u z a n is a Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS, Emeritus Professor in

the London School of Economics Department of International Relations
and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include International
Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations
(2000, with Richard Little); Regions and Powers: The Structure of
International Security (2003, with Ole Wæver); From International to
World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of
Globalisation (Cambridge University Press, 2004); Does China Matter?
(2004, coedited with Rosemary Foot); The United States and the Great
Powers: World Politics in the Twenty-First Century (2004); International
Society and the Middle East: English School Theory at the Regional Level
(2009, coedited with Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez); and Non-Western
International Relations Theory (2010, coedited with Amitav Acharya).
y o n g j i n z h a n g is Professor of International Politics at the University
of Bristol. His main publications include China in the International
System, 1918–1920: The Middle Kingdom at the Periphery (1991);
China in International Society Since 1949: Alienation and Beyond
(1998); China’s Emerging Global Businesses: Political Economy and
Institutional Investigations (2003); Power and Responsibility in Chinese
Foreign Policy (2001 and 2014, coedited with Greg Austin); and
International Orders in the Early Modern World (2014, coedited with
Shogo Suzuki and Joel Quirk). His articles have appeared in European
Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies,
Australian Journal of International Affairs, Chinese Journal of
International Politics, China Journal, Journal of Contemporary China,
Asian Perspective, Development and Change and, most recently,
International Affairs, among others. He is the winner of the BISA
(British International Studies Association) prize for the best article
published in Review of International Studies in 1991.
Contesting International
Society in East Asia
Edited by
Barry Buzan and Yongjin Zhang
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107077478
© Cambridge University Press 2014
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2014
Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Contesting international society in East Asia / edited by Barry Buzan
and Yongjin Zhang.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-107-07747-8 (hardback)
1. Social structure – East Asia. 2. East Asia – Foreign relations.
I. Buzan, Barry. II. Zhang, Yongjin.
HM706.C66 2014
327.5–dc23
2014014723
ISBN 978-1-107-07747-8 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of tables page vii

Notes on contributors viii
Preface ix
1 Introduction: interrogating regional international

society in East Asia 1
barry buzan and yongjin zhang
2 International societies in pre-modern East Asia: a
preliminary framework 29
feng zhang
3 Imagining ‘Asia’: Japan and ‘Asian’ international
society in modern history 51
shogo suzuki
4 An East Asian international society today? The
cultural dimension 73
david c. kang
5 Regional and global forces in East Asia’s economic
engagement with international society 93
mark beeson and shaun breslin
6 Outside-in and inside-out: political ideology, the
English School and East Asia 119
alice d. ba
7 East Asia and the strategic ‘deep rules’ of
international/regional society 144
yuen foong khong
8 East Asia as regional international society: the
problem of great power management 167
evelyn goh
v
vi Contents
9 Social boundaries in flux: secondary regional

organizations as a reflection of regional
international society 188
rosemary foot
10 Conclusion: the contest over East Asian
international society 207
barry buzan and yongjin zhang
Glossary 232
References 237
Index 261
Tables
Table 2.1 Imperial China’s dynasties and primary

international societies in East Asia page 37
Table 2.2 Primary international societies and institutions in
pre-modern East Asia 47
Table 4.1 Tourism in East Asia, 2004 and 2010 87
vii
Notes on contributors
a l ic e d . b a is Associate Professor of Political Science and International

Relations, University of Delaware, USA.
m ar k b e e s o n is Professor of International Politics, Murdoch
University, Australia.
s h a u n b r e s l i n is Professor of Politics and International Studies,
University of Warwick, UK.
b ar r y b u za n is Emeritus Professor of International Relations, London
School of Economics, UK.
r o s em ar y f o o t is Professor of International Relations and the John
Swire Senior Research Fellow in International Relations, St Antony’s
College, University of Oxford, UK.
e v e ly n g o h is Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies,
Australian National University, Australia.
d a v i d c . k an g is Professor of International Relations and Business,
University of Southern California, USA.
y u e n f o o n g k h o n g is Professor of International Relations and
Professorial Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, UK.
s h o g o s u z u k i is Senior Lecturer of International Politics and Chinese
Studies, University of Manchester, UK.
f e n g z h a n g is a Fellow at the Department of International Relations,
Australian National University, Australia.
y o n g j i n z h a n g is Professor of International Politics, University of
Bristol, UK.
viii
Preface
This project is an offshoot of Barry Buzan’s interest in exploring the

regional level of international society combined with his and Yongjin
Zhang’s interest in the evolution of East Asia into modernity. The
driving question is whether or not international society exists in distinc-
tive form at the regional level and, if it does, how it can be differentiated
from, and/or related to, the more commonly discussed global interna-
tional society. Cases such as the European Union suggest that clearly
differentiated regional-level international societies can and do exist
alongside and within the global-level one. What is much less clear at
this point is how widespread such differentiation might be and what
forms it might take in different places. The starting point for this book
is Barry Buzan and Ana Gonzalez-Pelaez (eds.), International Society and
the Middle East (2009b), which put these questions to that case. This
book builds on what was learned there in order to explore what regional
international society might or might not mean in East Asia. The aim is to
refine our understanding of international society by interrogating the
assumption that there is a relatively uniform global-level international
society resulting from the expansion of an initially European model and
its imposition on the rest of the world through processes of encounter,
colonization and decolonization.
The editors would like to extend their most sincere thanks to those
who made this project possible. Most obviously, our gratitude goes to
our nine authors, on whose expertise, and willingness to apply it through
an English School framework, this enterprise depended. Their good will
and efficient co-operation made our task as editors a real pleasure. We
owe a note of thanks to Erik Ringmar who read and commented on first
drafts of all the chapters at the authors’ workshop in Shanghai. We would
also like to acknowledge generous financial support from the Chiang
Chin-Kuo Foundation (CCKF) in Taiwan and from the University of
Bristol’s Vice Chancellor’s Initiative Fund, which made it possible for us
to hold the Shanghai workshop. Fudan University generously agreed to
host this workshop, and we are particularly grateful to Chen Zhimin
ix
x Preface
for arranging this. Fudan provided not only excellent accommodation,

generous hospitality and outstanding meeting facilities, but also helpful
input into the discussions from participating Fudan colleagues. We
would also like to thank Chen Yudan who did much of the detailed
organizing work at the Fudan end prior to and during the workshop.
1 Introduction: interrogating regional
international society in East Asia
This book is about international society at the regional level using East Asia
as a case. Its main aim is to investigate whether or not significant, distinct,
international social structures exist at the regional level represented by ‘East
Asia’. If they do, what do they look like? How are they differentiated from
global-level international society? In which ways do they inform our under-
standing of the interactive dynamics of regional and global order? Why do
they matter theoretically, with particular reference to extending the English
School theory? And why do they matter empirically, with specific focus on
East Asia’s pursuit of regionalism and regional community-building?
Putting it differently, using international society as the central analytical
idea, we ask two questions: first, what, if anything, can East Asia tell us
about international society at the regional level? And, second, what insights,
if any, can the English School theory provide in understanding the regional
order in East Asia? We address ourselves, therefore, to two main audiences,
who are mainly distinct from each other: those interested in developing
English School theory as an approach to the study of international relations;
and those interested in the empirical study of East Asian international
relations. A third audience we have in mind is those interested in compa-
rative regionalism (Acharya and Johnston 2007b; Pempel 2005; Solingen
2013). We hope that each of these three audiences will find value in our
analysis that is specific to its own concerns. But we also hope to foster
greater awareness of common ground among these different groups of
scholars and to encourage them to make more use of each other’s insights
in their own work. In explicitly engaging East Asia as an empirical case from
a purposively identified theoretical perspective, this book also seeks to
bridge the gap between comparative and foreign policy scholarship on
East Asia and international relations (IR) theory identified by G. John
Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno (2003), and to address Alastair Iain
Johnston’s (2012) concern about the neglect by transatlantic IR theory of
the international relations of East Asia.
For the English School audience, we have two principal aims. The first
is to extend the project on comparative international societies that was
1
2 Barry Buzan and Yongjin Zhang
begun by Martin Wight (1977) and Adam Watson (1992) in historical

mode, and has now begun to address regional differentiation in contem-
porary international society. More specifically, this builds on an earlier
project on regional international society in the Middle East (Buzan and
Gonzalez-Pelaez 2009b) and seeks to use regionally specific knowledge
about East Asia to enrich, as well as to critique, the English School theory.
The second is to question the tendency among English School scholars to
treat global-level international society as a rather homogeneous construc-
tion based on universal sovereign equality, by putting forward a more
core–periphery view that we label Western–global international society. Now
that we have moved beyond the expansion story, the English School needs
to develop a more differentiated and nuanced view of how international
society is structured and how it is developing both temporally and
spatially. Focusing on international society at the regional level addresses
both of these aims. East Asia is arguably now the most important region on
the planet, with on-going political and economic transformation at
national, regional and global levels. While realists, liberal institutionalists
and constructivists have made divergent and competing theoretical
claims about the region, it is as yet not much studied systematically
from an English School perspective.
For the East Asian specialists, we offer a different and certainly, for
most, a less familiar theoretical perspective on their region – largely absent
from the study of contemporary East Asia except for the odd passing
reference, for example, in synoptic works on the region such as Muthiah
Alagappa (1998: 613, 644; 2003a: 584–7). The familiar realist take on
East Asia focuses analytically on the changing distribution of structural
power and hegemonic transition, with special interest in great power
rivalries, security dilemmas and military conflicts (Friedberg 1993–4,
2011; Glaser 2011). The liberal approach also takes hegemony
seriously, but looks more to the ameliorative effects of the logics of
absolute gains and emphasizes the role of economic interdependence,
and of inter-governmental regimes and international institutions, in
promoting regional co-operation, stability and prosperity (Dent 2008;
Mansfield and Milner 1999; Stubbs 2002). More recent constructivist
intervention has challenged the structural and material understanding
of the East Asian order, highlighting the mediating role of culture, civili-
zation, identity and socialization (Berger 2003; Johnston 2003; Kang
2003; Katzenstein 2012).
The English School approach is closest to constructivism in that it
focuses mainly on discourse, practice and social structure. We agree
with Thomas Diez and Richard Whitman (2002: 48) that all forms of
society are manifestations of discourse because ‘society does not have an
Introduction 3
essence beyond discourse’. There is certainly a discourse around and

about the social construction of ‘East Asia’, but this discourse does not
necessarily make clear either what type of region East Asia is, or how it is
differentiated from Western–global international society or neighbouring
regional international societies. It is also important to note that power
plays an important role in the discursive construction of a region. ‘The
power to name and shape the identity and boundaries of a region matters a
great deal’ (Hurrell 2007a: 243). As we will show, this discourse is as
much about contestation over the designation and constitution of ‘East
Asia’ as it is about constructing a specific structure. The English School
offers a much more finely tuned and historically rooted conception of
social structure than generally found in constructivism. With its concept
of primary institutions – sovereignty, territoriality, diplomacy, balance of
power, international law, nationalism, human equality and suchlike – the
English School sets out detailed criteria with which both to characterize
types of international society, and to differentiate regional international
societies from each other and the Western–global one. This analytical
framework is also what we offer to those interested in comparative region-
alism generally, and the eight empirical chapters that follow will all in
their various ways focus on East Asia through the lens of primary institu-
tions. Bringing in East Asia in this way, therefore, may reinforce or
destabilize some generic theoretical assumptions of the English School
about international society, particularly where the theoretical contentions
are only tentative. This is more than a trivial benefit for the ES theorizing.
The central focus of this book is therefore on regional international
society, both theoretically and in relation to the particular case of East
Asia. For the regional level of international society to be meaningful, there
have to be ways of differentiating regions in this sense both from the
Western–global level and from neighbouring regions. If all states were of
a similar type, shared the same set of primary institutions and interpreted
them through similar practices, there would be no regional level of inter-
national society. To the extent that they exist, all contemporary regional
international societies can therefore be characterized in terms of four
general attributes: their degree of differentiation from the Western–global
core, their degree of differentiation from neighbouring regional inter-
national societies, their degree of internal homogeneity and integration,
and their placement on a pluralist–solidarist spectrum (is the principal
governing logic of the region power political, coexistence, co-operation or
convergence? See glossary of terms). Identifying these four general
characteristics as they mark out East Asia as a region is therefore key to
understanding whether or not a meaningful regional international
society exists in East Asia today. This is what has prompted our authors,
all specialists on the region, in their enquiries in individual chapters of this

volume. This means that, collectively, we need to look specifically at the
patterns and configurations of primary institutions in the region. Is East
Asia differentiated from Western–global international society and from
neighbouring regional international societies and, if so, in terms of which
institutions and practices, and how strongly or weakly differentiated?
What does the nature of this differentiation in terms of primary institu-
tions suggest about how East Asia will relate both to its neighbours and to
Western–global international society? If East Asia can be understood as a
regional international society in terms of its profile of primary institutions,
how homogeneous is it and how closely is it integrated? And given
its profile of primary institutions, how can it be characterized as a type of
regional international society: power political, coexistence, co-operative,
convergence? We are interested in, to paraphrase John Ruggie (1998), not
only what makes East Asia hang together, but also what makes East Asia
hang together differently from the Western–global international society
as well as from other regions?
We will return to these questions in the final chapter as a framing within
which to summarize our findings. In the rest of this introductory chapter, we
provide first the English School conceptualization of international society
at the regional level and the way in which the East Asian case helps extend
or destabilize basic assumptions about regional international society.
This is followed by an elaboration of how studies of East Asian international
relations can be enriched by engaging in the English School approach. The
final section gives brief chapter summaries for the rest of the book.
Conceptualizing international society in East Asia

One of the purposes of this book is to extend the English School project on
comparative international societies into the present day. It asks whether
and to what extent there has emerged a distinctive East Asian regional
international society. It puts this question into a long-term historical
perspective, and it attempts to establish that some degree of regional
differentiation exists from the Western–global core. If such differentiation
is marked enough, this is interesting and significant in itself because it
re-opens the scope for comparative international societies that was lost
when the expansion of Western international society overrode older
international societies. It also raises important questions for how we
understand what international society at the global level actually means.
How homogeneous is it, and what is the significance of the ways in which
it is internally differentiated? To study regional international societies in
contemporary terms is thus about a lot more in English School terms than
Introduction 5
just regions. The empirical study of primary institutions should tell us

both whether there is regional differentiation from the global level and, if
there is, in what form and to what degree.
It is easy to get the impression from the classical English School
literature that there is a relatively homogeneous, if fairly thin, global
international society based on universalization of the Western model of
the sovereign, territorial state, and its accompanying set of Westphalian
institutions (in Hedley Bull’s 1977 classic rendering: balance of power,
international law, great power management, diplomacy and war). In this
view, decolonization generated a society of states that was relatively
uniform in terms of being composed of sovereign equal states, though
not in terms of power and level of development. There was concern about
the revolt against the West arising from decolonization, but this was
mainly in relation to the stability of global-level international society.
Neither regional international societies nor the complex and differenti-
ated structure of primary institutions was given much thought. In its
expansion of international society story (Bull and Watson 1984a; Buzan
2010b; Buzan and Little 2010; Gong 1984; Watson 1992), the English
School makes a quite powerful case for the way in which the West imposed
its own ‘standard of civilization’ on other states and peoples, in the process
creating a global-level international society composed of like (sovereign)
states with a significant set of shared Westphalian primary institutions.
The on-going influence of the Western–global core has continued to
extend this process, and a number of key primary institutions have been
naturalized across nearly all of international society.
But the concept of ‘global-level international society’ is not as straight-
forward as this story might make it appear. Global-level international
society is more accurately understood as a core–periphery structure in
which the West projects its own values as global, and this projection
encounters varying degrees of acceptance and resistance in the periphery:
thus our label of Western–global international society. At some risk of over-
simplifying, there are two general interpretations of what global-level
international society is, and therefore of how the global and regional levels
of it relate to each other:
What might be called the globalization view, which sees international
society as fairly evenly, if thinly, spread at the global level. Here the
assumption is that the global level will tend to get stronger in relation to
the regional one, and international society becomes more homogenized
as a result of the operation of global economic, cultural and political
forces (a.k.a. capitalism). This view sees either a triumph of liberal
Western hegemony, or a kind of compromise in which some
non-Western elements are woven into the Western framing.
What might be called the post-colonial view, which sees international

society as an uneven core–periphery structure in which the West still
has a privileged, but partly contested, hegemonic role, and non-
Western regions are in varying degrees subordinate to Western power
and values. Here the assumption is that, as the Western vanguard
declines relative to the rise of non-Western powers, the global level of
international society will weaken. Anti-hegemonism will add to this
weakening and will reinforce a relative strengthening of regional inter-
national societies as non-Western cultures seek to reassert their own
values and resist (at least some of) those coming from the Western core.
The idea of a global-level international society clearly has considerable
substance in terms of shared commitments to a range of key primary
institutions, several of which have become effectively naturalized across
many populations. Even values that were originally carried outwards by
the force of Western military superiority during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries have, over time, become internalized by those states
and, up to a point, by peoples on whom they were originally imposed. At
the level of state elites, sovereignty, territoriality, non-intervention, diplo-
macy, international law, great power management, nationalism, self-
determination (not all versions), popular sovereignty, progress, equality
of people(s) and in some measure the market (more for trade and
production than finance) are all fairly deeply internalized and not
contested as principles. Particular instances or applications may excite
controversy, but the basic institutions of a pluralist, coexistence, inter-
state society have wide support among states and reasonably wide support
among peoples and transnational actors. Most liberation movements seek
sovereignty. Most peoples feel comfortable with nationalism, territoria-
lity, sovereignty and the idea of progress. Most transnational actors want
and need a stable legal framework. Even as Western power declines, it
does not seem unreasonable to think that most of these pluralist institu-
tions will remain in place, as too might the modest, and (it is to be hoped)
increasing, level of commitment to environmental stewardship. A mixture
of coercion, copying and persuasion meant that Western institutions
became widespread, running in close parallel to Kenneth Waltz’s (1979:
74–7) idea that anarchy generates ‘like units’ through processes of
‘socialization and competition’. That said, the picture is, of course,
mixed in terms of how these primary institutions are held in place.
According to Alexander Wendt (1999), institutions can be held in place
either mainly by consent (i.e. they are internalized to a logic of appropri-
ateness), mainly by calculation (a logic of consequences) or mainly by
coercion (a logic of compellence). Some primary institutions, most
obviously sovereignty and nationalism, are broadly consensual. Others,
Introduction 7
most obviously the market, reflect a mixture of all three of these binding
forces, with different mixes in different places.
But while the ‘like units’ formulation carries some truth, it also deceives
in various ways. Other primary institutions – such as human rights,
non-intervention, democracy, environmental stewardship, war, balance
of power and hegemony – are contested, and therefore need to be part
of what is problematized in thinking about global-level international
society and how it might be differentiated. As well as contestations over
primary institutions, variations in the practices associated with them
are quite easy to find. Non-intervention is relatively strong in East Asia
and relatively weak in South Asia (Paul 2010: 3–5) and the Middle East.
Human rights are relatively strong in the EU, much less so in most other
places. Peaceful settlement of disputes is relatively strong in Latin
America and the EU, much less so in South Asia, the Middle East and
East Asia. Thus, while the degree of homogeneity at the global level is
impressive and significant, it is far from universal or uniform. To find
differentiation between international society at the global and regional
levels one can track the differences in their primary institutions, which are
the building blocks of international societies and which define their social
structure. There are three possible types of difference:
(1) The regional international society contains primary institutions not
present at the Western–global level.
(2) The regional international society lacks primary institutions present
at the Western–global level.
(3) The regional international society has the same nominal primary
institutions as at the Western–global level, but interprets them differ-
ently and so has significantly different practices associated with
them. This might mean either that a given institution is associated
with different practices (e.g. strong versus weak sovereignty), or that
the value and priority attached to institutions within the same set are
different (e.g. where sovereignty is the trump institution in one place,
and the market, or nationalism, or great power management, in
another).
The chapters that follow use these three criteria to try to delimit East Asian
international society and differentiate it from its neighbours and the
Western–global level.
Contestations about primary institutions, and differing practices within
the same institution, offer one way of tracking differentiation within
international society. These contestations relate to other, quite easily
trackable forms of differentiation: types of state, types of civilization and
degree of alienation from/integration with Western–global international
society.
Variations in types of state are easy to find. The units in the system are
not ‘like’ in some quite important ways: the post-modern states of Europe
are not the same as either the United States, or the rising developmental
states of East Asia. And all of the Western and other developed states are
quite different from the weak post-colonial states found in Africa, the
Middle East, and up to a point Latin America. That said, agreeing on a
taxonomy for differentiation among the many available may be less easy.
Barry Buzan’s (2007: 93) spectrum of weak–strong states based on degree
of socio-political cohesion (and set in contrast to weak and strong powers
denoting the traditional distinction in terms of material capabilities) is a
reasonable starting point. Europe, for example is dominated by strong,
developed and liberal democratic states and contains several big powers,
none of which has hegemonic status. This relative uniformity is reflected
in its strong and distinctive regional international society based on a form
of post-modern state: a security community framed by the institutions of
the EU. Sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by weak, underdeveloped,
dependent and often authoritarian post-colonial states, in which internal
conflict and the threat of state failure dominate inter-state relations. Latin
America is dominated by states of middle rank in terms of weak/strong,
developed/developing and democratic/authoritarian. There are elements
of security community and several substantial regional powers (Merke
2011). The Middle East is dominated by weak, authoritarian, dependent
post-colonial states, with again several powers of similar strength and
no potential hegemon (Buzan and Gonzalez-Pelaez 2009b). There is a
high level of inter-state conflict, and it is too early to say whether the
on-going ‘Arab Spring’ will unravel the long-standing stability of dictators
and dynasties in the region’s political constitution. South Asia has
many weak states, but some quite strong powers (Paul 2010). Where a
particular type of state dominates, this fact affects both the character of
international society at the regional level and the way in which the region
interacts with the Western–global level.
East Asia does not look like any of these. More so than most other
regions, it contains a rich variety of state types. All regions have some
diversity, but mostly this is subordinated within a general dominance of a
particular type of state. East Asia contains states that range across the
spectrum from Africa through the Middle East and Latin America, to
Europe, as well as some that seem unique to it (China, North Korea).
Cambodia and Laos feel more like Africa; Burma and Vietnam feel like
the Middle East; Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia feel
like Latin America; Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and arguably Singapore
feel more like Europe, although without the element of security commu-
nity. If North Korea has any comparators they might be found in Russia
Introduction 9
and Belarus. China likes to think of itself as sui generis, and perhaps it is,
combining a singular mix of communist government and capitalist
economy with massive size and a unique civilizational heritage. Whether
China should be thought of as a ‘civilization-state’ (Jacques 2009) is an
interesting question. Most nation-states (think of France, or Iran, or
Japan, or Egypt) would make a similar type of cultural claim and, if the
civilization in reference is ‘Confucian’, then China is just one, albeit very
big, state within that civilization. Across this diversity, as we shall see in the
chapters that follow, East Asia nevertheless contains a distinctive form of
developmental state.
If one accepts the view that international societies of any sort are
generated by the leading states and societies within them, then there should
be some significant correlation between the degree of homogeneity of state
type, and the strength or weakness, or even existence, of an international
society. European international society famously emerged during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as European states became more
alike in terms of defining themselves in relation to sovereignty, territoriality
and dynasticism. In this perspective, East Asia’s political diversity points
towards no, or at best a weak, regional international society.
Variations in civilization are also easy to find. Europe has its Christian
heritage, albeit with many subdivisions, and the Middle East has its
Islamic one, again with many subdivisions. Latin America is an offshoot
of one section of European culture and therefore has a more coherent
shared Hispanic, Catholic civilizational legacy. Compared to these, East
Asia is civilizationally as well as politically fragmented. In terms of the
broad cultural patterns represented by ‘civilization’, often marked by
religion, East Asia does not have a dominant core. Burma, Thailand,
Cambodia and Laos are mainly in the Buddhist tradition which is also
significantly present in China (Tibet especially) and Japan. Malaysia and
Indonesia are mainly in the Islamic tradition. The Philippines is mostly
close to the Latin American tradition, and Christianity is a significant
presence in many East Asian societies. There is a Confucian sphere
centred on China, Korea and Vietnam, and up to a point Japan, but
several other religious traditions are prominent within this sphere as
well. So in this heritage, or background, sense, East Asia is again notably
diverse and multicultural. To the extent that South Asia becomes linked
to East Asia, this cultural diversity will be deepened.
Variations in the degree of integration with or alienation from Western–
global international society are also pretty apparent. Some regions,
most obviously Europe and North America, are inside the Western–global
core and therefore mainly comfortable with it by definition. But even
within the West there are marked differences of historical relationship
to Western–global international society, and these differences are even

more marked and more significant for non-Western regions. Europe has
had an unbroken historical relationship in which its own international
society was imposed on the rest of the world. This involved formative
encounters with other civilizations, most obviously the long and direct
encounter with the Islamic world, but also the mainly indirect exchange
of knowledge and goods with Asia. But Europe was never overwhelmed
or occupied. So while Europe certainly interacted with other cultures,
and drew knowledge from them, it retained its autonomy.
There are three routes through which non-Western regions have arrived
at their current relationship with Western–global international society:
repopulation, colonization/decolonization and encounter/reform (Buzan
2012). Latin America was largely repopulated and remade by European,
and in some places African, immigrants and so has a high degree of
disconnect between its original culture, largely exterminated, and its
modern one. Because of this legacy it more easily joined the expanding
Western international society, though retaining also a degree of alienation
from it. Almost all of the Middle East, Africa and South Asia was directly
colonized by the Europeans, with the process of colonization and
decolonization leaving behind a heavy legacy not only of arbitrary state
boundaries and Western institutions, but also of economic, political and
cultural resentment against the West. There is thus a certain uniformity
of encounter experience within these regions.
That is not the case for East Asia, whose experience of encounter with
the expanding West was notably diverse. Some parts of East Asia were
colonized early and for a long time by the Europeans (the Philippines,
parts of Indonesia). Others were colonized only much later during the
final phase of European expansion during the nineteenth century (most of
the rest of Southeast Asia). China, Korea and Japan were not colonized by
Europe at all. They were able to control relations with the West right up
until the middle of the nineteenth century, largely setting their own terms
for the encounter. From the middle of the nineteenth century, European
and Western power became overwhelming, initiating a coercive process of
encounter and reform. Japan was spectacularly successful at reform and
by the late nineteenth century had joined Western–global international
society as a great power. Japan’s success was so great as to enable it to
embark on its own colonial career in East Asia, and it quickly took over
Taiwan and Korea. China was spectacularly unsuccessful, edging towards
disintegration. It escaped Western takeover because the Western powers
did not want to take responsibility for it, and instead endured a sustained
Japanese attempt at occupation. Nothing like this diversity of experience
can be found elsewhere, though with a bit of a stretch one might draw
Introduction 11
some parallels between Northeast Asia and the encounter experience of

the Ottoman Empire.
Given this strong evidence for the existence of regional differentiation
within international society, we are confident that an enquiry into East
Asian regional international society is both intellectually justified and,
because of the rising importance of this region in the world political
economy, important to do. That said, East Asia has a history that mixes
encounter/reform and colonization/decolonization, so some mixture of
alienation from and integration with Western–global international
society is to be expected. It seems reasonable to think that some
regional differentiation will be present in East Asia, and there is certainly
a distinctive discourse about the region. We are also confident that this
history will generate a lot of discursive interplay between the regional and
the global levels of international society.
How re-emergent regional international societies might relate to
Western–global international society is a key question. The legacy of
resentment against Western colonialism, cultural and racial discrimina-
tion, and economic inequality remains widespread and strong. In most
places there is still not enough power for states to challenge the West
directly, but it is not unthinkable that East Asia’s rising great powers could
potentially challenge the West, as Japan did in the middle of the twentieth
century. China might become powerful enough to do so in the future,
but it is debatable at the moment whether it has the ideological basis or
the political will to mount such a challenge in the years to come.
Nevertheless, the presence of great powers in East Asia means that
links to the global level of international society are unavoidable.
By highlighting these differences we are not trying to argue that interna-
tional society should be studied only at the regional level, nor even that the
regional level is necessarily or probably more important than the global
level. Both levels are important, and which is stronger in any given time
and place is an empirical question. But we take as uncontroversial the idea
that international society is worth investigating at the regional level, and
do so on both theoretical and empirical grounds. On the theory side,
nothing in the English School’s classical literature stands against a
regional approach to international society. In practice both the theoretical
and empirical studies within that literature have focused almost exclu-
sively on the global level. This excessive universalism in English School
perspectives on international society needs to be counter-balanced. There
is nothing in any IR literature to suggest that social structural approaches
are relevant only to the global level, and much in the constructivist
(Acharya 2009; Adler and Barnett 1998) and civilizational (Huntington
1996) literatures to suggest that significant differences in international
social structure might be found at the regional level, certainly in terms of

world society, and probably also for inter-state society. As should already
be clear, a key theme of our argument is that a proper understanding of
international society at the global level can be achieved only by taking into
account the existence of regional variation within it. This mixing is what
the term Western–global international society facilitates.
On the empirical side, the evidence is both general and particular.
Hurrell (2007a: 239–61) makes the general case for paying attention to
regional differentiation within international society. In terms of particular
cases, the EU, despite its difficulties over the euro and the desired degree
of integration, perhaps makes the most obvious case for the existence of a
quite clearly bounded regional differentiation. Diez and Whitman (2002:
45–8) argue that the EU is ‘an international society that has been formed
within a particular regional context and is embedded in a wider, global
international society’, possessing a ‘particularly dense’ set of common
rules and institutions. They also see evidence of world society in Europe
centred around intense, but contested discourses about common history,
and shared values such as human rights and social market liberalism (ibid.:
47–56). Like the classical English School (Bull 1977), they see tensions
between the inter-state and world society domains because ‘Deepening
international society requires a deepening of world society, a process
which embodies the potential of undermining the basics of international
society’ (Diez and Whitman 2002: 54–5). The EU is a regional inter-
national society that is in general harmony with Western–global inter-
national society (having been its main originator), but having evolved a
deeper, thicker regime of its own. Interestingly, while the English School
has been assiduous in tracking the European story from its origins to its
expansion into global international society, it has paid almost no attention
to the distinctive way that Europe itself has evolved as a regional interna-
tional society since decolonization.
Some preliminary study has also been done of Latin America. Federico
Merke (2011; see also Hurrell 2007a: 255–6) finds evidence for a
distinctive regional international society there, based, like Europe’s, on a
common history and shared culture. Although composed of weak states
with high levels of internal violence, it has a relatively peaceful diplomatic
culture with a relatively high commitment to arbitration and peaceful
resolution of disputes through international courts (C. A. Jones 2007:
66–74). As everywhere, there are tensions, disputes and political
differences among the states, but resort to war has become rare. Like the
Arab world, its shared culture also generates impulses towards regional
integration though, again like the Arab world, these are pursued more in
rhetoric than in practice.
Introduction 13
The earlier study of regional international society in the Middle East

(Buzan and Gonzalez-Pelaez 2009b) concluded that sufficient differen-
tiation from the Western–global level existed to say that the Middle East is
a regional international society. Although the region shares many institu-
tions with the global level, it does not share all (most obviously
democracy, although that could be changing in at least some places
because of the recent Arab Spring); has some distinctive ones of its own
(most obviously patrimonial ruling elites and the Israel–Palestine
conflict); and often varies in its interpretations and practices of particular
shared institutions. The Middle East has a weaker practice of sovereignty,
fewer constraints on war and, at least for the Arabs, a more transnational
view of nationalism than is the case for the Western core. The nature of the
state in the Middle East (weak, post-colonial) and the relationship of
states there to both their peoples and the Western–global core are distinc-
tive enough to support a regional differentiation.
Although there have as yet been insufficient studies of modern regional
international societies to enable either a full global sketch or any systematic
comparison, enough can be culled from other sources to suggest that
significant variations from the norms of the Western core are common.
This justifies a close study of East Asia both to extend the project of
comparative international societies into the contemporary era and to deepen
our understanding of how global-level international society is composed.
The English School understanding of international (and world) society
is dominated by liberal values, as is the Western understanding of global-
level international society. One has therefore to keep in mind that, despite
their universalist pretensions, liberal values are not universally dominant,
and in some regions may not be dominant at all. The international social
structures of the classical Islamic or Chinese worlds were certainly inter-
national societies, but equally certainly not liberal ones. Likewise at the
regional level today in the Islamic world and also in much of East Asia,
liberal values are not dominant within the local international societies. If
we are going to bring the regional level back into the study of international
social structures, then these non-liberal alternatives are of more than
historical interest. They are important components in a layered inter-
national social structure in which some norms and institutions are shared
and some are not. The English School has thought about non-liberal
values only in historical terms (Wight 1977; Watson 1992) and hardly at
all in relation to contemporary international society. Fortunately, the
concept of primary institutions is easily flexible enough to handle values
and practices other than liberal ones, and this opens up the prospect that
the English School’s theoretical debates about primary institutions
might be enriched by the empirical encounter with Asia.
East Asia and the English School approach

To the extent that ‘understanding regional IR expands the conceptual
tools for theorizing about IR more generally’ (Johnston 2012: 56), inves-
tigation of how primary institutions operate in East Asian international
relations, as suggested above, offers valuable opportunities and sites for
exploring some big theoretical questions of the English School and for
theoretical innovation. What insights, then, if any, can the English School
shed on how East Asia as a region has been imagined and constructed, if
regions are imagined communities, ‘which rest on mental maps’ (Hurrell
2007a: 242)? How do variations in the operational mode of primary
institutions at the regional level help us understand features particular to
a regional order? In which ways can an examination of East Asian regional
international society, ‘properly described in historical and sociological
depth’ (Wight 1966: 96), contribute to and inform our understanding of
contradictions, ambiguities, paradoxes and puzzles presented by and
embedded in East Asian international relations? What is, after all, the
imperative and rationale for engaging the English School in the critical
study of problems and prospects of the East Asian international order?
Three general arguments can be made as to why East Asian specialists
should engage with the English School. In the first place, area studies are
often considered by international relations scholars as ‘atheoretical’
(Acharya 2011). Although such a claim is often contested, it is generally
acknowledged by both IR theorists and area specialists that studies of
regional international relations are clearly undertheorized, which is a
serious concern (Ikenberry and Mastanduno 2003a; Johnston 2012; Pu
2012). A case can therefore be made to bring in the English School to area
studies. More specifically, bringing into close contact the analytical
constructs of the English School with the complex and rich regional
experience and practice in East Asia is expected to generate new insights
about the role that conflicting values, plural political identities and power
play in shaping the social structures of the East Asian order.
Second, many East Asian specialists have expressed their concern that
‘their cases do not easily fit with the empirical expectations of trans-
atlantic IR theory’ (Johnston 2012: 55). This amounts to an implicit
critique of the applicability of Western IR theories. David Kang (2003)
has explicitly faulted the structural realist theories for ‘getting Asia
wrong’ and called openly for ‘the need for a new analytical framework’.
Yet, the most articulate, and arguably most influential, theoretical
perspective in the study of East Asian international relations remains
that of the realist, where power politics dominates both the descriptive
and prescriptive narratives. East Asia is not just ‘ripe for rivalry’, but also
Introduction 15
has become a site where a Sino-American ‘contest for supremacy’ is

playing out (Friedberg 1993–4, 2011). In the power transition scenario,
rising China’s challenge to US power in Asia has evolved now from the
prospect of a ‘clash of the titans’ to ‘the gathering storm’ (Brzezinski and
Mearsheimer 2005; Mearsheimer 2010). Such a materialist understan-
ding of power politics in East Asia is not necessarily wrong in itself. But
its heavy bias towards material power distribution and security dilemma
does mean that it offers only partial, and often inadequate, explanations
of the East Asian regional order. It has little to say, for example, either
about the enduring peace and stability in the region, or about why there
has been significant expansion of institutionalized security co-operation
among East Asian states (for contentions against this argument, see
D. M. Jones and Smith 2007), despite striking heterogeneity of types
of states and regimes in the region. The English School provides an
alternative and non-materialist theoretical perspective, which explores
the complex social constitution of the regional order in terms of primary
institutions, offering a contextualized social structural view of the
region. At a minimum, therefore, engaging the English School enriches
the theoretical perspective that East Asian specialists can bring to bear
on their region.
Third, East Asia is characterized by ‘an overarching ambiguity’ (Pempel
2005a: 1) with ‘multiple ethnicities and overlapping but no coterminous
religious, political, economic, and ethnic histories’ (Johnston 2012: 64). It
is, on the one hand, ‘a mosaic of divergent cultures and political regime
types, historical estrangements, shifting power balances, and rapid
economic change’, and ‘the heterogeneity of political types is most strik-
ing’. It is a region still enveloped by ‘security dilemmas, prestige contests,
territorial disputes, nationalist resentments, and economic conflicts’
(Ikenberry and Mastanduno 2003b: 2, 15). On the other hand, in spite
of these structural impediments to regional integration and co-operation,
East Asia has developed, particularly since the end of the Cold War, ‘an
increasingly dense network of cross-border co-operation, collaboration,
interdependence, and even formalized institutional integration’ (Pempel
2005a: 2). While different forms of regional politics have become more
contentious, East Asia has clearly embarked on regionally distinctive
attempts to achieve order, security and prosperity. Notwithstanding the
persistent fragmentation, East Asia has become increasingly cohesive
as a region on four levels identified by Hurrell (2007a: 241), i.e. social,
political, economic and organizational. The aspiration for constructing a
regional community has been pursued by normatively more ambitious
projects ranging from the Association of Southeast Asian Nation
(ASEAN) Plus Three (APT) to the East Asia Summit (EAS).
There is, in essence, as claimed by Evan Feigenbaum and Robert

Manning (2012), ‘a tale of two Asias’, i.e. economic Asia and security
Asia. There is, one could argue, a fractured regional international society
in East Asia. Not surprisingly, a number of puzzles and paradoxes in
the regional practice of politics and policies have long been noted and
discussed. These analytical challenges have been taken up by East
Asian specialists informed by realist, liberal institutionalist and construc-
tivist theoretical perspectives. In addition to the power/interest-based
account, we have now institutions/interdependence-induced narrative
and norms-/identity-formulated explanations of conflict and co-operation
in the region. It is therefore clear that no single theoretical perspective can
capture adequately multiple, complex and interactive logics driving East
Asian international relations. In other words, theoretical diversity helps
capture the complex reality of the regional world in East Asia. The English
School shares this general interest in unpacking the complex, competing
and sometimes contradictory explanatory logics that often have cross-
cutting effects on the construction of the regional order. But its approach
is different, with its primary interest in and focus on the social structures
and primary institutions that constitute regional international society in
East Asia. By asking a different set of questions about particular social
conditions under which regional order is negotiated and constructed, the
English School has interesting things to say about the region that are
context-sensitive and complementary to other theoretical perspectives.
Still, why do we need another account in addition to power-based
(realist) and institution-/identity-induced (liberal/constructivist) ones?
That the English School offers an alternative to rationalist theories is
more easily asserted than validated. The claim that the conception of
international society as analytical constructs should be useful in the stud-
ies of regional order in East Asia is only tentative. The English School’s
interest in a different set of questions may or may not lead to insightful
findings about how regional politics works. Investigations into primary
institutions of global international society and their regional configura-
tions may provide us with a better understanding of the social milieux that
allow order to be created and sustained at the regional level, or it may not.
Treating regions as a site of socialization for states in institutional settings
does not necessarily tell us much about the social effects it may or may not
have on states’ behaviour in regional co-operation.
These are not barren scepticisms. They point to a number of specific
questions that East Asian specialists may ask about engaging the English
School. How can the English School approach on the social structures of
international society help us reach a ‘regionally derived understanding of
order’ (Hurrell 2007b: 134)? Can the English School capture and offer
Introduction 17
important insight to explain regional practices distinctive to East Asia that

other theoretical perspectives have ignored or discounted? What is the
specific pay-off for regional specialists that an engagement of the English
School approach can bring to their scholarship? Equally, taking East Asia
as a rich empirical site, what contribution can East Asian specialists make
to enriching the nascent English School literature on regional inter-
national society by testing and contesting the ES theoretical assumptions,
or through through empirical investigations?
These are among the key questions that have collectively motivated the
contributors to this volume, all East Asian specialists (with the exception
of Barry Buzan). Our intention is not to prejudge any findings we may
have as answers to the questions above. As we will show in the concluding
chapter, a number of our findings are inconclusive; and many of our
conclusions are only tentative. This is perhaps only natural, as this is the
first collective attempt by East Asian specialists to engage with the English
School with a specific purpose. In embarking on this engagement, collec-
tions in this volume do privilege the English School theoretical perspective
when they speak to important and on-going debates on East Asian inter-
national relations clustered around four broad issue areas.
First is the role that history and culture play in the discursive construc-
tion of East Asia as a region. In English School terms, a regional interna-
tional society in East Asia, if any, needs to be described in historical depth.
There are three historical narratives that it is important to analytically
interrogate for this purpose. The first is about the Chinese tributary
system, which can be treated as a pre-modern international society in
East Asia, as the discursive practices and fundamental institutions
that sustained the social structure of this historical East Asian order
were ‘culturally particular and exclusive’ (Bull and Watson 1984a: 6;
Y. Zhang and Buzan 2012). A long-lasting ‘Confucian peace’ in East
Asia prior to the arrival of European international society (R. Kelly
2011; see also Kang 2010) was attributable not only to shared culture,
but also to shared identity in East Asia. The residual cultural imprint of
this Sino-centric world order and its significance in contemporary East
Asian politics, as China rises, continues to be debated and contested
(Kang 2010; this volume). Second, regionalist ideas can also be traced
back to the emergence of Japan as an indigenous imperialist power in the
imagined geo-political space of East Asia, facilitating the disintegration
and fragmentation of the Chinese tributary system in its encounters with
European international society at the turn of the twentieth century
(Suzuki 2009). Japan’s attempts during the Second World War to impose,
with coercion, a regional order, i.e. a ‘Greater East Asian Co-prosperity
Sphere’, gave this putative region a certain recognition. And third is the
historical state-formation in the region. The historical process of the

formation and transformation of East Asian states informs and is
informed by a particular understanding and practice of sovereignty and
nationalism, two primary institutions of the expanding European inter-
national society. A sociological investigation of this historical process is
indispensable in understanding East Asian interpretations and practices
of derivative institutions of national self-determination and non-
interference, which are now recognized as appreciably different from,
though not entirely at odds with, those understood and practised in
Western–global international society. In this view, historical memory
with indelible expression in nationalism and territorial disputes are both
integral to state-formation.
Second is the complex power play in East Asia. Realists are perhaps
right about East Asia as the most important regional site where the
on-going global power restructuring has been played out and where
power/hegemonic transition between the United States and rising China
is happening. However, in spite of intense geo-political rivalry, vigorous
structural power-balancing by China against the United States or vice
versa has not happened, as a standard account of structural realism
suggests and predicts it should. Neither is there is any compelling
evidence of a definitive balancing strategy of regional states in response
to China rising. Instead, it is ‘hedging’, i.e. a strategy that involves pur-
poseful engagement with calculated investment in both deterrence and
assurance under the conditions of long-term uncertainty (Kuik 2008),
‘enmeshing’, i.e. tying down major powers in the complex networks of
regional institutions, and a ‘complex balance of influence’ between China
and the United States (Goh 2007/8) that best describe and capture the
pathways to order pursued by regional states in Southeast Asia.
The English School is also interested in power dynamics and its impli-
cations for the uncertain future of the region. The English School is
attentive to the role of power, however, in different ways from realists.
In the English School conceptualization, one of the primary institutions in
international society is great power management. Great powers, in other
words, play a custodial role in maintaining legal and security order at
both the regional and global levels. The United States has exercised its
power, Hurrell (2007a: 269) notes, in changing the legal and normative
structure of international society to its liking. Great powers are also
expected to take up special responsibility for, and a leadership role in
the pursuit of, regional security and stability. Practices associated with this
primary institution of great power management in East Asia present tricky
challenges to this analytical assumption of the English School. Neither
China nor Japan, two indigenous great powers in the region, is seen to
Introduction 19
have taken up its special responsibility in managing the regional order. For
historical and political reasons, China and Japan are either unwilling or
unable, or both, to do so. More often than not, their power has to be
managed in the regional pursuit of order. This leads to two analytical
puzzles. One is that ASEAN has played an effective leadership role in
designing and initiating a multilateral approach to regional security issues,
determining the substantive as well as normative agenda and facilitating
and managing great power co-operation. The other is that given the
paralysis of both indigenous great powers, China and Japan, there is
effectively the penetration of the United States, the hegemon, by invita-
tion into regional great power management. This amounts to outsourcing
the function of great power management of regional security order in two
directions, upwards to the United States and downwards to ASEAN.
Has subcontracting great power management in this fashion stunted
the development of regional international society in East Asia?
Contributions in this volume explore the implications of such unorthodox
practices for the emerging regional order, and how they help differentiate
East Asian regional international society from the Western–global one. As
a global hegemon, the American power penetrates deeply into every
region. However, it is not only the degree of penetration, but also the
extent to which such penetration has wedded East Asia to the power and
purpose of the American imperium (Katzenstein 2005), that makes East
Asia stand out from other regions.
This raises another critical issue in understanding the role of American
power in the construction of regional international society in East Asia. To
the extent that all regions in global politics are socially constructed and
therefore politically contested, power plays a central role in the discursive
construction of a region, as noted earlier. In this regard, American power
has asserted critically its impact on naming and shaping the fluid identity
and boundaries of what is called ‘East Asia’. Think of the changing
attitude of the United States towards the East Asia Summit, from initial
opposition and indifference, to reluctant recognition and eventual
membership. Look at also its simultaneous pursuit of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP). Unsurprisingly, T. J. Pempel (2005a: 25–7) notes
‘East Asia’s elastic boundaries’ and particularly its ‘fluidity at the outer
limits’. In which way does American power then contest the discursive
construction of what is ‘East Asia’? Does American power so exercised
undermine the working of East Asian regional international society?
Third are questions surrounding the increasing institutionalization of
regional politics in East Asia. These are concerned mostly with what the
English School conceptualizes as secondary institutions. Notwithstanding
the claims of the lack of formal institutionalization and legalization, there
have been significant formal regional institutional developments pivoted

around ASEAN with overlapping functions since the Asian financial crisis
in 1997–8. These include, for example, ASEAN Plus One, ASEAN Plus
Three and East Asia Summit as an APT plus (first ASEAN Plus Six and
now ASEAN Plus Eight). These institutional developments have been
accompanied by a regionalist discourse (Higgot 2007). Both have lent
themselves to regional awareness/recognition. They are further reinforced
and complemented by a myriad of other institutional networks, ranging
from free trade agreements such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA),
and cross-national policy networks such as Track II dialogues (Evans
2005), to ad hoc problem-oriented bodies such as the Six Party Talks.
International institutions, liberal institutionalism claims, foster
political stability and promote co-operation by reducing obstacles such
as uncertainty because of lack of information and other transaction costs
that stand in the way of mutually beneficial arrangements between states.
International institutions, in other words, play an instrumental role in
shaping states’ co-operative behaviour by providing punishment and
reward in material terms. In other words, interest-based logics drive the
institutionalization of regional co-operation. The English School also
recognizes the significance and consequences of institutionalization
for the pursuit of regional order. However, instead of taking institutions
as ‘boxes of constraints within which strategic actors defend set interests
and preferences’ (Johnston 2012: 63), it looks at institutions, like
constructivists, as a social environment. To the extent that these institu-
tions constitute a regional international society, it is the socializing effects
of international society and how such effects occur and influence state’s
behaviour that the English School analysis is interested in.
International institutions, in such an understanding, are treated as sites
of socialization. It is important to note at the same time that institutions
are also sites of power and dominance with a certain social purpose. The
proliferation of formal and informal regional institutions, particularly after
the Asian financial crisis in 1997–8, has been promoted and facilitated by
both China and Japan. Through a number of ostensibly regionalist
initiatives, China and Japan have embarked upon ‘institution racing’ as a
proxy for regional competition for social as well as material rewards.
By deliberately oversupplying regional institutions, they have brought a
particular purpose to regional institutions, i.e. ‘mutual social denial’ (Goh
this volume). The important point to make here is that states and other
strategic actors produce institutions for certain purposes.
A general point has been made by Hurrell (2007a: 97) that international
society provides a highly socializing environment because, as he observes,
institutions play a role in ‘enmeshing actors in certain patterns of discourse,
Introduction 21
reasoning and argumentation’. Johnston (2003) has long noted the

constructivist suggestion that international institutions are often agents of
counter-Realpolitik socialization, and has investigated the socializing effect
on China by the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as a counter-Realpolitik
institution. Given the normative divergence in East Asia, the English
School’s analytical focus is on how regional international society brings
about and is shaped by any kind of normative convergence and what those
norms are. While constructivists are intrigued by how actors ‘actively and
reflectively internalize new understandings of appropriateness’ through the
process of socialization (Checkel 2005: 812), the English School is inter-
ested in the question of which norms and whose norms are constitutive of
regional international society, and in what sense they are purposively
generated as solutions to the problem of order in East Asia.
The ‘ASEAN Way’ discourse is therefore particularly important for
understanding regional international society in East Asia in two ways.
First, it is clearly a discourse that promotes particular practices and
stresses the importance of process with high socializing effects.
Membership of the United States in the EAS, subjecting itself to
ASEAN norms inside the organization, is testimony to the socializing
effect of the ‘ASEAN Way’. Normative suasion (ibid.) has clearly been
happening in the ‘talking shops’ such as ASEAN Plus institutions
through social learning, communicative action, habituation and diffu-
sion of ideas. Second, and more importantly for the English School, is
which norms are embodied in the ASEAN Way. What matters here is
not discreteness, informality, minimal institutionalization, pragmatism,
consensus-building and non-confrontational bargaining styles, which
characterize the ASEAN process of and approach to seeking regional
co-operation. Rather, it is ASEAN’s firm stand on and its interpretations
and practice of one primary institution, sovereignty, and its associated
norm of non-intervention in the changing global normative environment
that are important in our considerations. They suggest that some
qualitative differentiation may exist between East Asian regional inter-
national society and the Western–global core because of the limits of
common values and lack of sharing in the workings of common institu-
tions and norms.
Fourth, and finally, there is the question of regional integration of East
Asia in the context of global restructuring of production. Two specific
questions are important for understanding how the market as a primary
institution in Western–global international society operates at the regional
level in East Asia. One is how regional social structures are negotiated
under conditions of global and regional restructuring of production. And
the other is whether there are significant variations in dominant economic
institutions and practices in East Asian political economy from global

political economy. It is fair to say that classical English School scholars
did not pay much attention to international political economy. Even in the
current English School scholarship, global and regional social structures
in terms of political economy have not been adequately conceptualized.
They are seriously understudied, so much so that the English School has
yet to develop an appropriate vocabulary to address distinctive features of
regional political economy such as the analytical puzzles of the bottom-up
and network-style regionalization without regionalism. The developmen-
tal state, dominant in East Asia political economy today, is not captured
by the English School discourse on how the dominance of a particular type
of state affects the character of regional international society. With notable
exceptions (e.g. Clark 1999; Hurrell 2007a), globalization and region-
alization as contending projects for world order have not been critically
examined in the English School scholarship.
In an important sense, therefore, what this volume seeks to do is not just
to apply the English School analytical constructs to address issues
concerning regional economic institutional development and order.
Rather, it is to extend the English School’s analytical reach to unpack
empirical puzzles in regional political economy. This means that East
Asian specialists have important contributions to make to enrich the
English School theorization in this particular area. Mark Beeson and
Shaun Breslin (this volume), for example, argue that both the develop-
mental state and regional production networks should be conceptualized
as regional primary institutions because they underline the distinctive
ways in which capitalism has developed in East Asia. One crucial question
worth exploring is therefore how post-colonial states in East Asia, capital-
izing on the developmental state as a regional primary institution, exercise
agency in creatively accepting, interpreting, engaging and practising
primary institutions of Western–global international society on their
own terms. This is key to understanding the contestations of the regional
to Western–global international society and variations of East Asian inter-
national society from other regional international societies.
Summary
With these English School and East Asianist perspectives in mind, we
prompted our authors with the following ideas and questions about values
and membership in relation to the existence or not of a regional inter-
national society in East Asia:
Is there a distinctive set of Asian values that define a regional inter-
national society? One thinks of strong sovereignty (and sovereign
Introduction 23
equality); traditional Westphalian views on non-intervention; anti-

imperialism and anti-hegemonism (and a preference for multipolarity
at the global level); resistance to human rights and democracy; a desire
to preserve distinctive cultural values; strong support for regime secur-
ity; economic liberalism as shared development; and peace through
economic interdependence (i.e. liberal economic values, not political
or social ones).
How does the great diversity in East Asia of state types, cultures and
levels of development play into the possibilities for a coherent regional
international society?
Is the East Asian region a meaningful construct in terms of inter-
national society? Is ASEAN a distinctive region by itself? How does it
relate to Russia (shared values) and South Asia (very different culture/
civilization, but also links via Buddhism)? How does Japan fit in as an
outlier to many ‘Asian values’?
How far does the idea of Confucian culture, and its inclination towards
hierarchy and bandwagoning, rather than towards balance of power,
take one in thinking about East Asian international society?
Is it possible to take the United States out of Asia and treat it as part of
the global level, heavily engaged in Asia, but not fundamentally part
of it?
Is Russia part of East Asia or is it better conceptualized, like the United
States, as an intervening external great power?
What role does economic interdependence play in making East Asia a
regional international society, or is it more the case that this factor
mainly ties East Asia into the global-level international society?
We then organized the book into three sections: the regional history, the
social structures of contemporary international society in East Asia, and
conclusions. The following two chapters sketch out the development and
evolution of international society in East Asia. Chapter 4 brings this into
the present and, by focusing on the cultural sector, links to Chapters 5–8
which also broadly follow a sectoral logic. Chapter 9 uses secondary
institutions as a lens through which to get an overview of East Asian
inter-state society. Chapter 10 draws conclusions for both the regionalist
and theoretical sides of the study.
Chapter 2 challenges classical English School scholars such as Martin
Wight and Hedley Bull who dismissed the existence of an international
society in East Asian history on the grounds that international society can
only exist among a group of sovereign states whereas, apart from the
Warring States period, imperial China exercised suzerainty over others.
It provides a survey and summary of the Sino-centric international society
up to the mid nineteenth century. It critiques the ‘tribute system’
approach to pre-modern international society in East Asia for being much

too simple to reflect the actual variation and diversity of practice. This
critique is done on three grounds: (1) that ‘tribute system’ is both wrongly
translated and too simple; (2) that the actual history is more discontinu-
ous and varied than this single idea suggests; and (3) that there are two
quite distinct and usually coexisting types of international society visible
in this history, fanshu (hierarchical relations between a suzerain China and
vassal states) and diguo (equal relations between China and barbarians).
There are some primary institutions in common between these two types
(travelling emissaries, war, trade), but also distinct ones: for fanshu, ‘gift
homage’ and ‘investiture’ (and hostages?); and for diguo, ‘peace and
kinship’ (princesses and gifts from China to barbarians) and treaties.
The actual history of international society in East Asia is thus very diverse,
with big variations contingent on the waxing and waning of dynastic
power in China.
Chapter 3 argues that the encounter with Western international society
destroyed the traditional Sino-centric international society in East Asia,
both by undermining China and by enabling Japan to bid to replace China
as the core ‘civilized’ power in the region. By putting into tension the
pan-Asianist reaction against the West on the one hand, and the tempta-
tions to pursue Western-style nationalism and to meet the Western
‘standard of civilization’ on the other, the encounter also destroyed the
possibility of a coherent East Asian regional society emerging in response.
The idea of ‘Asia’ was introduced by the Europeans only in the eighteenth
century, and in the nineteenth it was constructed more as an undesirable,
culturally and racially inferior place from which the aim was to escape,
than as a Wightean-type shared culture on which an international society
might be built. Western racism against the ‘yellow’ races posed continu-
ous and severe contradictions for those Asians, most obviously the
Japanese, trying to join Western international society. Questions of race
and culture in identifying ‘East Asia’ remain alive today. The argument
opens the way for subsequent chapters, also suggesting that the important
issue in East Asia is not so much the existence or not of a discrete East
Asian international society as the question of how the region relates to
Western–global international society.
Chapter 4 focuses on Confucian culture, and on history as politics and
the political uses and abuses of different historical interpretations, none
of which represents history as it actually happened. East Asia was and is
highly penetrated by Western ideas and practices and is highly successful
compared with others in adapting itself to the Western system of interna-
tional political economy. But this penetration is superficial, and mixes
with still significant local ideas and practices, yielding an unpredictable
Introduction 25
outlook. While East Asian states may accept the basic Westphalian
elements, it is not clear whether they have internalized these ideas as
deeply as did Western states. The two coexist, sometimes uncomfort-
ably, and manifest themselves in contemporary East Asian conflicts over
history and territory. Indeed, East Asian interests and identities, and the
specifics of how they view themselves, their relations with their neigh-
bours, and their place in the world are partly a function of their own
particular history. There will be no ‘back to the future’ in recreating
Chinese suzerainty, because China’s past greatness does not make up for
its present lack of ideas or legitimacy. The US presence in the region will
be durable and China will not be able to displace it either ideationally or
materially.
Chapter 5 provides an overview and analysis of the economic evolution
of the broadly conceived East Asian region. It does this by placing regional
economic development in its specific historical context – something that
highlights the region’s changing relationship with the wider international
society of which it is becoming an increasingly important part. The
authors trace the ambiguous impact of the Cold War, which had the effect
of both spurring economic development in the region and dividing it
along ideological lines, effectively foreclosing the possibility of region-
wide economic integration. They make the case that in the economic
sector English School concepts are underdeveloped, with the market in
particular being too general to capture the key points, and that there is a
need to address this in order to consider the East Asian case. The authors
put forward ‘developmental state’ and ‘regional production structures’ as
regional candidates for status as primary institutions, and tell the stories of
Japan and China in that context. Despite some commonalities in these
regards, the region’s secondary institutions (ASEAN Plus Three and
Asia-Pacific Economic Coopeation (APEC)) nevertheless represent a
political split over the identity of the regional inter-state society. The
long-term geo-political context represented inter alia by the World
Trade Organization remains important when trying to account for the
relative political sway of specific regional secondary institutions. The key
question in the aftermath of the trans-Atlantic crisis is whether ‘Western’
ideas about economic and political liberalism are likely to take hold, or
whether something like the ‘Beijing consensus’ may offer an alternative
path to development. Indeed, if there is a move towards ‘solidarism’ in
East Asia, is it possible that it will be illiberal? At the very least, the material
transformation and growing economic importance of the region suggest
that these questions remain far less straightforward in East Asia than
just about anywhere else, and offer an important test of our ability to
understand, much less adequately theorize, such processes.
Chapter 6 addresses the question of domestic political ideology in

relation to the question of regional society in East Asia. It also brings
out the idea of the developmental state, and its particular mode and
timing of origin, as a distinct, and regionally shared, East Asian post-
colonial institution, albeit with China as a late convert. Domestic
ideology is most commonly understood in terms of regime type – a
focus reflective of a liberal bias and the Western preoccupation with
democracy (and specifically liberal democracy) that inform much of
international relations theory, including that of the English School.
This liberal perspective assumes that authoritarianism provides a far
less stable foundation for international society than does liberal
democracy. It diverges from conventional analysis in at least two
respects. First, it moves away from the preoccupation with regime
type, and draws out important temporal, cultural, and structural
differences that distinguish the East Asian system and society (to
the extent that they exist) from its ‘global’ and ‘Western’ counter-
parts, as well as the interchange between them. It draws attention to
commonalities between states that regime-type characterizations may
obscure. The second way that this chapter diverges from conventional
analysis is in its argument that such statist ideologies – ideologies that
typically favour the state initiative over society – have produced some
regional societal dynamics – dynamics that distinguish East Asia from
other regional systems – even at the same time as they may also be
the source of important limits, especially regarding regional societal
development at the mass level.
Chapter 7 looks at the strategic dimension of East Asia in terms of the
four institutions of war, diplomacy, balance of power and great power
management. How seriously do the East Asian states pay attention,
adhere to/internalize and act upon these institutions? The argument
emphasizes distinctiveness in East Asia in terms of all four. There is a
preference for US hegemony over balancing, though not local hegemony
if this means China, and these concerns about hegemony are talked about
in the language of balance. There is a distinctively high restraint on war,
though the region does not form a security community as does the EU,
and this is in line both with global-level restraint and with a regional
(ASEAN) aspiration to develop ‘peace in parts’. There is an unusually
intense diplomatic culture aimed at minimizing friction. And, in part
because of the compromised positions of both China and Japan, and in
part because of the acceptance of a US hegemonic role in the region, there
is an inversion of the usual rule that regional great powers are the key
leaders of the regional order. This chapter adds to the argument in other
chapters that the linkage and interplay between East Asia and the global
Introduction 27
level are so strong that they become in themselves a major element in how
the regional order is defined and stabilized.
Chapter 8 argues that the institution of great power management is
largely dysfunctional within East Asia because of the constrained and
competing positions of the two local great powers, and the external ring-
holding role of the United States, which both keeps stability and strangles
the growth of a distinctive regional order. The rivalry between China and
Japan creates an ‘open’ framework of secondary institutions that reflects
this rivalry between wider and narrower views of what the region is, as well
as blurring the boundary between East Asia and both the global and other
regional international societies. China and Japan succeed in being ‘hinges’
between the regional and the global levels, but fail in their local great
power management responsibilities in terms both of stabilizing their
relationship with each other and of providing leadership for the region.
The United States holds a much stronger position with each of them than
they do with each other, and the Sino-Japanese relationship deteriorates
into a growing ‘influence’ and status rivalry reflected, inter alia, in ‘insti-
tution racing’ to promote different versions of East Asia. The United
States has interests in preventing a Sino-Japanese reconciliation. On this
basis, it is difficult to the point of impossibility to differentiate an East
Asian international society from the global one, because the entanglement
between them is too wide and deep.
Chapter 9 looks mainly at four regional primary institutions – sover-
eignty, nationalism, great power management and economic develop-
ment – and their two-way interaction with the key group of regional
secondary institutions (ASEAN, ASEAN Plus Three, ARF, APEC,
EAS, Six Party Talks). The argument is that there is no coherent East
Asian international society because differences in values and practices
associated with the four primary institutions are reflected into the secon-
dary institutions, weakening them, which in turn feeds back into and
weakens the regional primary institutions. The memberships of secondary
institutions precisely reflect the tensions over how to delineate the region,
with wider versions merging into Western–global international society,
and narrower ones being more sites of resistance to it. Lots of cross-
cutting values make the picture more complicated, meaning that the
question about the regional and global levels and the question about the
boundaries of the regional international society are the same question.
Determining whether the primary regional and primary global institutions
overlap is not trivial analytically because of the region’s diversity and the
contested nature of the debate about the content of regional primary
institutions. There are certainly areas of nominal and actual overlap
between primary global and primary regional institutions. However, it is
probably fair to argue that on balance greater prominence is given in East

Asia to concerns about state autonomy, great power management and the
consequences of economic development for regime, state and regional
resilience than to other primary institutional forms.
Chapter 10 draws together the various lines of argument from these
eight chapters and assesses their relevance for three audiences: the English
School, East Asian area specialists and comparative regionalists. East Asia
does have some distinctive primary institutions and practices of its own
that differentiate it from the Western–global core and up to a point its
neighbours. But its principal characteristic is an on-going and deep
dispute over exactly the question of what it should seek in common
with Western–global international society, and in what ways it should
differentiate itself into something more exclusively East Asian. This polit-
ical divide is charted through the memberships of the many inter-
governmental regional organizations that are either within, or intrude
into, geographical East Asia. Politics more than culture decides how
East Asia’s states are placed within this divide. One can certainly say
that the idea of an East Asian regional international society is politically
active in a major way, but this idea is manifested mainly in contestation
over what such a regional international society should look like. There
is no agreement on membership, on legitimate behaviour or on how
much East Asia should differentiate itself from Western–global inter-
national society. The chapter charts three broad futures for such a
debate – obsolescence, victory for one side or the other, or stalemate –
and concludes that stalemate is the most likely. For the English School
audience, the pay-off is in terms of insights into the debate about the ways
in which the regional and global levels of international society relate to
each other, which turn out to be surprisingly complex. For East Asian
specialists, the pay-off is in terms of insight into the formative history
of East Asian international society as shaped by its encounters with the
West, the political agency within the region that shaped its responses to
that encounter and gave rise to the developmental state, and East Asia’s
very distinctive position on great power management. For comparative
regionalists, the pay-off is in terms of the distinctive framework for
differentiation provided by the English School. These synergies work in
both directions and call for closer collaborations between the English
School and regionalists.
2 International societies in pre-modern
East Asia: a preliminary framework
Feng Zhang
Was there an international society in East Asian history during China’s

long imperial age (221 BC–AD 1911)? What were the rules, norms, and
institutions of such an international society? Classic English School schol-
ars, chiefly Martin Wight and Hedley Bull, seemed to think that because
of ‘Chinese suzerainty’, this was a ‘suzerain-state system’ rather than an
‘international states system’. Both, however, readily identified China
during the Warring States period (403–221 BC) as an international soci-
ety, apparently because the seven competing states during the time
appeared to possess ‘sovereign equality’ analogous to that of modern
European states, which was seen as a basic condition for the existence of
international society (Wight 1977: 23–4, 33; Bull 1977: 11). East Asia
during the era of the Chinese empire, spanning most of the region’s
history, therefore does not fit within the traditional English School under-
standing of international society. In any case, this period was treated as an
anomaly and largely neglected (X. Zhang 2011). Even Adam Watson
(1992), in his celebrated analysis of the evolution of international society,
fails to follow on his account of China’s Warring States’ system by con-
sidering East Asia’s imperial age.
This early bias and neglect are now being addressed by a new gen-
eration of English School scholars. Barry Buzan and Richard Little have
long pointed out the problem of Eurocentrism inherent in Western
international relations (IR) theorizing (Buzan and Little 2000: 7, 20;
Buzan 2004: 169). Legal sovereignty is a profound institutional inno-
vation in modern European international relations. Whether or not it
can serve as a justification for denying the existence of international
society in East Asian history is far less clear. Buzan and Little have also
noted the hierarchical nature of traditional East Asian international
relations in their comparison of international systems in world history
(Buzan and Little 2000: 232). Yongjin Zhang (2001), in what appears to
be the first systematic English School treatment of the subject, sees the
so-called tribute system as the fundamental institution of the historical
East Asian order. Building on this argument, Zhang and Buzan (2012)
29
30 Feng Zhang
have recently articulated the constitutional structure of the tribute sys-

tem as an international society in East Asian history.
Clearly, the current English School literature has focused on the tribute
system as the linchpin in analysing historical East Asian international
society, and for good reasons. Since at least the nineteenth century, the
notion of the tribute system has been the guiding conception of the tradi-
tional East Asian order in the Western world. A series of pioneering works
by the distinguished historian John K. Fairbank and his associates (1942,
1953, 1968; Fairbank and Teng 1941) have further popularized the
notion in the twentieth century. In American IR, David Kang’s recent
works (2003, 2007, 2010) have served to stimulate interest in the tribute
system and traditional East Asian international relations from a comple-
mentary direction. In Chinese scholarship, the ‘tribute system’ (朝贡体系,
chaogong tixi, or 朝贡制度, chaogong zhidu) is a concept originally
imported from the West, but has nevertheless generated a huge historical
and a growing IR literature as well (F. Zhang 2009; F. Zhou 2011). There
is, then, a rising interest in the tribute system in contemporary IR
scholarship.
Yet in the field of history an opposite trend has taken place since at least
the 1980s, and the Fairbankian tribute-system paradigm has all but lost its
dominance. Although Fairbank’s foundational works remain classics in
the field, they have been challenged by almost half a century of substantial
new scholarship (Crossley 1999, 2010; Di Cosmo 2003; Elliott 2009;
Fletcher 1968; Hevia 1995, 2009; Lin 2009; Millward 1992, 1998,
2007; Perdue 2003, 2005, 2009; Rossabi 1983; Waldron 1990; Wills
1974, 1984, 1988, 2009). Historians have in varying degrees decried the
‘oversimplification, lack of contextualization, and deficiency of nuance’ of
his famous ‘Chinese world order’ thesis (Crossley 1997: 598). In any case,
‘Fairbank may not have meant for the “Chinese world order” to be taken
very seriously’ (ibid.: 603).
While the importance of the tribute system as an institutional
practice in the history of East Asian international relations should
not be discounted, neither should this significant body of historical
scholarship, which has contributed much to disciplining its use,
clarifying its meanings, and suggesting new interpretations. Without
going so far as to abandon the concept entirely, one can point out a
decisive weakness that limits the utility of the tribute-system para-
digm in understanding historical East Asian politics. The inadequacy
calls for a more careful specification of the analytical scope of the
tribute system and suggests a new conceptualization that sees the
tribute system as one among several primary institutions in East
Asian international relations.
International societies in pre-modern East Asia 31
The problem is that, from the perspective of the full range of institu-
tional dynamics, the tribute system as envisaged by Fairbank and others
cannot encompass the whole gamut of historical East Asian society. In
fact, it describes only the tributary part of the relationships between China
and its neighbours and between some of the neighbours themselves, and
errs in privileging tributary relations above all other interaction dynamics,
thus giving only a partial picture of the multiplicity of historical East Asian
politics. Actual historical East Asian society is thus much broader than the
tribute system (F. Zhang 2009). The term ‘tribute system’ gives a mislead-
ing impression that it was somehow coterminous with the scope of
China’s foreign relations or even historical East Asian society. This was
not the case. And, as recent scholarship has shown, ‘tribute certainly did
not constitute a formal system under the early empires’ (Lewis 2007:
145), and I wonder to what extent it did so in later periods.
The limit of the tribute-system paradigm is that it reminds us of an
important set of institutional phenomena while simultaneously obscuring
others. The tribute system was not the only or always the most important
institution in East Asian history. Taking the tribute system as the main
primary institution or as an international society in itself would mask other
important institutional dynamics. It makes more sense to identify the
tribute system as one institution among several in East Asian history
rather than as a system or society in toto, while at the same time creating
space for the inclusion of other institutions. My contention is not to
deny the tribute system as an institution but to reject the view that
historical East Asian politics was dominated by it as the sole institutional
framework.
Once the tribute system is given its proper analytical place, it becomes
clear that the questions with which this chapter began are the wrong ones
to ask. There was not just one, but two primary international societies
and a number of nested ones in historical East Asia. The next two
sections reconceptualize historical East Asian politics by distinguishing
between an international society of Chinese hegemony and one of rival
equality. The following sections discuss the institutions of these two
international societies, offering a new interpretation of the tribute sys-
tem and identifying other important institutions that have hitherto been
neglected in the literature. This chapter seeks to examine the social
structure and institutional practices of historical East Asian politics
before the Western intrusion in the mid nineteenth century by present-
ing a preliminary framework grounded in English School theory. The
framework may prove controversial, but within the limits of this chapter
I hope it will serve as an invitation to debate a very complex and
important subject.
32 Feng Zhang
International societies of fanshu and diguo: theory

If the tribute system is denied status as an international society or as the
main primary institution, what might be the alternative? A useful way to
look for an answer is to return to the historical record and examine what in
the Chinese conception had organized China’s relations with its neigh-
bours and the degree to which foreign peoples and polities had accepted or
resisted these organizational modes. Once this approach is taken, it
becomes clear that the concept of fanshu (藩属) can be far more usefully
conceived of as a primary international society than the tribute system.
Fanshu can be seen as the pre-eminent Chinese mode of imperial gover-
nance setting out the theory and practice of dealing with neighbouring
polities, while the tribute system, along with other institutional practices,
can be seen as a primary institution of this international society. It is also
significant that, if hegemony can be regarded as an important if neglected
institution in international society (Clark 2009b, 2011b), then the tribute
system was China’s hegemonic institution in East Asian history. At the
same time, however, I will argue that fanshu international society was not
the only international society in East Asian history: China’s hegemony was
not complete, and in areas where its influence fell short or when China
itself was divided and fragmented, there existed a diguo international
society with a different set of rules, norms and institutions.
The nearest English translation we have for fanshu seems to be ‘suzer-
ainty’, but we have to be mindful that such a translation brings with it
historical baggage associated with the term in the European context that
might contravene historical realities in East Asia. In the European origi-
nal, a suzerain is a feudal lord to whom fealty was due and then, later,
a nation that controls another nation in international affairs but allows
it domestic sovereignty (Kelke 1896; Shepheard 1899; see also Wight
1977: 23). In the actual practice of European colonialism, suzerainty
often entailed political subordination and economic exploitation to a
degree that did not exist in East Asian history. Furthermore, as Zhang
and Buzan (2012) point out, in contrast to the typical suzerain–vassal
relationship in the context of the Ottoman Empire where the suzerain
controlled the foreign policies of vassal states while leaving only limited
domestic autonomy, imperial China did not seek to control the foreign
policies of the tributary states other than towards itself, let alone their
domestic affairs.
Translating fanshu as ‘suzerainty’ therefore distorts the nature of that
distinctive international society in East Asian history. ‘Hegemony’,
understood as material conditions of primacy underpinned by social
understandings (Clark 2009b: 214; 2011b: 4), can serve as a better
substitute (Zhang and Buzan 2012). I will refer to fanshu as a distinctive

Chinese hegemony in East Asian history. Each part, fan and shu, has
its specific meanings in Chinese history. Fan (sometimes translated as
‘vassal’) in different historical periods has referred to feudal lords
and kings enfeoffed by a central power or has been a self-designation
used by weak states in relations with strong states or by peripheral
states that had offered submission to the central states. In foreign
relations fan usually referred to the relationship between strong
Chinese dynasties and weaker peripheral states that submitted to
them. Shu (sometimes translated as ‘dependent state’) has more varied
meanings and its specific reference to neighbouring states on China’s
periphery began during the Western Han (206 BC–AD 8). Fan and shu
used together as a special term came much later, in the Qing dynasty
(1644–1911), referring to political entities that adopted the Qing impe-
rial calendar and paid periodic tribute to the Qing emperor. Fanshu
thus integrated the meanings of fan and shu found in earlier periods,
though there were also important differences peculiar to the Qing. Fan
or fanbu (藩部) now specifically referred to Mongolia, Xinjiang and
Tibet under the administration of the Lifanyuan (Department of Frontier
Management), a unique Qing institution, while shu referred to neigh-
bouring states such as Korea, Vietnam, Liuqiu and Burma. But the
central idea that fanshu should refer to states with different degrees of
subordination to China remained the same (D. Li 2006: 2–3). This idea
and associated practices contributed to the historical East Asian order by
managing China’s relations with the secondary states and by shaping
regional politics as a whole. Although there were varying degrees of
acceptance and resistance from other states, fanshu seemed to be on the
whole a legitimate foreign relations framework for the states involved. It
is in this sense that it can be regarded as an international society in East
Asian history.
The question of theoretical and historical importance is why China
developed fanshu as a foreign relations framework, how it operated in
practice (which concerns the central question of international institutions
in historical East Asia), and the attitudes and responses of foreign states
towards it. This chapter can scarcely do justice to this complex institu-
tional phenomenon by seeking full answers. I shall discuss only those
aspects of it that are pertinent to the present discussion on historical
East Asian institutions. The term fanshu (and diguo below) will refer to
an international society, but for semantic reasons with additional modi-
fiers it will also be used to refer to states of that international society,
relationships embodying that international society, or a foreign relations
framework.
34 Feng Zhang
By trying to establish a fanshu framework, the Chinese primarily wanted

to have these fanshu states act as a protective bulwark against foreign
incursions in China’s vast frontier zone, with the practical aim of estab-
lishing a system of frontier defence and the political and ideological aim of
demonstrating Chinese centrality and superiority in the surrounding
world. The former intention is clearly indicated by the original meaning
of fan as fence or outpost, used in a set of related terms like fanwei (藩卫),
fanping (藩屏), fanchen (藩臣) and fanfu (藩附) (D. Li 2006: 2). But it is
essential to recognize that apart from the acknowledgement of Chinese
superiority, most ostensibly through the institution of the tribute system
and the expectation that these states should not create disturbances on
China’s frontier, the fanshu framework did not involve a high degree of
Chinese intervention in these states’ internal or external affairs other than
when these directly affected China’s interests. Still, Chinese intervention
was discernible from time to time and could be quite intense when its
political and security interests were at stake, producing imperialism of a
sort. Nevertheless, this Chinese imperialism, with the primary aim of
creating and maintaining reliable states of frontier defence, would stand
in contrast to modern European colonialism, especially with respect to
its element of economic exploitation. Many Chinese scholars therefore
emphasize the inward-looking nature of the fanshu framework and con-
trast it favourably with exploitative European colonialism (S. Huang
2008: 14; H. Mao 2005: 28 n. 14). Although such an emphasis on
Chinese uniqueness risks essentialization, a degree of distinctiveness or
at least some difference seems apparent.
Every imperial dynasty in Chinese history had sought to create a fanshu
society of its own, even for weak ones that had to compete with other
‘central states’ in the Chinese heartland during periods of disunion. But
the scale and cohesiveness of their fanshu societies varied greatly, and this
points to two questions of great theoretical importance: the boundary of
international society and the role of culture in differentiating one interna-
tional society from another (see a relevant discussion in Buzan 2010b).
The historical East Asian case suggests that, when international society is
marked by a hegemonic institution, the boundary of that society can be
malleable and usually fluctuates with the power of the dominant state
(D. Li 2006: 533–4). It also suggests that culture may not be the most
decisive factor in demarcating the boundaries of international societies.
Equally important are material power and other contextual conditions
that might overcome cultural barriers. China’s fanshu international soci-
ety expanded by both acculturation (Sinicization) and military conquest.
And it seems that there were at least two distinctive international societies
in East Asian history. While one was Sino-centric, formally unequal and
hegemonic, the other was based on relationships of more or less equal

status. Despite a certain amount of overlap, the institutional practices of
these two societies differed markedly.
The first has been called fanshu society, comprising China and a malle-
able range of other polities that accepted Chinese centrality in world
order. They shared, in varying degrees, the Sino-centric norms, rules
and institutions for the conduct of their relations which we have tradi-
tionally described as ‘tributary’. The other is what I will call diguo society,
with two main instantiations in East Asian history. Diguo society mani-
fested itself, first, in the relationships among China and the nomadic and
semi-nomadic tribal states, sometimes also involving sedentary states
(such as Korea in the seventh century) and, second, when China and
East Asia were fragmented into a number of competing states where none
was able to dominate and establish a region-wide or systemic fanshu-style
hegemonic society. In these two situations, which were not uncommon in
East Asian history, we may conceptualize the operation of a diguo interna-
tional society, embodying the principal norm of political and diplomatic
equality with its own set of rules and institutions.
The term diguo (敌国), in its original context of Sino-nomadic relations,
referred both to states of equal status (D. Li 2006: 40) and to a relation-
ship of rivalry and confrontation (Yü 1986: 381), and the word di can
mean confrontation as well as equivalence (L. Wang 2000: 412). Diguo
may thus be translated as ‘rival equality’. This nature of Sino-nomadic
relations was explicitly acknowledged in China’s historical records,
reflected in shared practices embodying a mix of norms, rules and prin-
ciples recognized by both China and the nomads. I employ the term
‘diguo’ here to indicate more generally relationships of equal status, coex-
istence and rivalry not only between China and the nomads but also
among the Chinese as well as the nomadic states themselves in specific
historical periods.
Chronologically, diguo society operated both in tandem with China’s
fanshu society (that is, during times of China’s unification and strength)
and during eras of its division and weakness. In the former case, it was
often but not always a Sino-nomadic diguo society since it could also
involve sedentary actors, and its boundary was where the contemporary
Chinese fanshu society failed to expand. In the latter case, it was a more
general diguo society of coexistence and rivalry among the competing
states (often involving a diverse set of actors, Chinese and non-Chinese,
nomadic and sedentary), in which case it had displaced fanshu society as
the main form of international society in the region. As can already be seen
and will be further shown below, diguo society existed throughout East
Asian history with the main exceptions of the Yuan (1279–1368) and
36 Feng Zhang
Qing (1644–1911) periods, and was therefore by no means a marginal or

peripheral phenomenon. On the contrary, it occupied a central place in
Chinese and East Asian history.
Finally, we should note the coexistence of several subsystem-level
fanshu-style hegemonic societies in addition to the primary Chinese one.
Not only had China tried to establish the fanshu framework; its neigh-
bours, especially when they were powerful, tried to create their own such
systems too. And these included both nomadic states such as the Xiongnu
and the Turks, and sedentary societies such as Korea and Vietnam,
although they may have had different normative assumptions about such
hegemonic societies. Thus, we have a layered or nested structure of
international societies in East Asian history: two primary international
societies of Chinese hegemony (the fanshu) and decentred rivalry (the
diguo), and several nested fanshu-style hegemonic societies under a power-
ful polity other than China. These two levels of international society have a
certain overlapping and interpenetrating character: some weak states paid
tribute both to their immediate hegemon (such as Vietnam in continental
Southeast Asia in the early modern period) and to China as the nominal
centre of world. The structure of international societies in pre-modern
East Asia may thus also be characterized as ‘layered hegemony’ or ‘nested
hegemony’.
International societies of fanshu and diguo: history

These theoretical points will be illustrated with historical examples before
the institutions of fanshu and diguo societies are examined in the subse-
quent sections (see Table 2.1 for a chronology of imperial China’s dynas-
ties and associated primary international societies). Not meant to be
comprehensive, the following account aims to demonstrate the evolution
and interaction of fanshu and diguo societies by highlighting some essential
historical developments.
Although ideas about fanshu originated in the pre-Qin era before 221
BC, it was the Western Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 8) that first developed
the concept for practical use in the foreign relations of a unified imperial
regime and established a relatively coherent fanshu system on its periph-
ery. The Western Han was able to establish fanshu relationships with
peripheral entities such as Minyue, Dongou, Nanyue and Korea (later
incorporated into direct Han administration). The biggest problem, how-
ever, was the powerful nomadic state of the Xiongnu, with which the Han
had a relationship only of diguo, and they, along with other actors such as
the tribal states in the Western Region, formed a distinctive international
society of equality and rivalry. A key institution of this international
Table 2.1 Imperial China’s dynasties and primary international societies

in East Asia
Dynasty or period Duration Primary international societies
Qin 221–206 BC Dynasty too short-lived to permit analysis.

Western 206 BC–AD 8 Fanshu society centred on the Han, and diguo
(Former) Han society among the Han, the Xiongnu, the
tribal states in the Western Region and other
actors.
Eastern 25–220 Fanshu society centred on the Han, and diguo
(Later) Han society among the Han, Xiongnu, Qiang,
Wuhuan, Xianbei and other actors in different
periods.
Period of North– 220–589 Diguo society in a decentred East Asian world.
South disunion
Sui 589–618 Fanshu society centred on the Sui, and diguo
society among the Sui, the Turks, Koreans
(Koguryŏ) and other actors.
Tang 618–907 Fanshu society centred on the Tang, and diguo
society among the Tang, the Turks, Koreans
(Koguryŏ), Tibetans, Uighurs and other
actors in different periods.
Period of Five 907–60 Diguo society in a decentred East Asian world.
Dynasties
Song 960–1279 Diguo society among the Song, Liao, Jin, Xi Xia,
the Mongols and other actors in different
periods.
Yuan 1279–1368 Yuan military empire in Eurasia.
Ming 1368–1644 Fanshu society centred on the Ming, and diguo
society among the Ming, the Mongols, the
Manchus and other actors in different periods.
Qing 1644–1911 Fanshu society centred on the Manchu Qing.
Note: This table provides only a rough guide to the evolution of primary international
societies in pre-modern East Asia. It does not give the exact dates for the establishment and
collapse of the various international societies mentioned, nor does it list all the members or
describe the precise composition of these international societies, nor does it include
secondary or nested international societies involving other actors. To attempt an adequate
description of all these matters would require a much more detailed historical analysis than
allowed by this chapter.
society was heqin (‘peace and kinship’), through which China sought to
secure peace and co-operation from the nomads by offering its princesses
in marriage as well as gifts to nomadic rulers. But the Han, in competing
with the Xiongnu, also practised a sort of balance-of-power politics – in
terms of both internal balancing (developing the economy and building
38 Feng Zhang
the army) and external balancing (seeking alliances in the Western

Region) – recognizable to IR theorists (Waltz 1979). In the evolution of
Han strategy, heqin gave way to balancing, which eventually led to the
conquest of the Xiongnu.
The Xiongnu, in its sphere of influence, also established a fanshu-style
system with a host of tribal states such as the Wuhuan and Xianbei under
its orbit (D. Li 2006: 69). But after a series of military defeats and when in
51 BC the leader of the Southern Xiongnu personally came to pay tribute
to the Han emperor, the Southern Xiongnu were effectively incorporated
into the Han fanshu system, along with former Xiongnu fanshu tribal states
in the north and the Western Region, many of which had already been
absorbed as a result of Han military success. The boundary of the Han
fanshu society therefore expanded northwards and westwards, and the
tribute system came to be established as the main institution for regulating
relationships within this society. During the Eastern Han (25–220), the
Xiongnu briefly reasserted themselves, while new nomadic groups –
chiefly the Wuhuan and Xianbei – rose to power as the Han’s new rivals,
constituting a renewed diguo society with a new set of actors.
The decline and collapse of Han power in the third century AD and the
ensuing four centuries of conflict and disunion meant that no Chinese
regime was able to establish an effective and stable fanshu society on a
large scale. On a general level there was a diguo international society
among the competing Chinese as well as nomadic states in a mostly
fragmented and decentred region, though we should note the existence
of nested fanshu-style hegemonic societies, as emerging states in what is
now Korea and Japan paid tribute to various competing states in the
Chinese world (Lewis 2009a; Han 2009).
The rise of the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties in the sixth
and seventh centuries re-established and expanded fanshu society without
entirely eliminating the diguo one. At the height of its power, the Tang was
able to establish an even greater fanshu society than that of the Han,
encompassing no fewer than sixty-four vassal states that stretched 3,000
miles from Korea across the Eurasian steppe to the state of Tokhara,
southeast of the Aral Sea. The best indication of the existence of Tang’s
multiethnic fanshu society was the assumption by the second emperor
Taizong (r. 627–50) of a second and entirely novel imperial title of
‘Heavenly Khan’, upon the requests of vanquished Turkish khans and
rulers of various other steppe tribal states and ethnic groups in the year
630, shortly after he had crushed the Eastern Turkish empire (P.-T. Ho
1998: 132). But when the Tang was weak, as during the reign of the first
emperor Gaozu (r. 618–27), it even had to declare itself as a vassal to the
Turks, who maintained their own fanshu system with tribal states to the
Tang’s north and west. This Tang–Turkic diguo society, however, seemed
to have operated better than the Han–Xiongnu one because the Tang
dynastic house’s cultural familiarity with the Turks ‘allowed the formation
of a Sino-Altaic (Turkic) system based on shared diplomacy, warfare,
patrimonial political networks, and ideologies of heavenly-sanctioned
rule’ (Lewis 2009b: 146). At different times, the Sui and Tang competed
with the Turks, Tibetans, Uighurs, Koreans (Koguryŏ) and a number of
lesser actors for power and influence in the East Asian world, constituting
a complex diguo society operating alongside the Sino-centric fanshu one.
Three centuries of division and competition followed the Tang’s col-
lapse. In the period of the Five Dynasties (907–60), a diguo society among
the competing states reappeared in a decentred East Asian world. The
principal dynasty following this period, the Song (960–1279), was never
able to unify China in the manner of the Han and Tang, and it not only
had to contend with semi-nomadic states of the Qidan Liao (907–1125),
the Jurchen Jin (1115–1234) and the Tangut Xi Xia (1038–1227) for
supremacy (Rossabi 1983), but also had to live with the non-submissive
Nanzhao (and later the Dali kingdom), Annan (Vietnam), the Tibetans
and the Tuyuhuns at different times (Kuhn 2009: 20). To be sure, it
claimed its own fanshu society, but its scale was much reduced, and in
actual practice, as for example in its relationship with Korea, it was rather
tenuously and fictitiously preserved, as Korea had to waver in its loyalty to
the Song and the more powerful nomadic neighbours of the Liao and Jin.
The more significant international society during this time was the diguo
one, as the Song’s relationships with the Liao, Jin, Xi Xia and later the
Mongols preoccupied most of its foreign policy agenda. This was, how-
ever, ‘a carefully if precariously balanced’ (Franke 1983: 141) interna-
tional society. The establishment of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and
the vast Mongol empire in Eurasia after its conquest of the Song and all
the other states may be said to have carried the fanshu system to the
extreme, but the Mongol obsession with military conquest ran counter
to the general spirit of the Chinese fanshu framework, which did not see
the creation of a limitless military empire as its goal.
The Ming dynasty (1368–1644), after expelling the Mongols from
‘China proper’, tried to reinstitute the historic fanshu tradition, and in
this it was only partially successful. Although it established fanshu rela-
tionships with sedentary states such as Korea, Vietnam, Champa and
Liuqiu, it never succeeded in incorporating the northern nomads (the
Mongols in this case), and it was displaced by the Qing dynasty founded
by the Manchus, a semi-nomadic people originally residing on the
Ming’s northeastern frontier. During the Ming, therefore, fanshu and
diguo societies were again in simultaneous operation, and its fanshu
40 Feng Zhang
society was smaller in scale than that of the Han and the Tang. It also
needs to be noted – which may be seen as a point of some historical and
theoretical importance – that it was most clearly during the Ming that
culture became an unproblematic factor demarcating these two interna-
tional societies, with fanshu society clearly within the Sinic zone and
extended to the nomads for only a very brief period during the late
sixteenth century (Waldron 1990). But this is not a valid generalization
for East Asian history either before or after the Ming, and may have a
great deal to do with the generally inward-looking nature of the Ming
regime itself.
The outstanding example of a multicultural fanshu society was the one
centred on the Qing (1644–1911), which established fanshu relationships
not only with key members of the previous Ming society (Korea, Vietnam,
Liuqiu, and so forth) but was able to incorporate, for the first time in
Chinese history, non-Han peoples such as Mongols, Tibetans, Inner
Asian Muslims and others into a new kind of transcendent political entity
(Rowe 2009: 284). By conquering the nomads, the Qing eliminated the
problem of having to deal with them on diguo terms, which had haunted
virtually every preceding dynasty except the Yuan. Consequently, diguo
society largely disappeared. The resulting vast fanshu society was largely a
product of Qing expansion and conquest (Perdue 2005), as had often
been the case in Chinese history; and it was marked not by Confucian
cultural unity but by a multitude of cultural traditions and institutional
practices centring on the Manchu emperor (Hevia 1995). As William
T. Rowe puts it, the Qing ‘differed fundamentally from most preceding
imperial dynasties – and none so dramatically as the Ming – in that it was
self-consciously conceived as a universal empire, a multinational polity
within which China (the former Ming domain) was simply one compo-
nent’ (2009: 6; see also Elliott 2001: 4–5).
This brief historical review sheds some light on the role of culture in
international society. Neither fanshu nor diguo society was always com-
posed of members sharing the same culture. From a macro-historical
perspective, this analysis supports what Buzan has called the ‘syncretist
view’ that ‘culture and international society are both malleable’ (2010b:
19). The malleability of international society has already been illustrated
with the historical evolution of fanshu and diguo societies. That culture can
be malleable is demonstrated by the fact that historically Chinese culture
has also gone through evolutionary stages and that two of the most power-
ful dynasties in Chinese history – the Tang and the Qing – were both
polyglot, multiethnic and multicultural in character. It is perhaps not a
coincidence that they also ruled the largest fanshu international societies in
Chinese history, whereas the more culturally rigid and inward-looking
regimes such as the Song and the Ming were not particularly impressive in
their foreign relations.
Also worth mentioning is the often-made distinction between a Sinic
zone composed primarily of China and Korea, Vietnam, Liuqiu and Japan
which were heavily influenced by Chinese culture and a ‘barbarian’ zone
of the northern nomads. This is a cultural distinction, and it may be quite
tempting to demarcate the boundaries of historical East Asian societies
accordingly. Kang, for example, argues that ‘Early modern East Asia, like
nineteenth-century Europe, operated in two very different international
societies and was based on two different sets of rules: one that included the
Sinicized states and one that regulated relations with the “uncivilized”
nomadic world’ (2010: 10). I agree that there were two distinctive interna-
tional societies in operation, but doubt whether culture can be such a neat
criterion for demarcation. The modes of the relationships between China
and its nomadic neighbours were not only of the raid-or-trade type; when
the nomads were incorporated into China’s fanshu, the relationship could
be peaceful, reflective – though possibly to a lesser degree – of the dom-
inant rules and institutions of fanshu society. That said, it must be fully
acknowledged that such a society was not very stable, as the nomads
frequently sought to challenge and break it when China was weak and
especially when the ruling regime was culturally hostile to them.
Furthermore, a rigid separation between the Sinic and nomadic zones
obscures the important fact of inter-cultural exchange and mingling
between the Chinese and the nomads in the vast frontier society, an area
of mixed culture with mutual adaptation between the two peoples
(Standen 2003; D. C. Wong 2003). Finally, the distinction between
Sinic and nomadic zones was not particularly meaningful before the
seventh century or during the Qing period. It was largely after the height
of Tang power in the seventh and early eighth centuries that intense
borrowing of Chinese cultural and political institutions occurred in states
such as Korea and Japan. And the Qing self-consciously tried to establish
a multicultural universal empire, thus merging the Sinic and Inner Asian
zones.
Institutions of fanshu society

International society is characterized by the institutionalization of shared
interest and identity among states. Its key analytical dimensions are the
creation and maintenance of shared norms, rules and institutions. Norms
are standards of behaviour defined in terms of rights and obligations and
represent the customary, implicit end of the authoritative social regulation
of behaviour. Rules are specific prescriptions or proscriptions for actions
42 Feng Zhang
and represent the more specific, explicit end. Primary institutions are seen
as ‘durable and recognized patterns of shared practices rooted in values
held commonly by the members of inter-state societies, and embodying a
mix of norms, rules and principles’ (Buzan 2004: 7, 163–4, 181).
What norms, rules and institutions did fanshu society between China
and its tributary states embody? The norm was Sino-centrism, the idea
that China was the centre and zenith of a conical world order where other
states were distributed in varying distances from it. These peripheral
states were obliged to acknowledge Chinese centrality and superiority by
paying tribute to the Chinese emperor and help to maintain China’s
frontier defence by acting as its loyal subordinates. China, for its part,
would maintain this cosmological and political order by providing peace
and stability in the known world. The most important rule was that foreign
rulers needed to pay periodic tribute to the Chinese court. In different
periods the rules could be different. During the Han and Tang, for
example, it was often required that the nomadic rulers send a hostage,
preferably the heir-apparent, to the Chinese court. These rules were
developed and codified into elaborate rituals during the Ming and Qing,
the peculiarities and apparent comprehensiveness of which have pro-
foundly coloured our traditional understanding of the tribute system.
These rules helped to constitute and legitimatize the hierarchy and differ-
entiation between China and other states and establish the distribution of
their rights and responsibilities. The tribute system was the primary
institutional embodiment of these norms, rules and principles, although
it was not the only institution of fanshu society.
The tribute system

There are so many existing descriptions of the tribute system that a rehash
is hardly necessary. Three analytical points, however, need to be made for
a refined understanding of the tribute system. First, the tribute system
actually involved several levels of political, social and cultural relation-
ships of the Chinese empire. It should not be seen exclusively in foreign
relations terms, because it was also practised within the Chinese empire
between local magistrates and the imperial court, and between independ-
ent or semi-independent ethnic groups dispersed in the frontier regions of
the empire and the imperial court. As a foreign relations institution, its
formative development occurred during the Western Han dynasty, espe-
cially after the reign of Emperor Wu (140–86 BC), when the tribal states of
the Western Region as well as Korea in the east and Nanyue in the south
began to pay tribute to the Han court. After 51 BC, even the Xiongnu
were compelled to follow suit, thus greatly increasing the scale and
significance of Han fanshu society. The tribute system went through

nearly two millennia of evolution in various forms, reaching its final
institutional expressions in the Ming and Qing periods. It is essential to
recognize that there was not one monolithic, unchanging tribute system in
Chinese history (F. Zhang 2009). As an institution, it went through differ-
ent stages of creation, consolidation, expansion, contraction and collapse.
An important task in studying the tribute system is to explain its historical
change in forms, organizations, functions and use by the actors involved.
Second, often neglected in existing accounts of the tribute system is the
practice of investiture, expressed in Chinese as ce (册), feng (封), ceming
(册命) or cefeng (册封). This referred to the historical phenomenon in
which the Chinese emperor acted to confer the authority and symbols of a
high office (king, lord, general, etc.) on a foreign ruler. Traditionally, this
practice has been seen as the opposite of tribute, thus the other side of the
same coin, worthy of some note but no independent discussion of its own.
This understanding is historically inaccurate. Tribute and investiture
were not always reciprocal in the sense that tribute was not always accom-
panied by investiture or vice versa. In fact, Chinese investiture was given
discriminately: not every foreign state that paid tribute to the Chinese
court was able to receive investiture in return. Investiture was given only
to states China perceived as important and politically and geographically
close. These included Japan before the Sui/Tang era (with one exception
in the early fifteenth century), states of the Korean peninsula and
Vietnam, as well as some tribal states after their submission (e.g. the
Turks and Tuyuhun during the Tang) (Gao 2008: 20, 22, 60, 137,
219). Although not as prominent as tribute, Chinese investiture played
the important role of establishing and confirming the status of member
states in the Sino-centric fanshu society. Even if not singled out as a
distinct institution, it should be seen as an important institutional practice
embedded in the larger framework of the tribute system (cf. X. Ren 2010:
103; Y. Li 2004: 1).
Third, the analytical scope of the tribute system should be confined to
the tributary part of the relationships between China and other states,
which certainly did not encompass all of the interactions that took place
between them; nor did it embody the entirety of China’s foreign relations
or the totality of historical East Asian politics, of which China’s foreign
relations were merely a part (though an important part). The Fairbankian
paradigm presents the tribute system as ‘a scheme of things entire’
(Fairbank and Teng 1941: 139), as a world order in itself, whereas in
fact it deals with only a narrow scope of tributary relations associated with
ritual performance. Rituals should not be discounted, since they embod-
ied important cultural and normative assumptions underpinning China’s
44 Feng Zhang
foreign relations and thus have important things to tell us, but surely they
were not the only or always the most important part of China’s foreign
relations.
What roles, then, did the tribute system play in the relationships
between China and other states? Without doubt, it was one of the key
institutions for conducting their foreign relations. From a functional
perspective, it helped to define and establish in practice the membership
of fanshu society and their respective status, as well as serving as the main
channel for authoritative communication (Buzan 2004: 188). But it did
more than providing the basic operating mechanisms of international
society. It also helped to practise, negotiate and constitute the apparently
hierarchical relationships between China and other states, which also
evolved and changed historically. In addition, it was used instrumentally
and strategically by both China and other states, the former, for example,
for achieving the strategic objective of frontier defence and the political
objective of regime legitimacy, and the latter, for example, for the profit of
trade and in some cases regime legitimacy too. China may be said to have
valued it generally in political and strategic terms; other states did so in
political, economic and sometimes strategic terms too.
Institutions of diguo society

Diguo society, sometimes coexisting with China’s fanshu society and some-
times replacing it, embodied a very different set of norms, rules and
institutions. Especially in the Sino-nomadic diguo society, Sino-centrism
held no appeal to the nomads, and the relationships were conducted on
more or less equal terms. The nomads were under no obligation to pay
tribute to the Chinese emperor; on the contrary, they often demanded
material goods paid to them. China wielded no authority to invest nomadic
rulers, nor was it in a position to dictate and enforce its terms of foreign
relations. But this was an international society in the sense that both China
and the nomads were consciously trying to develop some rules and institu-
tions for the conduct of their relations so that there could be a reasonable
degree of order between them. Therefore their relations would not need to
be characterized by incessant warfare and disorder, and both sides would be
able to enjoy, to a certain and often unstable degree, the benefits of peace
and trade. In contrast to the hierarchical nature of fanshu society, here
institutional practices reflected the principles of political and diplomatic
equality, involving a considerable degree of negotiation, manipulation and
power politics. Two key institutions of this society – heqin and treaties –
which marked it off from fanshu society, embodied status equality that was
its distinguishing feature. They might be seen as institutions of diplomacy
broadly conceived, but their distinctiveness and salience call for identifica-
tions of their own. A third distinguishing institution – the balance of
power – indicates the Realpolitik dimension of historical East Asian politics.
Heqin
The first institution was heqin (和亲) (‘peace through kinship relations’,
sometimes translated as ‘harmonious kinship’ or ‘pacificatory inter-
marriage’), by which China sought to secure peace and co-operation
from the nomads by offering its princesses in marriage to nomadic rulers
as well as other ‘gifts’, such as gold, silk and grain. This institution was first
and most famously established between the Western Han and the
Xiongnu after 198 BC and lasted until its breakdown in 134 BC. These
years therefore witnessed a distinctive Han–Xiongnu diguo society in
operation. The years between 134 BC and 53 BC, when the Southern
Xiongnu decided to submit to the Han, saw a serious power struggle
between two empires in a ‘bipolar’ East Asian world, ending in a complete
victory for the Han.
The first heqin treaty of 198 BC included four terms of agreement: first,
a Han princess would be given in marriage to the Xiongnu chanyu (chief-
tain); second, several times a year the Han would send ‘gifts’ to the
Xiongnu, including silk, liquor, rice and other kinds of food, each in
fixed quantities; third, the Han and Xiongnu would become ‘brotherly
states’, equal in status; fourth, neither side would venture beyond the
frontier as marked roughly by the modern Great Wall. From 192 BC to
135 BC, the treaty was renewed no fewer than nine times. And no later
than 169 BC had the Xiongnu added new terms providing for border
trade (Cui 2007; Yü 1986: 386–8).
Heqin played at least four of the five functions that primary institutions
of international society are believed to perform (Buzan 2004: 188–9):
membership (defining the Han and the Xiongnu as legitimate players in
regional politics), authoritative communication (whereby the two sides
could negotiate the terms of agreement), limits to the use of force
(stipulating that the Xiongnu should stop pillaging the Han frontier)
and allocation of property rights (establishing the Great Wall as the line
of demarcation for their respective spheres of influence, with the recog-
nition of each other’s domination over their respective subordinate
fanshu states). It helped to secure a much needed though unstable
peace, especially for the Chinese side, to establish important normative
agreements on their status equality, to demarcate their spheres of influ-
ence and to develop the means by which peaceful interactions could take
place.
46 Feng Zhang
Treaties
Another important institution often manifesting itself in the relations
between China and the nomads was treaty-making (盟, meng, or 约,
yue), sometimes involving a sworn oath (盟誓, mengshi), which was a
traditional practice among the nomads. Heqin might be seen as a special
form of treaty, a ‘marriage treaty system’ (Yü 1986: 386). But the two are
analytically distinct and can be empirically distinguished as well.
Treaties as an institution were developed out of the recognition on the
part of Chinese rulers that a more effective and cheaper alternative to
fighting the nomads was to co-opt them with subsidies in exchange for
peace or even for military aid. The nomads, for their part, also realized that
one of the most efficient methods to obtain Chinese resources was simply to
establish agreements with China so that peaceful intercourse, including
trade, could take place. Wang Gungwu calls treaty-based relationships
‘contractual relations’ that ‘involved ideas about friendship, about legiti-
mate interests, about agreed frontiers, and the behaviour and duties of
envoys, and even about long-term peace and prosperity and what might
be described as the rudiments of modern diplomacy’ (1983: 49).
The Tang and the Song, for different reasons, were skilled users of treaty
in making peace with the nomads. Tang Taizong, himself partly of Turkic
descent, displayed a profound understanding of steppe politics in dealing
with the Turkish empire and other tribal states (Ho 1998: 132; Lewis
2009b: 150). In later years the Tang also made treaties with Tibet (Tubo)
to negotiate peace and demarcate boundary (D. Li 2006: 412). The Song,
by virtue of necessity, had to make a great number of treaties with the Liao,
Jin and Xi Xia, by which it agreed to send material goods as gifts to the
nomads as well as opening frontier trade markets in exchange for peace. One
of the most famous treaties was that of chanyuan in 1005, which preserved
peace between the Song and Liao for almost one hundred and twenty years,
resulting in a relationship that has been described as ‘the nearest thing to
equality in Chinese history until modern times’ (Wang 1983: 55).
The balance of power

The balance of power has been a fundamental concept in the theory and
practice of modern European international relations. Was it so in the East
Asian case? Although certainly not as prominent, the idea and its practice
were still discernible. And they seemed unique to diguo society, since
fanshu society’s hegemonic and hierarchic character must have already
suppressed the logic of balancing (for a discussion on the balance of power
in ancient China, see Hui 2005).
Balance-of-power politics manifested itself, first, in the epic struggles

between Chinese states and their nomadic rivals, such as those between
the Han and the Xiongnu, the Sui/Tang and the Turks, and the Song and
the Liao/Jin. On the Song system, Herbert Franke (1983: 141) observed
that the Song, the Liao and the Jin were partners in a bilateral, balanced
power system, although the Song may have perceived this as a temporary
and politically expedient arrangement. Balance-of-power politics presented
itself, second, in the manipulation and competition between contending
Chinese states when the Chinese world itself was fragmented, and such
periods of division constituted roughly half of imperial Chinese history. The
most famous episode is perhaps the Three Kingdoms period (220–80),
when three main states tried to ensure their survival in a precarious balance.
One feature, however, should be noted about the balance of power in
Chinese history. The English School understanding of the balance of power
as a social institution requires it to reflect a conscious desire on the part of
member states to achieve systemic balance as a foreign policy goal (Bull
1977; Little 2007). The question of whether the Chinese states entertained
such a goal can be answered only by historical research. In some periods the
answer might be ‘yes’, and states consciously practised balance for the same
reasons of security and survival as in modern Europe. But it also seems that
the goal of balance was always challenged and frequently displaced by the
goal of unification. As a potent political ideology, the goal of unification
appeared far more significant and enduring than balance in Chinese history.
Common institutions
The institution of the tribute system was unique to the Chinese fanshu
society, as heqin, treaties and the balance of power were to the diguo one.
Yet there were also institutions common to both of them, including
travelling embassy, trade and war (see Table 2.2 for a list of primary
international societies and institutions in pre-modern East Asia).
Table 2.2 Primary international societies and institutions in pre-modern

East Asia
International societies Unique institutions Common institutions
Fanshu (Chinese The tribute system Travelling embassy,

hegemony) trade, war
Diguo (rival equality) Heqin, treaties, balance
of power
48 Feng Zhang
Travelling embassy
The institutions of the tribute system, heqin and treaties all dealt with
different aspects of authoritative communication between states. In mod-
ern terms, they would be diplomatic institutions. Yet the ‘diplomacy’ of
historical East Asia was of a different kind from modern diplomacy that
originated in Europe. Modern diplomacy is conducted between states of
formal sovereign equality and characterized by resident diplomats for
permanent representation abroad. In the Chinese fanshu society, however,
the relationships between China and other states were formally unequal
and envoys did not reside in the other’s capital in any case, and while the
relationship within the Sino-nomadic diguo society was conducted on an
equal basis, there was no notion of resident diplomats either. But there
were, of course, envoys sent from both sides in both international societies
to deal with issues of foreign policy on occasions in addition to those
involving tribute, investiture, heqin and treaty-making (see a relevant
discussion of the Song case in Franke 1983). ‘Travelling embassy’ (使,
shi, in Chinese) may thus be seen as an institution common to both
international societies.
Trade
Trade was, of course, a key purpose behind other states’ tribute to China.
The institution of the tribute system therefore contained a large trade
element. But trade also stood out as an institution of its own, because it
was also frequently practised outside the tribute system (Millward 1998; Di
Cosmo 2003). Fairbank, for example, noted the ‘eclipse of the tribute
system by trade’ (1953: 23–8). In the north and the west, China and the
nomads traded in frontier markets. Goods exchanged included horses,
jewels, incense and so forth from the north, and silk, porcelain, tea and
other commodities from China. The so-called Silk Road served as the trans-
continental trade route between China and the states and peoples of Central
Asia and further west. The Han was notable for its frontier trade in the north
and west, but also engaged in some overseas trade (Y.-S. Yü 1967). So was
the militarily weak Song who opened a number of frontier trade markets
with the Liao, Jin and Xi Xia by various treaties (Yoshinobu 1983).
Along the southern frontier, trade began to be developed with Korea,
Japan and Southeast Asia from the period of the Northern and Southern
Dynasties (317–589) (Lewis 2009a: 156). It flourished after the Tang, when
the Arabs led a regular and extensive maritime trade between China and the
Indian Ocean littorals. With the development of ship-building technologies
by Song times, the Chinese also increasingly expanded their seaborne trade
in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. The Tang initiated a shift in
government policy towards seaborne trade. The Song adopted the same
system and established several Offices of Overseas Trade, which resembled
those of the frontier trading market system (Yoshinobu 1983). Trade was
also a very prominent aspect of the East Asian system in early modern times.
An influential thesis developed by Takeshi Hamashita (2008; see also Frank
1998) holds that trade provided the basis for a regional economy centred on
maritime trade, a distinctive Asian economic and financial system that
needs to be viewed in its own right.
War
Numerous wars occurred in East Asian history, both between sedentary
and nomadic societies and within these societies themselves. One histor-
ian has recently claimed that ‘There were as many wars in an East Asia
allegedly dominated by the tribute system as in a Europe unable to imple-
ment the Westphalian peace’ (Rossabi 2011: 512). This is not the place to
discuss the causes of war in historical East Asia. But it is instructive to note
that certain Chinese scholars have argued that some of the wars China
fought against its neighbours were attempts to restore and maintain
regional order. One scholar, for example, identifies three types of wars
between the Tang and its fanshu states – those that sought to adjust their
relationships, to suppress the uprising of fanshu states, and to mediate the
relationships between different fanshu states (D. Li 2006: 412). Such
interpretations would make the argument that war was also an institution
of both fanshu and diguo societies.
Conclusion
Dissatisfied with the tribute-system paradigm in understanding historical
East Asian politics, I have endeavoured to provide an alternative frame-
work from the theoretical lens of the English School. The English School
is most useful in providing the ‘big picture’ of international society with
theoretical depth and historical breadth. This picture, from the dawn of
imperial China (221 BC) to the beginning of Western intrusion (in the
middle of the nineteenth century), may be conceptualized as the evolution
and interaction of two international societies: the Sino-centric society of
Chinese hegemony (fanshu) and the more equal society of rival equality
(diguo), ordered through the unique institution of the tribute system in the
former case and those of heqin (peace and kinship), treaties and the
balance of power in the latter, as well as through their common institu-
tions of travelling embassy, trade and war. In addition, although these two
50 Feng Zhang
were the primary international societies in East Asian history, we should

also note the existence of nested ones – the various fanshu-style hegemonic
relationships between powerful states other than China (the Xiongnu,
Turks, Korea, Vietnam, etc.) and the lesser states they dominated.
Historical East Asian politics, characterized by the coexistence, overlap,
interaction and interpenetration of different kinds and levels of interna-
tional societies, were therefore considerably more complicated and inter-
esting than the tribute-system paradigm suggests.
Needless to say, this conceptual reformulation of historical East Asian
politics is the product of my still developing thinking on this vast subject
and therefore should be seen as a ‘preliminary framework’. Much work
remains to be done in both theory and history. The history of the disunion
and fragmentation of the Chinese world, which constitutes more than
half of the history of imperial China, for example, may confound some of
the propositions advanced here and will provide a rich ground for decen-
tring China in East Asia and thus for developing new interpretations.
Furthermore, the framework does not completely escape Sino-centrism,
as neither fanshu nor diguo society can dispense with China as the central
or at least one of the primary actors; nor does it discuss the dynamics of
interactions among China’s neighbours themselves. Theoretically, using
the English School as a starting point to get at the ‘big picture’, we may
need more specific theories to explain the formation, development and
change of historical East Asian societies and institutions as well as the
modes of interactions among regional states. Nevertheless, providing a
tentative alternative is intellectually more rewarding than defending the
traditional tribute-system paradigm that has been found by so many
scholars to be flawed.
3 Imagining ‘Asia’: Japan and ‘Asian’
international society in modern history
Shogo Suzuki
Introduction
The history of East Asia’s entry and subsequent incorporation into
European international society serves as an interesting case to probe the
long-standing question of the salience of regional identity in the contem-
porary world order, as well as the degree to which a truly ‘global’ interna-
tional society has emerged. Regions are ‘imagined communities’ just like
nation-states (Hurrell 1994: 41; 2007a: 241; see also B. Anderson 1991),
and ‘Asia’ was a concept that was coined outside the region. Just like the
discovery of the New World and the ‘East’ contributed substantially to
the emergence of a self-conscious ‘European’ identity (Neumann and
Welsh 1991), the ‘imagining’ of the region of ‘East Asia’ by the East
Asian peoples required the existence of an ‘other’.
Crucially, this process was intimately, though not exclusively, connected
to the expansion of European international society in the late nineteenth
century. As is well known, European international society’s expansion into
the region came in the late nineteenth century, in the wake of European
imperialism. The industrial revolution in Europe had spawned a belief that
Western civilization represented the highest achievements of humankind. It
was believed that the white, European races were uniquely qualified and
indeed had a ‘sacred’ duty to introduce the trappings of Western civilization
to the rest of the world.1 The ‘standard of civilization’, as conceptualized by
the European powers at the time, constituted the ‘checklist’ that was used to
measure ‘uncivilized’ polities’ progress towards this goal. It was based on
the idea and assumption of universalism. Quite simply, the ‘barbarous’
needed to adopt the ‘standard of civilization’ to achieve moral and material
progress. If those polities labelled as ‘uncivilized’ or ‘savage’ failed to
understand this, the Western powers were ready to utilize military force
1
This is of course not to deny the diversity of voices within Europe at this time, as many
individuals were quite critical of European imperial expansion and displayed a deep sense
of respect towards non-European cultures.
51
52 Shogo Suzuki
to impose the ‘standard of civilization’ and place the former under their
tutelage until they were deemed to be politically ‘mature’ enough to merit
independence (Bain 2003; Keene 2002; Suzuki 2009).
Placed under these normative and material pressures, East Asian states
undertook, at various stages, attempts to introduce European technology
and reconfigure their governmental institutions and foreign policies along
Western lines. This is a narrative that has broadly been embraced by
conventional studies by English School scholars, who have tended to
portray this process as a ‘success story’ leading towards ‘modernisation’
and ‘progress’ (Bull and Watson 1984a; Gong 1984). Seen through this
lens, the emergence of an ‘Asian’ regional identity was accompanied by a
growing sense of awareness that ‘Europe’ or the ‘West’ represented a
positive ‘other’, which was a source of emulation. In contrast, ‘Asia’ was
an undesirable identity that needed to be cast off as soon as possible,
particularly for Asian states keen to attain the identity of a ‘civilized state’
based on European norms. The influential Meiji intellectual Fukuzawa
Yukichi’s well-known phrase, ‘leave Asia and enter Europe’ (脱亜入欧
datsua nyūō) is representative of this line of thinking, and called for Japan
to conform as closely as possible to European norms of legitimate mem-
bership in European international society. It is also on the basis of this
evidence that the English School has tended to claim that European
international society became truly ‘global’ in scope.
Yet, such perspectives fail to note that many non-European polities –
including states such as China and Japan – decided to join the society
because they frequently had no other choice. Within East Asia a sense of
fear and antipathy towards the West frequently existed in tension with a
genuine feeling of admiration for and fascination with its technological and
cultural achievements (Suzuki 2009; see also Ayoob 1989). In the eyes of
East Asian peoples, European international society was Janus-faced: one
side of its face represented progress and a set of social norms aimed at
facilitating the coexistence of sovereign states that stood as equals with one
another. The other side was highly coercive and treated those deemed
‘uncivilized’ as beyond the pale of the various norms which were intended
to protect the sovereignty of states. Instead, these ‘barbarous’ or ‘uncivi-
lized’ polities were to have their sovereignty suspended in order to allow
the ‘civilized’ European powers to introduce the trappings of European
‘civilization’. As is well known, Japan became the first non-European state
to achieve parity – at least on paper – with the West, and successfully
abolished the unequal treaties that symbolized Japanese ‘inferior’ and
‘semi-civilzed’ status. Yet, even this ‘model student’ remained shot with
contradictions when it came to its views of the West. Many ideologues were
fanatically committed to the preservation of ‘the Japanese spirit against
Imagining ‘Asia’ 53
indiscriminate Europeanization’, and some were even concerned that the

introduction of lamps would bring about the ‘Ruination of the State’
(Gluck 1985: 20). Yet the very same people sported Western-style clothing
and enjoyed European spirits – making them the subject of much ridicule.
Of course, the more pertinent question in the context of this particular
chapter is whether or not such ambivalence towards the West manifested
itself in the form of a desire to construct a ‘regional’ international society
that stood in opposition to European international society. It would
naturally be erroneous to assume that a ‘regional’ international society
necessarily has to stand in opposition to its European-originated counter-
part (Buzan 2009: 33), as the substantial years of interaction between
Europe and East Asia may indeed have resulted in considerable over-
lapping and complementary norms. At the same time, given the context
of East Asia’s often violent incorporation into European international
society, it is worth reminding ourselves that the deep-seated ambivalence
towards the West and its violent, imperialist side would mean that Europe
could become a negative ‘other’, an entity that would be used to call for
the construction of an ‘Asian’ regional identity to resist and escape from
Western dominance, and ultimately carve out a separate international
order free from European coercion and paternalism.
The aim of this chapter, then, is to trace East Asia’s difficult entry into
European international society and examine the effects this had on the
‘imagining’ and construction of an ‘Asian’ regional order. This is a big and
complex task, and there are a number of limitations that need to be made
explicit. First, the bulk of the analysis is on the pre-1945 era and has a
somewhat Japan-centric focus. This focus can be justified to a certain
extent in that Japan was the regional hegemon during this time, and
was probably in the best position to articulate any alternative visions of
international order, which took the shape and form of an anti-Western
pan-Asianism. However, such sentiments were not unique to Japan, and it
should be acknowledged that pan-Asianist thought existed in China and
Korea as well. Second, intellectual history poses its own challenges in that
it requires the researcher to demonstrate a high level of sensitivity to the
historical context in which primary sources were produced. I should be
explicit in acknowledging that much work needs to be done in this area.
The aim of this chapter, therefore, should be seen as intending to give a
snapshot of a particular intellectual strand of international order.
The discovery of ‘Asia’ in Asia

The term ‘Asia’ is a European invention, and it is thus a truism to state
that a regional international society based upon the imagined boundaries
54 Shogo Suzuki
of ‘Asia’ was not particularly widespread across the region prior to the
expansion of European international society. The ‘knowledge that the
world is split into five (or six) continents, and that Japan belongs to
Asia’ is claimed to have appeared in the imagination of the Japanese by
the eighteenth century (Yamamuro 2001: 35), based on interviews with
Europeans and the study of European printed material, which included
maps. Naturally, such maps were not widely circulated – the reading of
European material was restricted in Japan during the Tokugawa period
(1603–1867) – and the concept of Asia was not a widely shared one. As
Yamamuro Shin’ichi (ibid.: 35) notes, even Nishikawa Joken’s Zōho ka’i
tsūshō kō (増補華夷通商考, 1708), which listed states such as China,
Korea, Taiwan and Ryūkyū under the geographic space of ‘the Asian
states’ (亜細亜諸国, ajia shokoku) showed lingering influences of
Chinese geographical imagining, where the world was depicted in hier-
archical, concentric circles surrounding the ‘middle kingdom’, the apex of
civilization. In the case of Nishikawa’s book, China was listed as the ‘land
of China’ (唐土, morokoshi) or ‘Middle Kingdom’ (中華, chūka), with
Korea, Ryūkyū, Taiwan, Tonkin (東京) and Cochin (交趾) classified as
‘foreign lands’ (外国, gaikoku). All other states in Asia and Europe were
simply classified as ‘foreign barbarians’ (外夷, gai’i).
Another rudimentary form of imagining ‘Asia’ can also be seen along-
side the emergence of a European ‘other’ in Arai Hakuseki’s 1715 work
Seiyō kibun (西洋記聞), which was based on Arai’s interviews with an
Italian missionary. Here, the term West/Occident (西洋, seiyō) is used to
depict the European world, while China and Japan were included in the
‘East’ (東方, tōhō). Yamamuro (ibid.: 36) observes that ‘such conceptu-
alizing of the East or the Orient became possible only after the European
and American states were seen as a collective entity as the West’. Existing
studies have noted that the process of identity-formation requires the
existence of an ‘other’ whose differences from the ‘self’ are emphasized
(Neumann 1999). In the case of Japan in the eighteenth century, this
appears to have been based on a culturalist/civilizational basis: Arai
Hakuseki, for instance, had noted that in contrast to ‘Eastern’ learning,
Western learning ‘was well-versed in the study of shapes and forms . . .
they know very little about metaphysical matters’ (cited in Yamamuro
2001: 36). In this context, Asia (or the ‘East’) as a whole was seen as an
area where ‘civilisation began, and subsequently flourished’ (ibid.: 37).
The region generally included ‘Japan, China, and Korea. The concept of
“the East” as a singular entity was based on “the same writing system” of
Chinese characters and “the same religion or [philosophical] path” (dōkyō
同教, dōdō 同道), which reflected the recognition that [these polities]
belonged to the same civilisational zone’ (ibid.: 36–7). It is possible that
this sense of shared culture may have contributed to the emergence of an

East Asian international society (comprising China, Japan, Korea,
Ryūkyū and to a lesser extent Vietnam), in which international relations
were based broadly on the exchange of ‘tribute’ and hierarchical rituals.
Its members also acknowledged the existence of a ‘middle kingdom’,
whether it be their own state, China, or any other state for that matter
(Suzuki 2009; F. Zhang 2011). This gives considerable credence to
Martin Wight’s (1977: 33) view that a common culture is essential for a
society of states to emerge.
The expansion of European international society

and the emergence of ‘backward’ Asia
Such regional perceptions of the world were shattered when European
international society expanded into East Asia. The Europeans’ conceptu-
alization of Asia was not just geographical, but also carried with it deep-
seated cultural/civilizational assumptions that were in some ways not too
dissimilar to their Asian counterparts. Supported by a belief that their
civilization and industrial prowess represented the highest achievement of
humankind, Europeans increasingly ‘imagined’ Asia as a ‘semi-civilized’
area which represented stagnation (Hobson 2004: 224–31). The Europeans
also brought with them a racial conceptualization of humankind, and given
that the geographical boundaries of Asia as imagined by Europe contained
no Caucasian peoples, the entire Asian race came to be associated with
‘backwardness’ as well (Vincent 1982: 661–2). Whichever category one
used, Asian states and peoples were doomed to having to confront the
more coercive face of European international society. Unless they fulfilled
the ‘standard of civilization’, they would be beyond the pale of the various
norms that were ostensibly there to protect the sovereignty of the state.
Instead, they had to be placed under European guidance to achieve the goal
of becoming a ‘civilized’ state.
Whether or not non-European states chose to accept the ‘standard of
civilization’ and attain the identity of a ‘civilized’ state as determined by
European international society depended very much on the degree to
which they identified themselves as (aspiring) members of the
European-dominated ‘family of nations’. As is well known, Japan was
the first Asian state to do this. China’s shocking defeat in the Opium War
and Japan’s genuine admiration for Western systems of domestic gover-
nance, of industry and of technology, coupled with the stark realization
that resistance against the West was futile, all contributed to a concerted
effort to reconfigure the Japanese state along Western lines. China, on the
other hand, refused to go down the same path as Japan, at least until the
56 Shogo Suzuki
twentieth century. While growing contacts between the Chinese and the
Western worlds resulted – in similar fashion to Japan – in a diminishing
sense of civilizational superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the world, China was
not quick off the mark as Japan was in undergoing thorough domestic
reforms aimed at fulfilling the ‘standard of civilization’. Political decision-
making remained mired in court politics, and the patently racist nature of
the ‘standard of civilization’ understandably deeply hurt Chinese pride
and prevented the Chinese from fully embracing European normative
standards as ‘superior’ and ‘civilized’. Thus, they were less interested in
identifying with European international society and seeking membership.
The result was that China’s attempts to ‘modernize’ took the form of
adopting Western military technology and establishing a few new diplo-
matic institutions designed to deal with the European powers alone. A
more thorough reconfiguration of the Chinese state would take place only
after 1911, when the Republic of China was established.
Leaving Asia: Japan’s quest to become a ‘civilized’ state

In this intellectual climate, the region of ‘Asia’ became an undesirable
political space from which Asian states needed to extract themselves as
quickly as possible if they were to become ‘civilized’ members of
European international society. As Fukuzawa Yukichi (2001: 25) put it
in his influential book Bunmeiron no gairyaku (文明論之概略), published
in 1875: ‘If we look at the world’s civilizations today, the most civilized
states are the European states and the United States; Turkey, China,
Japan and the Asian states are called half-civilized, and Africa and
Australia are seen as savage states.’ In this context, Asia became
Japan’s ‘uncivilized other’: rather than something to identify with on
the basis of a shared culture/civilization, it was something that Japan now
identified against, and used to accentuate modernized, ‘civilized’
Japan’s ‘difference’.
Japan’s quest to extricate itself from ‘Asia’ was three-fold. The first,
which involved the reforming of domestic governance structures along
broadly Western lines, has been studied in detail and need not be repeated
here. The second was to dismantle any remaining vestiges of East Asian
international society in Japan’s international relations. While most
European states remained keen for non-European states to adhere to
diplomatic norms stipulated by the ‘standard of civilization’, they were
less zealous when it came to intra-Asian relations. Therefore, in the
immediate absence of Western pressures to repudiate traditional East
Asian diplomatic norms, Japan’s endeavours to behave as a ‘civilized’
state were intended to demonstrate the seriousness of the Japanese
government’s goal to fulfil the ‘standard of civilization’, and to differ-

entiate Japan from ‘traditional’ and ‘backward’ Asia. As a result, the
Ryūkyū kingdom, which had presented tribute to both China and Japan,
was ordered to terminate its tributary relations with the Chinese empire
and was formally (and unilaterally) absorbed into the Japanese sovereign
state. The Meiji government also sought to establish diplomatic relations
with Korea on the basis of sovereign equality.
The third way the Meiji government sought to demonstrate its ‘civilized’
identity was by ‘teaching’ its ‘semi-civilized’ Asian neighbours the trappings
of ‘civilization’. In the context of late nineteenth-century European interna-
tional society, the civilized great powers were understood to possess the
right – even the duty – to introduce the trappings of European civilization
and guide ‘savages’ to happiness, and this constituted an important
component of their ‘civilized’ identity. That the Japanese understood this
dynamic can be seen from a passage in Takekoshi Yosaburō’s English-
language book (clearly intended for a Western audience) published in
1907, four years before Japan finally rid itself of the ‘unequal treaties’ that
symbolized its ‘semi-civilized’ status.2 Here Takekoshi explicitly links
Western identity with a responsibility to introduce the trappings of ‘civi-
lization’ across the world, and announced Japan’s willingness to do the
same, effectively declaring that Japan was now ready to have bestowed upon
it ‘civilized’ identity on par with the Europeans. Takekoshi (1996: vii)
states:
Western nations have long believed that on their shoulders alone rested the
responsibility of colonizing the yet unopened portions of civilisation; but now we
Japanese, rising from the ocean in the extreme Orient, wish as a nation to take part
in this great and glorious work.
One representative example of Japan’s early attempts to demonstrate its
ability to introduce the trappings of ‘civilization’ was its 1874 invasion of
Taiwan to ‘punish’ the island’s ‘savage’ aborigines for murdering Ryūkyū
fishermen, who were now ‘Japanese’ citizens. Interestingly, Yanagiwara
Sakimitsu and Tei Einei, two Japanese diplomats involved in the policy-
making of the Taiwan expedition, claimed that Japan’s expedition was not
just a punitive expedition, but also about introducing ‘civilization’ into
Taiwan. They suggested that Japanese consuls should be sent to the
island, where they ‘were to undertake “public education” by telling the
Chinese in these places [about] the sincere desire of Japan to open up the
aboriginal territory and civilize the tribes’ (Yen 1965: 202). The Japanese
2
However, it is worth noting that extra-territoriality and consular jurisdiction, which were
arguably the more humiliating aspects of the unequal treaties, were abolished earlier, in 1899.
58 Shogo Suzuki
commercial press repeated this theme. Woodblock prints published

around this time also depicted Japanese soldiers in Western clothing,
emphasizing their closeness to modernity, while the Taiwanese aborigines
were shown to be wearing rags befitting their wild and ‘savage’ nature.
Furthermore, the aborigines were frequently accused of engaging in can-
nibalism, even though there was no evidence of this practice.
‘Exaggerating the savagery of the aborigines . . . had the effect’, Robert
Eskildsen (2002: 399) notes,
of evacuating the middle ground between civilization and savagery – semi-
civilized status – that many Westerners believed Japan occupied at the time,
so the exaggeration did more than simply foreclose the possibility of solidarity
with the aborigines, it also implicitly challenged the Western view of Japan as
semi-civilized.
There were thus few opportunities for any regional, ‘Asian’ international
society to emerge and take the place of the East Asian international society
in the aftermath of Japan’s imperialist spree that was aimed at ‘escaping
Europe’. Elements of shared culture persisted – Chinese, Japanese and
Koreans of learning could communicate with each other using written
Chinese, for example – but in the realm of international relations the
Japanese made sure that there would be very little scope for solidarity
with a ‘semi-civilized’ Asia on the basis of a shared culture. In their
interactions with their Chinese counterparts, Japanese statesmen and
diplomats made sure to use Western terminology and international law.
It is telling that, during his negotiations over the status of Korea with Qing
stateman Li Hongzhang (李鴻章), Itō Hirobumi (伊藤博文) spoke in
English, and did not use Chinese characters for explaining the terms
‘independence (自主, jishu or zizhu)’ or ‘sovereignty (主権, shuken or
zhuquan)’. This served to bolster the authority of his own arguments
and demonstrate ‘the Japanese government’s desire to transform how
power was defined in Asia’ (Dudden 1998: 51). It was also a telling
demonstration of just how far Japan had cut itself off from ‘Asia’.
The return to Asia? Pan-Asianism and an alternative

international society
It would, however, be erroneous to assume that Japan’s quest for and
eventual attainment of ‘civilized’ status meant that the long shadow of
Asia would somehow vanish from the scene. Ironically, one of Japan’s
earlier ‘crises of identity’ came shortly after its success in becoming a
‘civilized’ state as dictated by European international society. Japan
had defeated Qing China in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894–5 and gained
its first colony, Taiwan, a move which further signalled its ‘departure’
from ‘Asia’. Victory over a European great power, Russia, followed in
the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War, and this in turn played a significant
role in shattering the myth of the inherent superiority of the Europeans
and the white race, particularly among the colonized peoples. The
Japanese succeeded in gaining full equality with the West and abolishing
the unequal treaties by 1911, and became the first ever non-Western
member of the ‘family of nations’.
Yet, insecurities about and suspicions of European international soci-
ety remained close to the surface. At this point, we may recall that ‘Asia’
was imagined not only as a geographical space, but also a civilizational
and racial space by the Europeans, who thanks to their hegemonic
position within European international society still maintained ‘The
power to name and shape the identity and boundaries of a region’
(Hurrell 2007a: 243). The ‘standard of civilization’ constituted a ‘check-
list’ which – despite its inherent subjectivities – did at least in theory
allow a non-European state to attain ‘civilized’ status once it had ‘ticked
the right boxes’. But what would become of race? Unlike a state’s
‘civilization’, it was impossible to change a country’s racial/ethnic
makeup, and this effectively implied that non-European states were
doomed to languish in their ‘uncivilized’ status and be denied the
sovereign equality that European states enjoyed among one another.
This point was not lost on many Asians, particularly the Japanese who
had invested considerable effort into becoming the first ‘civilized’ Asian
state within European international society. This, argues Cemil Aydin
(2007: 8) with reference to pan-Asian and pan-Islamic thought,
led to a crucial contradiction in the legitimacy of the Eurocentric world order: the
universalist tones of the Enlightenment image of the West . . . contradicted
the exclusion of the Muslim world and Asia from the liberal promises of the
Enlightenment in the ideologies of the permanent racial and civilizational superi-
ority of the West over Muslims and ‘yellow race’ Asians.
Japanese sensitivities about the delicate issue of race were only heightened
in 1895, when Kaiser Wilhelm II coined the phrase ‘yellow peril’, indicat-
ing his (and indeed many Europeans’) fears that the growing power of
Asia would overwhelm Europe, and needed to be kept under European
submission.
Japanese responses to such European racism were mixed, even though
they were united in their anger and frustration that ‘equality’ with the
European states seemed like a moving target. Some of the more out-
landish ideas included calls for the Japanese to interbreed with ‘superior’
races. Others, like the intellectual Taguchi Ukichi (田口卯吉), chose to
60 Shogo Suzuki
strengthen Japan’s claims to superiority in Asia drawing on racist thought

that appears to have been imported from the West. Taguchi claimed that
the Japanese language could trace its origins to Aryan languages, and
therefore Japanese ancestry could be traced back to the Caucasian race.
This made the Japanese inherently ‘civilized’ and racially equal to the
West, Taguchi claimed, as they were different from the Chinese and
the Russians, who traced their ancestry to the Mongoloid Tatars
(Sakai 2009: 22–41), which made them members of the ‘inferior’
‘coloured’ races. Here, we can see that in Taguchi’s mind ‘Asia’ was still
seen as an undesirable entity, and he was thus at pains to redraw – however
futile the intellectual exercise may ultimately have been – racial bounda-
ries between Japan and ‘yellow’ Asia.
The biggest irony of the ‘yellow peril’ discourse, however, was that, rather
than unite Europe under the common identity of race against Asia, it
‘reminded Asian people of the powerful racism within certain parts of
Europe, and ignited their sense of themselves as yellow people, which
heretofore had not been particularly prominent’ (Yamamuro 2001: 67).
The realization that Japan could never ‘escape’ Asia and achieve equality
with the core members of European international society inspired many
Japanese to invoke a common racial and cultural identity and reconstruct
the region of ‘Asia’, and call for the unity of Asians to resist the domination
of the white Europeans. For instance, the pan-Asianist activist Sone
Toshitora (曾根俊虎) established an organization named the Kōa kai
(興亜会, Raise Asia Society), which ‘was highly successful in attracting
members of the reformist groups in China and Korea and . . . the diffusion
of the idea of Asian solidarity against Western imperialism or the Russian
threat’ (Aydin 2007: 45). Sone impressed upon Chinese Minister to Japan
He Ruzhang (何如璋) that ‘Your country and my country use the same
writing and are of the same race [同文同種, dōbun dōshu], and our fate is
inseparable. Surely we should deepen our co-operation and reinvigorate
Asia’ (cited in Yamamuro 2001: 587).
It is worth pointing out that such sentiments were shared by a wide range
of Asian intellectuals, and cannot be dismissed as the diatribes of a handful
of extremist Japanese nationalists. As Marius B. Jansen notes, many
Chinese and Korean reformists ‘were united on the issue of an Asia free
from the humiliating symbols of Western imperialism’, and that ‘This
common hatred of treaty ports, extraterritoriality, and arbitrarily fixed
customs constituted a bond of considerable strength’ (Jansen 1954: 33).
Pan-Asianist ideals were articulated in Korea, even though such arguments
existed in tension with a profound ambivalence towards an increasingly
aggressive Japan, which eventually annexed Korea outright in 1910. Korean
pan-Asianist editorials claimed ‘that the 400 million people of China, the
20 million people of Korea, and the 40 million people of Japan were of the
“same continent, same race and same culture [tongju tongjong tongmun]”’,
and that ‘the yellow race must avoid becoming the fodder for the all-
consuming advances of the white race’ (Schmid 2002: 88). Sun Yat-sen
(孫逸仙), widely regarded as the father of the 1911 Chinese revolution,
enjoyed close relations with Japanese pan-Asianists, who often acted as his
patrons. Sun even collaborated with the latter in attempting to support the
quest for Philippine independence, supplying Emilio Aguinaldo (the first
president of the Philippines) with aid (Jansen 1954: 68–74).
Pan-Asianism after the First World War

Yet, Japan’s pre-First World War engagement with pan-Asianism
remained relatively marginal, as individuals who espoused this ideology
‘were usually considered “romantic”, in that their views were unsuited to
the world of “real politics”, i.e., imperialist Realpolitik’. If anything, pan-
Asianism ‘was popular among the political opposition to the Meiji oli-
garchy, and was exploited to criticize the government’s foreign policy as
well as . . . undue Westernization’ (Saaler 2007: 1263).
If the Meiji period (1868–1912) was generally a period when Japan
actively abandoned Asia and sought to integrate itself fully with
European international society, the inter-war period can be considered
a point when another crisis in the legitimacy of the society emerged. One
of the primary reasons for this was the continuing legacy of racial dis-
crimination, which continued to demarcate ‘Asia’ as ‘different’ from and
‘unequal’ to the West, and served (just like the ‘yellow peril’ thesis) to
reignite Asian regionalism. It is of course important to acknowledge that
some important normative shifts took place in international society after
the First World War, when Wilsonian beliefs of national self-
determination (although limited to Europe) and the establishment of
the League of Nations contributed to the ‘democratization of interna-
tional society’, and partly delegitimized imperial expansion (though
decolonization would have to wait until the end of the Second World
War). The League’s principle of collective security ‘also presupposed
involvement of all political communities in a global structure of war and
peace’. This ‘amounted to the first formal recognition by all states of an
international community transcending not only nation-state but also
the European society of states’ (Y. Zhang 1991: 12). China was one of
the beneficiaries of this intellectual shift, and – as argued by Yongjin
Zhang (1991) – was admitted to the ‘family of nations’. The notion of
equality between states, and by extension nations and peoples, also
gained greater traction during this time (Clark 2007: 83–106).
62 Shogo Suzuki
However, racial prejudice itself did not disappear overnight. The

Japanese government suffered a major setback when their demands for a
clause on racial equality to be inserted in the Covenant of the League of
Nations was defeated in the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference. Japan’s
demands for this were ‘aimed mainly at the European great powers by
claiming that she could never completely feel equal unless the League
professed racial equality as one of its fundamental principles’ (Shimazu
1989: 94). The ultimate rejection of Japan’s proposal strengthened views of
the fundamentally unequal nature of international society, which still
appeared to be a ‘European’ international society, despite the democratiza-
tion that had taken place. Such views were certainly not without justifica-
tion, as opposition to the clause stemmed from a fear of increased Japanese
immigration (from the United States and Australia), as well as concerns
that European colonial interests would suffer from an increase in demands
for decolonization (ibid.: 98–9). Japan’s insecurities were deepened after the
United States passed the 1924 Immigration Act, which banned Japanese
migration. The Japanese reacted to this event with a sense of humiliation,
since this entailed ‘the necessary implication that, despite Japan’s civilized
status and proven record of Westernization, Japanese people would con-
tinue to face discrimination on the basis of their identification with the
yellow race and Eastern culture’ (Aydin 2007: 151).
It is often said that this sense of rejection contributed to Japan’s ultimate
decision ‘to construct coercively imposed regional orders’ alongside
Germany (Hurrell 2007a: 240). However, the reality is not as clear cut.
The rejection of the racial equality clause did not immediately result in a
crisis of legitimacy for European international society. In spite of its bitter
disappointment, the Japanese government continued its pro-Western
policies throughout the 1920s, and remained ambivalent towards the
pan-Asian movements. In the context of the 1920s, pan-Asianism risked
incurring the suspicion of the European powers (who had colonial inter-
ests in the region) and the newly emerging hegemon, the United States, as
it necessarily aimed at excluding white people from Asia. Relations with
the latter were already strained enough because of widespread anger
towards its immigration policies. While the Japanese leaders felt consid-
erable antipathy towards Western racism, it was felt to be in Japan’s best
interests to follow the internationalist road of sustained dialogue, rather
than antagonize the Western powers by trying to undermine their interests
in Asia. Therefore, if the pan-Asianists were hoping for governmental
assistance for their cause, they were likely to be disappointed. Pan-Asian
activism was frequently suppressed, with authorities frequently denying
non-Japanese activists entry into Japan or deporting them in accordance
with European governmental requests.
Nevertheless (and in spite of limited governmental endorsement), the

intellectual thread of pan-Asianism stubbornly remained, even among non-
Japanese Asians who were often on the receiving end of both European and
Japanese imperialism. Sun Yat-sen, despite his dismay about Japanese
encroachment and aggression, remained convinced that neither the
Japanese nor the Chinese ‘could . . . repose ultimate trust in the whites’
(Jansen 1954: 209). This, argues Jansen (ibid.: 212), demonstrates that the
‘ideas and ideals of Asiatic coöperation were more than the contrivance of
Japanese imagination. They represented a reasonable and probable solution
to a very present problem [of European imperialism] and they were aban-
doned only gradually and reluctantly.’ Thus, in a famous speech made in
Japan in 1924, nine years after Tokyo had presented the infamous Twenty-
One Demands to China (対華二十一ヶ条要求, taika nijūikkajō yōkyū)
designed to expand Japanese economic and political interests on Chinese
soil, Sun continued to claim a shared Asian civilization based on benevo-
lence and ethical conduct (Sun 1986: 405). China and Japan, as the largest
states of East Asia, were the ‘energy source’ of the movement to attain
independence from the European powers, and needed to unite (ibid.: 404).3
Meanwhile, pan-Asianist political societies also mushroomed in Japan,
frequently garnering financial support from political circles and the
Japanese financial elite. At times, these organizations also served ‘as a
link between intellectual discourse and politics’ (Saaler 2002: 20). These
developments point to the strong and deep-seated sense of dissatisfaction
that many Japanese held towards the European-dominated international
order because of its lingering prejudice about non-whites. Pan-Asianists
saw the League of Nations as nothing but a tool to perpetuate ‘Anglo-
American strategic and economic interests and affirming white suprem-
acy in the world’ (Aydin 2007: 142; see also Ōkawa 1922: 22; Suetsugu
1940: 3), and renewed the call for the unity of all Asians to oppose
European/white dominance. Japanese parliamentarian Imai Yoshiyuki
(今井嘉幸), for instance, claimed that ‘the essence of Greater Asianism
is the uniting of China and Japan to prepare for the coming racial war, and
prepare for an attack by the whites’ (cited in Yamamuro 2001: 76). Many
Japanese envisaged a coming ‘clash of races’, and such views (coupled
with Japan’s growing anxieties about the rise of the United States) were
surprisingly widespread within inter-war Japanese society (ibid.: 76).
3
It should be noted, however, that Sun’s speech was made in Kobe to a Japanese audience,
and could have taken place in the context of his seeking Japanese support for his Nationalist
Party and its revolutionary goals. Therefore, while his belief in the potential for Sino-
Japanese unity may have been genuine, the possibility of exaggeration needs to be taken
into account here.
64 Shogo Suzuki
The idea of an East Asian international society?

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
Such views gained increased traction as Japan’s confrontation with the
West deepened in the 1930s, following its invasion of China. Fearful of
an Anglo-American conspiracy that threatened to deprive Japan of its
Lebensraum, pan-Asianists now stated that the only way for Japan and the
rest of the oppressed non-European peoples to overthrow the status quo
that favoured the West – or, more specifically, Britain and the United
States – was to construct an alternative international order (Takei 1940).
Pan-Asianism shared much with post-colonial discourses that we see
today: its proponents decried the power inequalities within international
society and the numerous institutions that allegedly served to perpetuate
them; they criticized the European powers for their racism, colonialism
and economic exploitation of the non-European peoples. Many of the
calls for Asian unity during the inter-war period were supported by
rhetorical resistance to Western hegemony, and there was certainly
considerable support for this. Japan’s disillusionment with the post-
First World War international order was shared by other nations and
peoples, given that ‘overwhelmingly enthusiastic responses [to Japan’s
plea for racial equality] came not from the West but from the Afro-Asian
world’ (Clark 2007: 96; Shimazu 1989: 94).
If this alternative, pan-Asian regional order had come to fruition, what
form would it have taken? Like all discourses, there were many strands to
pan-Asianism, and it is extremely difficult to paint a general picture. If we
take Ian Clark’s argument that international society is ‘legitimist’ and
consists of the two core norms of legitimate membership and conduct as
an indicator (Clark 2005), ‘legitimate membership’ appears to have been
imagined on the basis of a curious mixture of racial and cultural lines.
Kodera Kenkichi (小寺謙吉), who wrote the influential Treatise on Greater
Asianism (大亜細亜主義論, Dai ajia shugi ron) suggested that China and
Japan were both members of ‘greater Asia’ because they ‘both belong to
the yellow race . . . and share Mongol ethnicity’ (Saaler 2007: 1274–5).
Zhou Huaren (周化人) (1941a: 19–21), a key member of the Wang
Jingwei puppet regime in Nanjing, invoked the concept of ‘same writing
system, same race [同文同種, dōbun dōshu/tongwen tongzhong]’, a theme
that would appear repeatedly among many pan-Asianists. However, as
Japan began to envisage a pressing need for natural resources in Southeast
Asia, the boundaries of ‘Greater East Asia’ ‘were shaped opportunistically
in accordance with the expansion of Japan’s invasion of Asia’ (Matsui
2004: 4; see also Koschmann 1997: 85). Hence, the concept of culture
expanded from a broadly Chinese culture to ‘Oriental’ (東洋的, tōyō teki),

as noted by pan-Asianist Pio S. Duran (1936: 37) from the Philippines.
Ideas about ‘legitimate conduct’ remained somewhat opaque as well. The
pan-Asianists agreed to commit to racial equality and oppose white colo-
nialism (Ayakawa 1935; H. Zhou 1941b: 23). However, there was no
consensus regarding what these norms were based on. Some pan-
Asianists argued that the guiding principle for inter-state conduct should
be based on the Confucian concept of the ‘kingly way (王道, ōdō/wangdao)’
(Satō 1940: 14; H. Zhou 1941a: 18–19). European international society was
juxtaposed with Asia as an order based on the ‘hegemonic path [覇道, hadō/
badao]’ and dichotomous relations between ruler and ruled.4 Struggles and
instability were common in the West. In contrast, the culture of the ‘kingly
way’ in Asia meant that order was based on benevolent hierarchy, where the
interests of ruler and rule were harmonized as one (Satō 1940: 14). This was
represented by the key pan-Asian slogan of hakkō ichiu (八紘一宇), which
was meant to depict the world as an entire family, united under one roof
(Arima 2006: 259). Others put forward ideas influenced by developments in
the West rather than Asian/Chinese philosophy, again pointing to the
inherent contradictions and complexities within pan-Asianist debates and
policies. As noted by Hatano Sumio (1995: 42), in a discussion on the
drafting of the ‘Greater East Asia Joint Declaration’ (大東亜共同宣言,
Daitōa kyōdō sengen), the communiqué for the 1943 Greater East Asia
Conference (大東亜会議, Daitōa kaigi), Japanese diplomats pointed out
that ‘if we are to give Britain and America the impression that we are
doing good in Greater East Asia and induce their cooperation’, they
would have ‘no choice but to refer to the Atlantic Charter, which specified
the Allies’ raison d’être for going to war’. The result was that the Greater East
Asia Joint Declaration shared some remarkable similarities with the
Atlantic Charter, promising to respect state sovereignty (大東亞各國
ハ相互ニ自主獨立ヲ尊重シ), racial equality and the opening up of
5
resources (大東亞各國ハ・・・人種的差別ヲ撤廢シ・・・進ンデ資
源ヲ開放シ以テ世界ノ進運ニ貢獻ス).
If there was another norm of ‘legitimate conduct’ that was never in doubt
in the minds of the Japanese pan-Asianists, it was the acceptance of the
leadership of Japan (Matsui 2004: 9). Yabe Teiji (矢部貞治), a political
scientist who participated as a member of the Naval Policy Research group,
4
It is worth noting that such views were also voiced by Sun Yat-sen (1986: 407), who
claimed that ‘Eastern culture is based on the kingly path, the West on the hegemonic path.
The former advocates benevolence and ethics, the latter skill and power.’
5
We should, however, note that the Atlantic Charter envisaged self-determination primarily
within Europe, and Winston Churchill himself had no intention of granting independence
to some British colonies, notably India.
66 Shogo Suzuki
attempted to devise a definition of this leadership, and stated that the new
‘Asian’ order was a sphere which ‘sought coexistence under organic
relations among nations’. This again gives the impression of ‘harmonized’
relations. Under this order, Japan’s leadership was defined as ‘not hegem-
ony, but an entity which mediates between nations while supervising; and it
is here where the ethics and morality [of this form of leadership] lie’ (cited in
Arima 2006: 259). Relations beween states were defined as ‘neither direct
rule, colonial, federal, a commonwealth, alliance, nor a union, but “a new
form of union which transcends all of these”’ (ibid.: 259).
Such firm beliefs in Japanese leadership were espoused both by tradi-
tionalists and by those influenced by Western philosophical traditions.
Satō Tasuku (佐藤佐), for instance, argued that it was in Japan where the
‘kingly way’ really blossomed, thus implying that Japan represented the
essence and highest form of ‘Asian’ culture. Since the ‘kingly way’ implied
hierarchical relations, it was only natural that the most ‘cultured’ should
take on the responsibility of governing paternalistically over the rest –
albeit benevolently. Here, we can see strong influences of Confucianism
and, while the analogy should not be stretched too far, Satō’s vision
almost seems to envisage a modern version of the ‘tribute system’ (com-
bined with Japanese notions of paternalistic familial relations) that was the
hallmark of East Asian international society until the nineteenth century
(Matsui 2004: 5–6). One could, however, reach similar conclusions draw-
ing on Western schools of thought. As Victor Koschmann (1997: 96–7)
notes, the writings of scholars such as Miki Kiyoshi (三木清) or Nishida
Kitarō (西田幾多郎) reveal influences of
the major European thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many of
whom are canonical figures in the genealogy of liberalism. Not only Hegel but
Kant and Locke, among others, insisted that true freedom entailed subjection to
law and other forms of authority; thus freedom could be construed to mean
obedience to the state, and at the transnational level, the voluntary subjection of
Asian nations to Japanese leadership.
The failure of Japan’s pan-Asian dream

Despite the growing international support for the norm of racial equality
within Asia, pan-Asianism again failed to take root, and subsequently
there was very little scope for the emergence of a ‘regional international
society’ characterized by alternative normative structures or institutions.
There are two reasons for this. First, and perhaps most importantly,
Japan’s own imperial aggression in Asia meant that it never had the
moral authority to be able to play a leading role within its imagined
Asian international order, let alone construct one successfully.
The second factor that led to the undermining of Japan’s capacity to

play a hegemonic role in Asia was the rise of nationalism. While Wilsonian
thought did not result in the immediate decolonization of Asia, one of its
enduring legacies was its awakening of the nationalism among many
colonized Asian peoples, including the Chinese and Koreans. The rising
tide of nationalism highlighted Japan’s own imperialism and ‘revealed the
latent imperial logic of Japanese pan-Asianists’ (Aydin 2007: 143). What
many Japanese pan-Asianists failed to recognize was that as a result of its
aggressive imperialist expansion in the region, Japan itself had become
somewhat of a Janus-faced entity: its seeming success in achieving parity
with the European powers had gained it a significant degree of admiration
and respect in the eyes of many Asian peoples. Yet, at the same time, Japan
had achieved this status by invading and colonizing other Asian states, and
demonstrating its ability to act as a ‘civilizer’, and was simultaneously an
object of intense hatred. Wang Tao (王韜), who had dealings with
Japanese pan-Asianists, demonstrated this point aptly when he voiced
his scepticism about the Rise Asia Society (Kōa kai). Wang’s point was
that Japanese diplomacy in Taiwan and Ryūkyū did not leave much space
for trust of the Japanese. While deepening ‘shared culture’ such as
Chinese writing ‘sounded beautiful’, Wang felt it could also aid Japan in
their ‘espionage activities and help it seize their neighbours’ territory’
(Yamamuro 2001: 587).
The Japanese pan-Asianists did themselves no favours, as they thought
nothing of subjugating the rest of ‘Asia’ for the sake of ‘Asian unity’ to
resist the white/European states. They remained blind to the contradic-
tion in their calls to resist racial discrimination and the imperialist dom-
ination of Europe, while blithely ignoring Japan’s own colonization of
Korea and Taiwan and refusal to grant them any form of independence.
Consequently, they used the logic of racial and cultural unity to advocate
the absorption of Korea (ibid.: 72–3), and in this sense the slogan of Asian
unity simply became a goal to justify Japan’s aggression, and commanded
little resonance among those who came under Japan’s often brutal colo-
nial rule (Beasley 1987: 243–5). However, this contradiction was not lost
on some members of the political elite. Many found pan-Asian proclama-
tions on the political order of the proposed East Asian international
order – or, ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ (大東亜共栄圏,
Daitōa kyōei ken), as it was called – confusing. Arima Manabu reports
that, during the Naval Policy Research committee meeting in 1941,
participants voiced their concerns that ‘it is not clear what the principles
and slogans of the term hakkō ichiu are. Neither is it clear what this slogan
is intended to achieve’; or even more damagingly: ‘I should like to know
what exactly the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere means. I’ve
68 Shogo Suzuki
tried reading about it, but it is so full of contradictions, that I cannot grasp
the meaning of this concept’ (cited in Arima 2006: 254).
Of course, as discussed above, the Japanese did attempt to come up with
some form of coherent explanation of this alternative Asian international
order, but the logical difficulty of taking for granted that ‘colonialism had
lost its legitimacy [since the First World War], while [simultaneously]
denying the alternative ideology of national self-determination’, meant
that they never succeeded (ibid.: 260). The seemingly desperate, yet
vague explanation that Japan’s role transcended ‘direct rule, colonial,
federal, a commonwealth, alliance, [and a] union’ remained unconvincing,
but (crucially) demonstrated ‘how the norms which denied [the legitimacy
of] imperial international order operated as a powerful constraining factor’
in the minds of Japanese intellectuals around this time. Part of this is of
course due to ‘rhetorical entrapment’ on the part of the Japanese
pan-Asianists, as they were the loudest critics of white racism and colonial
rule. Yet, given that imperial rule began to lose its legitimacy within
European international society after Woodrow Wilson’s announcement
of his famous Fourteen Points, we can see that even these ardently
anti-Western pan-Asianists were at pains to demonstrate to the rest of the
world that they were not imperialists: in this sense, it is arguable that they
were never able to throw off entirely the normative strictures of European
international society.
Finally, if the Europeans were guilty of demarcating and excluding Asia
from the ‘civilized’ world on racial grounds, the Japanese were just as guilty
of reproducing these boundaries themselves, and this cast doubt over
whether or not the Japanese (or, perhaps more accurately, the Japanese
government) were sincere in their pan-Asian sympathies. Even before the
First World War, the Meiji leadership, who had first-hand experience of
dealing with the Western governments and their ‘gunboat diplomacy’,
voiced their doubts over whether or not pan-Asian thought really would
serve Japanese national interests. Jumping on the pan-Asian bandwagon
and excluding the European powers from the region (which, given their
ambivalence towards the West, they may have secretly been sympathetic to)
would be antagonistic, and did not seem to serve Japan’s national interests
(see also Conroy 1960). Furthermore, they saw no a priori reason for Japan
to unite with ‘Asia’ just because they were geographically and racially
defined to belong to this region. Ōkuma Shigenobu (cited in Yamamuro
2001: 68), for instance, noted his scepticism towards the entire enterprise of
pan-Asian unity based on racial lines when he noted:
Why should yellow races unite with one another and protect their old ways of life?
What we should be doing is learn the good points of the white races and their
weapons, overwhelm other races, and become winners. Why do some Japanese
insist that we necessarily have to ally ourselves with the Chinese? If the same races
need to unite, we would need to investigate the origins of the Japanese race, and
make sure we are not of the same origin as the Malay races. We would then also
need to make sure we share the same origins as the Chinese.
To Ōkuma, a racially defined Asia was simply not something that Japan
could or should identify with, given its peoples’ ‘backward’ and ‘uncivilized’
ways of life. Like many of the Meiji leaders of their generation, Ōkuma was
no uncritical Westernizer, yet in his thinking we can still see evidence of the
powerful influence of civilizational imaginings of ‘Asia’, as well as the
continuing desire to see that Japan was not bogged down in this region.
Even after Japan’s entry into the ‘family of nations’, Japan continued to
construct an ‘uncivilized’ Asian ‘other’ to ensure that it retained its status
as a civilized power – which was understandable considering the strong
racial prejudice among many Europeans during this time. Aboriginals
were subjected to anthropological studies that aimed at understanding
their culture, but also helped demonstrate to the world that Japan was
doing its utmost to understand the ‘savages’ and improve their colonial
administration that would ultimately fulfil the ‘noble’ mission of guiding
the non-civilized peoples towards happiness.
Consequently, many Asians, some of whom had pan-Asian sympathies,
found it impossible to accept Japanese calls for ‘Asian unity’, and pre-
ferred to embrace the inherently European concept of nationalism rather
than Japan’s own brand of Asian unity. Sun Yat-sen, whose version of
pan-Asianism embraced not only East and Southeast Asia but all
oppressed peoples, expressed his scepticism of Japanese pan-Asianism
when he stated: ‘If Japan sincerely hopes to maintain friendship with
China, it should help China [to] abolish the unequal treaties. It should
allow China to be its own master once more, and allow the Chinese to
become free’ (cited ibid.: 591). The Japanese geographer Shiga Shigetaka
(志賀重昂) also demonstrated his keen awareness of these sentiments.
While he appears to have been sympathetic to the cause of pan-Asianism
and the idea of Sino-Japanese co-operation, he noted:
Many of those who advocate the unity of Asia today are actually those who, until
just a couple of years ago, bullied or called for the bullying of the Chinese by using
highly militaristic, coercive means. The fact that these very people – who seem to
have blithely forgotten their own past actions – are reacting to anti-Japanese
sentiment and calling for China and Japan to unite strikes me not only as highly
devious, but also the height of naivety. (cited ibid.: 624)
Such sensitivity to Asian nationalism and ambivalence towards Japan’s

own ‘civilized, imperialist’ status were relatively rare, however. In the end,
70 Shogo Suzuki
Japanese pan-Asianism was unable to solve this contradiction of demand-

ing Asian submission to Japanese leadership while simultaneously calling
for the liberation of colonized peoples. The heyday of its pan-Asianism
came during the Asia-Pacific War of 1931–45, when it justified its military
actions in terms of a desire to sweep out European imperial rule from the
Asia-Pacific. However, even during this time, Japan’s rhetoric rang hol-
low. Publications which trumpeted ‘Asian support’ for Japan’s ‘noble’
cause came from ‘the same small group of exiled nationalists in Japan . . .
Japanese readers received the impression that Asian nationalists eagerly
looked to Japan for leadership’ (Aydin 2007: 178). Japan thus remained an
‘emperor with no clothes’, until its narcissistic ‘pan-Asian’ dreams were
shattered in 1945.
Conclusion
Barry Buzan (2009: 28–9) has depicted the coexistence of global interna-
tional society and regional international societies by using the metaphor of
fried eggs. The implication here is that there are clusters of regional
groupings (the ‘yolks’) that share a set of ‘thicker’ regional norms nesting
within a set of ‘thinner’ norms (the egg whites) that aim for a minimum
degree of coexistence between sovereign states. How that ‘yolk’ is/was
formed is of course a matter of debate, with no clear-cut answer. As
mentioned above, Wight was convinced that a shared culture was crucial
for any international society to emerge, and it is interesting to see that the
allusion to a shared culture was frequently made by many pan-Asianists
from Japan, Korea or China. Wight’s argument would lead us to expect
numerous opportunities and considerable scope for these regional ‘yolks’
to emerge, and observe a degree of stronger identification with a unique
set of norms and institutions within the region.
In the case of East Asia’s experience from the late nineteenth century,
however, it is extremely difficult to prove that this was the case. While
there did exist a regional international society based on shared norms
derived from Confucianism and expressed in the form of tributary diplo-
macy/trade, this (as we have seen) was destroyed by the Europeans in the
late nineteenth century as well as by Japanese imperialism. Given their
military might and ability to decide on the constitutive norms of interna-
tional society, the European powers were in a position to define Asia as an
undesirable political space that represented ‘semi-civilized’ status (a fact
that underscores the point that the ability to demarcate and define a
‘region’ denotes the possession of political power). In the context of the
late nineteenth century, ‘Asia’ represented a geo-political space to which
many Asian states and peoples did not wish to belong. As Aydin (2007: 4)
has noted with reference to the history of Japan’s engagement with Asia,
‘Asia became a powerful cultural-geographical representation in relation
to which the character and mission of the Japanese nation was defined and
re-defined.’
However, it would be premature to suggest that dissatisfaction with
European domination and the desire for an alternative, Asian interna-
tional order free from the yoke of the West disappeared alongside China’s
or Japan’s socialization into European international society. As Andrew
Hurrell (1994: 50) has observed, regional awareness can emerge in a
reactive manner, ‘as an attempt to restrict the free exercise of hegemonic
power through the creation of regional institutions’, and such dynamics
certainly did exist in the form of pan-Asianism. It is for this reason that
calls for Asian unity, while most frequently heard in Japan, were often
made in both China and Korea. Furthermore, many of them were willing
to allow Japan, as the most ‘modernized’ Asian power that had defeated a
‘white’ European power (Russia), to play a leading role in the revival of
Asia and the overthrowing of Western imperialism (Jansen 1954: 213;
Schmid 2002: 101–38). Yet, Japan’s own imperialism and oppression of
its fellow Asians ultimately bankrupted pan-Asianism, and resulted in
East Asian states choosing Westphalian sovereign equality, rather than a
hierarchical ‘Asian’ regional order under Japanese tutelage. In his essay
‘The Revolt Against the West’, Hedley Bull (1984) astutely observed the
irony that many post-colonial states had to demand their independence
from the West by invoking the inherently Western concept of sovereignty.
This points to the potential possibility that non-European states and
peoples are under some form of ‘Gramscian hegemony’, and unable to
make meaningful contributions to the normative structures of interna-
tional society today, given their seemingly eager adoption of the
Westphalian sovereign state. However, the case of East Asia may tell a
different story. While it is certainly true that all Asian states chose to assert
their independence and overthrow European colonialism in the region by
invoking European norms, this had much to do with the fact that they had
made an active choice: they would rather come under the normative
structures of the European international society and choose the equally
European ideology of nationalism.
The legacy of this has been a perhaps curious continuity, where
Western domination in East Asia is still accepted, albeit with a profound
sense of reluctance and ambivalence. The region remains under
American hegemony, and this appears to be broadly welcomed as more
desirable than a regional order under a fellow Asian state. Japan’s more
recent claims to regional leadership have been met with fears from China
and Korea, where memories of Japanese brutalities remain strong. When
72 Shogo Suzuki
Japan attempted to float the idea of an Asian Monetary Fund in 1997, the
United States was quick to squash the idea that could lead to an alternative
organization that might have diluted American influence in global finan-
cial governance (Lee 2006). Interestingly, Washington is reported to have
‘lobbied China to oppose the plan by emphasizing the threat of “Japanese
hegemony”’ (Lipscy 2003: 96). Japan has since experienced relative
decline, and the twenty-first century is seen as the era of China’s rise.
Disquiet about Chinese hegemony remains strong, however, and this
results in continuous attempts to keep the United States as a key security
provider in the region, thus making the emergence of an ‘East Asian’
international society an even more distant prospect (Goh 2007/8). To
be sure, nationalist/regionalist dissatisfaction with the United States (or,
more broadly, ‘the West’) does emerge from time to time, particularly
when Asian states perceive their autonomy to be limited. Yet, there is
simply no consensus on how Asia/East Asia as a region could be recon-
structed without American hegemony. Is it a region defined by undemo-
cratic rule and lack of attention paid to human rights? Is it alternatively an
economically dynamic region characterized by high living standards? Or is
it – as implied during the recent rows over who to invite to the East Asian
Summit – based on race? Unless a clearer picture emerges here, there can
be no particular gains to be made by making a conscious effort to identify
with an ‘East Asian international society’, if there ever was one.
It is of course important to avoid falling into the trap of historical
essentialism, and I do not wish to argue that there exists a ‘long shadow
of history’ that will continue to stunt the emergence of an East Asian
international society indefinitely. However, history has been known to
affect the international relations of East Asia, and it is still worth consid-
ering what influence the past will have on the emergence of a regional
international society (Christensen 1999; Jervis 1976; Suzuki 2007). While
Wight suggested that a common culture was crucial for the emergence of
an international society to emerge, the case of East Asia seems to show
that this cannot be taken for granted. What seems to be required is a
shared understanding of the past that can help overcome historical mis-
trust and facilitate reconciliation. Only then will we be able to see greater
scope for a genuinely ‘regional’ international society to emerge.
4 An East Asian international society today?
The cultural dimension
David C. Kang
Historical precedents may not be tremendously helpful . . . A century of

chaos and change, and the increased influence of the rest of the world
and in particular the United States, would lead one to conclude that a
Chinese-led regional system would not look like its historical predecessor.
Kang 2003: 67, 70
China’s ultimate intentions in the distant future are still unclear . . . if

China actually becomes the most powerful state in East Asia, it could
increasingly pressure and intimidate other states . . . The actions that
states take in the present will have an effect on what intentions and
identities develop. Kang 2007: 201–2
Is there a regional East Asian society today, built on a historical Confucian

worldview? Quite clearly: no. There is also absolutely no possibility of a
return to the tribute system of international relations that existed centuries
ago, and the links from past to present are neither direct nor obvious. On
the other hand, are East Asian states so completely Westernized that they
can be thought of as participating in a ‘shared culture [that] is a precondi-
tion for the formation of a society of states’ (Buzan 2010b: 1)? In other
words, a fundamental question lurks right below the surface of many
contemporary theories of international relations: are we all identical? Or
are we similar, but with some important differences? As Barry Buzan
points out, there are still strong tendencies within the field of international
relations to emphasize a ‘one-way view of cultural transmission from the
West to the rest of the world’ (ibid.: 2). In contrast, Buzan presents two
stylized accounts of how cultures may spread – a ‘vanguardist’ approach
that basically sees European and Western ideas and values spreading
slowly and without resistance to the rest of the world, and a ‘syncretist’
approach that puts more emphasis on the interplay, contestation and
selective adoption of different cultural values.
With regard to East Asia, however, in recent years a spirited debate has
broken out over whether in fact East Asia functions the same way as
European or Western theories might predict (Acharya 2007a; Acharya
73
74 David C. Kang
and Buzan 2010; Kang 2003). Although it is implicit in that debate, what
scholars have not yet centrally addressed is the question of whether
culture is a key factor. One way to probe this question is to ask whether
there is an East Asian culture today that is widespread enough that it might
be called a society of states.
History is central to this question. The question of whether history
affects the present leads to asking whether there is anything culturally
unique or distinctive about East Asia. That is, we might assume that all
people and states are essentially the same and, because of modernization,
globalization and industrialization, all East Asian states and peoples want,
perceive and act in essentially the same way as do Western states and
peoples. But we also might ask whether history, culture, language, religion
and context have any bearing on how East Asian leaders and peoples view
and interact with one another and the rest of the world. It might be that
distinctive cultures, memories, patterns or beliefs have an effect on con-
temporary East Asian international relations, and acknowledging this may
help our explanations and force us to consider whether we can truly
explain contemporary East Asia without reference to its own culture and
history.
This is especially pertinent because the traditional East Asian order was
replaced by the Western, Westphalian order in less than a century (Suzuki
2009). Despite wrenching and disruptive change, the ancient Asian states
adjusted quickly – and perhaps better – to the new order than did peoples
or governments anywhere else around the globe. Within decades, Japan
had succeeded in this new international order, and within a century
Korea, China, Taiwan and other East Asian states had also become
‘successful’ by most modern measures. Rapid industrialization, relatively
stable political systems and dynamic societies are all hallmarks of many
contemporary East Asian states. Given the profound changes that took
place, we might wonder whether anything of the old order remains. Of
particular interest is how China, the civilizational source of much of the
historical East Asian order, has adjusted and changed in this modern
Westphalian system. Given China’s past political, economic and cultural
centrality, and given how quickly the Chinese economy has come to once
again dominate the East Asian region, whether and how China manages
its contemporary international relations is of immense practical impor-
tance for regional stability and prosperity.
This chapter takes the syncretist approach identified by Buzan and makes
three points: first, Western, Westphalian values are normative around the
globe, and East Asia is no different in this regard. East Asian states accept
unquestioningly the basic rules of the international game, and not even
China offers an alternative approach to this. Second, although those
An East Asian international society today? 75
Westphalian norms and values have penetrated deeply into East Asian
societies and governments, they have not thoroughly erased other values
and norms, either. The two coexist, sometimes uncomfortably, and man-
ifest themselves in contemporary East Asian conflicts over history and
territory. Finally, there is almost no possibility that China can replace the
United States as regional or global hegemon based on competing cultural
values derived from East Asia. In short, there are signs that a distinctive
East Asian culture exists, although it is heavily influenced by and interacts
with Western culture, as well.
Vanguardist: the transition to Westphalia

Any simple notion of Confucian culture and values being the basis for a
regional society faces a difficult challenge when it becomes clear that all
states – although some, perhaps, only partially – accept the Westphalian
institutions and norms of international relations. No Asian state chal-
lenges the fundamental Westphalian notion that sovereignty and nation-
states are the foundation of international relations, and all states are
working within those ideas as they struggle to sort out their relations. A
vanguardist approach takes these changes at face value, leading to the
conclusion that East Asian nations today are essentially the same in their
outlooks and beliefs as are Western nations. This vanguardist approach is
particularly compelling, given that traditional East Asian relations were
fundamentally different from those in historical Europe. That East Asian
states accept and have learned Western ways of international relations
might appear, at first glance, to support a vanguardist view of the expan-
sion of ideas around the globe.
The historical East Asian international system had been a hierarchical
and hegemonic system with China as ‘civilization’, and one in which
relations between the units were governed by a particular set of rules,
norms and institutions that were quite different from the Western,
Westphalian system. The main manifestation of these values was the
tribute system. Built on a mix of legitimate authority and material
power, the tribute system provided a normative social order that also
contained credible commitments by China not to exploit secondary states
that accepted its authority. This order was explicit and formally unequal,
but informally equal: secondary states were not allowed to call themselves,
nor did they believe themselves to be equal with China, yet they had
substantial latitude in their actual behaviour. China stood at the top of
the hierarchy, and there was no intellectual challenge to the rules of the
game until the late nineteenth century and the arrival of the Western
powers (Kang 2010; Kelley 2005; K. Robinson 2000; Toby 2001).
76 David C. Kang
Korean, Vietnamese and even Japanese elites consciously copied Chinese

institutional and discursive practices in part to craft stable relations with
China, not to challenge it.
In contrast, the European Westphalian system emphasized formal
equality between states and balance-of-power politics, and was marked
by incessant inter-state conflict. Indeed, the arrival of the West and its
different norms and institutions of international relations presented these
East Asian countries with enormous challenges. Much of the old, hier-
archical tributary system of international relations was almost instantly
reinterpreted to be considered ‘backward’ or ‘despotic’, and East Asian
countries quickly learned the new norms of international relations. Along
with these new ways of conducting international relations, new ideas also
flooded into East Asia: Sun Yat-sen, a Chinese revolutionary, studied in
Hawaii and San Francisco and famously incorporated ideas from
Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton into his republican vision for
a modern China. The Vietnamese independence activist Ho Chi Minh
studied in France, and the Korean independence activist Dosan Ahn
Chang Ho lived in Los Angeles; both learned Western ideas about poli-
tics, equality and independence before returning home. Universities
based on the European model began to coexist with and then replace
the Confucian academies that had traditionally been the centres of edu-
cation and learning in East Asia. Tokyo University was founded in 1877,
combining traditional and Western education; Beijing University was
founded in 1898 during the ‘hundred days’ reform’, a movement that
attempted to introduce Western-style learning into China. In Korea,
US missionaries founded Ewha University in 1886 and Yonsei
University in 1885. The Philippines and Korea were also particularly
receptive to Christianity, and throughout East Asia Christianity rapidly
became a viable religious and social force.
In particular, Western norms of equality and sovereignty meant that
much of East Asian history needed to be reinterpreted and presented to
the West in ways that dignified and elevated East Asian countries to a
similar status as Western ones. One outgrowth of this particular Western
system of international relations is that equality is taken for granted, as a
normative goal and also as an underlying and enduring reality of interna-
tional politics. In this current system, all nation-states are considered
equal and are granted identical rights no matter how large the disparity
in wealth or size. In fact, the notion of equality is deeply woven into
modern thinking about domestic rights, international rights and individ-
ual ‘rights of man’, from French philosophers to the US Declaration of
Independence, which ‘holds these truths to be self-evident . . . that all men
are created equal’.
The modern view of nation-states as inherently equal was at odds with

the historical tribute system, which clearly differentiated states in a hier-
archy. To admit historical subordination to China in the modern world
was to demean oneself in Western eyes as not being worthy of respect or
legitimacy and was thus an invitation for colonization, imperialism or
worse. In response, much of the twentieth century has involved a process
of East Asian governments and peoples engaging in nationalistic writing of
their history in ways aimed at convincing themselves and others that they
were worthy of the equality that Western nations enjoyed, and along with
it the rights and respect that they enjoyed as well. In this new set of global
norms, a subordinate position to China was ‘obviously’ a sign of weak-
ness, even though it had previously been a sign of cultural and civiliza-
tional strength.
That is, East Asian nations are deciding in the present how to remember
the past, what lessons to draw, what parts of the past to emphasize and
celebrate, and what parts of the past to ignore or overlook. These nations
also concoct stories and myths about their collective pasts that shape the
contemporary view of themselves and their place in the world and, in
many ways, this creation of history is more important than whatever the
historical reality might have been. Viewed in this context, East Asians are
all in the midst of attempting to write their own histories. Many East Asian
states – in particular China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan – all have long,
glorious histories as centralized political units. But they are also all in the
process of defining and crafting those national histories and beliefs and
visions about their place in the world. Indeed, history has been subject to
multiple rewritings and reinterpretations. For example, a key issue in the
twentieth century was whether Koreans and Vietnamese remembered and
glorified the centuries in which they were loyal tributaries of the various
Chinese dynasties, or whether emphasizing such history implied slavish
obsequiousness and weakness (Schmid 1997).
A vanguardist approach would emphasize this rapid change in national
narratives and identity. In each of these cases, the current, contemporary
historiography that is taught in schools and that many Westerners believe is
considerably different from the actual history of the region. While it is
understandable that the modern process of nation-building and state-
building requires governments and peoples to project and portray a certain
image of themselves both domestically and internationally, it is also worth
noting that many of these histories have, in fact, a political purpose and a
political intent. These decisions are political and contemporary, not histor-
ical and ancient. East Asian states, leaders and peoples are choosing today
how to view history. They are determining what it means for the modern
creation of a nation-state and its national identity, beliefs and values.
78 David C. Kang
For example, until the late nineteenth century, woven through histor-
ical Vietnamese conceptions of themselves and their country were
Confucian ideas about what defines status and which countries were
ranked highly (Vuving 2001). From Vietnam’s emergence as an autono-
mous political unit under the rule of a local warlord in the late tenth
century up until its colonization by the French in the nineteenth century,
Vietnamese scholar-officials had used China as a model, comparison, or
ideal, and historical writings from Vietnam are thoroughly imbued with
the use of China as a reference point. Vietnam borrowed Chinese written
language and much vocabulary, as well as many aspects of cultural and
social organization. Politically, Vietnam copied from China almost verba-
tim the civil service examination system (C: jinshi; K: chinsa; V: tien si) that
emphasized meritocratic selection of scholar-officials based on their
knowledge of Confucian classics. So compelling was the Chinese example
that the Vietnamese copied political organization from China: there were
six government ministries to make policy, identical to the six Chinese
ministries (Board of Rites, Board of Punishments, etc.). Below these
Vietnamese ministries were thirteen provincial headquarters, which in
turn administered district offices and the village level, with inspectors
travelling the country to monitor the civil service, as was the case in China.
Diplomatically, Vietnam first entered into a tributary relationship with
China upon its independence in the tenth century, and from that time on,
James Anderson notes that ‘Song [Chinese] rulers unquestionably placed
the Vietnamese kingdom at the top of a hierarchical system of relation-
ships with leaders along the southern frontier’ (J. Anderson 2007: 8). The
Le Dynasty (1428–1788) was considered one of the most loyal tributaries
of China, and tribute missions and cultural imports and learning were
regular and comprehensive. The Le dynasty initially sent embassies every
year, which eventually settled into a pattern of one embassy every three
years (Whitmore 2005: 6). For example, Vietnamese scholar-official Le
Quy Don (1726–84): ‘Our kingdom calls itself [a domain of] manifest
civility . . . [but] compared to writers in the Central Efflorescence [China],
we have not produced even one-tenth of what they have. This is pro-
foundly regrettable!’ (Kelley 2005: 34–5).
Vietnam and China had also originally demarcated their border in
1079. At that time, the Vietnamese and Chinese agreed that, ‘the Quan
Nguyen and Guihua prefectures [were] two sides of a “fixed border”
(jiangjie) region between the two states’ (J. A. Anderson 2007: 145). A
fifteenth-century Vietnamese map shows the ‘official [route] for
Vietnamese embassies traveling to the Chinese capital of Beijing. Going
north from the capital, the map . . . moves . . . past the walled city
of Lang-son to the great gate on the Chinese border leading into
Guangxi Province’ (Whitmore 1994: 492). As Keith Taylor observes, the

China–Vietnam border ‘has remained essentially unchanged to the
present day’, and when China and Vietnam signed their modern treaty
in 1999 they agreed upon essentially this same border (1999: 147).
Recognition of the border, and of the stability it represented, is woven
through the writings of government officials of the time. The Tran Nam/
Zhennan Frontier Post, or ‘South Holding Frontier Post’, was located at
the border of Guangxi province and Lang Son defence command. For
centuries it was ‘the main border post between the two domains’ (Kelley
2005: 81). As scholar-official Nguyen Du (1765–1820) wrote in 1813:
The old affairs of Ly and Tran are distant and hard to find
The two kingdoms evenly divide at this lone rampart
But it is close to the Celestial, so one can finally understand the depth of the
benevolence we receive
From the [Qing] emperor’s palace looking down, this place is as if beyond the
scattered clouds
Yet by my ears I can still make out a bit of the imperial tune. (quoted ibid.: 83)
Not only was there deep cultural learning and political emulation, there
were only three wars along Vietnam’s northern border (although Vietnam
fought numerous wars of expansion to its south): the Mongol invasions in
the late thirteenth century, Ming China’s abortive attempt to colonize
Vietnam in 1407 and a brief Qing interference in Vietnamese dynastic
politics in 1788. This compares quite favourably to the forty-three wars
that England and France fought between 1400 and 1900, or the twenty-
seven wars that Sweden fought during that time. The fifteenth-century
occupation of Vietnam was thus an anomaly in China–Vietnam relations.
In fact, China had not initially had designs on colonizing Vietnam, and the
first Ming emperor Hongwu (r. 1368–98) explicitly listed Vietnam (along
with Korea, Japan and twelve other states) in his guidelines for future
generations as ‘not to be invaded’. Alexander Woodside points out that
when asked why the Chinese were defeated, the Vietnamese king’s min-
isters in the 1430s did not mention the fact that Chinese were foreigners.
They were defeated, it was said, because their harsh rule alienated the
Vietnamese (Woodside 1971, quoted in Vu 2007: 196).
As Brantly Womack observes, ‘The Chinese court innovated and
refined its institutions and ideology to face the challenge of preserving
central order for the common good . . . [Vietnamese rulers] faced the same
problem, and China provided an agenda of “best practices” . . . it should
be emphasized that if China were still an active threat, then Vietnam’s
political task would have been military cohesion, and its intellectual task
would have been one of differentiation from China [not emulation]’
80 David C. Kang
(2006: 132–3). Truong Buu Lam writes that ‘the relationship was not
between two equal states. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that
China was the superior and the tributary state the inferior’ (1968: 178).
As Tuong Vu notes, ‘for Vietnamese rulers and elites preoccupied with
maintaining social control, Confucianism was more relevant than nation-
alism. For them, resistance to China was of marginal concern compared
to the imperative to internalize and impose Chinese culture on a
Vietnamese society deeply embedded in Southeast Asian traditions’
(2007: 197; see also K. W. Taylor 1983: 299).
The twentieth century saw a complete reversal of these ideas, as
Vietnam fought anti-colonial wars of independence within the
Westphalian system. In the past, high status as a close subordinate to
China had been a source of Vietnamese pride; yet within the Western,
Westphalian conception of international relations such subordination was
an invitation to colonization or worse. Formally colonized by France, and
fighting against the United States and eventually China as well, twentieth-
century Vietnamese writers ignored and downplayed the nine preceding
centuries of close emulation of and relations with China in favour of a
historiography that emphasized Vietnamese equality with and resistance
to China. Focusing on the imagined equality and power of Vietnam as
defined by the West was an important aspect to the creation of twentieth-
century Vietnamese nationalism and the calls for independence from
outside powers.
The Western view of the ‘Vietnamese nation as an historical fact based
on the recurrent patterns of resistance to foreign invasions in Vietnamese
history’ was also deeply conditioned by the first and second Vietnamese
Wars (against France and the United States in the mid twentieth century)
(Vu 2007: 181). US scholarship in particular was affected by the US war in
Vietnam, as scholars such as George Kahin and John Lewis called for
American policy-makers to heed the ‘pervasive influence of recent
Vietnamese history . . . because in Vietnam, past is present’.1 Tuong
Vu’s comprehensive review of the literature on Vietnamese nationalism
notes that ‘historical reductionism’ allowed scholars to reduce complex
historical relationships to ‘“patterns of Vietnamese resistance” to foreign
powers . . . this reductionism had an underlying worldview and a strong
normative concern about contemporary US policy’ (ibid.: 192; emphasis
added).
1
Kahin and Lewis 1967, quoted in Vu 2007: 191. Donald Zagoria wrote in 1967 that, ‘I have
very personal views on Vietnam; I have studiously attempted to put these views to one side in
writing this analysis . . . However, I believe that any author writing on Vietnam today has an
obligation to his readers to state his position’ (Zagoria 1967, quoted in Vu 2007: 221 ).
Most significantly, realization of the millennium of Vietnamese close

association with and eager emulation of China is almost completely absent
in contemporary Western scholarship, because ‘so thoroughly did the
Western academy adopt the modern Vietnamese nationalist view of the
past in the 1960s, 1970s, and even 1980s that we have yet to fully disen-
gage from this conceptual framework’ (Kelley 2003: 63). It should thus be
emphasized that the historiography often bears little resemblance to the
actual history of the past; and was written in order to justify equality and
independence of the ‘nation-state’ as defined by the contemporary
Westphalian international system. Those rules and norms are unques-
tioned today and are taken as self-evident around the world and certainly
in countries such as Vietnam.
Although Vietnam is perhaps the most interesting case of twentieth-
century historiography differing from its actual history, many East Asian
states have undergone a similar pattern as they suffered from colonialism
and struggled to gain recognition from Western powers as legitimate and
equal states. In Korea, the humiliation of colonization by Japan led
historians to emphasize how masculine and strong Korea had been in
the past. Korea had been as highly regarded and ranked in the tributary
system as had Vietnam, but in this modern context the centuries in which
Korea had been a close subordinate of China was also reinterpreted as
weakness and toadying. To counteract this, historians reached back fif-
teen centuries into their past to claim a relationship with the powerful
Koguryŏ kingdom (37 BC–AD 668), which straddled present-day China
and Korea. This new nationalist historiography downplayed the centuries
of stability and close relations with China in favour of a tenuous relation-
ship to the Koguryŏ kingdom, which was actually crushed by combined
Chinese (Tang) and Korean (Silla) forces (Gries 2005; Schmid 1997).
Despite Korea experiencing so few security threats during the Chosun
dynasty (1392–1910) that its military consisted of only 10,000 men, John
Duncan observes that a dominant strand of Korean identity consists of a
‘master narrative’ depicting the Korean experience as ‘one of almost
incessant foreign incursions’ (Duncan 2002: 432; E. Park 2006).
From the perspective of the twenty-first century, it is perhaps easy to
downplay the centrality of the traditional stable and hierarchical East
Asian views of each other as mere rhetoric glossing over more basic geo-
strategic or political considerations. Yet such views were relatively
unquestioned at the time. While there were certainly material reasons
for Japanese behaviour towards China and Korea in the late nineteenth
century, for example, it would be mistake, as Shogo Suzuki reminds us,
‘to somehow assume that the proclamations of Japan’s “civilizing” role
within Asia [were] merely rhetoric, thus implying that the Japanese leaders
82 David C. Kang
were able to rationally detach themselves from their particular social world
and cynically use the “civilizing mission” to justify imperialist ideas that
had somehow always been latent’ (2009: 143).
In each of these cases, the current, contemporary historiography that is
taught in schools and that many scholars accept uncritically is consider-
ably different from the actual history of the region.2 The notion of
equality – so deeply embedded in Western thought and international
relations – was quickly learned by those in East Asia. To affirm equality
was to be modern, and equal states deserved independence. While it is
understandable that the modern process of nation-building and state-
building requires governments and peoples to project and portray a certain
image of themselves both domestically and internationally, it is also worth
noting that many of these histories have, in fact, a political purpose and a
political intent. These decisions are political and contemporary, not
historical and ancient. East Asian states, leaders and peoples are choosing
today how to view history. They are determining what it means for the
modern creation of a nation-state and its national identity, and for its
beliefs and values about how to interact with neighbours near and far.
Syncretism: are we all Westphalians now?

Thus, in diplomatic terms, East Asian states quickly learned to emulate
Western states in their search for equal status. Yet the transition to the
contemporary Westphalian system was not as complete and clear as is
often presented, and it might be wise to use with care the concepts,
theories and analogies from the European and Western experience to
explain, describe and contextualize East Asia. The tribute system of
international relations that existed in historical East Asia is gone forever,
and all states now unquestioningly accept the Western, Westphalian
institutions and norms that comprise the international system. Given
this different structure of the international system, the behaviour of states
has changed correspondingly. That is, the pattern of inter-state stability
and the extra-state conflict that marked the tribute system did not con-
tinue in the twentieth-century Westphalian international system.
However, this does not mean there is no link between past and present:
first, East Asian interests and identities, and the specifics of how they view
themselves, their relations with their neighbours, and their place in the
world, are partly a function of their own particular history. Second, the
Westphalian system was never a complete and universal system and, while
2
For example, Evelyn Goh writes that ‘Vietnam, deeply suspicious of Chinese domination
for historical reasons, harbor[s] a defensive enmeshment concept’ (2007/8: 129).
East Asian states may accept the most basic elements, it is not clear
whether they have internalized Westphalian ideas as deeply as Western
states have done (Krasner 1999). As Iver Neumann argues, ‘memories of
previous systems are by necessity relevant for any entry into a new one.
Former experiences and present actions are tied together’ (2011: 471).
This leads to an important question: have East Asian countries, peoples
and leaders completely internalized and been socialized into Western,
Westphalian ideas? East Asian views, identities and expectations – as
influenced as they are by the West – emerged from their own historical
experiences and intellectual worldviews. It might thus be surprising to
expect that their beliefs and norms about state behaviour would com-
pletely derive from a Western model. Indeed, Martin Jacques writes that
‘it is striking how relatively little East Asia has, in fact, been
Westernized . . . China has enjoyed a quite different history to that of the
West . . . it is banal to believe that China’s influence on the world will be
mainly economic: on the contrary, its political and cultural effects are
likely to be at least as far-reaching [as those of the West]’ (Jacques 2009:
13–15).
Indeed, the West has had a profound influence on East Asia. On the one
hand, many of our international relations theories, and indeed popular
perceptions, see East Asians as essentially identical to Westerners in goals,
attitudes and beliefs. A starting point for much ostensibly ‘deductive’
theorizing is that states and actors around the world are identical. Some
argue that the homogenizing influence of globalization and modernization
have made us all the same and rendered geography, history and culture
essentially irrelevant, as perhaps best popularized by Thomas Friedman’s
book The World Is Flat (2005). Indeed, a basic starting point of much
social science theorizing is the universal applicability of models derived
from the European historical experience. We tend to take for granted that
all states are now Westphalian and guide their expectations and theories
based on that assumption. On issues such as economic development and
territorial integrity, scholars view East Asian states as Westphalian. As
Muthiah Alagappa argues, ‘it is the Asian states that most clearly approx-
imate the Westphalian state’ (2003a: 87).
East Asian diplomats, scholars and businesspeople certainly know how
to speak the right language and stress that they know the right concepts
and were educated at Western universities. By the beginning of the
twentieth century, what was taken for granted – institutions, dress, clothes
and so on – had changed fundamentally. In Japan, Korea and China, there
was intense discussion and debate about how best to translate the Western
concept of ‘sovereignty’. Seo-hyun Park notes that in the 1870s ‘the
translation of the term sovereignty was chosen carefully to symbolize the
84 David C. Kang
power and authority of the state so that they could compete with the
Western powers, and to a lesser extent, China’ (2009: 5). So extensive
was the role of the Berkeley economics department during the 1970s on
the governing of East Asian states that Indonesian economic bureaucrats
were called the ‘Berkeley mafia’. China and South Korea send more
students to study in the United States than any other country, and Seoul
National University graduates earned more US doctorates between 1997
and 2007 than students from any other foreign university (Institute for
International Education 2008).
On the other hand, it might be worth asking whether these Western
values have penetrated to the core of East Asian beliefs. Furthermore,
many Western views reveal a striking ambiguity about East Asia. It is
certainly worth asking whether the Westphalian ideas have completely
replaced older ideas in East Asia. Some scholars see a unique Chinese
strategic culture, while others wonder whether China can truly be a
responsible member of the international community. There is a genuine
question about East Asian worldviews and values and the degree of East
Asian acceptance of ‘global’ norms and ideas, whether it be issues of
human rights, internet control, democracy, biodiversity, economic issues
such as capital and current accounts, energy and climate-change policy, or
intellectual-property rights. Scholars and military planners ask whether
Chinese ‘strategic culture’ affects its foreign relations (Carlson 2011).
The United States’ calls on China to become a ‘responsible stakeholder’
imply that China is at best a partial or grudging participant in the con-
temporary international system. This US attempt to change China’s
identity has been underway for many years. Alastair Iain Johnston has
noted: ‘The Clinton administration’s strategy of constructive engagement
was, for some, aimed at pulling China into the “international commun-
ity”, and exposing it to new norms of the market and domestic gover-
nance’ (Johnston 2008: 13). Former Clinton defence secretary William
Perry had made similar claims a decade earlier, arguing that ‘engagement
is the best strategy to ensure that as China increases its power, it does so as
a responsible member of the international community’ (W. H. Perry
1995). Others have harshly criticized China precisely because of its values,
citing human-rights abuses and its authoritarian government as reasons
why China is both dangerous and unpredictable.
While these debates are often focused on politics at the domestic level, it
is also worth considering how they affect the larger international system. An
enduring strand of literature sees East Asian cultures as both different and
consequential, perhaps most famously characterized by Samuel
Huntington as ‘the West against the rest’ (Huntington 1992; Katzenstein
2009). Amitav Acharya has been one of the more forceful proponents of a
view that East Asia is a unique region that is increasingly dominated by

China, not the United States. He argues that:
Regions are constructed more from within than from without . . . the rise of China
and India is likely to spur new and different types of regionalisms in Asia, ones less
closely wedded to US power and purpose . . . featuring the consolidation of
China’s ties with selected states on its periphery . . . the dilution of American
hegemony may be accentuated by changes in the ‘San Francisco system’ of US
bilateral alliances. (2007a: 646)
Womack also argues for the centrality of China, and the similarity and
indeed causal link between traditional and modern East Asia. In a chapter
titled, ‘Recognition, Deference, and Respect’, Womack argues that East
Asian states voluntarily submit to Chinese authority:
The principles and practices of the East Asian international order can be general-
ized and can be used to analyze contemporary world politics. Specifically, the geo-
politics of East Asia differ fundamentally from the balance-of-power presumptions
of most Western theories of international relations, and both the traditional order
and China’s re-emergence over the past ten years have been based on a different,
successful paradigm of diplomatic behaviour. (2010: 4)
This linking of past and present affects domestic politics as well as interna-
tional relations. For example, both Elizabeth Perry and Ho-fung Hung
argue that Chinese domestic protests today are based on cultural traits
from as far back as 2,000 years ago (Hung 2011; E. Perry 2008). That is,
even though the structure might change, remnants of the past may linger,
contained in key memories about the past or patterns of behaviour. As
Neumann points out, ‘for polities with a long memory of what is repre-
sented as a continuous history, voices are often heard arguing that the
recognition afforded them within international society is inadequate to
what they feel it should be’ (2011: 464). It is no surprise that China reaches
back and emphasizes the stability of the pre-modern order. What is
perhaps more surprising is that Singapore’s ambassador to the United
States mentioned the famous voyages of Chinese explorer Zheng He in a
speech to the United States in 2006 (Chan 2006).
Major East Asian leaders such as Singapore’s Lee Kwan-yew and Kim
Dae-jung have debated whether there is anything distinctive about ‘Asian
values’, and certainly many policy-makers and scholars see cultural dis-
tinctiveness as a key aspect to working with East Asian states and peoples
(Kim 1994; Zakaria 1994). Indeed, an entire industry of ‘how to do
business in China/East Asia/Korea/Japan’ books3 would be worthless if
3
Some of the most interesting books in this vein include Clissold 2005; E. Hall and Hall
1990; Hodgson, Sano and Graham 2007; and McGregor 2005.
86 David C. Kang
there were not distinctive and enduring differences about East Asian
business organization, mindsets and institutions.
In terms of economics, an enormous literature has attempted to explain
why, in the late twentieth century, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and other East
Asian states managed to ‘catch up’ to the West. Mainly focused on actions
taken in the 1960s – and occasionally exploring the role of Japanese
colonialism in the early twentieth century – this debate has been fruitful
and spurred advances in economics, institutional analysis, political sci-
ence and sociology (Haggard 2004; Wade 1992).4 The early modern East
Asian international order involved extensive trade and diplomatic rela-
tions, in well-developed form, many centuries before the arrival of the
West. And it is possible that explaining current East Asian economic
dynamism at least requires asking whether it is really anything new or
whether there were much deeper historical roots that laid the foundation
for subsequent growth. Whether East Asian countries actually share the
same basic worldviews as do Western countries is not just a diplomatic
issue – the rapid economic emergence of first Japan and then other East
Asian economies spawned an intense debate over the causes and conse-
quences of that growth, and two decades ago influential books such as The
Enigma of Japanese Power argued that Japan’s economic success was
fundamentally different from that of the West (Prestowitz 1993; Van
Wolferen 1989).
Much of the contemporary organization, international economic inte-
gration and institutional capacity of East Asian states existed centuries
earlier. These institutions were not created from whole cloth in the
twentieth century, but were built upon deeply ingrained ideas about the
proper role of institutions, government and society and the appropriate
way to manage relations with each other (Kang 2002). In this way,
explanations for the contemporary economic development of these coun-
tries and their rapid reintegration of trading and financial ties with China
appear to have historical roots (Abu-Lughod 1991; Arrighi et al. 2003). If
anything, the most anomalous era of East Asia was the previous century,
when these states were not powerful, coherent and wealthy. From this
perspective, we might not be so surprised that they managed this remark-
able economic growth when given the opportunity: after all, long before
the West, Korea, Japan, China and Vietnam were already functioning,
organized and coherent societies with complex bureaucratic states. The
West may have arrived at an economic and political system that gave it a
4
On the colonial era, see Haggard, Kang and Moon 1997.
Table 4.1 Tourism in East Asia, 2004 and 2010
Country Destination 2004 2010
Korea To Japan 1,588,472 2,439,816

To China 2,844,893 4,076,400
To the USA 626,595 1,107,518
Japan To Korea 2,440,139 3,023,009
To China 3,389,976 3,731,200
To the USA 3,748,000 3,386,000
China To Japan 616,009 1,412,875
To Korea 627,264 1,875,157
To the USA 203,000 802,000
temporary lead in production and power, but it is also not surprising that
the Asian states managed to incorporate, modify, and update those ideas.
As for popular culture, it is still unclear whether a regional culture is
emerging in East Asia, or whether such a culture is even definable at this
stage. In terms of tourism, as the region has become wealthier, tourism in
general has increased dramatically. Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are
increasingly visiting each other’s countries, but they are also visiting the
United States more often. In 2004, more than 600,000 South Korean
tourists visited the United States and 2.8 million visited China
(Table 4.1). By 2010, 1.1 million Koreans visited the United States and
more than 4 million South Koreans visited China (China National
Tourism Office n.d.; US Office of Travel and Tourism n.d.). Again, as
with education, there are obvious reasons for this difference: China is
closer, cheaper and culturally more similar to Korea than the United
States. However, the top ten movies in Japan, Korea and China are all
dominated by Hollywood and domestic productions. In 2010, in Korea,
Japan and China, there was not a single non-US foreign language film that
was in the top ten box office. On these basic indicators of shared view-
points, it is clear that the countries of East Asia are far from sharing a
mutually recognized common culture.
While Western norms and ideas have had a profound influence on
East Asia, it is also fairly easy to conclude that East Asian societies retain
much of their own distinctive culture and worldviews. In economic
organization and domestic politics, and indeed in their relations with
each other, elements of their own history and relations remain conse-
quential for explaining their behaviour. Yet this is not necessarily a
shared East Asian consensus on certain values; rather, individual coun-
tries retain individual memories, forged by historiography that presents
88 David C. Kang
particular narratives influenced by both Western ideas and East Asian

ideas.
Conclusion: China, culture and hegemony

The question of whether East Asian culture has any effect on contempo-
rary international relations and its future arises most often in questions
about the role of China. China was historically an enduring, acknowl-
edged and stable hegemon that enjoyed fairly widespread legitimacy as a
cultural, economic and diplomatic leader. Today, as China increasingly
appears poised to return to its position as the most powerful country in
East Asia, there is a corresponding question about whether or not China
can enjoy the legitimacy that it once held. That is, as China has grown
increasingly powerful and self-confident, there is intense speculation
about how it might live and act in a modern, Westphalian world.
Most notable are questions about whether China can adjust itself to
the Western international norms and rules that have come to dominate
the globe and whether China will attempt to challenge the position of the
United States as global hegemon. Capitalism, democracy, human rights
and other ideas have now become accepted as the international norms and
rules of the game. While contemporary countries can choose not to follow
these norms, to ignore them is to step clearly outside accepted boundaries
of contemporary international relations. For example, today few author-
itarian states trumpet their authoritarianism with pride; almost all claim to
be some form of democracy and justify their rule based on some special
need or circumstance. Similarly, few human-rights violators do so with
pride; they tend to rationalize their abuses with some other justification.
As the twenty-first century begins, it is not yet clear how China will fit into
this system. The Chinese government and people, with a different history,
an authoritarian political system, and current tensions with other countries,
have not yet completely accepted or internalized these Western ideas.
Yet to date China has not provoked the same type of fear and balance-
of-power politics, nor challenged the existing order in the way that some
scholars predicted three decades ago when China began its economic
reforms. The region as a whole has adjusted to China’s increasing eco-
nomic and political clout and has moved closer to it economically, diplo-
matically and even politically. For example, although in the 1970s China
was relatively isolated and had few diplomatic relationships with states in
the region, today China has normalized its relations with every country in
the region and has joined numerous multilateral and international insti-
tutions, such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. In
economic terms, within a generation’s time, China has eclipsed the
United States as the main trading partner of every country in the region,
including long-time US allies Japan and South Korea, and US–China
economic relations are now deeply intertwined.
However, it should also be noted that these past three decades of
increasing regional stability and integration do not predict anything
about the future. That is, although China has not yet caused fear and
intense threat perceptions on the part of its East Asian neighbours, this
could change. Furthermore, although China has embarked on a policy of
reassuring its neighbours and attempting to make clear that its economic
and political development need not be a threat to the region or the world,
these assurances are met with some scepticism around the region. Will
China show restraint, wisdom and a willingness to provide leadership and
stability for the region? Or will it merely use its power to pressure and bully
other states? That has not yet become clear and it is the source of other
regional states’ uneasiness with China’s rise. While many are willing to
give China a chance, and to wait and see, few take the Chinese govern-
ment’s statements at face value.
Thus, more important for future stability than the regional balance of
power and whether China continues its economic and political growth is
the question of whether the East Asian states can develop a clear and
shared set of beliefs and perceptions about one another’s intentions and
their relative positions in the regional and global order. That is, although it
is natural for contemporary scholars to focus on yardsticks such as eco-
nomic size and military spending, more important factors are the inten-
tions and beliefs that states have about one another. Key factors in
international relations are what the hierarchy is in terms of a rank order
of states and whether or not states view one another’s relative status in that
hierarchy as legitimate.
By these criteria, then, China has a long way to go before becoming a
leader. Although China may already be – or may soon become – the largest
economic and military power in East Asia, it has virtually no cultural or
political legitimacy as a leading state. The difference between China at the
height of its hegemony five centuries ago and the country today is most
clearly reflected in the fact that nobody today thinks that China is still the
civilizational centre of the world. Although China may have been the
source of a long-lasting civilization in East Asia in the distant past, today
it has no more civilizational influence than does modern Greece. Ancient
Greek ideas and innovations had a central influence on Western civiliza-
tion, and Greek concepts such as democracy and philosophy continue to
be influential today. Yet contemporary Greece has no discernible ‘soft
power’, and few people look to Greece for leadership in international
relations. In the same way, few contemporary East Asian states or peoples
90 David C. Kang
look to China for cultural innovation or for practical solutions to present

problems. Although Beijing evokes the earlier times of cultural domi-
nance to instil national pride and support the soft-power efforts from
Confucian Institutes to overseas television outlets, behind this pride lies
the attempt to wipe away the humiliation felt when European powers
sought to obliterate the foundations of the well-tended tribute system
that held the key to China’s role in maintaining regional stability. Yet
the real question is not whether China reaches back to its past for guid-
ance, but whether other states and peoples will accept it.
Can China ever return to its position as a centre of cultural and political
innovation, where other states admiringly look to it as model, guide and
inspiration? There is grudging respect for Chinese economic accomplish-
ments over the past three decades, to be sure. But there is just as much
wariness about Chinese cultural and political beliefs. Will Chinese nation-
alism become brittle, confrontational, insecure and defensive, or will it
eventually return to the self-confidence of centuries ago? The Chinese
people – as evidenced by the hysterical response to protests about Tibet in
the spring and summer of 2008 – show that they are far from comfortable
with their own position in the world and how they are perceived by others.
Will the Chinese Communist Party cling to its power indefinitely, or will it
eventually find a way to craft some type of peaceful transition from
authoritarianism?
If nationalism and identities are truly socially constructed, then we
must ask whether there is an alternative conception of Chinese nation-
alism and identity that might emerge in the future. At present, the
dominant Chinese narrative is one of defensiveness and insecurity with
regards to Japan and the West; this narrative emphasizes China’s weak-
ness, humiliations from the past and eagerness to reclaim the country’s
‘rightful’ place in the world. This kind of narrative is naturally a bit
unsettling for China’s neighbours as well as for other countries around
the world, such as the United States. Yet there are alternative narratives
possible – certainly the Chinese leadership has attempted to reframe
China’s identity as one of a peaceful, unique power (Glaser and
Medeiros 2007; Shirk 2007). Although much debated and often dis-
missed, that such an account has received so much attention shows that
it must be a realistic enough possibility for scholars and policy-makers to
at least consider whether a peaceful rise is possible. Other narratives
emphasize history, focusing on China’s peaceful relations with its neigh-
bours (tianxia). Note that the question is not whether these are histor-
ically accurate – the question is whether Chinese people today come to
believe this narrative and use it to guide their views of themselves and
their relations with their neighbours.
It is impossible to predict how Chinese beliefs about themselves and

their place and role in the world will evolve, and it will depend on an
enormous number of factors: how the Chinese Communist Party
responds to changing domestic and international circumstances; whether
domestic economic growth continues in any manner whatsoever for the
next few decades or whether China experiences an economic crisis of
some kind; domestic Chinese actions towards its own people; how society
changes given the one-child policy, increasing levels of education and
rates of foreign travel, and the current domestic inequalities; and how
specific incidents with other regional and global actors are resolved. That
is, Chinese society and its views about itself, its economy, its government,
and its relations with its neighbours are all still in flux and as yet have not
achieved the stability that would allow us to predict its future with
confidence.
On the part of other East Asian states, how and whether they accept
China will depend on their own beliefs about themselves and their rela-
tions with China. For example, although few Japanese fear another great
power war in East Asia, the Japanese are used to seeing themselves as the
leader in East Asia and as the most important Asian country. Whether
Japan can adjust to an increasingly important China, and how the two
countries come to view each other, will have enduring repercussions for
regional stability. Will Japan and China be ‘co-leaders’ in East Asia? Will
Japan accede to being second to China, as it did centuries ago? And
regarding Korea and Vietnam, recent history has radically altered their
relations with China, despite their long histories as close followers. New
nationalist histories in both Korea and Vietnam no longer emphasize their
cultural debt to China but rather emphasize their differences from and in
some ways superiority to China. Whether these two countries can live
comfortably in the shadow of China or prefer to seek a status equivalent to
China and how they manage their relations with the United States and
Europe are both questions that we cannot yet answer with confidence.
Given the changes in the international system and the central place of
the United States, there is almost no chance that China will become the
unquestioned hegemon in East Asia. Too much has changed for that to
happen, and the United States – even as it undergoes numerous chal-
lenges – is not going to disappear from the region. The United States
remains too central and too powerful, and American (and Western) ideals
have become too deeply accepted around the globe for the United States
not to be important. Perhaps the key question is whether the United
States, with its very Western way of viewing the world, and China, with
a potentially more Eastern way of viewing the world, can come to some
type of accommodation and agreement on each other’s roles and their
92 David C. Kang
relations with each other. While to date both the United States and China
are working to accommodate each other and stabilize their relations, that
process is far from complete. How these two countries manage East Asian
leadership, the status they accord each other, and how other regional
countries come to view them will be central aspects of whether or not
the future of East Asian international relations is one of increasing
stability.
5 Regional and global forces in East Asia’s
economic engagement with international
society
Mark Beeson and Shaun Breslin
This chapter provides an overview and analysis of the remarkable

economic evolution that has drawn so much attention to the East
Asian region. It does this by placing regional economic development
in its specific historical context – something that highlights the region’s
changing relationship with the wider international society of which it is
becoming an increasingly important part. Like other contributions to
this volume, this chapter adopts a conceptual framework that is broadly
sympathetic to the English School (ES). However, the relative under-
development of the ES’s interest in, and understanding of, political
economy means that some of the concepts we employ, and some of the
features we identify as important and distinctive, will undoubtedly prove
contentious.
The first section of the chapter briefly traces the historical development
of regional economic activity, describing the operation of regional primary
institutions, such as the Sino-centric tributary system, and international
primary institutions, such as colonialism. War, or more particularly the
overlay of the Cold War, was also an especially important influence on
regional development in the twentieth century. We trace the ambiguous
impact of the Cold War in particular, which, because it had the effect of
both spurring economic development in the region and dividing it along
ideological lines, in essence foreclosed the possibility of region-wide
economic integration.
And yet the Cold War also effectively consolidated the position of what
is arguably East Asia’s most distinctive primary institution: the develop-
mental state. In the second section, we trace its historical development
and consolidation despite – indeed, because of – the penetration and
overlay of international geo-political forces. Our analysis of this period
introduces our most contentious contribution: we argue that the ES’s
characterization of ‘the market’ as a primary institution is suggestive, but
in need of further elaboration. The way ‘Western’ economic practices,
ideas and social relations have been received and adapted in East Asia is an
93
94 Mark Beeson and Shaun Breslin
important story, but one that has operated on a number of levels not
captured by ‘the market’ rubric alone.
Although market-oriented economic activities are now a ubiquitous
feature of the international system, the distinctive ways in which capitalism
has developed in East Asia and elsewhere remind us of how complex and
multidimensional a process this is, and how the influence of the ‘Western
core’ has been mediated at the regional level. Consequently, we argue that
the most appropriate way to describe the organization of economic activity
that has both ‘local’ regional features and an increasingly universal logic is
‘the global political economy’ (GPE). This formulation is becoming more
common in the scholarly literature (O’Brien and Williams 2007), and
we use it in preference to the more conventional ‘international political
economy’ because it captures something important about the transnational
nature of many economic activities and the emergent supra-national level of
political activities that seek to manage them. We suggest, therefore, that the
GPE can be thought of as a master primary institution with important and
distinctive regional derivations.
The relevance of some of these ideas can be seen in the much discussed
‘rise of China’. To understand China’s increased economic importance in
the region we need – as with Japan before it – to understand the nature of
regional production structures and their relationship to the wider global
economy. We suggest that such regional and global structures are important
derivative manifestations of the GPE and that their impact is sufficiently
pervasive and important as to shape political and diplomatic outcomes
across the region. We demonstrate this possibility by briefly considering
the role of prominent secondary institutions such as the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the Association of Southeast
Asian Nation (ASEAN) Free Trade Area (AFTA), which have proved
relatively ineffective despite the apparent need for such organizations.
However, we also suggest that the long-term geo-political context remains
important when trying to account for the relative political sway of specific
secondary institutions.
The final section of the chapter considers the possible impact of China’s
economic expansion, in terms of both its immediate material impact on
the region and its potential to reconfigure intra-regional political and
economic relations as a consequence. The key question here is about
the role of another master institution in the ES lexicon: the equality of
people. East Asia’s economic development has generally occurred in the
context of authoritarian rule and a relatively thin transnational society. In
the aftermath of the trans-Atlantic crisis might ‘Western’ ideas about
economic and political liberalism be challenged by alternative ‘illiberal’
models of development? At the very least, the material transformation and
Regional and global forces in East Asia’s economic engagement 95
growing economic importance of the region suggest that these questions

remain far less straightforward in East Asia than just about anywhere else,
and offer an important test of our ability to understand, much less
adequately theorize, such processes.
Conceptualizing and historicizing East Asia

As other contributions to this volume make clear, what we now think of as
‘East Asia’ is a relatively recent product of specific historical circumstances.
For most of human history, of course, there was no ‘other’ for what we now
think of as East Asia to be differentiated from. Even when the outlines of a
region began to cohere around imperial China thanks to the ‘explosion of
energy’ during the Ming dynasty (Reid 1999: 116), it was a hierarchical
order that existed largely in isolation from the rest of the world. Andre
Gunder Frank (1998) has famously argued that it was the Europeans that
lagged behind in the developmental stakes. As a consequence, from the
fifteenth century onwards Europeans were desperate to break into the
richer, more dynamic trade patterns that were beginning to consolidate
and expand between what we would now describe as Northeast and
Southeast Asia. John Hobson (2012) persuasively argues that an over-
whelmingly Eurocentric reading of history (in Europe and North
America, at least) has prevented us from recognizing quite how influential
‘the East’ has been in both ideational and material terms. What is less
contentious is that China’s economy was the largest in the world until the
mid nineteenth century, despite elite attitudes about the desirability of
international commerce (Maddison 2007).
The causes of China’s decline relative to the ‘rising powers’ of Europe
are disputed and imperfectly understood. Some argue that China’s
problems were a result of its inward turn and the rejection of techno-
logical development (Morris 2010: 416). Others contend that the lack of
the sort of inter-state competition that was so characteristic of Europe lay
behind China’s failure to develop a more dynamic economy (R. B. Wong
1997). And of course, we cannot ignore the military force deployed by
major Western powers (and later Japan) in support of colonial and other
economic objectives, which paid scant attention to supposed principles
of sovereignty (or, even as late as the Treaty of Versailles, the right to self-
determination). Whatever the ultimate causes of China’s decline, how-
ever, as Feng Zhang explains elsewhere in this volume (Chapter 2), until
as recently as the early nineteenth century China exerted a powerful
influence over much of the region in a durable hierarchical order that
was manifest most notably in the tributary system. For our purposes,
what is most significant about the tribute system is that this distinctive
Asian primary institution had an economic base that reflected the under-
lying distribution of material resources as much as it did any cultural
primacy (Kang 2010).
Although our primary focus is on the economic aspects of East Asia’s
engagement with international society, one of the key ideas that informs
our discussion is that economic activity cannot be separated from the
wider social and political milieu in which it occurs. This claim is evident
when thinking about the downfall of imperial China and the end of the
tributary system, events that were triggered by the emergence of the
nation-state in Europe and the subsequent development of international
society and an international economy everywhere else (Spruyt 1994;
Watson 1992). The expansionary economic impulse that underpinned
colonial relations exerted a profound influence on the entire East Asian
region, and has been one of the most consequential primary institutions
in the modern period. Yet, as profound as the influence of European-
inspired primary institutions such as the inter-state system and colonial
economic relations has undoubtedly been, it has been mediated by
contingent regional political and social forces and not written on a
blank canvas (Elson 1992).
The relationship between Asia and the West is complex, and distin-
guishing what is ‘normal’ and what is a distinctively regional response to
underlying historical forces is problematic. For example, although the
developmental state has been a distinctive institutional feature of East
Asian development there are continuities that link current practices
through Toshimichi Okubo’s ‘learning from Germany’ in post-Meiji
Japan to the implementation of Friedrich List’s principles of ‘National
Political Economy’ in Germany under Bismarck (Masukazu 1964). And
List’s ideas themselves were heavily influenced by the ‘American System’
associated with Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams and Alexander
Hamilton, which was at the heart of state-building, ‘continental integra-
tion’ and the rise of the USA as a modern industrial economy in the early
nineteenth century. Of course there are differences – the Chinese devel-
opmental state today is clearly not a mere copy of the USA in 1830. But
the idea that East Asia’s state developmentalism represents a deviation
from a historical norm of market-oriented industrialization is at odds
with the general historical record (H.-J. Chang 2002).
Nevertheless, the possibility that the operation of ‘the market’ – one of
the primary institutions identified in ES approaches (see Buzan 2004) –
might be differently or less completely realized in East Asia is important
for a number of reasons. First, there is a question about the extent to
which other primary institutions associated with European colonialism
and more recently ‘globalization’ might actually be manifest outside the
core trans-Atlantic economies. This possibility was most starkly high-

lighted during the Cold War when parts of the region were effectively
excluded from the international economy created under the auspices of
US hegemony (Latham 1997; Y. Zhang 1991). The definition and extent
of any putative region have always been a somewhat arbitrary product
of specific geo-political circumstances, but this was never more true
than when ‘East Asia’ was divided under the overlay of the Cold War
(Beeson 2006). Indeed, even today, when regional formation is being
discussed, North Korea and Taiwan are typically left out of the discussion
for different reasons – reasons that have at least some element of residual
Cold War polarity about them.
For a number of those states fortunate enough to be on what ulti-
mately proved to be the winning side of Asia’s ideological divide, the
Cold War’s impact was generally positive. Not only did key regional
economies such as Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand receive
aid and a direct economic stimulus from the wars in Korea and Vietnam
(Stubbs 1999), but they also prospered in an environment that actively
supported authoritarian regimes – as long as they were capitalist (or,
perhaps more correctly, anti-communist). It is important to remember
that the ‘economic miracle’ in post-war Japan was intended from the
outset to act both as a bulwark against communist expansion in East Asia
and as the catalyst for a broader process of capitalist development across
the region (Beeson 2007). ‘Second-tier’ industrializing states such as
South Korea and Taiwan were allowed to export to the United States
without reciprocally opening their own markets to highly competitive
foreign producers. Not only did this effectively encourage the sort of
discriminatory, mercantilist regimes that were supposedly anathema to
American policy-makers, but it also locked emerging market economies
into the US geo-strategic orbit as they became dependent on US aid and
its domestic market for finished goods (Cumings 1987).
The general point to emphasize here, as we explain in more detail
below, is that consolidation of ‘the market’ in the region has been far
from spontaneous or natural, but is – as was also the case in its original
liberal heartland (Polanyi 1957) – an artefact of political power and
specific historical circumstances. Unsurprisingly, the precise form that
broadly capitalist institutional structures and social relations have taken in
East Asia has reflected these disparate origins.
Political economy and the English School

Before we attempt to detail the way in which economic activity in East
Asia has interacted with the global political economy, it is worth making
a couple of preliminary theoretical observations about the approach and

terminology adopted here. The first point to emphasize is that ES
scholars have generally had little interest in (or understanding of)
international political economy (Buzan 2004), and this necessarily
means that there has been little attempt to conceptualize or incorporate
economic processes in the ES framework. ES concepts are conse-
quently not always easy to apply to economic issues, and there is no
settled agreement on precisely what the relevant primary institutions
actually are or what their relative significance may be. But, as Buzan
(ibid.) points out, given the global economy’s importance and the
extent to which its operation has actually become dependent on a
range of normatively inspired practices and the actions of key secondary
institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), this is a
noteworthy gap in the ES framework. Given the paucity of ES literature
in this area, we suggest that some of the extant concepts may need
unpacking, and that others might be nominated for inclusion in the
lexicon – at least as far as East Asia is concerned.
As we have suggested, the most overburdened and underspecified ES
primary institution at present is ‘the market’. Although this serves as a
useful short-hand for some of the dynamic forces at work in capitalist
economies, it is too expansive and all-inclusive to be helpful when
thinking about what may distinguish economic development and inte-
gration in East Asia. The varieties-of-capitalism literature usefully dem-
onstrates that capitalism can take many forms (P. A. Hall and Soskice
2001; Hollingsworth and Boyer 1997) – even if such literature has
rarely extended much further than Japan in the search for Asian case
studies. Broadly similar institutions may be organized and operate in
significantly different ways that reflect contingent circumstances and
that may influence the performance of ‘national’ economies. The vast
literature associated with ‘globalization’ also serves to remind us that
the very status of national economic entities is far less certain than it
once was as a result of the transnationalization of economic activities
(Cerny 1995). Given the importance of states and national identities in
the ES approach, this represents a potential source of tension of which
we need to be aware. What we can say is that differently configured
political economies may also exacerbate underlying tensions between
notional allies at times of economic crisis – as the events of the
late 1990s remind us (Johnson 1998). The declining significance of
the Cold War overlay undoubtedly contributed to the more aggres-
sive and far-reaching forms of crisis management pursued by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United States in the after-
math of the Asian crisis (Grimes 2009).
The key point to emphasize here is that the actions of states, despite
some of the hyperbole that can be found in the globalization literature,
remain central determinants of political and economic governance at
both the domestic and international levels (Bell and Hindmoor 2009).
At the domestic level, the state continues to play an important role in
providing material infrastructure as well as the regulatory environment
that helps to determine the manner in which economic activity is organ-
ized; the basic relationship between states and markets is significantly
shaped by the former. Even in the most apparently neo-liberal, market-
oriented political economies, the state provides the essential legal frame-
work that allows market relationships between private actors to occur.
The precise nature of these relationships and the expectations of actors
in different locations will reflect specific, historically determined cir-
cumstances and may provide advantages for privileged insiders as a
consequence. Significantly, differences in regulatory settings and
state–market relations generate tensions at the international level as
individual states seek to promote (or impose) their preferred vision of
governance.
To help make sense of these different political and economic processes,
we suggest that we might usefully consider two additional institutions as
either primary institutions or as important derivations of one. As we
explain in the next section, the ‘developmental state’ is one of the most
distinctive features of the political and economic landscape of the region
and continues to play an influential role in some countries; for this reason,
we suggest it ought to be considered as a primary institution. The other
institutions that have increasing claims to be considered as important
derivations of the master institution, the GPE, in our view, are regional
(and global) production networks. Such networks are central to trade and
investment patterns in East Asia, and provide an important insight into
the global–regional interface that is a recurring theme of this overall
volume. We discuss the operation of these institutions in the next two
sections by focusing primarily on the historical experiences of Japan and
China, two states/economies that have exerted a powerful influence over
the region and that embody the changing logic of the regional and global
economies.
Japan, the developmental state, and global

production networks
Although Japan has become synonymous with a moribund economy and
political class (Katz 1998), it is important to remember that, in the 1970s
and for much of the 1980s, it was Japan that was widely considered to
represent the major threat to the West, in terms both of pure economic
clout and of the promotion of new, non-Western/liberal modes of
organizing economic activity. The way it did this demonstrates both
the impact of European imperialism and the concomitant expansion of
the inter-state system, as well as the importance of regional institutions
in determining how such external forces would be mediated and accom-
modated. Japan proved to be an assiduous acolyte of European political
structures and technological innovations, which it self-consciously set
out to imitate and acquire. Japanese elites proved to be equally enthu-
siastic students of the European ‘standard of civilization’ (Gong 1984).
In this endeavour, they were assisted by the British, who facilitated
Japan’s naval expansion to offset Russian power in the ‘Far East’
(J. Perry 1966). As Shogo Suzuki’s contribution to this volume
(Chapter 3) makes clear, the adoption of European notions of statehood
and international behaviour marked the high point of external influence
on Japan – albeit with unforeseen and sometimes catastrophic conse-
quences. One of the great ironies of the period is that the Japanese not
only reformed some of their domestic political institutions along
Western lines, but their external affairs became similar to Europe’s,
too – with disastrous consequences.
Although the Meiji Restoration that resulted from the sudden ‘opening’
of Japan represented a major, externally induced transformation of some
of its key institutions and a reordering of its elites, it did not amount to a
complete departure from what had gone before. On the contrary, one of
the principal goals of the younger generation of reformers in Japan was to
increase Japan’s domestic strength relative to the imperial powers – a
theme that remained prominent throughout the twentieth century
(Tabb 1995). The subsequent reforms of key institutions such as the
police and the military were designed to enhance the power of the
Japanese state and allow it to emulate European colonial expansion
(Beasley 1987). As a consequence, the state remained an especially
important primary institution in Japan because of internal strengthening
in pursuit of external aggrandizement.
Japan’s imperial phase has had long-term consequences in Northeast
Asia in the way that its style of authoritarian, state-led development was
exported to Taiwan and to South Korea (Kohli 2004). Neither of these
states would have developed in quite the way – or at the speed – they did
without this Japanese influence, and the history of the entire region might
have looked rather different as a consequence. In some parts of the region,
at least, the ‘developmental state’ that Japan pioneered and transplanted
has played such an important role that it merits being considered as a
distinctive primary institution in its own right.
The developmental state

As we have already noted, all states are deeply involved in determining the
manner in which economic activity occurs within national borders. We
have also suggested that forms of state developmentalism played important
roles in promoting industrialization elsewhere. What is distinctive about the
East Asian experience is that it occurred ‘late’ – or at least, later than state
developmentalism in Europe and the USA – and was thus able to learn from
the Western experience (Gerschenkron 1966). The developmental state
ought to be considered as a primary institution, first, because of the impor-
tance of its recent historical role in East Asia and, second, because – as an
ideal type, at least – it represents an important variant on the sort of
competition or market-state model that has become widely associated
with the Anglo-American economies (Bobbitt 2002; Cerny 1997).
Japan has become synonymous with the developmental state in the
aftermath of the Second World War largely as a consequence of the
ground-breaking analysis of Chalmers Johnson (1982). Johnson
explained just how little impact the United States and the reformist efforts
of its occupying forces had actually had on the Japanese state, its internal
institutional structures and practices, or on the legitimacy the state
enjoyed as a central actor in economic processes. The dominance of the
Liberal Democratic Party after the end of US occupation meant that
elections did not result in a significant shift in the balance of authority,
and elections largely came and went without politicians having to change
policy in the short term to pander to electoral interests. As a result,
powerful state officials, in partnership with private-sector actors through
the various industrial bureaus of the Ministry of International Trade and
Industry, were able to direct national savings to targeted industrial sectors
and individual companies in a co-ordinated effort to rebuild Japan’s
economy unconstrained by electoral cycles. In the famous words of
Johnson (1982), politicians reigned, but bureaucrats ruled. And whatever
one may think about the relative merits of dirigisme and laissez faire, the
historical reality is that Japan’s state-led (re)development process was a
spectacular success, and Japan became the second biggest economy in the
world in little more than two decades after the war.
Other analysts have tried to develop a more generic understanding of
the developmental state and apply it to other historical experiences. An
effective developmental state was thought to have ‘embedded autonomy’,
in which a competent bureaucratic elite was distant enough from powerful
vested interests to act independently in the ‘national interest’, but suffi-
ciently embedded in society as to be able to implement policy effectively
(Evans 1995). Authoritarian rule in South Korea and Taiwan provided
this through the suppression of sectoral interests. In both cases, the lack of
democracy was partly justified by the urgent need to build a strong
industrial base to protect the state from the possibility of attack from
rival communist regimes to the north. Japanese occupation was impor-
tant, but so too was the nature of the end of Japanese control. In both
Taiwan and South Korea, processes of ‘decolonization’ from Japanese
rule created something of a power vacuum aided, in the Taiwanese case,
by the incoming Guomindang taking not just existing Japanese plants, but
also land, and eradicating indigenous Taiwanese opposition. As a result,
in both South Korea and Taiwan, there were few existing power interests
outside the new state system to consider in making policy, providing
policy-makers with the basis of the relative state autonomy, which
Johnson (1999), Adrian Leftwich (1995, 2000) and others argue was so
crucial for the effective functioning of the developmental states. The quick
rehabilitation of Japan by the United States as a Cold War ally and the
broader geo-political impulses of the Cold War resulted in a tolerance of
relatively illiberal economic forms. Thus, although Northeast Asian
developmental states may share features with earlier and subsequent
developmental states, the specific context of anti-communism and Cold
War bipolarity are important components and characteristics that argu-
ably mark them out as a distinct subgroup of the wider genus of devel-
opmental states (Cumings 1999; Leftwich 1995).
But while the developmental state is a distinctive feature of economic
development in East Asia, it is an ideal type that has been realized differently
in various parts of the region, and there is no single ‘Asian model’ of
development. In its ideal-typical form, Leftwich (2000: 175–6) suggests, a
developmental state is distinguished by a developmental elite; relative
autonomy for the ‘state apparatus’; a competent and insulated economic
bureaucracy; a weak and subordinated civil society; the capacity to manage
local and foreign economic interests; and a varying balance of repression,
legitimacy and performance. Plainly, this complex array of elements will be
realized in ways that reflect indigenous circumstances and capacities. For
our purposes, the distinctive feature of developmental states is that policy-
making elites prioritize economic development and are prepared to adopt or
experiment with policy frameworks and innovations that are not necessarily
or even primarily market-oriented. In other words, ‘state interventionism’ is
seen as unproblematic and even necessary in a political logic that privileges
economic development (Beeson 2009).
The developmental picture in Southeast Asia illustrates the different
ways developmental goals have been pursued and realized in the region as
a whole. Although there has been significant and impressive development
across much of Southeast Asia, the industrialization process has generally
been ‘shallower’ and more dependent on external forces (Beeson 2002a;

Yoshihara 1988). At one level, the late industrializing economies of
Southeast Asia simply occupied less lucrative niches in the regional pro-
duction hierarchy, as we explain below. At another level, however,
Southeast Asia’s comparatively poor performance was a consequence of
endogenous factors. While the particular challenges of state-building and
economic development may have had colonial origins, they generally
resulted in much weaker, less capable states than in Northeast Asia. The
absence of comparable ‘state capacity’ has been one of the most important
differences between Northeast and Southeast Asia. Even though no part
of the region has been immune to corruption or authoritarianism, much of
Southeast Asia – especially in the post-independence period – suffered
from a more predatory, less developmental form of ‘strong man’ politics
(Sidel 2008).
There were, then, ‘initial conditions’ that made the developmental
challenge facing Southeast Asian states significantly more difficult than
their Northeast Asian counterparts (Booth 1999). And yet despite – or
more likely, because of – this, a number of Southeast Asian states copied
the strategies of their northern neighbours and employed a range of
industrial policies to promote development. Singapore has undoubtedly
been the most successful of these – so much so that it is generally lumped
together with South Korea and Taiwan in the ‘second tier’ of industri-
alizing economies (Haggard 1990). However, other Southeast Asian
economies, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, have all
employed, with varying degrees of success, industrial developmental
policies that directly or indirectly reflect either the influence or the direct
participation of the established economies to their north (Jomo 2004;
Rasiah 2010). It is interesting that it is the Southeast Asian state that is an
outlier in terms of its political heritage and state form – the Philippines –
that has also had the least impressive economic development among
the major Southeast Asian economies (Hutchcroft 1998). While the
developmental state may not have been realized in precisely the same
way in Southeast Asia, nor had the same sort of bureaucratic capability as
in Northeast Asia, its overall historical influence and distinctiveness
reinforce the claim to its status as a primary institution.
The evolving regional production hierarchy

Japan’s experience – like those of China and the other regional econo-
mies – reflects broader changes associated with ‘globalization’. Although
globalization is frequently an underspecified concept, it captures many of
the increasingly transnational, cross-border economic activities that have
intensified over the past few decades (Dicken 2011). Although much
scholarly attention has been given to the financial sector, we shall focus
mainly on changes in the ‘real’ economy generally and the manufacturing
sector in particular, which has been central to the economic rise of both
Japan and China, albeit with important variations. The evolution of
regional production structures remains not only distinctive, but also a
major influence on the way ‘national’ economies are integrated into a
wider international system, and a manifestation of the close nexus
between politics and economics that is the signature feature of the region.
Despite the residual importance of the state, research on global pro-
duction networks reminds us just how potentially important private-
sector actors can be in determining how economic activity is organized.
Although many analysts talk in general terms about the interaction
between states and markets (Schwartz 1994), one of the reasons we
prefer not to talk about ‘the market’ in this context is because it obscures
the complex, evolving and very tangible nature of contemporary
production processes. While all industrializing nations may have gone
through broadly similar processes of technological upgrading and devel-
opment (H.-J. Chang 2002), the precise historical period in which such
processes occurred and the very different ways in which ‘national econo-
mies’ were integrated into the wider international economic order have
major material consequences. The fact that Japan was the first country
to successfully industrialize in East Asia gave it specific ‘first mover’
advantages that allowed it to dominate – or ‘lead’, if one takes a more
positive view (Ozawa 2009) – the more general process of industrial
development across the entire region.
Production networks have played an increasingly important part in this
process. Although different scholars point to different features, they share
a basic understanding that Fordist production processes based on hori-
zontal integration have given way to vertical integration between core
companies and their production affiliates, suppliers and subcontractors
creating a ‘nexus of interconnected functions and operations through
which goods and services are produced, distributed and consumed’
(Henderson et al. 2002: 445). One of the most important long-term
transformations of economic activity everywhere has been the shift from
trade between individual national economies, often specializing in differ-
ent economic sectors or activities, to a situation where ‘trade’ frequently
occurs between or even within individual companies as their activities
have become increasingly transnational (Dicken 2011). Such changes are
a reflection of universal technological transformation that has allowed
multinational corporations (MNCs) to disaggregate the production proc-
ess and spread economic activities across national borders.
Indeed, a number of globally recognized companies do not actually make

anything themselves, but instead focus on marketing and distribution,
leaving the process of making what they sell to others. There are a number
of companies in the region that have taken on the role of supply chain
managers, with most of them based in Hong Kong, Singapore and
Taiwan. These include locally established and managed companies such
as Pou-Chen and Hon Hai in Taiwan, and Li and Fung in Hong Kong. But
they also include corporations established by extra-regional actors. The
economic history of Hong Kong has been heavily influenced by the activ-
ities of companies established by British entrepreneurs in the nineteenth
century, such as the Swire Group and Jardine Matheson, that still play
important roles in the Asian regional economy today. So too do more
recently established companies from North America such as Solectron,
Flextronics, SCI and Jabil Circuits from the USA, and Celestica from
Canada, which collectively organize the production of much of the world’s
electronic consumer goods. Notably, while such intermediary companies
have long been involved in the production of goods for others, a number of
them are now also taking on research and design functions as well.
This pattern of production opens up the possibility of exploiting – or even
actively creating – particular ‘comparative advantages’. As a consequence,
different national economic spaces can be incorporated into the production
strategies of MNCs in very different ways. A company might keep the most
lucrative, high value-added aspects of its production process in the United
States while ‘out-sourcing’ the more labour-intensive aspects of production
to parts of Southeast Asia, which have an abundance of cheap, female,
invariably non-unionized labour (P. F. Kelly 2002). One of the more
noteworthy and contentious developmental strategies employed by a num-
ber of governments in the region has been the creation of ‘special economic
zones’, utilizing incentives such as lower taxation rates, to attract increas-
ingly footloose MNC capital (Amirahmadi and Wu 1995). The persistence
of such a logic can be seen in the efforts Southeast Asian governments have
made to make their subregion more attractive to multinational capital by
trying to establish a region-wide free trade area to facilitate transnational
production in industries such as car manufacture and electronics
(Nesadurai 2003; also see Foot this volume).
Much attention has understandably been paid to the remarkable eco-
nomic development that has occurred across much of East Asia. Rightly
so; it is a historically unprecedented achievement, both in its scale and its
rapidity, and not something we would want to disparage. But as noted
above, when we employ a ‘value chain’ or production network focus,
it becomes apparent that private-sector actors based in ‘developed’ econo-
mies continue to play a decisive role in determining the way production is
organized and the sort of activities that occur in different geographic areas
(Gereffi, Humphrey and Sturgeon 2005). This production has also largely
been reliant on demand from the major markets of North America and
Europe. So we can argue that the real regional economic integration that
has occurred through trade and investment flows in East Asia has (to date
at least) been heavily influenced by extra-regional economic interests and
actors.
Japan’s regional role

The interaction between the regional and the global, which is one of the
principal themes of this entire volume, is well illustrated in Japan’s post-war
economic transformation. One of the most telling realities is that, despite
their desire to resist foreign penetration of the domestic economy, the
attraction and necessity of outward expansion proved irresistible for
Japanese corporations, too. The migration of Japanese corporations and
the regional production networks they developed was entirely in keeping
with both Japan’s own successful pattern of export-oriented industrializa-
tion and more general changes in international production. What distin-
guished Japanese external expansion was the degree of control that was
retained – initially, at least – over the entire production process (Ruigrok
and van Tulder 1995). Significantly, the Japanese state remained actively
involved in facilitating this process through overseas development assis-
tance packages for host nations, and through technical and financial assis-
tance for Japanese companies. The net effect of such policies was not just to
retain a surprising degree of control over external operations, but also to
lock economies elsewhere in Southeast Asia into subordinate positions in a
regional hierarchy with its apex in Tokyo (Hatch and Yamamura 1996).
Japan reinforced this dominance and dependency by continually upgrading
its own position at the leading edge of technological development, consign-
ing other regional economies to supporting, less lucrative and less skill-
intensive roles. Nevertheless, for aspiring ‘late-late’ industrializing nations
such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and even the Philippines, Japanese
investment offered a way of accelerating the development process in its
early phases, albeit on Japanese terms.
Recently this picture has begun to change and the historical circum-
stances that allowed Japan to retain a degree of domestic insulation and
external control no longer exist in the same way. The very nature of some
manufacturing processes, especially in the electronics sector, has meant
that Japanese multinationals have been forced to emulate the strategies of
US competitors and transfer greater technological know-how to subsid-
iaries in order to exploit local expertise and cost advantages (Ernst and
Ravenhill 2000; Sturgeon 2002). The evolution of regional production

networks as a consequence of their ‘strategic coupling’ with multinational
corporations following a global organizational logic has meant that it has
become increasingly difficult for states – developmental or otherwise – to
exercise the degree of influence over ‘national champions’ that they once
did (Yeung 2009). As a result, the picture of regional production has
become more complex, with a variety of forces such as ethnic business
groups and subregional economic zones adding to an increasingly
complex and fluid picture (Peng 2002). What is clear is that East Asia
has been increasingly knitted together by regional production networks
and their very existence within what is currently the world’s most dynamic
area of economic activity continues to offer competitive advantages and an
incentive for further investment. Although the picture is complex,
regional production networks represent another important primary insti-
tution that determines economic outcomes in distinctive ways. The rise
of China as a critical regional and global economic actor has reinforced
this situation, but also changed the patterns of regional economic inter-
actions – not always to the benefit of other regional economies.
China and the evolution of capitalism in East Asia

At a time when China is widely considered to be an economic powerhouse
and perhaps even a near competitor of the United States in the global
economy, it is important to remember just how recent China’s insertion
into regional and global economic networks actually is. While most analysis
understandably dates China’s reintegration into the global economy from
Deng Xiaoping’s assumption of de facto control of China in 1978, it was not
until 1993 that China really began to become an important part of regional
production networks. As a result of a range of policies designed to attract
foreign investment to produce exports (though not the sort of investment
that might compete with existing Chinese producers in the domestic
economy) there was more foreign direct investment (FDI) in China
in 1993 than in the preceding years of reform put together; the rest, as
they say, is history (Breslin 2007).
Low wage rates in China, tax and other incentives for investors, and a
‘favourable’ exchange rate with the economies that were the major markets
for exports (Europe and North America) made China an attractive location
for investors. China surpassed the United States as the world’s major
recipient of non-stocks and shares FDI in 2005. These investors have
played a major role in generating economic growth in China, and exports
from foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) have only recently fallen to
account for less than half of all Chinese exports (49% in 2012). As these
FIEs typically source components and supplies from other parts of the
region, they also account for almost half of Chinese imports as well.
Wholly foreign-owned firms use the lowest levels of domestic content,
while the higher the level of technological advancement, the higher the
amount of imported components. So while a toy or a shirt will overwhelm-
ingly use domestic inputs, wholly foreign-owned enterprises producing a
top-end laptop computer will import as much as 80% of the export value.
Given the different trade profile China has with different markets based on
the level of development of that market, this means that exports to places
such as the United States have a much higher level of imported components
than exports to developing countries that are dominated by cheaper lower-
tech goods made by Chinese companies (Akyüz 2011).
While China has run large trade surpluses with the major markets of the
West (and Japan), it has historically run deficits with other regional states
that have supplied China’s export boom. As China is the place where such
goods are assembled for final markets, they are notionally Chinese
exports. But the extent to which these goods should be considered to be
‘Chinese’ rather than a result of a wider regional effort is questionable
(Sturgeon and Gereffi 2009). Such complexities undermine the notion
of both discrete national economies and of clearly demarcated regional
production structures. Nevertheless, China’s place in East Asia’s overall
economic profile is, like Japan’s before it, sufficiently significant that it is a
crucial determinant of the way in which the interaction between global
and regional forces plays out.
Towards a Sino-centric regional economic order?

While China in some ways extends existing production networks, it has
also distorted them. FDI is not a zero-sum game – nevertheless, there is
evidence to suggest that Chinese policies to attract investment have had a
negative impact on other regional economies seeking similar investment
to produce exports (C. W. Hughes 1999). As a result, countries such as
Thailand and Malaysia have seen a shift in what they export and where
they send it to with a big transformation from sending finished goods to
the West to exporting materials and components to China (Breslin 1999).
So, while production networks can have integrative impacts, they can, at
the same time, heighten competition between regional economies.
Crucially, regional processes are not hermetically sealed from extra-
regional actors and interests. It is not just that so much of what is produced
through intra-regional trade and investment is ultimately sold outside the
region, but that much of the investment is extra-regional as well. As
finances are routed through specialist contract manufacturing enterprises
in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, the statistics can often miss this
global dimension showing only the final investment rather than tracing the
financial flows back to their origins. Thus, although the regional market is a
key determinant of economic outcomes in East Asia, it is important not to
artificially isolate it from broader global economic transactions and flows
(Breslin 2005). This suggests that the idea that China is a ‘driver’ of regional
production flows (Kaplinsky and Messner 2008) is only partly true. To be
sure, Chinese state policies – both at the national and local levels – have
created conditions in which producers have moved their productive
capacity to China and/or look to Chinese suppliers for what they need.
What was once a regional production network that centred on Japanese
investment and technology has become a regional network based on
Chinese production. Chinese firms are also taking a greater role not just
in producing exports, but also in investing overseas. But we need to add to
this picture the agency of both regional and extra-regional economic actors
that also help ‘drive’ the process through their investment and production
decisions.
With intra-Asian trade becoming more important for regional economies
in ‘emerging Asia’ than trading with the United States and Europe, the idea
that the region might be ‘decoupling’ from the wider global economy (and
thus become less dependent on the ‘US business cycle’) has been broached
(IMF 2007). This idea has been received with some caution. As much intra-
regional trade in East Asia entails the movement of components to produce
goods that are still largely sold to the West (Pula and Peltonen 2009), the
growth of intra-regional trade is not necessarily independent from extra-
regional economic dynamics. The delinking argument is also based on an
understanding that Chinese growth ‘has largely remained independent of
the economic cycles of its main trading partners’ (Dées and Vansteenkiste
2007: 5). This claim stems from the argument that China has been much
less dependent on exports for growth than was previously believed – an idea
promoted by, among others, UBS managing director Jonathan Anderson
(2007). For Anderson, headline figures of exports making up around 40%
of Chinese GDP needed to be adjusted to take into account the above-
mentioned significance of imported components. His calculations stripped
out imports to leave just the ‘value added’ of exports which he calculated
accounted to a mere 10% of GDP. If the decoupling hypothesis is correct,
then the region should have become increasingly immune to infection from
economic problems elsewhere. China (and through this much of the rest of
the region) has ‘been effectively “decoupled”, and . . . has little to fear from a
global demand slowdown’ (ibid.: 1). Thus, so the argument goes, a decline
in the United States and/or European markets would not affect China or the
rest of the regional economy significantly.
The figures, and the methodology, have been refuted (L. Cui and Syed
2007). Critics also point out that export industries are themselves key
drivers of ‘domestic’ sources of growth such as investment and con-
sumption – if you build a road to a port it appears as domestic invest-
ment, but it is investment that is necessary because of the importance of
exports (L. Cui, Shu and Su 2009). For Akyüz (2010: 7) when you add
these ‘spill-overs’ into the domestic economy, then export-related eco-
nomic activity accounts for at least half of Chinese GNP. And China’s
leaders have certainly acted as if the economy was still largely dependent
on exports – witness, for example, the lengths to which they have gone to
ensure the price competitiveness of exporters, including an exchange
rate policy that the vice governor of the central bank has called the ‘root
cause’ of Chinese inflation (Back 2011). And as Chinese exports col-
lapsed in 2008–9, the government pumped trillions of dollars into the
economy to make up for the shortfall in exports – nearly RMB10 trillion
in new bank loans in 2009 alone – and risked building up the debts of
local governments in the long term to get over short-term shocks to
exporters.
The crisis suggests that arguments for delinking were rather premature.
Japan has not been immune: Ralf Emmers and John Ravenhill (2011)
point to the severe impact in the strongest trading nations in the region
(Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand) and, as
we have seen, there was a very real (and quick) impact on Chinese exports.
We suggest that a regional effort built on investment or production is
rather different from one built on consumption. Despite the incredible
rise of China in recent years, per capita income remains relatively low, and
domestic household consumption in China is relatively weak. What this
suggests, then, is that there is still a huge amount of space for the Chinese
market and domestic consumption to fill. If it does so, then the chances
that a regional market based on consumption rather than production will
emerge are very high. This is not to say that this regional market will
develop in isolation from the rest of the world, but if it does it will have a
very different relationship with the broader global economy than is the
case today.
China as what form of state capitalism?

China’s emergence from relative isolation has changed East Asia’s
regional economic processes; originally a Japan-centred region of produc-
tion, it is now Sino-centric. In all likelihood in the long term it will lead a
second transition by making the evolution to a region of consumption.
And in many respects, it has also continued the tradition of strong state
developmentalism in the region – albeit again in some ways by changing

existing patterns and norms. Like Japan before it, China’s reforms can be
understood as a process of national rejuvenation. The need to reform
‘in the national interest’ was a key justification for the remarkable aban-
donment of the Maoist tradition in 1978 (C. R. Hughes 1997), which
started the process of reform in the first place and which has subsequently
been used to justify the dismantling of the social safety net that the old
system used to provide (Gallagher 2002). While Mao tried to mobilize the
people around revolutionary goals, China’s current leaders mobilized the
economy around national goals when the global crisis threatened to derail
growth objectives in 2008 and 2009.
The idea that China has followed a pattern of strong state developmen-
talism is not universally accepted. There is an alternative view that China
has actually followed the principles of growth promotion associated with the
Washington Consensus – that it is privatization, liberalization, support for
the private sector and engagement with the capitalist global economy that
have been the source of China’s remarakble successes (Y. Huang 2010).
After all, this is an economy in which the state seems to have been in retreat
through a process of privatization in the second half of the 1990s, and the
shedding of thousands of enterprises and tens of millions of jobs from the
state sector. By the time China joined the WTO in 2001, the non-state
sector dominated in GDP, produced the overwhelming majority of growth,
and was the main source of net new jobs (Fan 2000).
And yet while there is little consensus over what the ‘Chinese model’
might be (or entail), one of the strongest themes – indeed, perhaps the only
thing that unites the various different interpretations – is the importance of
strong state development. So how do we reconcile this apparent success
story of the market and liberalization with the idea of strong state devel-
opmentalism? First, state ownership is actually more pervasive than appears
at first sight. There may only be 117 enterprises owned by the central
government, but many are large industrial groups that in turn control
other enterprises. Privatization has shed smaller and loss-making enter-
prises, leaving the central state with either direct control or a controlling
share in profit-making ‘strategically important sectors’ (战略重要部分,
zhanlue zhongyao bufen) or ‘pillar’ sectors of the economy (Mattlin 2009;
Wildau 2008). These sectors – such as machinery, automobiles, informa-
tion technology, construction, steel, base metals, chemicals, and research
and development – occupy what used to be called the ‘commanding heights
of the economy’ and have an impact on most other levels of economic
activity. So, although the non-state sector dominates, those sectors where
state ownership still dominates exert considerable influence over the rest of
the economy, creating a framework within which other forms of non-state
activity can operate. Moreover, most state-owned enterprises are actually

owned by local governments rather than the centre and, while typically
much smaller than their central counterparts, they are often major actors
in the local environment. We should also note that, although land has
become commoditized, it remains owned by the state; indeed, selling
land-use rights has become a major source of local government income in
recent years.
Second, while the private sector dominated in other regional develop-
mental states, it did so with government help – particularly through state
intervention to direct finances to favoured industries and enterprises. This
pattern is replicated in China. A heavily bank-dominated financial system
has been a key means of exercising direction and control over the econ-
omy, ensuring that, whereas enterprises may not be formally tied to the
state through ownership, they are nevertheless not wholly independent of
the state (if they want access to finances, at least). Huawei might be a
private company, but it receives support from the Chinese state that marks
it out as being part of the national project – even a national champion.
While it may not be formally part of the state economy, we can suggest that
it is part of the national economy.
Although the sources of finance for industrial and other projects might
have been very different in Japan, South Korea and China, they have
nevertheless shared a key feature in that lending decisions have not been
made simply on economic grounds (financial prudence, risk and
returns, etc.), but have also been inspired by political motivations and
conceptions of the national economic interest. In addition, the Chinese
state can and does step in to bail out loss-making enterprises and to
recapitalize the banks themselves if they face economic problems. The
banks had millions of dollars worth of debts cleared off their books in the
late 1990s and, as it became apparent that many of the loans extended to
get through the global crisis in 2009 could not be repaid, the state again
intervened to take over troublesome financial commitments.
The state in China, like Japan before it, has also controlled access to
markets through the issuing of licences and protecting domestic pro-
ducers from external competition. In this respect, China has emulated
some of the key precepts of Friedrich List, who called for Germany
to protect its infant industries until they were in a position to compete
or even dominate in the global economy. In principle, much of this
protection should have been abandoned when China joined the WTO in
2001, accepting terms that required more liberalization than, for example,
earlier Asian developing states. And, indeed, much has been done to
adhere to these requirements. Nevertheless, through what we might call
imaginative implementation of some WTO commitments, favoured
enterprises and sectors can still be protected. For example, the ‘Catalogue
Guiding Foreign Investment in Industry’ has been revised four times
supposedly to make China WTO compliant, but as sectors are opened
they are often subject to new caveats and footnotes that limit the extent to
which a level playing field is established (Breslin 2006).
On one level, the extent to which China has moved towards market-
conforming principles in a relatively short period of time is astonishing.
China did not recognize a number of other regional states in the early
1990s, but not much more than a decade later it had become a strong
proponent of regional multilateralism and the driver of a free trade area
with ASEAN. Parts of its economy had become very liberal indeed – most
notably the processing export sector. But, on another level, this transition
is incomplete and the role of the state remains strong in deciding where
the private and the market can flourish ‘in the national interest’ and where
it cannot. At times of crisis, for example, in 2008, the state can mobilize its
economic resources to attain supposedly national goals, thereby shrinking
the space for private actors in a process that is known in China as guojin
mintui (国进民退).
The role of the state in terms of direct control and ownership in China is
stronger than in Japan or in the newly industrializing countries. But,
ironically, in some ways the central state has been less able to control
and direct in the Chinese case than in earlier developmental states. This is
because of the key role that local governments have played in China as
agents of state interests and as promoters of local interests (which at times
have not always conformed with national objectives). From the early
1990s, the central state has implemented a number of key policy reforms
designed to increase their ability to control the national economy and
weaken the power of the localities. But the local state retains means of
levering local banks to support local objectives – something that occurred
on a dramatic scale when the central government urged the banks to help
the economy deal with the impact of the global crisis in 2008–9 – and by
finding innovative ways of raising money.
Secondary institutions and the East Asian

political economy
Other contributors to this collection deal with the question of secondary
institutions in more detail (see Foot this volume). Here we offer a few brief
observations about the relationship between what we have suggested as a
distinctive East Asian primary institution in the form of the developmental
state, and important regional derivations from master institutions such as
the GPE. It has been widely observed that, unlike in Europe, in East Asia
economic integration has largely preceded and driven political co-operation

and the creation of formal regional institution-building (Breslin and
Higgott 2000). The growing array of regional institutional initiatives is of
particular interest and potential importance given the rise of China, its
growing assertiveness in international forums, and the fact that some
observers think that ‘Asia’s new multilateralism is still at a stage where it
is best understood as an extension and intersection of national power and
purpose rather than an objective force in itself’ (Gill and Green 2009: 3).
Historically, the evolution of regional institutions has mirrored
geo-political shifts both within the region itself and between the region
and the wider international society (Beeson 2008). Although the process
of institutionalization in East Asia is not nearly as developed as the
European Union, of late it is possible to detect distinct, potentially
competing logics at work as states attempt to realize different visions of
regional development. At one level, regional institutional development
has revolved around efforts to identify and define the very borders and
membership of the region itself. While the supporters of organizations
such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum may have
been primarily preoccupied with technocratic questions of trade liberali-
zation, APEC is also an expression of a putative regional identity that
included non-Asian states such as the United States and Australia, which
are strongly identified with a ‘neo-liberal’, market-oriented economic
agenda. In other words, institutions have a symbolic and ideational
significance that potentially extends well beyond their functional role.
However, the ‘Anglo-American’, neo-liberal agenda championed by
the likes of Australia has never enjoyed enthusiastic support within East
Asia (Beeson and Islam 2005); perhaps because, rather than being seen as
a regional organization, APEC looks more like a trans-regional project
designed to maintain the dominance of non-Asian norms and practices in
the region. The latent tensions inherent in differing views about
the membership and purpose of regional institutions were dramatically
highlighted in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. First, the crisis
demonstrated how exposed the Asian economies were to forces associated
with ‘globalization’ generally, and to the intervention of powerful external
agencies such as the IMF in particular. Second, there was a recognition
among regional political and economic elites that East Asia lacked the sort
of indigenous secondary institutions that might act on behalf of those
regional economies that had been impacted by the crisis itself and actually
develop responses and mechanisms that reflected regional priorities. The
so-called Chiang Mai Initiative and the associated development of
monetary co-operation strategies are the most important immediate
manifestation of this possibility (Grimes 2009).
Third, the crisis had a major impact on the thinking of Chinese policy-
makers, alerting them to the importance of China’s growing regional role
and the part that regional institutions might play in the pursuit of national
goals (Breslin 2009). Although it is difficult to measure the impact of such
events, it seems that the Asian crisis may have played a role in establishing
a ‘cognitive region’; that is, a sense of what the more narrowly conceived
East Asian region might actually be in terms of extent and membership.
The recent European experience serves as a salutary reminder that it is
difficult to generalize about the impact of crises on regional identities and
institution-building (Beeson 2011), but in East Asia, at least, the region’s
less-developed institutional architecture appears to have been reinforced,
rather than undermined by economic crises.
In the longer term, the crisis and its aftermath have had other effects that
may prove even more consequential, the most important of which is the
undermining of Japan’s regional leadership ambitions and the consolida-
tion of China’s. While Japan’s efforts to provide leadership were effectively
thwarted by the United States, China emerged from the crisis with its
reputation significantly enhanced. The net effect has been both to give
additional momentum to regionally based efforts to encourage economic
co-operation as Japan belatedly attempts to match China’s trade and invest-
ment initiatives, and to accelerate the development of new regional institu-
tions. As far as China is concerned, the most important of these is
undoubtedly ASEAN Plus Three, which includes the other regional heavy-
weights Japan and South Korea, but which significantly excludes the
Anglo-American economies generally, and the United States in particular
along with the other big emerging Asian power, India (Pempel 2010).
Unsurprisingly, however, not everyone shares China’s ambition or vision
of an East Asian region with China at its centre. Japan and, more recently,
the United States have both been promoting an alternative vision of regional
development, one that is more inclusive and centred on the ‘Asia-Pacific’
rather than East Asia. The East Asia Summit (EAS), which at one stage
lacked significant support, has gained momentum as a consequence of the
United States’ desire to re-engage with the region – however it may be
defined. China’s response to this has been to encourage an even greater
expansion of the EAS in an effort to dissipate its membership and purpose,
effectively sidelining a competitor to ASEAN Plus Three and potentially
making the EAS as ineffective as APEC has been.
For our purposes, the significance of these developments is twofold:
first, for a region that has long been synonymous with limited institution-
alization and co-operation there is suddenly a surfeit of such initiatives on
offer. This suggests that, while institutional development in East Asia may
not replicate the European experience, the region is not implacably
opposed to, or incapable of realizing, the principle of institutionalized

regional co-operation. Second, even though we cannot be certain which of
these initiatives – if any – will come to dominate the co-operative activities
of states in East Asia, the process of institutional development will help to
define the region and its constitutive practices. This matters because of
the competition between China and Japan on the one hand, and between
China and the United States on the other, to exercise regional leadership
(Terada and Ong 2011).
Secondary institutions at the regional level – thus far at least – have
played a limited, rather inconsequential role. Even those institutions that
we have suggested might be thought of as primary in East Asia – the
developmental state and the regional manifestations of global production
structures – have either drawn on external experiences for inspiration or
have been integrated into larger international processes. What the East
Asian political-economic experience seems to suggest, therefore, is that
contingent circumstances are crucial determinants in mediating long-
term historical process and ‘external’ influences. And yet, as the current
place of ‘the Chinese economy’ in the contemporary global order reminds
us, even the most powerful political and economic entities may still be
shaped and constrained by the complex structures of the global economy.
Concluding remarks
In many ways ‘East Asia’ has been defined by the remarkable and distinc-
tive processes of economic development that have occurred there since
the Second World War. After all, the reason the region has attracted the
attention it has is because the scale and rapidity of this development have
been without historical precedent and were almost entirely unpredicted.
At the heart of the emergence – or re-emergence, if one takes the longer
view – of what we now think of as East Asia as one of the main centres of
global economic activity has been the developmental state. True, not all of
the region followed the Japanese model, and even in Japan it has become
much less powerful, effective and distinctive than it once was. But the East
Asian experience cannot be understood without recognizing the historical
role played by ‘interventionist’ governments bent on accelerating the
course of economic development.
Some might argue it was ever thus: although many may have chosen to
forget it, no state has successfully industrialized without state help of some
sort. What sets East Asia apart, however, is that even in an era charac-
terized by apparently inexorable global processes and forces, the degree of
‘convergence’ occurring in the region is not as great as we might expect –
or not yet, at least. There are substantial grounds for thinking this may not
change as rapidly as some claim: if the ‘rise of China’ highlights anything,

it is that there is more than one road to economic development, even if it is
broadly capitalist. The fact that Chinese politics – and those of many other
polities around the region, for that matter – continues to operate differ-
ently from those in the West also suggests that there are powerful forces in
East Asia that are likely to resist a transition to a new political and/or
economic order from which they might benefit less.
Having said that, there clearly are forces at work that are making it
impossible to maintain the distinctive domestic institutions, social rela-
tions and business–government ties that characterized Japan during its
high growth period. The outward expansion of Japanese corporations
has seen the ‘Japanese economy’ become less differentiated from, and
more integrated with, the wider international economy. The evolution
and relentless internationalization of production processes are a very
tangible expression of how even the most powerful economies are being
transformed by technological change and economic competition.
Southeast Asia’s and China’s later industrialization processes reflect
these changes. China’s integration into the global trade and production
processes has been far deeper than Japan’s and, despite its notional
status as a communist country, its political economy is arguably less
distinctive than Japan’s was at a similar phase of development.
Does this mean that the ‘convergence’ theorists are correct and that East
Asia’s distinctiveness as a form of capitalism and as a putative region that
reflects political and economic commonalities is at an end? Perhaps. But
given China’s growing economic stature, its increasing assertiveness and
the fact that it is not either liberal politically or neo-liberal economically, it is
too soon to jump to conclusions. Hitherto, we might have been forgiven for
thinking that East Asia’s engagement with international society has been a
one-way street: the main structures of the international system are Western
in origin, after all. But even though states and capitalist economics may
have become universal, they are manifest in very different ways across the
world. The very success – in crude material terms, at least – of Asian
variations on these themes has attracted attention and some admiration.
For those who see China’s rise as emblematic of a new international order
and an Asian century, this suggests that the vectors of influence may not be
all one way in the future (Jacques 2009).
Much will depend, no doubt, on the ability of the Asian region to
maintain its overall economic success and to resolve internal problems.
Even if the region can overcome the major environmental constraints
that have become the all too visible consequence of East Asia’s break-
neck development, it is not obvious that they can overcome their internal
rivalries. Sceptics argue that the region can never match its economic
might as a similarly powerful and cohesive political entity. Until recently,

at least, there were grounds for cautious optimism: China and Japan
seemed so important to each other economically that it was difficult
to imagine them jeopardizing their bilateral political relationship.
Similarly, relations between China and Taiwan have steadily improved
as a consequence of their growing economic ties and the importance
of having an effective working relationship to manage the complex
production networks that are binding them together. However, the
escalating maritime disputes in the region look set to test the logic of
liberal interdependence. What we can say is that whether realists or
liberals ultimately prove to have a more accurate prognosis for the region
as a whole, for better or worse, East Asia’s material importance ensures
that it will play a central role in determining political, economic and
strategic outcomes in the twenty-first century. In other words, whatever
we take international society to be, it will increasingly reflect the prefer-
ences of its East Asian members.
6 Outside-in and inside-out: political ideology,
the English School and East Asia
Alice D. Ba
Introduction
This chapter considers the relationship between ‘political ideology’ and
regional international society in East Asia. The assigned task, however, is
challenging on at least three fronts. Theoretically, it is challenged by the
English School’s historical, even characteristic, neglect of the domestic in
favour of the ‘international’. Normatively, as the original questions posed
for this chapter illustrate,1 it is challenged by an underlying liberal bias and
preoccupation with regime type where the key distinction between states
is whether states are democracies or non-democracies. That bias is cer-
tainly not limited to the English School (ES); it is reflective of most
international relations (IR) theories that draw their cultural, institutional
and political references primarily from European trajectories of state
development and international relations. Nevertheless, the bias introdu-
ces preconceptions that can obscure other features of the East Asian
system, as well as more relevant categorizations. Lastly, this chapter’s
task is challenged empirically by the diversity of states that constitute
East Asia. The effort to draw generalized conclusions about East Asia
may be especially complicated by the varied nature of regional relations in
Northeast and Southeast Asian subregions. On the one hand, Southeast
Asia’s cultural profile ‘is the most difficult to generalize because it does
not possess that sense of perceived historical, cultural, or geographic
continuity and unity’ found in Northeast Asia (Yengoyan 2009). On the
other, the evolution of intra-Southeast Asian relations, especially since the
creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967,
1
The original questions offered as the premise of this chapter were: ‘How important is the
division between democracies and non-democracies in the region, and does it explain the
limits of regional international society in East Asia? Does regime security count as a
distinctive institution of regional international society in East Asia among the non-
democracies? Does the generally non-liberal nature of society and politics in East Asia
restrict the development of civil society, both within states and within the region, giving a
greater emphasis to the inter-state domain, and less to the non-state domains in East Asian
international society? Is there an East Asian identity of any sort at the elite or mass level?’
119
120 Alice D. Ba
points to the emergence of norms and principles linked to the stabilization

of intra-regional relations (e.g. norms of non-interference (Acharya 2001)
and norms of ‘regional unity’/resilience (Ba 2009)) that distinguish
Southeast Asia as a system of regional relations from Northeast Asia.
Such challenges notwithstanding, the question of political ideology
offers an opportunity to probe the extent to which different domestic
values and purposes may provide for regional societal relations and prac-
tices distinct from a larger global politics. As suggested, the domestic has
been mostly left to the domain of liberal approaches and their arguments
about democratic peace; however, the challenges associated with applying
their liberal claims to East Asia’s mixed political systems, as well as the
diversity of East Asian regimes, have meant less than serious consider-
ation of some key insights – in particular, their insight that domestic
ideologies and orders might inform regional practices, rules and the
general content of regional order. The English School, especially that
section informed by constructivist theory and insights, offers openings
to broaden debates and conclusions and to highlight cultural and histor-
ical variations that the ES in theory supports but has nevertheless often
neglected.
This discussion diverges from conventional IR theoretical analyses of
‘political ideology’ in at least three key respects. First, it moves away from
the preoccupation with democracy as the defining measure of regime type
and, consequently, the normative assumptions and commitments associ-
ated with the liberalism that underlies many treatments of the domestic in
IR. Political ideology is therefore defined in more neutral terms – as ‘a set
of closely related beliefs or ideas, or even attitudes, characteristic of a
group or community’ (John Plamenatz quoted in Howard 1989: 1) – thus
allowing for other kinds of cross-national variations and categorizations.
Conceptually and practically, this move makes sense given the difficulties
of defining ‘democracy’. It is also more appropriate to East Asia since
most East Asian states are not so easily categorized as democracies or non-
democracies.2 Such a move additionally opens the door to different
domestic-ideational commonalities between states that the usual demo-
cratic/non-democratic dichotomy may obscure.
Second, this chapter diverges from conventional domestic-level analy-
ses by underscoring processes of mutual constitution, a point made by
English School theorists (and also constructivists). Taking as its starting
point Peter Gourevitch’s (1978: 911) argument that ‘the international
2
As William Case (2002, 2009), for example, highlights in the case of Southeast Asia, even
its best ‘democracies’ are better characterized as ‘semi’, ‘unconsolidated’, and ‘low-
quality’ democracies, as they do not meet expectations of ‘liberal democracies’.
Outside-in and inside-out 121
system is not only a consequence of domestic politics and structures but

[also] a cause of them’, it underscores the fact that East Asian political
development is structured by historical and material forces/processes –
specifically, the consolidation of a post-Second World War order based
on liberal sovereignty. As English School theorists would emphasize, that
order is reflective of the values and interests of its core states, namely, the
liberal-democratic states of the Euro-American zone. At the same time,
while such processes produce strong homogenizing pressures, differences
in culture, temporal development and international situation also mediate
both the domestic content of states and how global institutions such as
sovereignty, nationalism and the market are practised. In this way, both
states and their relations with one another are made distinct by simulta-
neous processes of assimilation, adaptation/localization (Acharya 2004)
and resistance.
Finally, this chapter gives consideration to stabilizing trends at work in
East Asia. Indeed, as studies coming from different traditions highlight,
East Asian states have enjoyed a notable stabilization of intra-regional
relations, especially since the late 1970s (Alagappa 2003a; Goldsmith
2007; Kang 2003; Solingen 2007; Tønnesson 2009).3 This is not to say
that there are not still antagonisms or threats of militarized tensions and
exchanges; nor is it to say that trends could not be reversed. Nevertheless,
relatively speaking, intra-East Asian relations have been more stable than
many would expect given both changing balances of power (especially, the
growth of Chinese power) and the predominantly authoritarian content of
domestic regimes in East Asia.
This chapter proceeds as follows. Following a brief discussion on the
English School’s treatment of the domestic, this chapter looks to East Asia
for both historical and contemporary examples of how domestic values and
ordering principles have informed their regional relations. It then considers
the spread of the Western territorial form, the tensions it introduces and
especially the implications for governing ideologies and, in turn, conceptu-
alizations of state security – with attention to (1) what makes this process
different in East Asia compared to other regions and (2) the production of
what Christian Reus-Smit (1999) characterizes as the ‘moral purpose of the
state’. While the English School in principle acknowledges that interna-
tional relations at any given time is context-bound and historically
3
Though these studies vary in their definition of ‘Asia’ and their explanations, each never-
theless begins with the same empirical observation: East Asia has been relatively free of the
large-scale violent conflict that is associated with war. In Stein Tønnesson’s case, East
Asia’s non-war situation is made even more notable by both the lower threshold with which
he defines ‘war’ (more than 1,000 deaths, in contrast to, for example, Solingen, who
defines it as more than 10,000) and his inclusion of internal conflicts as ‘war’.
122 Alice D. Ba
contingent, its European roots and referents nevertheless manifest them-

selves in assumptions about the superiority and sophistication of European
institutions and values (Little 2000: 410, 413). In particular, this discussion
highlights how interacting influences of culture and situation inform expres-
sions of nationalism, self-determination and democracy as institutions and
practices in the East Asian context.
This discussion then traces a process by which domestic–international
interactions, especially since the late 1970s, contribute to a critical mass of
market-authoritarian East Asian regimes that make economic development
a critical source of regime legitimacy. Thus, in addition to the institutions
above, this discussion sees the market as an especially defining institution.
As such, the market will influence (as well as being influenced by) domestic
ideologies. The product of that synthesis will be the emergence and spread
of the ‘developmental state’, an institution that has profound consequences
for the conduct of inter-state relations in East Asia.
While there are debates about how exactly to define it, the developmental
state nevertheless serves as a shorthand for the market authoritarian regimes
that constitute East Asia as a region. The domestic ideologies that provide
the content for the developmental state are informed by structure (e.g. the
distribution of power and authority in the larger world system of states),
timing (e.g. the time at which East Asian states enter that system as
‘sovereign states’) and culture (e.g. relational conceptions of the individual
where the individual’s significance lies not in his/her autonomy but instead
in his/her relationship to others) (see overview in Stubbs 2009, esp. 5–9).
The developmental state institutionalizes more communitarian concep-
tions of the state, the interdependence of domestic and international vul-
nerabilities, and comprehensive notions of security that make economics a
basis for regime legitimacy. Meanwhile, the turn to market strategies also
ensures regional exchange. These ideas, which are, at their core, develop-
mentalist and statist as opposed to popular/populist in content, provide the
basis for a shared ideological disposition – or what Michael Howard might
describe as a common ‘mindset’ or mentalité. ‘Broader’ and ‘looser’ than a
‘systematic philosophy that claims to provide coherent and unchallengeable
answers to all the problems of mankind’ (1989: 00), this mindset contrib-
utes to an ideological disposition that is mostly pragmatic, countering more
grandly doctrinal4 or grandly nationalist constructs. It also mediates liber-
alizing forces. The developmental state, as also argued by Mark Beeson and
Shaun Breslin in this volume (Chapter 5), emerges as a distinguishing
institution of East Asian regional relations.
4
See Howard 1989 for contrasting definitions of ‘ideology’.
The English School and the domestic

The English School is not generally known for its consideration of the
domestic realm (True 2005: 156). This is because it has been most known
for pluralist (as opposed to solidarist) conceptualizations of interna-
tional – inter-state – society, which has been defined largely by ‘an agree-
ment to disagree on the correct way to order domestic society, economy,
politics and justice, given the absence of general agreement on principles
governing such arrangements’ (Williams 2002: 740; Wight 1966). In this
way, the English School is both similar to and different from neo-realist
scholars in their ideas about how the domestic relates to the international.
While the English School gives attention to intra- and inter-state socio-
logical and cultural agreement in ways that realists do not, there is never-
theless a tendency – as in realism – to ‘black box’ or put aside domestic
regime and domestic politics considerations as unimportant to a state’s
international behaviour and relations. Summarizing Martin Shaw, Chris
Brown (2001) adds that this domestic–international distinction contrib-
utes to a state-centricity that is so defining to conceptualizations of
international society that it is difficult to envision alternative orders or
alternative substate and state-transcendent forces at work.
Those who fall on the solidarist and world society sides of English
School debates have done much to correct for the state-centrism of
international society arguments (see, e.g., Vincent 1986; Wheeler 1992,
2000). However, these views can be complicated in different ways, espe-
cially as regards regional relations outside Europe and North America.
For one, these strains tend to focus on transnational forces that transcend
the state, as opposed to the domestic realm itself and its political-
ideological content. As with the pluralist view, this position stems from a
prior assumption – namely, that the domestic realm is well established
(politically, institutionally and hierarchically). However, as many have
detailed, this assumption is challenged, especially in Africa and much of
Asia (Buzan 1983; Jackson 1990). For another, solidarist positions can
be complicated by their association with liberal ‘progressive’ views
about human rights, individual liberties and the normative value of liberal
democracy. Consequently, empirical and normative discussions of world
orders are often reduced to an overly stark dichotomy between a state-
centric realist pluralism versus a solidarism that is equated with liberal
cosmopolitanism (Buzan 2004: 141; see also Linklater and Suganami
2006; Weinert 2011). Societies based on something other than liberal
ideals – for example, the communitarian and developmentalist ideologies
that have historically defined East Asian states – are consequently
removed from the realm of solidarist possibility.
124 Alice D. Ba
The projection of liberal conceptions of the state – its liberal ration-

alities and liberal purpose – across world regions may be especially chal-
lenged (Lemke 2003). Differences in state purpose and capacity bear not
just on questions of how and for what purpose power is exercised but also
on how ‘security’, ‘cooperation’ and ‘international relations’ are con-
ceived (Ba 2009; Beeson and Jayasuriya 1998).5 As Richard Little notes,
for example, communitarian versus liberal-cosmopolitan views ‘generate
radically different assessments about how to approach a wide range of
international problems from humanitarian intervention to the treatment
of refugees’ (2000: 400). This is a particular challenge for those interested
in theorizing about the IR of East and Southeast Asia, where communi-
tarian ideologies are additionally informed by the contestedness of states
and the state–society relationship.
But, while the defining preoccupations of the English School suggest
normative and theoretical challenges when it comes to questions of
domestic political ideology, there are also theoretical openings. For exam-
ple, English School theorists have maintained that struggles over domestic
and international legitimacy are related. Martin Wight, for example,
despite the clear distinctions he drew between the domestic and interna-
tional, also highlighted the inside/outside linkages that have informed the
principles of contemporary international society (Linklater and Suganami
2006: 138 n. 33). Hedley Bull’s discussion of Grotian solidarism high-
lights how international arrangements can be seen as replications of
domestic ones (1966). More recently, Christian Reus-Smit, picking up
on a similar thread, has given attention to the role of the domestic –
specifically, ‘domestic political cultures’ (in his formulation, ‘of dominant
states’) – in informing/generating the ‘complexes of constitutive metaval-
ues’ that, when shared, constitute fundamental institutions and ‘basic
rules of practice’ of any given international society (1997). Drawing on
constructivist insights, Reus-Smit thus refocuses attention on the histor-
ical and cultural particularities of inter-state life and institutions, some-
thing that the English School again in principle supports but often
underappreciates.6
Specifically, Reus-Smit’s constructivist-informed English School dis-
cussion highlights how the value complexes that constitute the ‘moral
purpose’ of the state vary according to time and place. Such varied
moral purposes, in turn, produce different state practices (Reus-Smit
5
Ole Wæver goes further, arguing that such questions will also inform the content and
development of IR as a discipline in different countries. See Wæver 1998.
6
On the relationship between the English School and constructivist approaches, see, for
example, Adler 2005; Finnemore 2001; Reus-Smit 2002.
1999). In his example, Greek city-states and modern states share sover-
eignty as a basic organizing principle and basis for coexistence, but differ-
ent political cultures and ideologies produce ‘radically different
conceptions of the moral purpose of the state’, which, then, result in
different kinds of institutions. While Greek city-states existed to cultivate
and serve a conception of communal and common life, modern states,
especially since the late eighteenth century, exist for the individual and in
support of ‘individuals’ purposes and potentialities’. Consequently, while
Greek city-states turned to ‘a process of public political discourse’
informed by an Aristotelian ‘sense of justice’ and regard for ‘the needs
of the polis’ to manage the challenges of political life, modern states,
instead, have turned to the rule of law informed by liberal ideas about
individual equality, autonomy and self-governance. These basically
domestic ideas would then find additional expression in different kinds
of international institutions/practices, with Greek city-states turning to
deliberative practices of inter-state arbitration and assessment of compet-
ing moral claims, and modern states to representative forms of multi-
lateralism and reciprocally binding rules (Reus-Smit 1997: 570–83).
Again, these differences exist despite both societies’ common adoption
of sovereignty as an organizing principle. Reus-Smit’s discussion has clear
implications for contemporary East Asia, where sovereignty similarly
provides an important organizing principle but where cultural and tem-
poral differences produce different conceptualizations about the moral
purpose of the state. Reflective of different political and domestic values,
those different conceptualizations then mediate the translation and prac-
tice of so-called universal, global inter-state institutions in East Asia.
Two historical East Asian examples

Discussions of East Asia bring into focus alternative examples of the ways
that domestic political and ideological structures can have consequences
for regional orders. Of note is the historical example of pre-nineteenth-
century China and the spread of Confucian systems and ideologies,
especially within but not limited to Northeast Asia. Notably non-liberal
in their institutions and values, Confucian systems understood order in
terms of hierarchy, not equality, and stability as the function of differ-
entiated but reciprocal obligations, as opposed to ‘checks and balances’
(or ‘balance of power’). Moreover, these ideas informed not just domestic
relations and arrangements but also regional ones. Especially notable has
been their association with a ‘long peace’ defined by stable inter-state
expectations, practices and relations (R. Kelly 2011; see also Seldon
2009; Y. Zhang 2001). Similar to liberal-democratic peace theory, the
126 Alice D. Ba
key explanatory contrast was not the inside/outside distinction between

domestic hierarchy and international anarchy IR theorists typically
assume, but rather the difference in regime types – in this case, the
distinction between Confucian and non-Confucian political regimes.
Another example can be found in the system of mandala states that
characterized much of Southeast Asia. In contrast to Westphalian states,
mandala states were expressions of personal networks more than geogra-
phy; and decentralized ‘patchworks’ more than centralized bureaucratic
organizations. Characterized more by fluid, overlapping concentric circles
of authority (‘circles of kings’) than by fixed territorial borders, the mandala
state and its features are additionally notable because they blur the inside/
outside distinction associated with modern states (Wolters 1982; see also
Dellios 2003). Most notably, in this pre-Westphalian system of mandala
relations, ‘No clear distinction was made between the purpose and conduct
of “internal” and “external” relations. In practice, all relations tended to be
perceived as personal and therefore internal ones (Wolters 1982: 29). As in
the system of Confucian states above, such differences in state and regime
type mattered for how units related to one another, as well as the kind of
conflicts, wars and co-operative relations they pursued.
The intervening variables of time and history obviously challenge efforts
to generalize too much about the parallels between the worlds of tradi-
tional and contemporary East Asia, though neither should such parallels
be dismissed altogether as they continue to offer historical references,
familiar frames and ideological filters with which to interpret contempo-
rary challenges. Similarly, some recent analyses draw attention to the
‘residual imprint’ of that Sino-centric, Confucian order on contemporary
states and its influence on East Asia’s contemporary relations (Carlson
2011: 96; Kang 2007), while others see echoes of mandala practices in
Southeast Asia’s contemporary regional relations (Acharya 2001).
Unitary state mentalities and the institution

of sovereignty
One of the more defining developments that distinguishes contemporary
East Asia from traditional East Asia and that offers particular insight into
its regional relations and politics has been the intrusion of the world
beyond into East Asia (Womack 2010). While traditional China and
East Asia were far from being completely isolated (Seldon 2009), an
important feature of contemporary East Asia is nevertheless the degree
to which it is subject to the external expectations, institutions, practices
and organizational forms of the world beyond it. Indeed, ‘self-contained
global subsystems’ may very well be things of the past. Regional systems,
East Asia’s included, may be better characterized as ‘subsystems within a

global system’ (Buzan 2004: 17). At the same time, such external impo-
sitions and expectations will produce inevitable tensions and dilemmas.
On the one hand, all states – especially given the power and authority of
Western, liberal states in the post-war era – will be strongly moved to
conform to and comply with core institutions and practices; on the other,
in that such adaptations have been relatively recent and born of structural–
systemic pressures (as opposed to more organic developmental pro-
cesses), one can also expect these processes to be mediated by traditional
norms and historical particularities associated with East Asia’s entrance
into the world of modern states.
Of special note has been the spread of the Westphalian territorial form.
This development has critical effects on the domestic content of states that
emerged, especially after the Second World War. The fact that the Western
state form was the result of necessity, urgency and the marginalization of
alternative organizational forms – East Asian units did not coevolve with
international society as did European states – meant that the project of
state-building also tended to be highly contested and often associated with
violence internally as much as externally. In his investigation into regional
conflict patterns, Stein Tønnesson shows this statistically. He concludes,
‘The majority of the most massive violence happened in conjunction with
the formation of a new East Asian state system to replace the system from
before the Second World War that had been dominated by Europe, the
United States, and Japan’ (Tønnesson 2009: 116). Yet, as English School
theorists have highlighted, no matter how foreign, contradictory or tension-
laden, Westphalian statehood, which was additionally institutionalized in
post-Second World War secondary institutions such as the United Nations,
became the recognized path to independence and recognition. The insta-
bilities associated with this process have had defining effects on domestic
ideologies in East Asia and, in turn, on conceptions of security and political
order in much of the region. In this, East Asia shares much with other post-
colonial regions, but as highlighted below its development and interna-
tional relations have also been made distinct by the unique challenges
associated with the Second World War and the Cold War.
In the face of intra-Asian differences, the process of becoming modern
states also informs what can be characterized as a common mindset –
specifically, ‘a unitary state mentality’ (Reid 2005; Vatikiotis 2006) – that
is more or less shared across East Asian states. This mindset then influ-
ences East Asian development and international relations, beginning with
their nationalist struggles and then their on-going pursuit of meaningful
independence and autonomy vis-à-vis foreign, especially Western, core
powers.
128 Alice D. Ba
The challenges of state consolidation are especially great and pressing

for the post-colonial states of Southeast Asia. Here, the problem has been
characterized as one of ‘weak states and many societies’ (Reilly 2002: 10),
with Indonesia’s ‘brittle combination of people and territory’ (Leifer
1983: xvii) a particular example. The contrast between what the state
was supposed to look like and what it in fact was has led to a considerable
literature on the tension between the ‘Western’ state form and the mate-
rial, human and normative realities of the post-colonial state and its
deficits in both material capacity and political legitimacy (Alagappa
1995; Ayoob 1989; Buzan 1983; Job 1992).
In Southeast Asia, such internal contradictions and legitimacy deficits
(both domestic and international) have consequences for the domestic
content of new states and for how security is conceived vis-à-vis domes-
tic populations and other states. The aforementioned ‘“unitary state”
mentality’ (Reid 2005; Vatikiotis 2006) contributes to states’ author-
itarian domestic content; it also makes states’ internal consolidation of
‘paramount importance’ and an overriding, guiding value in states’
approach to both domestic and international politics (Caballero-
Anthony 2008: 195). In Southeast Asia, especially, deficits in both
sovereignty and legitimacy encourage more comprehensive conceptions
of security that give greater attention to non-military, developmental
and domestic aspects of security. As elaborated below, for these states,
domestic insecurity would also be linked to external vulnerability in
ways less relevant for more established internally coherent states.
Lacking ‘unconditional legitimacy for state boundaries, state institu-
tions, and regimes’ (Ayoob 1995: 28), many states and ruling elites
also constructed alternative sources of legitimacy around the role played
by the state – and specifically its ruling elite – as ‘the guarantor of
‘stability’, ‘order’ or ‘security’ (Sukma 1999: 9).
Such questions of domestic legitimacy mean that, while states in
Southeast Asia, as in Europe, have adopted Westphalian sovereignty as
an organizing principle, sovereignty as an institution nevertheless takes on
a different meaning and significance. To quote Erik Kuhonta, ‘For devel-
oping countries, the use of sovereignty [for securing order] is deeply tied
to the late process of state formation and the weakness of state structures’
(2006: 344). Thus, while sovereignty in Europe is the starting point for
understanding state policies and relations, sovereignty in Southeast Asia is
instead the objective of state policies (Alagappa 2003a). The purpose of
the state, here, is as moral as it is functional – that is, to consolidate and
maintain the integrity of the political unit vis-à-vis fragmenting forces
from within and without. In short, the state became both agent and project
in service of security and development.
Such differences contribute to profound variations in how states in

Southeast Asia conceive sovereignty’s institutions of non-intervention,
nationalism and self-determination, as well as how they are practised.
They also find particular expression in the defining norms and practices
of the region’s secondary institutions, especially ASEAN. Most notably,
Amitav Acharya (2001) highlights the importance and centrality of non-
interference, a more constrained interpretation of non-intervention, as a
guiding norm and practice of regional relations. As Acharya explains,
‘The sources and exceptional salience of this principle have to be under-
stood in the context of the grouping’s search for internal stability and
regime stability’ (ibid.: 57). The fact that non-interference is not always
perfectly upheld (see, for example, L. Jones 2012) makes it no less defin-
ing and no less a reflection of domestic preoccupations. Thus, Kanishka
Jayasuriya and others contrast ASEAN–Southeast Asia’s ‘statist’ regional
project to Europe’s ‘societal one’ (Jayasuriya 1994; see also Beeson and
Jayasuriya 1998). As an institution of regional relations, non-interference
has been affirmed and reaffirmed in some of East Asia’s most defining
agreements, such as the Bandung Principles of Coexistence and
ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.
Others see even more explicit domestic analogies and linkages at work.
For example, as one discussion highlights, ASEAN’s founding regional
narratives about Southeast Asia’s vulnerability to ‘Balkanization’ strongly
mirror nationalist preoccupations with the unity of the state and concerns
about communal division and conflict, particularly in maritime Southeast
Asia (Ba 2009). Especially defining has been the influence of national
resilience as a set of ideas rooted in strong beliefs about the comprehensive
fragility of domestic order and the need for political unity as an overriding
political value (see also Emmerson 1996). These ideas factor largely in
domestic institutional arrangements and electoral systems; they have also
provided fertile ground for developmentalist ideologies about economic
development (see below, pp. 134–6). Applied to Southeast Asian relations
more broadly, these domestic ideas are then given expression in regional
resilience, which is similarly informed by ideas about the fragility of the
unit – only here, the referent is ‘Southeast Asia’ as a regional expression of
diverse and divergent states. Thus, as in the domestic, where national
unity provides the state with its defining purpose, regional resilience
makes the pursuit of regional unity the overriding normative purpose
and ‘moral imperative’ of regional organization. The concern for unity
also provides the substantive content of ASEAN’s procedural norms and
modus operandi – namely, its consensus decision-making where consen-
sus is, after all, the pursuit of political unity in the face of divergent
interests and identities (Ba 2009).
130 Alice D. Ba
Lastly, many see the authoritarian content of domestic regimes as giving

rise to an ‘illiberal peace’ in ASEAN–Southeast Asia (Kivimäki 2001;
Kuhonta 2006).7 While accounts vary in their emphases, studies of
ASEAN and regional norms in Southeast Asia nevertheless tend to coa-
lesce around the argument that domestic ideologies and arrangements
matter in determining which norms and practices come to be embraced by
states, as well as how they are interpreted and practised (Dosch 2008;
L. Jones 2009; Narine 2002, 2004; Nesadurai 2003).
While the challenges of state unity and their implications for interna-
tional institutions are especially evident in Southeast Asia’s more
‘obvious’ examples of post-colonial statehood, Northeast Asian states –
though more homogeneous – were not immune to similar pressures and
imperatives. In particular, for China and Korea, both divided states, the
quest for unity has been especially defining of their experiences as
Westphalian states. As ‘a region that became a state’ (Womack 2009),
China and its internal challenges – that is, the challenge of unity in the
face of provincial localism, ethnic identifications and other centrifugal
forces – can also be said to be historical as they trace to the first Qin
dynasty and precede the Western imperial era (Y. Zhang 2001: 51).
However, what China’s especially traumatic experiences with Western
and Japanese imperialism did was to make the concerns of traditional
China contemporary and relevant for a very different Western-centric
world order.
In this, China shares with Southeast Asian states a particular concern
for unity and for disunity as a source of insecurity and vulnerability.
Indeed, the narrative of China’s historic fragmentation, beginning with
the Warring States period and through the nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries when civil conflict and war-lordism were linked to the
challenges of foreign imperialism, remains a powerful political ideology
that informs what many see as China’s ‘extreme’ positions on non-
intervention in the UN Security Council and its ‘hard line’ on questions
such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan. No surprise that, in this unitary
state mentality, those who challenge the legitimacy of the state unit from
within are characterized as ‘splittists’ and as threats to the larger collective/
national exercise in self-determination, as opposed to groups exercising
their individual right to self-determination.
Certainly, China’s drive for reunification and recovery of territories lost
to imperialism remains a most sensitive preoccupation, as well as a
7
For a similar premise (that ASEAN is an ‘alignment of reactionary capitalist regimes’) but
somewhat different conclusions, especially as regards non-interference, see C. A. Jones
2007.
defining thread of modern Chinese nationalism, since the beginning of the

twentieth century and, certainly, China’s post-1949 leadership. China’s
traumatic encounters with Western (and Japanese) imperialism and the
associated lessons drawn from the late Qing, which neglected the state,
resulted in sobering conclusions about the close relationship between
‘internal chaos’ and ‘foreign calamities’ (nei luan – wai huan). This link-
age, moreover, has been more or less maintained in the reform era and
even accentuated by the legitimacy crises associated with the Cultural
Revolution and then China’s 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square.
Thus, in China, as in Southeast Asia, a unitary state mentality has tended
to prevail and govern its international, as much as domestic, relations.
This concern for the unity of the state and its associated implications
for a state’s foreign relations applies even to Japan, which was the first to
turn, consciously and strategically, to the Westphalian form and model
as a means of survival, with dramatic consequences for both its domestic
institutions and its regional relations. Having transformed a decentral-
ized feudal state into a unitary one and having adopted key institutions of
the Western state, Japan successfully fended off Western imperial
encroachments but notably at the expense of its neighbours. A less
than sovereign Japan would also emerge with the post-Second World
War settlement that mandated constraints and prohibitions on Japan’s
use of military force. This historical process and Japan’s resultant sov-
ereignty deficiencies (though different in kind from those of its neigh-
bours) inform Japan’s post-war political culture and international/
regional identity. Japan’s sovereignty deficits also contribute to a similar
defining focus on economic development as an important piece of
Japan’s security vis-à-vis the external world (Dewitt 1994).
In short, processes of assimilation into the post-Second World War
Westphalian system have informed the content of sovereignty in East
Asia. While state-consolidation efforts began at different times – Japan
under Meiji, Thailand in the 1930s, China and the rest mostly after
the Second World War – conceptions of sovereignty tend to reflect
unitary state ideologies and purposes that, in turn, affect states’ con-
ceptualization and pursuit of security, as well as approaches to interna-
tional institutions. With some outstanding exceptions such as the
Philippines,8 the state in East Asia has been made a critical spearhead
of economic reconstruction, industrialization efforts and political uni-
fication (Kuhonta 2008).
8
Due largely to US imperial and post-imperial policies, state centralization did not factor so
prominently in the Philippines’ post-war development; in fact, just the opposite was true.
See Hutchcroft 2002.
132 Alice D. Ba
Nationalism and self-determination

As suggested above, such differences in ideology and the historical process
of Westphalian assimilation have had profound effects not just on East
Asian conceptualizations of sovereignty but also on sovereignty’s institu-
tions. In particular, institutions of nationalism and self-determination are
given different meaning and significance compared to the European state
system. In contrast to Europe, where both institutions are linked to ideas
about popular sovereignty and the emergence of more liberal regimes,
the same institutions in East Asia are fundamentally statist and state-
centric in their conceptualizations of agency and objective. Thus, where
in Europe national self-determination as an institution serves as an
argument for democratization (the right of peoples to choose their own
futures freely), self-determination in East Asia privileges the right of
states, not individuals, to choose those futures. As a ‘synonym’ for ‘West
European decolonization’ and anti-imperialism (Mayall 1991), national
self-determination in East Asia also results in a more constrained inter-
pretation of non-intervention – namely, non-interference (Thompson
2010; Williams 2002).
In contrast to European conceptualizations that have assumed more
popular and populist content and in which the state serves the security of
the individual, Southeast Asian conceptualizations of sovereignty and
self-determination remain mostly statist in content, privileging the state
over individuals, as well as substate nationalist groups. And, as above,
such differences manifest themselves in how states practise their regional
relations. Thus, as Mutiah Alagappa observes, ‘When compelled [to
comment or intercede, regional states] have supported the state rather
than the minority groups, even though they may share religious and ethnic
affiliations with them’ (Alagappa 2003a: 91). Similarly, calls for federalist
proposals that give autonomy to minority groups are generally rejected as
perceived challenges to the unitary state – a point underscored by their
association with the divide-and-rule tactics of former imperial powers
(ibid.; Vatikiotis 2006).
Other developments serve to reinforce the statist content of post-
independence ideologies. For example, early nationalist victories led by
more elite, ‘conservative’ forces had the effect of privileging more elitist
conceptions of political order both ideologically and practically after
independence. In the cases of Japan and Thailand – two East Asian states
that managed to avoid direct Western colonization – nationalism was of
the ‘official’ kind, in which elites, already closely aligned with the state or
the monarchy, played critical roles in mobilizing human and material
resources in pursuit of development and industrialization in the interest
of security and self-determination vis-à-vis foreign challengers. As

Benedict Anderson has noted in the case of Thailand, the fact that none
of its nationalist leaders had ever been imprisoned is an important indi-
cation of their official standing (see Anderson cited in Kuhonta, Slater and
Vu 2008). Even in Indonesia, the initial nationalist victories won by elite
pragmatists would help limit post-independence calls for broader social
reform and societally driven initiative (ibid.). Meanwhile in China, revo-
lution, though its strength came from the countryside, was defined by
Leninist ideas and ideology about the importance of the state and of
leadership by the Chinese Communist Party as the vanguard party of
the masses.
Meanwhile, other developments serve not only to strengthen state-
centric conceptions of self-determination, but also to fragment societal
power. The Second World War had a particular impact on East Asia due
to the role played by Japan as an East Asian power that was also an
imperialist one. On the one hand, Japan and the Second World War
provided catalysing moments of nationalist opportunity for various East
Asian popular movements; on the other, the destructiveness of war con-
sequently played out more directly in East Asia, compared to other post-
colonial regions, producing tumult and scarcity that were felt ‘from Japan
to the Dutch East Indies’ (Stubbs 1995). As Richard Stubbs highlights,
the war’s dislocations and destructions served to diffuse societal forces
(Stubbs 1995, 1999). The material and societal effects of war thus created
conditions more supportive of both elitist and statist (as opposed to
popular) conceptions of national self-determination and sovereignty at
the end of the war. They also served to legitimate the state project and
state-centric mobilization efforts (Bello 2009).
The unique impact of the Cold War in East Asia – the proximity of
communist victories in China, North Korea and Vietnam, as well as US
wars and interventions – serve to bolster even more conservative and
authoritarian forces already in train in non-communist East Asia and that
would additionally distinguish East Asia’s political trajectories from other
post-colonial regions. The emergence of communist China in East Asia so
soon after the Second World War may be considered especially significant,
because it justified continued political mobilization begun in the pre-war,
pre-independence era. In the case of Japan, it helped justify the return of
pre-war elites who would otherwise have been purged on account of their
role in prosecuting the Second World War. Meanwhile, state capacities in
much of non-communist East Asia are strengthened by their close prox-
imity to sites of US Cold War interventions. As Stubbs has argued, while
war can produce tremendous destruction for areas that become actual battle
sites, those on the immediate periphery of war – for example, Japan, South
134 Alice D. Ba
Korea and Taiwan in Northeast Asia, as well as Malaysia, Singapore and

Thailand – benefited from the redistributive and developmental effects
associated with domestic and foreign war spending. The imperatives asso-
ciated with being front-line states also extended the justification for top-
down mobilization and integration, which in turn habituated and socialized
populations to state intervention into both economy and society. The fact
that populations would also see the effects and benefits of these interven-
tions relatively quickly in addition lent important legitimacy to East Asia’s
post-war authoritarian arrangements (Stubbs 1995).
In short, as the developmental-state literature especially highlights, Cold
War contingencies provided distinguishing pressures that informed the
domestic content of states and, in turn, the distinctive course of East
Asian economic and political development and international relations
(Booth 1999; Haggard 1990; Johnson 1999; Stubbs 2009; Woo-Cumings
1998). Consequently, as with the institution of sovereignty above, nation-
alism and self-determination as regional institutions are similarly state-
centric as opposed to popular in content. Rather than popular sovereignty,
the institutions of nationalism and self-determination express, instead, the
ideological and material process of political construction vis-à-vis both
internal and external forces (Ba 2009). The above is not to say that this
process was automatic or that statist conceptions of nationalism have no
rivals. Rather, the contingencies of East Asian development – especially, the
Cold War – have enabled East Asian states to prioritize, enable and legit-
imate the state vis-à-vis societal and other challengers differently and more
effectively than states elsewhere.
Thus, ‘nationalism’ finds expression in a variety of policies and politics
associated with post-war East Asia: ‘economic nationalism’ (the drive to
establish control over one’s economy and development as a defensive
measure against foreign economic forces); or ‘developmental nationalism’
(the pursuit of government-led infrastructure and development projects
designed ‘to encourage identification with state and regime’) (Ba 2009:
33–4). As highlighted below, the particular content of East and Southeast
Asian nationalism informs states’ turn both to the market and to the devel-
opmental state as especially defining institutions of East Asian relations.
Economic development and regime legitimacy:

the market
As noted above, economics occupies an important place in conceptuali-
zations of domestic order, security and regime legitimacy in much of East
Asia. That economic focus, combined with Cold War contingencies out-
lined above, has informed their embrace of the market as a primary
institution in East Asia and eventually the developmental state as a model

of development. Again, the developmental state institutionalizes commu-
nitarian ideologies that privilege the state, as well as comprehensive
notions of security that make economics a key foundation of regime
legitimacy. States’ embrace of market strategies also supports relations
with other economies. The influence of the ‘Japan model’ of successful
state-led economic development also has a particular influence in making
the market central to states’ domestic and international arrangements.
As the first ‘developmental state’, Japan provides a successful model of
development that is, importantly, consistent with and supportive of the
authoritarian content and priorities of East Asian states. As has been well
detailed, Japan’s own development was greatly conditioned by US Cold
War policies, which made Japan an important bulwark against commu-
nism in East Asia. Meanwhile, post-war constitutional constraints on
Japan’s military make economics and development especially central to
its conceptions of security and diplomacy, including its relations with its
neighbours and former objects of Japanese imperial ambitions. In the late
1980s, bilateral trade tensions with the United States and resultant bilat-
eral pressure compelled the appreciation of the Japanese yen, which then
catalysed a flow of Japanese investment, the relocation of Japanese sub-
sidiaries to Southeast Asia and the further spread (and adaptation) of a
Japanese model based on the state’s engagement with the market as means
of security and development.
As Japan’s market-authoritarian model spread through East Asia,
developmentalist policies and arrangements generated dynamics of their
own. As Helen Nesadurai (2003) and Etel Solingen (2007) have argued,
these include notably new constituencies that have stakes in the economic
policies adopted. There are also demonstration effects. Especially for
those more acutely challenged by internal legitimacy concerns, they see
their neighbours not just advancing economically but also acquiring addi-
tional internal and external legitimacy – and, at the very least, additional
resources with which to negotiate both domestic and international envi-
ronments. As an integral part of self-strengthening strategies, economic
development thus forms a key state response to the interdependent con-
cerns of internal and external security. Writing on Southeast Asia, Mely
Caballero-Anthony summarizes it thus: ‘Comprehensive security gave
paramount importance to the stability of the state, and to economic
development as a major means to that end’ (2008: 195). Thus, East Asia
has seen the spread and adaptation of the developmental state from Japan
to South Korea and Taiwan, and then eventually to non-communist
Southeast Asia. It has been subsequently adapted again now to China
and Vietnam. In this process, we see important convergence around a
136 Alice D. Ba
state developmentalist ideology, as well as a common state-led engage-

ment with the market.
Two ‘regime changes’ are of particular significance for East Asia, as
they offer ‘critical moments’ or ‘critical junctures’ – in essence, institu-
tional and cognitive turning points – in East Asia’s intra-regional relations
(see, for example, Collier and Collier 1991: 29). They are Indonesia’s in
the mid 1960s (1965–8) and China’s in the mid 1970s (1976–8). In both
cases, the critical change was not about democratization, but instead
about the decision to prioritize economics and economic development
as a critical source of regime legitimacy. Later, Vietnam’s introduction of
market reforms in the late 1980s is less significant but nevertheless further
consolidates the general trend. Tønnesson (2009) characterizes such
changes in national priorities as ‘purpose transitions’ informed by inter-
acting domestic–regional developments.
Indonesia (1965–1968)
Southeast Asia offers a relatively early example of how regime changes –
and in particular, an embrace of new developmentalist strategies – can
transform not just domestic politics but also set the stage for a new
regional politics. In Southeast Asia, the critical regime change is that of
Indonesia. Since independence, Indonesia has experienced two critical
regime changes – the first in the mid 1960s, with the transition from
Sukarno to Suharto, and the second in the late 1990s, with the ending
of the Suharto regime in 1998 and the emergence of a newly democratic
Indonesia. Of these two regime changes, it is the first that is associated
with the more dramatic changes in foreign policy and Southeast Asia’s
intra-regional relations. Indeed, the regime change in Indonesia was a
critical moment for Southeast Asia’s international relations in more ways
than one. First, Sukarno’s third-world revisionist and grandly ethno-
nationalist foreign policy was replaced by Suharto’s developmentalist
foreign policy; and, second, more generally, the regime change intro-
duced a new Indonesian regime that emphasized a pragmatic economic
course already being adopted by some of its neighbours (Ba 2009).
Indeed, with the regime change in Indonesia, there emerged a critical
mass of similarly minded, developmentally focused states in Southeast
Asia and more generally in East Asia. The creation of ASEAN in 1967
further institutionalized states’ growing ideological and statist disposition
in favour of development – ‘ASEAN developmentalism’ – as a source of
both regime and state security (Kivimäki 2011). Indonesia’s later turn to
export-led growth strategies consolidated the general importance of the
market and the developmental state in Southeast Asia.
China (1976–1978)
The second critical regime change as regards East Asia’s regional relations
is China’s turn to market reforms in 1978. The period before that had
been one of leftist revolution in domestic policy that was accompanied by
a revisionist foreign policy. To quote Brantly Womack (2008: 4), China’s
‘shrill and self-righteous leftism’ and ‘sharp distinction between friends
and enemies of world revolution’ during that period left hardly a state/
regime in East Asia whose right to exist was not challenged by China; as
Rosemary Foot puts it, China in essence rejected the primary institutions
of international society and the post-Second World War diplomatic
order, namely, sovereignty and non-intervention (Foot 2001: 24–7).9
In contrast, 1978 introduced changes that moved China’s regime and
domestic priorities closer to those of its neighbours, as well as related
changes in foreign policy and its approach to regional relations. It may be
no coincidence that the earlier-cited studies on East Asia’s relative peace
and stability all identify the late 1970s as an important East Asian turning
point.10
As regards this discussion on political ideology and regional rela-
tional dynamics, there are at least three associated changes worth
noting. First, China’s introduction of market reforms in December
1978, though gradual, moved China closer to its neighbours in terms
of the blend of authoritarian-led market ideologies and state-market
arrangements that have typified development and security strategies in
non-communist East Asia. Following the Cultural Revolution, a ‘total
crisis’ involving economic, political, ideological and institutional
aspects (Tsou 1986), and taking note of the relative success enjoyed
by its developmental state neighbours, China’s elites turned to eco-
nomics and economic performance as a basis for regime legitimacy,
much as its neighbours had.
Thus, it was in 1978 that China began to look more like the others
ideologically. Again, the critical similarity is not so much authoritarianism
as China’s turn to market strategies – because this is reflective of China’s
and its neighbours’ converging domestic priorities and security concep-
tions. Such similarities are illustrated, for example, by Chinese leaders
such as Premier Zhao Ziyang, who increasingly characterized economic
9
The fact that China’s challenges to states were selective and more political and rhetorical
than material does not make any less significant its basic revisionist stance or the damage
done to its regional relations. See also Foot 2001: 24–5; T. Robinson 1969.
10
This is not to ignore remaining contradictions as found in China’s conflict with Vietnam
over its intervention into Cambodia and its relations with the Soviet Union. See
S. Richardson 2010: ch. 4.
138 Alice D. Ba
development as the means to security (S. Richardson 2010: 110) – even

the basis for what would be China’s reform-era ‘new grand strategy’, a
grand strategy ‘that would take development, not revolution, as its central
mission’ (Chen 2008: 145).
Second, this period of Chinese foreign policy and development is,
not coincidentally, also associated with China’s return to the Five
Principles of Coexistence – principles originally introduced at the
1955 Bandung Conference, which had been attended by all of the
then-independent countries of East Asia with the exception of the two
Koreas.11 As noted, China’s prior anti-societal stance had meant hostile
relations with practically all its East Asian neighbours – the conse-
quence being China’s ‘isolation rather than world revolution’.12 In
this sense, as Qin Yaqing puts it, reforms offered China an answer to
its ‘century puzzle’ as to how it should relate to international society
(Qin 2010: 130). Similarly, China’s reversion to the Five Principles of
Coexistence in the 1970s and 1980s was thus hugely significant because
it also marked China’s return to both the region and the world. Though
they still retained an important critique of power relations, the Five
Principles were notably reinterpreted to give greater emphasis to devel-
opment and to allow for greater universality in their application ‘regard-
less of social system’. This point would be underscored by the fact that
the Five Principles would also be invoked as a basis for Sino-United
States rapprochement (Chen 2008: 142–3). Reinterpreted in this way,
the Five Principles thus provided the ideological, principled and prac-
tical bases for China’s return. The Five Principles were then reinforced
by its new and growing participation in, and engagement with,
(Western) international organizations, which included explicit compar-
isons between the Five Principles and the UN Charter (S. Richardson
2010: 17). Following Mao’s death, the Five Principles were given an
even more explicit developmental focus, a focus that was then consoli-
dated by China’s turn to market reforms in 1978 and through the 1980s.
The Five Principles marked not just China’s turn to a more ‘moderate,
peaceful, developmental, and non-ideological’ agenda (ibid.: 16–17)
but also, even more significantly, a new period of ‘normal relations’,
distinguished by mutual recognition and non-intervention/non-
interference.
Third, China’s new interest in the market also critically opened the
door for China’s reintegration into a system of East Asian diplomatic
relations and participation in an East Asian political economy that had
11
Those not yet independent included Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.
12
Womack 2008: 4.
emerged more or less without it during the Cold War. China’s interest in
the market also meant growing exchanges with regional economies and
new and growing interdependence. Despite China’s initial ambivalence
and domestic divisions over how deeply to engage the global economy,
‘Trade is no longer a peripheral government concern [for China]’
(Womack 2010: 3). China’s new developmental ideology and approach
led to the expansion of foreign trade and a general increase in economic
and diplomatic contacts between China and other regional states.
Thus, 1978 marks an important turning point in East Asia’s growing
ideological and, in turn, material convergence, as well as a new regional
stability that is associated with China’s growing adoption of key regional
norms and institutions, most notably non-interference, the market and the
developmental state. Just as Indonesia’s abandonment of revolution for
pragmatic development signified a notable convergence among Southeast
Asian states about the importance of economics to security and stability,
China’s shift from revolution to pragmatism in the late 1970s and early
1980s suggested a similar convergence within the larger East Asia about
state priorities, the importance of development and economic growth as
sources of legitimacy. While it would take time for regional relations to
adapt and adjust, this reorientation on China’s part is critical to opening the
door for a new era of regional relations. The size and historical importance
of China, moreover, meant that its ‘regime change’ would have an even
larger impact on East Asia’s overall security dynamics.
Trade liberalization versus trade facilitation

East Asian states’ convergence around the market, the developmental
state and economics as key sources of regime legitimacy has been one of
the more defining developments that distinguish the region’s political
and economic trajectories from others. But, again, states’ market con-
vergence has been strongly influenced by the state-centric content of
East Asian conceptions of nationalism, self-determination and the
developmental state. In particular, that state-centric content informs,
then, the market’s derivative institutions – namely, trade liberalization
and financial liberalization. While all states have seen a general liberal-
ization trend, developmental state regimes and strategies also mean that
liberalization is also conditional, as states are guided less by liberal logics
than by state-centric developmentalist logics. This helps explain, for
example, East Asian states’ positions in world and regional trade nego-
tiations, where states support trade-facilitation and capacity-building
measures but are generally more wary of ambitious trade liberalization
schemes.
140 Alice D. Ba
Liberalization pressures and popular sovereignty

As with much of the world, East Asian states have faced strong liberaliza-
tion pressures, especially with the ending of the Cold War. In East Asia,
developmentalist and statist ideologies faced new competition from differ-
ent actors. South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia have all seen important
political transitions to more democratic systems. Japan’s one-party-
dominant system has also seen greater competition. Both Malaysia’s and
Singapore’s regimes have also had to make political and institutional
accommodations in response to new societal changes and pressures. In
the Philippines, a ‘people power movement’ ousted a long-time dictator.
At the same time, these changes – and thus the degree to which states and
populations embrace popular sovereignty and democracy as nationalism’s
derivative institutions – remain strongly conditioned by statist and devel-
opmentalist mentalities highlighted above. As Benjamin Reilly (2002: 10),
among others, concludes, for example, ‘the concept of a strong state
[remains] highly valued in most of Asia’.
A recent study based on data taken from the Asian Barometer Surveys
similarly concluded that Asia’s market authoritarian values and ideologies
in fact continue to have significant appeal, even among Asia’s more
successful democracies (Chang, Chu and Park 2009; Y.-H. Chu et al.
2009). As they underscore, such support persists despite the delegitimating
implications of the Asian financial crisis for East Asia’s authoritarian and
developmental state regimes. On this point, the fact that economic devel-
opment, international recognition and security have been gained under
East Asia’s market authoritarian regimes likely gives statist market-
authoritarian approaches not just official, but also a degree of popular,
legitimacy. Thus, when people were asked about the relative merits of
democracy versus development, surveys found that ‘Across the region,
democracy lost to economic development by a wide margin’ (Y.-H. Chu
et al. 2009: 23; D. M. Jones 2008).
At a minimum, Asian Barometer results draw attention to the ways in
which support for democracy is both a normative and a relative value.
Democratic values enjoy widespread popular support, but support also
diminishes against other societal goals and perceived trade-offs (especially
as democratic transitions are rarely problem-free).13 Again, while such
sentiments may not be unique, East Asia is distinguished by a proven
track record (economic development, relative political stability and external
13
Y.-T. Chang et al. (2009)’s survey of people in Mongolia, the Philippines, South Korea,
Taiwan and Thailand showed, for example, a decline in ‘every indicator of average
support for democracy’.
recognition) associated with market-authoritarian regimes and approaches

in ways that other regions are not. Viewed thus, Yunhan Chu et al. (2009)
and Yu-tzung Chang et al. (2009) note that, rather than a lesson in the
dangers of authoritarian development as commonly understood, the Asian
financial crisis could be read, just as much, as a cautionary lesson about
what could be lost from moving too much away from the statist strategies
that provided the original foundations for development (see also Alagappa
2003a; Beeson 2002b; Stubbs 2009; Thurbon 2001).
Economic success alone will not guarantee the survival of authoritarian
regimes. Dan Slater (2011: 3–4) observes, for example, the ‘abuse–acti-
vism’ connection, when populations perceive ‘a grave, vivid, and shocking
abuse of power’. On the other hand, East Asia also shows that accommo-
dationist practices that allow for ‘limited pluralism’ and some forms of
electoral contestation can also make less dramatic the choice between
democracy and authoritarianism (Case 2002; Chang, Chu and Park
2009). Those working with Asian Barometer results conclude that East
Asia’s soft authoritarian systems that prove ‘efficacious in delivering social
stability and economic development’ and responsive to societal dissat-
isfactions remain strongly competitive against calls for more democratic
liberalization (Chang, Chu and Park 2009: 75). Others draw similar
conclusions about East Asia’s developmental state and its market author-
itarian systems; that is, though challenged by new geo-political and soci-
etal conditions, the model also continues to adapt in ways that make it still
relevant to both the political and economic systems of these countries (see
Weiss 1995; J. Wong 2004).14 To underscore the point, all authoritarian
regimes may privilege state initiative but not all authoritarian states are
abusive, unresponsive or unpopular. What this also means, as the Asian
Barometer analyses conclude, is that questions of popular sovereignty will
likely remain strongly conditioned by statist ideologies.
Again, all this is not to play down domestic-societal changes continuing
in East Asia or the existence of popular challenges to statist conceptions of
nationalism and sovereignty. It is only to say that statist mentalities con-
tinue to condition those changes. Japan and South Korea, two of East
Asia’s more established democracies, maintain significantly statist, top-
down approaches that suggest relatively strong trust in the state and, at a
minimum, a degree of distrust of the market vis-à-vis the state. Similarly,
in Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand, a generally statist
mentalité towards both economic and political development can still be
discerned in reforms’ driving concerns and the top-down nature of
14
See also Journal of East Asian Studies 4 (2004), a special issue on the developmental state.
142 Alice D. Ba
electoral changes. East Asia’s developing democracies have undergone

significant electoral and party reforms but reforms have also been notably
aimed at nationalizing East Asia’s electoral politics in ways that transcend
(and marginalize) centrifugal localization and communal forces (Reilly
2007). Put another way, as much as electoral reforms have been aimed at
stabilizing and consolidating East Asia’s nascent democracies, they also
remain very much reflective of states’ historic preoccupations with inter-
nal unity and political stability. The two concerns were in fact often
related, as in Indonesia where the link between ‘political fragmentation’
and ‘democratic dysfunction’ was perceived to be especially strong (Reilly
2007: 65). These may be additional reasons explaining why democratiza-
tion and liberalization, while introducing greater pluralism into foreign
policy debates, have not resulted in major reorientations in foreign policy
and inter-state relations (as some feared in the case of Indonesia, for
example).
Conclusion
Christian Reus-Smit has argued that ‘The identity of the state is grounded
in a larger complex of values than simply the organizing principle of
sovereignty’ (Reus-Smit 1997: 565). This discussion has given attention
to the statist and developmentalist values that make up the sovereignty
complex in East Asia. Such values offer contrast to the liberal purpose and
content of Euro-American states. That different content mediates the
relative significance of primary institutions (e.g. sovereignty, nationalism,
non-intervention and the market), their logic and purpose, and how they
play out in regional inter-state politics. The discussion above has given
particular attention to the ways that statist domestic political ideologies
make distinct key derivative institutions of the above – for example, the
more restrictive non-interference as opposed to non-intervention; statist
self-determination more than popular self-determination; the develop-
mental state more than free market; and trade facilitation more than
trade liberalization. At times, the differences can be subtle but they are
no less significant. Not to appreciate those substantive differences in how
the purpose of the state is conceived is to be surprised when there are
deviations from ‘international’ models and institutions as conventionally
understood.
As highlighted in the above discussion, the emergence in East Asia
of a critical mass of developmentalist regimes that converge around
a common ideological disposition – substantive and inter-subjective
agreement – about the importance of development to stability, and of
economics to regime legitimacy, has had a transformative effect on East
Asia’s inter-state relations. The course of East Asian development sug-

gests that the developmental state in East Asia – the importance attached
to the state as the leading force in advancing East Asian national econo-
mies as well as to economic development as a source of both security and
regime legitimacy – distinguishes more than just East Asia’s different
economic trajectory. It also distinguishes the trajectory of inter-state
relations. At a minimum, the spread of developmentalist ideologies in
East Asia has been associated with growing inter-state exchanges and
transactions that have lent to both growing economic interdependence
and a sense of common purpose (Adler and Barnett 1998: 41). While
there remain outstanding unresolved tensions and conflicts that challenge
the relatively peaceful trajectory experienced, especially since the late
1970s, the market-authoritarian ideologies and the relative economic
and political success/effectiveness associated with them also help work
against more conflict-driven futures. Thus, regional economic negotia-
tions continue even in the face of other tensions. Such developments
suggest some minimum degree of ‘conscious[ness] of certain common
interests and common values’ that lay the basis for ‘a common set of rules
in their relations with one another and . . . in the working of common
institutions’ (Bull cited in Little 2000: 408).
Lastly, East Asia’s political, economic and institutional trajectories
bring us back to the English School’s pluralist–solidarist debates, as well
as its challenges in accounting for historical and regional differences and
contingencies. The equation of the solidarist position, for example, with
progressive–liberal views about human rights, individual liberties and the
normative value of liberal democracy has again removed from the realm of
solidarist possibility societies based on anything other than liberal ideals.
To appreciate the full range of world-order possibilities, Buzan has thus
argued for delinking cosmopolitanism from solidarism (Buzan 2004:
139–41). Buzan also pushes the focus back to the possibilities of an
inter-state solidarism (as opposed to inter-personal or transnational). As
he puts it, ‘One could imagine, for example, an inter-state society that is
solidarist in the sense of being based on a high degree of ideological
uniformity, but where the shared values are nationalist rather than liberal’
(ibid.: 142). As the discussion above highlights, this last comment has
particular relevance for contemporary intra-East Asian relations, where
domestic ideologies (despite international pressures and recent domestic
changes) remain fundamentally statist, more than they are liberal, in
content.
7 East Asia and the strategic ‘deep rules’ of
international/regional society
Yuen Foong Khong
East Asia, order and violence

East Asia was one of the most violent and disorderly regions in the world
during the Cold War. It outstripped all the other regions in battle deaths
(Human Security Report Project 2009/10: figs. 10.4 and 3.3) and was
convulsed by two major inter-state wars. Most Southeast Asian govern-
ments were also threatened by domestic communist insurgencies that
drew inspiration and support from China and the Soviet Union. A
victorious Vietnam invaded Cambodia (1978) and occupied it for a
decade; in retaliation, China sent troops into Vietnam to ‘punish’ the
latter in January 1979. In 1974, China used force to capture several
islands in the Paracels held by the South Vietnamese; in 1988, a stand-
off between China and Vietnam over contested reefs in the Spratlys also
led to a military clash that resulted in China’s taking control of the reefs.
More so than most regions, East Asia during the Cold War came close to
typifying the Hobbesian state of war.
Post-Cold War East Asia, by contrast, seems more peaceful and stable.
There has been no major inter-state war. Military stand-offs between
parties in dispute happen occasionally in the East and South China Seas,
while military tensions between China and Taiwan and between China and
the United States ratchet up several notches whenever Taiwan sways
towards de jure independence. The most serious of these occurred in
1995–6, when China conducted missile tests close to Taiwan’s coastline
in reaction to what it saw as Taiwanese president Lee Teng Hui’s seces-
sionist tendencies. In response, the Clinton administration dispatched two
aircraft carrier groups to Taiwan’s east coast to signal its displeasure with
China and to show its support for Taiwan. In Northeast Asia, North Korea
remains the main warmonger of note, but deterrence still seems to hold.
North Korea’s nuclear ambitions persist as one of the most serious strategic
challenges for the region. The Six Party Talks have failed to convince North
Korea to denuclearize; it is unclear if the Talks will be resumed or if a
satisfactory outcome for the parties can be achieved.
144
East Asia and the strategic ‘deep rules’ 145
In Southeast Asia, relations between Thailand and Cambodia have

been tense since 2008. The Preah Vihear temple border dispute led to
military clashes between the Thai and Cambodian militaries in early 2011,
resulting in twenty battle deaths. As chair of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia played a mediating role, with mixed
results. It took a ruling (requested by Cambodia) by the International
Court of Justice, asking the two sides to respect a provisional demilitarized
zone, and a natural disaster in Thailand (which diverted its military’s
attention to dealing with the massive floods) to put a halt to the fighting.
In the South China Sea, rival claims between China–Vietnam and China–
the Philippines over the Spratly and Paracel Island chains have also
increased tensions and strained relations between the claimants. In an
attempt to corral support from ASEAN in their confrontations with
China, Vietnam and the Philippines insisted on a statement about the
South China Sea during the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting of 2012.
Cambodia, as ASEAN chair for 2012, opposed the inclusion of the state-
ment, resulting in ASEAN’s inability to issue a joint communiqué for the
first time in its 45-year history.
These post-Cold War skirmishes and political-diplomatic spats suggest
that contentious political-military issues have not vanished from the East
Asian landscape. Yet these conflicts are of a different order and magnitude
compared to the much more severe tensions and conflicts of the Cold
War. Moreover, the existence of these flashpoints has not prevented East
Asia from enjoying strong economic growth and deepening economic
interdependence. The region has also weathered the Western financial
crisis that began in 2008 with surprising resilience (especially in light of
how East Asia faltered in the 1997–8 financial crisis). Put another way, the
(regional) order sought by international society theorists seems much
more prevalent in post-Cold War East Asia than during the Cold War.
English School theorists are interested in international order because
from it, one may infer international society. If East Asia today is a more
robust international (regional) society than it was during the Cold War,
several questions arise: what kind of an international (regional) society is
East Asia? Is it a replica of Western–global international society, or does it
have distinctive characteristics stemming from the way regional states have
interacted with one another and with the West? And do these features of
similarity or difference help explain why East Asian international society is
more robust today compared to the past? To answer these questions, this
chapter examines four primary institutions or ‘deep rules’ deemed central to
the existence and functioning of a regional/international society. The rules
are restricting war, balancing power, great power leadership and diplomacy.
I argue that, on the issues of war and diplomacy, most of the East Asian
146 Yuen Foong Khong
states exhibit behaviour similar to that of the West. On the issues of the
balance of power and regional great power leadership, the East Asian
pattern seems rather different. Most in East Asia seem comfortable with
US preponderance or hegemony and do not aspire to ‘balance’ the United
States. This is a departure from the equilibrium view of the balance of
power, which expects states to balance against the strong to ensure their
political independence. We also find deviance on the issue of regional
management, with the two great powers of the region – China and Japan –
experiencing difficulty exercising leadership. They seem content to leave
the field to a group of small to middle-sized powers – ASEAN – to concoct
ideas and devise modalities in the name of regional peace and stability.
Despite the stunted development of regional great power management
(Goh this volume), the overall picture that emerges suggests that, where
possible, East Asia has internalized and built on these rules to form an inter-
state society more robust than the one it had during the Cold War.
The primary institutions and ‘deep rules’

of international society
This chapter focuses on four primary institutions or ‘deep rules’ – war,
balance of power, great power leadership and diplomacy – arguably the ones
with the most substantive strategic dimensions, and asks if the way they are
interpreted and acted upon by the major East Asian actors tells us anything
about the nature of East Asian regional international society vis-à-vis
Western–global international society. The terms ‘primary institutions’ and
‘deep rules’ will be used interchangeably in this chapter.
The four deep rules chosen for analysis are strategic in two senses: first,
they can be thought of as rules that inform the interactions between states
and between states and non-state actors. Such interactions are almost
always strategic in that actors take into account the impact of their choices
on others and of the choices of others on them. In order to estimate the
impact of one’s choices on others and vice versa, knowledge of the deep
rules or ‘rules of the game’ that are widely accepted is essential. This is the
security or strategic interdependence that international relations scholars
write about and that game theorists delight in formalizing. Second, the
deep rules may also be thought of being strategic in the sense that they
impact on the issues of war and peace.
I begin with a discussion of the four deep rules and what it means to
accept them. By ‘accept’ I mean expressing approval of, and willingness to
act upon, the rules under examination. The discussion of the four rules
draws primarily from Hedley Bull (1977), who provides the most systematic
(though not unproblematic) elaboration of the content of these rules, their
manifestation through history and their impact on international order. For

Bull, as for Barry Buzan, it is the acceptance of these rules that indicates the
existence of international society. The general discussion of the four deep
rules will be followed by an empirical analysis of how they are viewed and
the degree to which they seem to inform the actions of the East Asian states.
For the purposes of our analysis, East Asia may be thought of as comprising
the four states of Northeast Asia (China, Japan and North and South Korea)
and the ten states of Southeast Asia (the ASEAN-10).
War
War, conceived as ‘organised violence carried on by political units
against each other’, has a dual character for English School theorists:
‘on the one hand, [it is] a threat to be limited and contained; on the other
hand, an instrumentality to be harnessed to international society’s
purposes’ (ibid.: 184, 198). By the latter, Bull meant war is sometimes
used to enforce international law, to maintain the balance of power and
even to promote just change. These are values important to the society of
states and, when certain conditions are met, it may want to resort to war
to protect these values. However, when war occurs, the society of states
expects combatants to adhere to the jus in bello rules such as non-
combatant immunity and proportionality. While war is acceptable in
certain circumstances, contemporary international society attaches a
higher priority to restricting it (ibid.: 198–9). Buzan also sees ‘war as
an institution’ becoming ‘more problematic’ but this is so because of
inter-state society’s move ‘away from pluralist constructions and
towards solidarist ones’ (2004: 196). We should therefore expect the
contemporary society of states to work to contain and limit war, allowing
it only under the most restrictive conditions such as self-defence. The
question for us, then, is whether this priority of limiting war is evident in
the discourse and behaviour of the East Asian states.
Balance of power
For Bull (1977: 101–17), the society of states has a vested interest in
maintaining the balance of power in order to prevent the emergence of a
preponderant power. The latter is undesirable and dangerous because it will
be able to lay down the law for all others and, in so doing, deprive them of
their political independence. Buzan seems to agree with this interpretation;
he sees ‘anti-hegemonism’ and ‘alliances’ as derivative institutions of the
balance of power (2004: 184). Bull, however, also makes a distinction
between the general and local balance of power that is relevant to our
analysis. He warns against confusing the general balance of power where

there is no one ‘preponderant power in the international system as a whole’
with ‘a local or particular balance of power, in one area or segment of the
system’ where preponderance might occur. Bull assumes that system-wide
preponderance is unlikely because it would become a world empire; local
preponderance is much more plausible, as when he surveys the geo-political
landscape of the late 1970s and discovers that ‘In some areas of the world . . .
such as the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent or Southeast Asia, there
may be said to be a local balance of power; in others, such as Eastern Europe
or the Caribbean, there is a local preponderance of power’ (1977: 102–3).
We will later revisit Bull’s take on the general balance because it predisposes
the analyst to a particular view of how the balance of power operates in
Western–global international society. The problem with this view is that
it may not be capturing the changing practices associated with the ‘deep
rule’ or primary institution in the contemporary period. For the moment,
however, the question for us is whether the East Asian states accept the
balance-of-power principle (conceived in equilibrium terms) and, if so,
whether their actions since the end of the Cold War are consistent with
such acceptance.
Great power management

Great powers are in a class of military strength by themselves, and with
that power come ‘special rights and duties’:
Great powers . . . assert the right, and are accorded the right [by lesser states], to play
a part in determining issues that affect the peace and security of the international
system . . . They accept the duty . . . of modifying their policies in the light of the
managerial responsibilities they bear. (ibid.: 202)
Another way of putting it is that great powers expect themselves and are
expected by others to play leadership roles in managing the international
or regional system. They do so in two ways. First, they manage relations
with one another so as to avoid war, control crises and maintain
the balance of power. Second, they manage the others by leveraging
their superior power, taking care of their own spheres of influence
(while respecting the spheres of influence of fellow great powers) and
co-operating to impose solutions on the others (ibid.: 207). This rather
comprehensive description of how great powers lead poses interesting
questions for our analysis. Who are the great powers of East Asia? Have
they availed themselves of the special rights and duties described above?
What are the implications for East Asian international society if they
have or have not?
Diplomacy
Diplomacy refers to the ‘conduct of relations between states and other
entities with standing in world politics by official agents and by peaceful
means’ (ibid.: 162). It may take bilateral or multilateral forms. The ‘other
entities’ include non-state actors such as the International Labour
Organization, the World Bank and Amnesty International, as well as
regional institutions such as ASEAN or the African Union. Among diplo-
macy’s major functions are communication, negotiation, minimizing
friction, intelligence-gathering and symbolizing international society
(ibid.: 170–2, 181–3).
Diplomacy is a routine and full-time activity of most states and many
non-state actors across the world. The 2010 Wikileaks revelations show
American diplomats hard at work, fulfilling many of the functions described
above. The candid and often uncomplimentary reports by American dip-
lomats about leading personalities in their host country may have incurred
the displeasure of some, but diplomats and students of diplomacy know that
such communications, intelligence-gathering and analysis are part and
parcel of diplomacy. When US secretary of state Hillary Clinton went
into damage-limitation mode (minimizing friction?) and received under-
standing replies from her peers, along the lines of ‘You should hear what we
say about you Americans’, the impression given is that there is a common
understanding among diplomats that this is the essence of diplomacy.
Moreover, the rituals and protocols associated with diplomacy, and the
general outrage provoked when these protocols are violated (e.g. holding
diplomats hostage), suggest shared norms on the conduct and importance
of diplomacy; they also imply the existence of a society of states. The
question for us is thus not whether bilateral and multilateral forms of
diplomacy are pervasive in East Asia; they obviously are, and have been,
permanent fixtures of the East Asian landscape. Our focus will be on
multilateral diplomacy since it is more manageable analytically; space lim-
itations preclude meaningful analysis of the bilateral relationships of the
individual East Asian countries. The question for us is whether multilater-
alism in East Asia might be more pervasive or intensive than in other regions
(suggesting a more robust regional society?), and whether there is a distinc-
tive style to East Asian diplomacy that differentiates it from the West.
‘Deep rules’ and strategic interactions in East Asia

With the main features of the four ‘deep rules’ introduced, it is now
possible to examine the degree to which they characterize strategic
interactions in East Asia.
Limiting war in post-Cold War East Asia

An East Asia mired in war and perpetual military crises would raise
questions about the extent to which the states in the region take the
‘restrict war’ axiom seriously. Conversely, a relatively stable and peaceful
East Asia would be consistent with the possibility that the axiom is
respected. So what is the empirical reality in East Asia since 1990?
According to the Human Security Report Project, East Asia has been
more peaceful and stable than most regions of the world, bar the
Americas. East Asia has seen fewer battle deaths compared to the
Middle East, Central/South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern
Europe (Human Security Report Project 2009/10: figs. 10.4 and 3.3). It
has seen some military crises, but none has escalated into a shooting war.
The pattern of inter-state behaviour in East Asia – with war being
eschewed – seems consistent with the ‘restrict war’ axiom at first glance.
But have there also been developments that might signal increasing
acceptance or institutionalization of the ‘restrict war’ and ‘follow inter-
national law’ axioms? One of the most interesting developments in the
region is the number of states that have signed on to the Treaty of Amity
and Cooperation (TAC). The TAC, which came into being in 1976, was
ASEAN’s way of codifying the norms that have shaped the way member
states interacted with one another in ASEAN’s first decade. Among the
key norms of the TAC that signatories are expected to observe are
respecting one another’s territorial integrity and political sovereignty,
non-interference in the domestic affairs of one another and the pacific
settlement of disputes (ASEAN Secretariat 1976). These prescriptions
and proscriptions were thought to have helped stabilize relations
between former adversaries, and made coexistence and even co-
operation possible in ASEAN’s early years.
The timing of the TAC suggests that it was also a response to strategic
changes in Indochina, with North Vietnam’s victory over the South, and
the Khmer Rouge’s coming to power in Cambodia. The TAC proposed a
code for the conduct of regional relations; if the communist rulers of
Vietnam and Cambodia were willing to subscribe to the code, it would
improve the prospects for regional stability. Although Vietnam had been
contemptuous of ASEAN during the Cold War, viewing it as a tool
of American imperialism, the geo-political circumstances of the 1990s
persuaded it – and the other Indochinese states – to join ASEAN and
accede to the TAC. Over time, the TAC’s reach began to extend to the
rest of East Asia and beyond. China acceded to the treaty in 2003, Japan
and South Korea in 2004, North Korea in 2008 and the United States in
2009. Seventeen other signatories, including Australia, the European
Union, France, India, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Russia and the
United Kingdom, have also acceded to the Treaty. Accession to the treaty
was a pre-requisite for being invited to the East Asian Summit (EAS) –
perhaps the most interesting regional show in town today – and it is
arguable whether Australia, North Korea and the United States would
have signed on if it had not been a pre-requisite.
The TAC is more than the symbolic gesture that some see it as but less
than the non-aggression pact that many in ASEAN have likened it to.
Because the TAC does not specify what sanctions may be imposed on
those who violate its norms, it is unlikely to act as an effective restraint
when states feel that they have to resort to force to protect a vital strategic
interest. But there will be reputational costs for those who sign the treaty
and go on to violate its norms; in that sense, the TAC can function as a
normative focal point around which regional states can collude to dele-
gitimize errant states (Khong and Nesadurai 2007: 37–8). It is of course
possible that the correlation between the restrict-war rule and the obser-
vation of war being contained in East Asia is spurious. Other factors such
as the system of alliances, American hegemony, economic interdepend-
ence and the pragmatic state developmentalist dispositions of East Asian
governments (Ba this volume) may also be contributing to the avoidance
of war. Thus it is true that none of the East Asian states has allowed the
restricting-war axiom to trump the centrality of deterrence. All the states
are still engaged in the internal and external balancing central to deterring
a potential adversary – usually a neighbour – from having designs on, or
attacking, them. Precisely because some East Asian states can conceive of
fighting one another under certain circumstances, they have found it
necessary to prepare for the worst: maintaining or increasing military
spending as well as continuing their alliances with external powers.
Between 2001 and 2010, Northeast Asia witnessed a 70% increase in
military expenditure; the figure for Southeast Asia was 60%. The United
States increased its military expenditure by 80% in the same period,
compared to the world total of a 50% increase (SIPRI 2011: 8). On the
external balancing front, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and
Thailand remain formal treaty allies of the United States. Malaysia and
Singapore are part of the Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA).
Only the two potential hegemons in their respective subregions, China
in Northeast Asia, and Indonesia in Southeast Asia, have refrained from
entering into formal alliances. Although the role of the United States in
the region will be discussed at length in the next section, it is worth noting
here that many in East Asia believe that the strong US military presence is
a major contributor to preventing war in the region. The thinking behind
this belief seems to be that challenges to US supremacy in the region led to
war in the 1950s and 1960s, whereas the absence of such challenges since
1990 has made peace possible.
The East Asian states’ approach to the issue of war and peace is unexcep-
tional. They have accepted the normative case against war and even signed
a treaty to proscribe it within the region but they do not have confidence
that the normative constraints will be enough to ward off violent conflict.
Historical experience, lingering resentments and new flashpoints all suggest
the importance of supplementing the normative restraints by an active
policy of internal and external balancing. In this sense, the European
Union is an exception in its confidence that war among its members is a
relic of the past. Unlike the European Union, which conceives of itself as a
security community, where it becomes unthinkable for members to think of
waging war against one another, East Asia remains rather distant from
viewing itself as a security community.
Balancing versus preponderance in East Asia

Most, if not all, of the East Asian states are content with the existing
distribution of power because it is associated with the relative peace and
stability that the region has enjoyed in the last twenty years. But what is
the existing distribution of power? Is it one of equilibrium or prepon-
derance? If it is preponderance, who is it in favour of? Surprisingly, there
are no clear answers to these questions. Some policy-makers and
analysts, especially in East Asia but also elsewhere, talk and write as
if the region is characterized by a balance of power. With the latter
assumption as their point of departure, they worry that China’s rise
will upset the balance, hence their constant refrain for a strong
American military presence. Others, such as the late Michael Leifer,
have argued that, with the Soviet Union’s implosion, the US withdrawal
from the Philippines, and Japan’s reluctance to increase its military
profile, ‘the balance or distribution of power [in East Asia] seemed to
have been revised to China’s decided advantage’ (1996: 8). Neither of
these views, I believe, is accurate.
The existing distribution of power in the world, as well as in East Asia, is
not one of balance or equilibrium. What we have is an imbalance of power
in favour of the United States. At the global level, the vocabulary used
by political scientists and historians to describe the United States is
indicative: empire, the New Rome, the unipolar power, preponderant
power, hegemony. Mainstream analyses of post-Cold War US military
and economic power assume unvarnished titles such as American Empire
(Bacevich 2002), World out of Balance (Brooks and Wohlforth 2008) and
America’s Global Advantage: US Hegemony and International Cooperation
(Norrlof 2010). The common refrain of these works is that the United
States outranks all its competitors on all the conventional measures of
power: it is number one in the military, economic, technological, and soft
power spheres. On defence spending, the United States outpaces ‘all the
other major military powers combined, and most of these powers are its
allies’ (Brooks and Wohlforth 2008: 28). Technologically, the United
States remains the one to beat, whether one is counting scientific patents,
research papers published or desirable consumer products.
While the US–Western financial crisis of 2008–9 may have sapped
some of its economic strength and sullied its economic reputation, the
United States remains resilient and is still the largest and most productive
economy in the world. To be sure, the United States seems to be living off
East Asian financial credit, but as scholars such as Carla Norrlof have
argued, that is the prerogative of the hegemon (Norrlof 2010: ch. 5).
Despite living way beyond its means, its economic, political and military
power gives it such prestige and credibility that ‘the markets’ (dominated
by the United States) seem forgiving in ways they would not be to lesser
powers. American creditors, such as China and Japan, are severely con-
strained in their ability to leverage their creditor position into political or
economic power: threats to devastate the American economy by selling
massive amounts of dollars are not entirely plausible or effective because
this would also severely degrade the value of the threat-maker’s holdings.
Indeed, China and Japan are caught in the bind of having to continue
buying US Treasury bills in order to protect the value of their holdings,
i.e. to avoid alarming the markets about a sell-off.
The United States has been the preponderant power in East Asia since
the late 1940s and remains so today. In his study of US grand strategy
since the Second World War, Christopher Layne argues that the United
States has sought and ‘to a great extent attained’ ‘extra-regional’ hegem-
ony in Western Europe, East Asia and the Persian Gulf (2006: 3–5). By
‘extra-regional’, Layne means beyond its own region, i.e. the Western
hemisphere, where the United States is already preponderant. I believe
Layne is correct even though his evidence for US extra-regional hegem-
ony is less systematic than one would like (see ibid.: chs. 4–6). What is
the evidentiary basis for viewing the United States as the preponderant
power in East Asia?
To begin with, the United States sees itself as a Pacific power. What that
means is that it sees an intimate link between its military, economic and
psychological security and developments in the Asia-Pacific. That in turn
means that it is willing to bring its power to bear in the region. During
the Cold War, the United States engaged in two hot wars in the region
(Korea and Vietnam), contemplated using nuclear weapons in a couple of
crises, signalled resolve by projecting its naval power in other confronta-

tions and provided military and economic aid to prop up many govern-
ments in the region to prevent them from being undermined from within
or without by communism. To be sure, there were periods when the
United States seemed to be adopting a policy of benign neglect towards
the region. The early 1990s saw the withdrawal of the United States from
its bases in the Philippines, and after 11 September American preoccu-
pation with war in Afghanistan and Iraq caused some of its East Asian
partners to fret openly about a United States that is losing the strategic
initiative by failing to pay enough attention to the changing economic and
military environment in the region.
The warnings about the need for concerted American engagement in
East Asia seem to have fallen on receptive ears. As the Barack Obama
administration wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it
announced in late 2011 a ‘rebalancing’ or ‘pivot’ of US foreign policy
towards East Asia. While it is possible that the administration’s pivot to
Asia may be up-ended by a weak economy, domestic politics (such as the
inability to agree on the federal budget, resulting in the sequestration of
2013 that mandated deep cuts in defence spending) or military crises in
the Middle East, many in East Asia welcomed the US intention to pay
greater attention to their region. President Obama reiterated the
American view of itself as an Asian-Pacific power and, on his way to his
inaugural East Asian Summit in Bali, Indonesia, announced new eco-
nomic and military initiatives that indicated that the United States was
back. While the US-sponsored Trans-Pacific Partnership, which excludes
China, may be seen as an attempt to exert US economic leadership in the
region, a new arrangement with Australia, involving the stationing, on a
rotating basis, of 2,500 US troops in Darwin signalled an expanding
military engagement with the Asia-Pacific. For Hugh White, one of
Australia’s major strategic thinkers, ‘America’s aim is to resist an expan-
sion of China’s influence in Asia by building an economic and strategic
coalition of friends and allies around its geostrategic periphery’ (2011).
Second, while the United States may be geographically more distant
from East Asia than resident powers such as China and Japan, it has
succeeded in overcoming this constraint of the ‘tyranny of distance’
through its worldwide system of more than 750 military bases and places,
which allows the United States to project and deploy military power as and
when the need arises. Europe and East Asia host 86,000 and 72,000
respectively of the 200,000 US troops stationed abroad (not counting
those engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan). With its home base in Japan,
the US Seventh Fleet can ply the oceans of East Asia and respond to crises
faster and with greater firepower than most in the region.
Third, reinforcing and magnifying US power-projection capabilities

are its military allies and strategic partners in the region. Four of the
fourteen East Asian countries are treaty allies of the United States
(Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand) while another four
(Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam) are informal strategic
partners that are happy to provide ‘places’ for US naval vessels to
berth. From this perspective, the majority in East Asia are not only
failing to balance against the preponderant power, but are actually
aligned (or bandwagoning) with it in a strategic sense. East Asia’s com-
fort with US preponderance is puzzling for those who subscribe to the
traditional or equilibrium model of the balance of power, for if fear is
how the powerful may subjugate the individual state’s or the region’s
political independence (cf. Bull 1977: 106) we should expect regional
states to balance against the United States. Yet there is scant evidence
that the latter is happening.
What explains this tendency to align with the preponderant power?
Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver raise the possibility that in a Sino-centric
regional society such as East Asia, hierarchical behaviour might continue
to be so ‘deeply ingrained in Asian cultures’ that it makes them more
likely to bandwagon than to balance (2003: 180–1). Elsewhere David
Kang has written about the possibility of an East Asia reverting back to
the hierarchical form of international relations characterizing the
Chinese tributary system (2003). This cultural explanation for the sali-
ence of hierarchy (as opposed to anarchy) in the international relations of
East Asia could be an important explanation for the region’s comfort
with preponderant powers. But the expectation is that the region would
defer to China, which is more similar in cultural terms, instead of the
United States. Culture is thus not the best explanation for East Asia’s
alignment with the United States today. Is it possible, however, that East
Asians’ high comfort level with hierarchy is independent of who is at the
top of that hierarchy? That is also unlikely: East Asia’s comfort with the
existing hierarchy is much more contingent on the identity of the top dog
(the United States) than the principle (of hierarchy).
Why does East Asia not fear a preponderant United States? The answer
has to do with geography, history and ideology. First, as compared to
China (or Japan), the United States is perceived as less worrisome by
many of the existing governments in East Asia. As some in the region put
it, between the devil that is closer to you and the one that is farther, you
pick the latter. The former is too close for comfort. This proximity-is-
more-worrisome notion is reinforced by historical experience: Vietnam
experienced Chinese domination from 111 BC to AD 938; almost all in
East Asia suffered from Japanese imperialism in the 1930s and 1940s;
China supported North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1950, as well

as North Vietnam’s war of national liberation against the South. The
communist insurgencies in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore received
ideological and material backing from China, as did the Indonesian
communist party, during the Cold War. The leaderships of these
Southeast Asian countries, who were strongly anti-communist (without
necessarily being pro-liberal democracies), therefore saw China as being
complicit in the efforts of local communists seeking to subvert and over-
throw their governments. This mistrust of China persisted until the late
1970s, when Deng Xiaoping terminated whatever remaining support
China was providing to the communist parties still operating (but margi-
nalized) in Southeast Asia. Since then, relations between China and
Southeast Asia have been on a general upward trajectory, with the estab-
lishment of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China in 1991 as
a significant marker of that rapprochement.
When China became a strategic concern of the United States in the
mid 1990s, Southeast Asian states such as Singapore, Malaysia and
Thailand argued in favour of engaging, as opposed to containing,
China (Acharya 1999; Khong 1999). Post 9/11, with the United States
preoccupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some have observed that
China has edged out the United States in Southeast Asia with its charm
offensive, especially during the second term of the George W. Bush
administration. Many parts of Southeast Asia have indeed succumbed
to China’s charm, but the underlying rationale has as much to do with
economics as Chinese diplomacy. The importance of trading with, and
investing in, China, and benefiting from Chinese investments – in other
words, partaking in China’s growth in the context of deepening
economic interdependence between the economies of ASEAN and
China – is probably the single most important impetus behind
ASEAN’s warming up to China (Khong 2013/14; White 2012). To be
sure, when this economic impetus meets Chinese political-military
muscle flexing in the region – as in recent stand-offs with the
Philippines and Vietnam over claims in the South China Sea, and the
trawler-ramming incident with Japan near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands –
the ASEAN states are jolted back into hedging behaviour. In situations
like these, they have a tendency to call upon the United States to play a
more active ‘balancing’ role in the region. As Zhao Keqin of Tsinghua
University has argued, ‘After what happened . . . in the East China Sea
and South China Sea, it is understandable for Asian countries to be wary
of China and want US protection’ (Straits Times 2010).
A second reason why most in East Asia are content with the American
presence is because they are more worried about their closest neighbours
than about American power. The strategic mistrust between many of the
dyads in the region – for example, China–Japan, South Korea–Japan,
Vietnam–China, the Philippines–China and Thailand–Cambodia –
causes them to focus on balancing each other rather than the United
States. Moreover, for the four East Asian states that are treaty allies of
the United States, having the latter around is immensely reassuring when
they are embroiled in political-military spats with their neighbours.
Even China, the lead candidate for the balancing behaviour expected
by equilibrium theorists, seems content, for the moment, with the
American military presence. China’s strategic restraint is sensible and
consistent with Deng Xiaoping’s dictum about China’s need to ‘bide its
time’. China’s leaders seem to have taken heed of this advice, especially
when they need to focus on economic growth and manage its less
salubrious effects (inequality, corruption and environmental degrada-
tion). US military preponderance, moreover, is so massive that it would
be a gargantuan task to try to match it. As Yan Xuetong put it in his
analysis of China’s power status, ‘China’s comprehensive power is not
only inferior to that of the United States as a whole but also in every
single aspect of military, political, and economic power.’ For Yan, while
the disparities in political and economic power are narrowing, China
remains far behind militarily (2006: 21). Given such disparities, it is not
surprising that China would not want to take on the United States, at
least for the time being (Brooks and Wohlforth 2008: 40–5). Finally,
China also sees the US military presence in East Asia as playing a useful
role in reassuring and restraining Japan.
The above analysis in turn suggests that East Asia’s comfort with
American preponderance stems from two sources. The first is a regional
security dynamic involving the rise of China (but yet not powerful
enough to seriously challenge the United States), continuing mistrust
between many of the local powers for historical and ideological reasons,
and the rivalry between China and Japan (see next section). The inter-
play of these forces gives rise to a situation where the United States is
perceived by most in the region to be less threatening than the region’s
great powers. And it is the United States’ ‘being there’ that helps us
understand the second source of East Asia’s equanimity with American
preponderance. US policies towards the region since 1945 – insisting
that it is a Pacific power, fighting hot wars, signing up formal and
informal allies, and opening its markets to East Asia – have persuaded
many that it is indeed providing the military and economic security
‘public goods’ normally associated with the hegemon.
There is thus an imbalance of power in East Asia today, going by Bull’s
definition of ‘a situation of balance’ as the ‘absence of preponderance’
(Bull 1977: 113). The United States is preponderant, and the majority of
states in the region are content because they view this as conducive to
regional order; they do not seem worried about their political independ-
ence. The East Asian understanding and practice of the balance-of-power
rule, then, seem at odds with what Bull saw as the chief merit of the
institution of the balance of power: a mechanism for preventing hegemony
and safeguarding the independence of states (ibid.). East Asia, rather
perversely, seems to prefer hegemony, especially if it is American
hegemony.
If one accepts Bull’s conceptualization of the balance-of-power rule as
the search for equilibrium, East Asia appears distinctive in that the major-
ity seems comfortable with (US) preponderance. It is beyond the scope of
this chapter to ask if in practice Western international society since the
Second World War – contra Bull – has also become equally comfortable
with American hegemony. If this is the case, then the differences between
the West and East Asia on the balance-of-power rule will be less signifi-
cant than suggested here. Buzan may have anticipated this possibility in a
general way when he suggested that ‘Bull’s classic set of five institutions
[one of which is the balance of power] is much more a statement about
historical pluralist international societies than any kind of universal,
for-all-time set’; after all, ‘institutions can change, and those processes
of creation and decay need to be part of the picture’ (2004: 172).
Regional management by regional great powers

Bull’s summary of the special rights and duties of great powers is succinct
and comprehensive, and hard to improve on:
great powers manage their relations with one another in the interests of interna-
tional order by (i) preserving the general balance of power, (ii) seeking to avoid
or control crises in their relations with one another, and (iii) seeking to limit
or contain wars among one another. They exploit their preponderance in
relation to the rest of international society by (iv) unilaterally exploiting their
local preponderance, (v) agreeing to respect one another’s sphere of influence,
and (vi) joint action, as implied by the idea of a great power concert or
condominium. (Bull 1977: 207)
East Asia’s great powers are China and Japan. The question, then, is do
their interactions suggest that they abide by these six axioms of great
power management? On the issue of the regional balance of power, both
China and Japan may be said to be playing their part in preserving the
(im)balance of power, i.e. with Japan strengthening its alliance with the
United States in recent years and with China increasing its military
strength but at the same time suggesting that the American presence in
East Asia is understandable and even helpful. China has been cautious
about denigrating the US presence in the region in ways reminiscent of
their adversarial Cold War days, when it described the United States as
having ‘hegemonistic’ designs on the region.
On the other hand, there is general consternation in the region – in
Japan in particular – that China’s economic growth has allowed it to
increase its military might, and the balance of power may be shifting in
China’s favour, if not immediately, perhaps in the long term. China’s
development of anti-ship ballistic missiles capable of attacking aircraft
carriers and the testing of its stealth bomber suggest that it is acquiring
the kind of armaments that will make it more difficult for Japan’s guar-
antor, the United States, to project and deploy its forward military power
with impunity. As American military officials consulted by the New York
Times put it, ‘China’s next generation of anti-ship missiles . . . could force
the United States to keep its warships a long way from Chinese shores,
and from Taiwan’ (New York Times 2011; White 2012: 62–72). Japan’s
response to China’s growing military strength has been to reinvigorate its
alliance with the United States, and to reach out to India and Australia
(Hughes 2009b: 849–51), although its frequent changes in government
have complicated the task of following and sustaining a consistent
approach to the problem.
On the second criterion of avoiding and/or controlling crises, both
countries seem to be trying hard; how successful they are seems to depend
on the leadership in the two countries. But there have been three major
political-diplomatic crises since 1990. Two of them – in 1995 and 2005 –
involved massive protests in China against Japan on the ‘history issue’,
i.e. Japan’s perceived unwillingness to acknowledge, apologize for and
atone for its actions against China in the 1930s and 1940s. For many in
China (and some in Southeast Asia), Japan’s refusal to acknowledge its
past can be seen in the revision of Japanese high school history textbooks
that underplay or omit atrocities committed by Japan during the Second
World War and/or the Japanese prime minister’s visiting the Yasukini
shrine (as Koizumi Junichiro did every year of his premiership, 2001–5).
The 2005 protests morphed into anti-Japanese riots in Beijing, Shanghai
and Guangzhou, and China–Japan relations plunged to a new low.
The third crisis, and the only one with a quasi-military aspect, is more
recent (September 2010): it involved a Chinese trawler ramming a
Japanese coast guard ship in waters near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu
Islands. When the Japanese coast guard detained the captain of the
Chinese trawler, China applied intense political pressure on Japan
(including suspending the export of rare earth material to Japan) to secure
the release of the captain. The Japanese government relented, to avoid
causing irreparable damage to bilateral relations but not without provok-

ing serious backlash within Japan. Yoichi Funabashi, editor-in-chief of the
centrist Asahi Shimbun newspaper, expressed the fears of many when he
wrote that ‘If China continues to act as it has, we Japanese will be prepared
to engage in a long, long struggle with China’ (cited in Pilling 2010). The
incident may have long-term implications for the way Japan evaluates the
Chinese challenge, but in the short term it did not escalate into a military
stand-off, or worse, a shooting match, and in that sense criterion (iii) of
avoiding war is largely met.
It is in managing the others – or exercising leadership – in the region
that China and Japan have found more difficult, either individually or
jointly. The source of that difficulty is not hard to fathom: there is no love
lost on strategic matters between the two great powers. While there
remains much that ties the two countries together in trade and invest-
ment, they are competitors when it comes to regional leadership. It has
proved difficult for them to jointly leverage their ‘preponderance’ to
manage the lesser powers of the region. They are competing for the
same sphere of influence – the rest of East Asia. Japan’s vision of the
flying-geese model of ‘regional production and investment hierarchy in
East Asia’ – with Japan in the lead, South Korea and Southeast Asia
following, and China in the rear – might have held in the 1970s and
1980s; since then, however, China’s rapid rise and Japan’s stagnation
have shattered the model (Hughes 2009b: 841). The rest of East Asia,
instead of flying in formation behind Japan, seems to be flocking in the
direction of the Chinese economic juggernaut.
There is also the issue of their tainted past: Japan had its imperialistic
policies against much of East Asia during the Second World War and
China had its support of communist insurrections or parties in Southeast
Asia during the Cold War. These memories about the past and questions
about Japan’s and China’s contemporary strategic predilections will have
to be addressed before either can assume a strong managerial role in East
Asia. China ceased supporting its Southeast Asian ideological brethren in
the late 1970s and is working to gain the trust of the Southeast Asian
governments. As suggested above, the process is a fragile one. China’s
neighbours remain highly sensitive to muscle-flexing or diplomatic
haughtiness on the part of China; such assertions usually send them
running into the arms of the United States. Japan’s understanding of its
past in East Asia poses even greater obstacles to its bid for regional
leadership. Despite many acts of contrition, Japan remains reluctant to
acknowledge some of the worst atrocities it committed in the 1940s,
leaving lingering doubts about its sincerity among policy-makers in
China and South Korea, as well as Southeast Asia. All things considered,
China seems to have the upper hand – to Japan’s chagrin – in this battle for
leadership or a sphere of influence in East Asia.
If China and Japan have so far managed to stave off conflict in their
bilateral dealings with each other, they have fulfilled partially some of the
expectations English School theorists have of great powers working in
international society. But if history and their competitive relationship
also make it difficult for them to jointly lead (the others in the region),
what are the implications? With the two potential directors at logger-
heads and unable to lead, opportunities for middle managers abound.
A group of small to medium-sized powers – ASEAN – seem to have
taken on ‘leadership’ or ‘honest broker’ roles by advancing and also
functioning as a conduit for most of the region-wide strategic as well as
economic initiatives. ASEAN’s filling the managerial vacuum in East
Asia will be discussed in the next section, as the fourth deep rule of a
regional international society: diplomacy.
Diplomacy
Whatever diplomacy involves – and I shall focus on Bull’s dimensions of
communication, negotiation and minimization of friction – East Asian
actors probably partake in more of it than actors in most other regions
outside the European Union. In the year leading to the ASEAN summit of
2012, there were 1,500 ASEAN meetings, according to a Philippines
Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Raul Hernandez (Yap
2012). These meetings, ‘from the working group up to the summit’ would
include preparations for the entire gamut of ASEAN-related meetings such
as the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, the ASEAN Plus Three, the ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF) and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC),
as well as the East Asian Summit. A major reason for this is the sheer number
of ASEAN-related East Asian regional institutions that have emerged since
the end of the Cold War. While the volume of multilateral diplomacy in
other regions is daunting, it is less daunting than that in East Asia and
Europe. Like their counterparts in Europe, East Asian scholars, civil society
activists and diplomats are busy with the multiple tracks of diplomatic
engagement: Track III, where civil society actors across borders meet to
discuss and float ideas; Track II forums such as the Council for Security
Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) and the Pacific Economic
Cooperation Council (PECC), where scholars and officials, often in their
private capacities, meet; and official Track I meetings such as the East Asian
Summit, Six Party Talks and the ARF (see Foot this volume).
What, then, are some of the most important regional secondary insti-
tutions through which East Asia’s multilateral diplomacy is conducted,
and what do they tell us about the nature/distinctiveness of the region as

an international society? The East Asian Summit (inaugurated 2005) is
the most high-level general-purpose institution, and the one that
regional (and non-regional) actors most want to be a part of. It brings
together the heads of state of eighteen countries (the United States
and Russia attended their first summit in October 2011) for strategic
dialogue to promote co-operation in political, security and economic
issues. Member states also aspire to work towards an East Asian com-
munity as part of the regional architecture, the assumption being that the
summits and the community-building activities will contribute to the
aim of ensuring ‘peace, stability and economic prosperity’ in East Asia.
The annual summit is normally held after the ASEAN Plus Three
Summit, reflecting the summit’s ASEAN roots.
In addition to the EAS and the ASEAN Plus Three, the other signifi-
cant institutions with a strategic or security dimension are the ASEAN
Regional Forum (1994), the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue
(NEACD), the Shangri-La Dialogue (2002) at the East Asian level, and
the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (1967) and the ASEAN Post-Ministerial
Meeting (1973) at the Southeast Asian level. Those with a primarily
economic dimension (although they also touch on security issues such
as anti-terrorism) include APEC (1989), PECC and the ASEAN Free
Trade Area. The Six Party Talks would be an example of a more ad hoc
arrangement involving four of the concerned East Asian powers with
two externals, the United States and Russia, to manage the nuclear issue
in the Korean peninsula. Since many of these secondary institutions
(Buzan 2010a: 13–14) are examined in Rosemary Foot’s contribution
(Chapter 9), I will just touch briefly on the meaning and significance of
these multilateral institutions for the primary institution of diplomacy.
International relations theorists who believe that international institu-
tions can help promote co-operation by providing information, reducing
transaction costs and alleviate cheating will find the plethora of regional
institutions in East Asia encouraging (Keohane 1984; Khong 2004). They
would also find the correlation between these overlapping and cross-
cutting institutions and the peace/stability of the region instructive.
While realists will argue that it is the US military presence or deterrence
that is responsible for regional stability, that story is probably incomplete,
in part because the United States, militarily prominent as it was, found
itself engulfed in two land wars in East Asia during the Cold War.
Moreover, subregional institutions such as ASEAN were founded in
part to protect member states from being entangled – as southern
Vietnam was – in the power competition between the United States, the
Soviet Union and China. Consequently, one should not dismiss the role
played by regional institutions in stabilizing the region; as Muthiah

Alagappa (2003a: 17–19) put it, they form one of several pathways
sustaining the existing security order in Asia.
A common criticism of East Asian multilateral diplomacy is that the
abundant regional institutions are essentially talking shops that have not
made significant dents in solving the region’s security problems, such as the
North Korean nuclear crisis or disputes in the South China Sea. East Asian
diplomats might respond that, for all the region’s security problems, they
have not escalated to full-scale armed conflicts as in other parts of the world.
The relative peace and stability in East Asia in the past two decades would
seem to refute predictions that post-Cold War East Asia was ‘ripe for rivalry’
and a prime candidate for being ‘the cockpit of great power conflict’
(Friedberg 1993–4: 7). Thus, whatever the shortcomings of the Six Party
Talks, ASEAN’s Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China
Sea, or the ASEAN Regional Forum, the region is better off with them than
without. Talking shops do provide important pre-planned opportunities for
communication and negotiation (side chats among foreign ministers) that
can alleviate friction and contribute to confidence-building. The ARF, as
discussed above, has been successful in encouraging ASEAN’s interlocutors
to sign up to the TAC.
A second response to criticisms about the ineffectiveness of East Asia’s
multilateral institutions is the argument that, in using results-oriented
Western–EU yardsticks to assess East Asian diplomatic activities, one
misses out on the importance of process, face (giving and saving) and
consensus in East Asian diplomacy (Ball 1993). The implication here is
that there are nuances/differences in East Asian diplomacy that are not
easily subsumable within Western approaches that prize directness, (quali-
fied) majority voting and results. The East Asian style, on the other
hand, may strive for the same goal, but is more patient about the necessity
of building confidence initially, of not forcing one’s interlocutors to ‘lose
face’ and of the importance of consensus. Alice Ba captured the meanings
and processes of East Asian multilateralism better than most when she
argued that it is ‘best understood as parts of a cumulative dialogue or
series of social negotiations on the material and normative foundations of
regional order’ (2009: 8).
Finally, the institutions that have sprouted in East Asia raise interesting
questions about the region’s identity and geographic footprint: who is in
and who is out? According to whom? The answers to these questions have
important implications for this volume’s conception of East Asia. That
Northeast and Southeast Asia constitute the inner core of East Asia is
uncontroversial. But when one examines the security institutions of the
region – from the East Asian Summit to the ARF to the Six Party Talks – it
suggests that some of the core East Asian states feel the need for a more
inclusive geographic footprint, one that includes the United States,
Australia, New Zealand, Russia and India. It is interesting that
Malaysian prime minister Mahatir Mohamad’s idea of the East Asian
Caucus, mooted in the early 1990s, which excluded the United States,
Australia and New Zealand, never really got off the ground. It would have
been too impolite for Malaysia’s East Asian interlocutors to reject
Mahatir’s idea outright; it was relegated to a ‘caucus’ within APEC that
eventually faded away. Fifteen years later, when the much more signifi-
cant East Asian Summit came into being, Australia and New Zealand
were part of the inaugural group; the United States, after signing the TAC
in 2009, participated in its first EAS in 2011.
Conclusion
‘Over the last two to three decades’, according to Muthiah Alagappa, ‘Asia
has become a more stable and prosperous place in which, with a few
exceptions, state survival is not problematic and international interaction,
for the most part, is conducted in the context of internationally recognized
principles, norms, and rules’ (2003a: 8). It was this empirical point of
departure, documented by him and his contributors, that allowed him to
claim that a security order exists in Asia, and that it can be explained by the
instrumental and normative variables featured in his massive tome. As the
above analysis makes clear, I share Alagappa’s assessment of the existence
of a regional security order. In fact, if one were to circumscribe Alagappa’s
‘Asia’ by placing ‘East’ before it, the claim of peace and stability becomes
even more robust, since it would exclude the India–Pakistan Kargil
conflict of 1999. And it is the observation that East Asia seems relatively
stable and peaceful – compared to itself during the Cold War and to most
other regions since the end of the Cold War – that provides prima facie
evidence that a robust regional international society exists and that the
deep rules characterizing such a society are widely accepted. It would be
unwise, however, to assume that the peace and stability of the past two
decades will hold in perpetuity. However robust the societal elements,
they will have to compete with the power-political intrusions emanating
from the on-going power shifts in East Asia.
Yet our analysis has revealed interesting variations in the way East Asian
states have interpreted, and acted upon, some of these rules. On the rules of
restricting war and diplomatic engagement, East Asian regional interna-
tional society is more similar than it is different to Western–global interna-
tional society. With the exception of North Korea, most in East Asia talk
down war as an acceptable instrument of policy, abstain from threatening it
and have signed ASEAN’s TAC, which among other things, expects them
to settle disputes peacefully. Bilateral and multilateral diplomacy keep
diplomats and trade and defence officials, as well as those involved in
non-traditional security issues, busy. Include the Track II and III diplomacy
that allow scholars, think tank analysts, civil society actors and officials in
their private capacities to engage one another, and we see a region buzzing
with diplomatic intercourse. A common lament among diplomats from the
less well-to-do East Asian nations relates to the crushing financial burden
imposed on their ministries by the need to be present at these meetings.
It is on the balance-of-power rule that we see an apparent difference
between East Asia and Western–global international society. The majority
of East Asian states seem content with American predominance, viewing
it as one of the major factors that have contributed to regional peace and
stability in the past twenty years. This preference for an imbalance of
power seems at odds with the equilibrium notion of the balance of
power where states are supposed to believe in the undesirability of having
a predominant power and where they are also supposed to act in tandem
to prevent the rise of such a power.
The behaviour of China and Japan – the region’s great powers – only
partially confirms the expectation that they are likely to play key managerial
roles in the region. They do seem to have played their part in maintaining
the ‘balance of power’ in the region (thought of as Japan’s allying with the
United States on the one hand and China’s willingness to live with a strong
US presence on the other) and in avoiding recurrent crises with each other.
But Japan and China have not been able to act in concert to lead the region,
in part because of their distrust of each other and in part because most in
East Asia remain ambivalent about the ambitions of the two great regional
powers.
The initiative has fallen on ASEAN to act as an ‘honest broker’ in
proposing forums such as the East Asian Summit for regional powers to
engage one another, and to assume the ‘driver’s seat’ in ASEAN-inspired
institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum. While the effectiveness of
these institutions can be debated, their aim has been similar to what interna-
tional society would have expected of China and Japan, had they been able
to exercise leadership: create and institutionalize a pattern of predictable,
stable and peaceful relations in the region. So if the purpose of this exercise
is to detect regional variation, we see it mainly in the two areas: East Asia’s
preference for (US) hegemony rather than great power equilibrium, and the
inability of the region’s great powers to assert leadership, leaving the
region’s smaller powers as the initiators of regional co-operation schemes.
Finally, a recurrent theme in our analysis of the primary institutions
seems to be that the United States is central to East Asian notions and
practices of avoiding war, ‘balancing’, great power management and

multilateral diplomacy. As the chapters by Evelyn Goh and Rosemary
Foot (this volume) indicate, the role of the United States is integral to
most analyses of the primary and secondary institutions of the region. Yet
the United States is the 500-pound gorilla in the room that has been
temporarily defined out of the picture if we do not consider it part of
East Asia. Does this matter? On the issue of the distinctiveness of the East
Asian society of states, it probably does not matter. Whether the United
States is ‘in’ or ‘out’ of the region, it will continue to play the role it sees fit,
consistent with its own sense of itself as an Asian-Pacific power. The East
Asian states will continue to factor this into their interpretation and
practice of the deep rules of the game, resulting in the similarities and
differences indicated above.
On the issue of regional identity, however, it probably does matter. The
East Asian states are divided on whether the United States is a part of East
Asia, with Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore,
Vietnam and Brunei taking the position that the United States is ‘in’;
China, North Korea, Burma, Cambodia and Laos viewing it as ‘out’;
and Indonesia and Malaysia sitting on the fence. To be sure, these views
are not immutable and may shift as the geo-political environment and
economic interdependencies change (in China’s favour). But insofar as
this division remains, it is likely to act as an obstacle to articulations of a
distinctive East Asian approach or alternative to the deep rules of the game.
Perhaps the Beijing Consensus, described by one analyst as ‘going capital-
ist and staying autocratic’ (Halper 2010: 32) might be a plausible candi-
date for such an alternative. If China’s economic and military might
continues to mount, it might even add a foreign policy element, such as
‘keep foreign powers (i.e. the United States) at a distance’, to the mix, but
whether such a ‘consensus’ will have many takers, it is hard to say.
Until then, of the three scenarios on how the East Asian regional
international society might relate to Western–global international society
(see Chapter 1, this volume), the ‘rivalry/conflict’ scenario would seem
least likely. The absence of a common identity would make it difficult to
garner a consensus about the alternative norms or rules and render such
attempts incoherent. East Asian regional international society is more
likely to find itself straddling Buzan’s ‘differentiation/co-existence’ and
‘homogenization’ scenarios (Buzan 2004: 222–7; Buzan 2010a: 24–6;
Y. Zhang 1998: 250–1). Our analysis reveals that there is homogenization
as well as differentiation but, most of all, there is a form of ‘coexistence’ in
which East Asia adopts the primary institutions and/or adapts them to the
strategic circumstances of the region in ways that seem to have contrib-
uted to regional order.
8 East Asia as regional international society:
the problem of great power management
Evelyn Goh
Introduction
This chapter pays specific attention to power in regional international
society, focusing on the primary institution of great power management in
East Asia. As for inter-state society in general, the need for great power
management is deeply internalized while being constantly contested as a
principle in this region. This paradox has created an East Asian order in
which the small Southeast Asian states play a larger political role than
many would expect, but a role that essentially centres on the management
of great powers.1 At the same time, regional order remains disproportion-
ately constituted by the United States and its relationships with its allies
and with China. Thus, East Asia labours under a complex and evolving
great power social structure, which does not lend itself readily to the neat
separation of regional from global. Indeed, if we were to privilege the
notion of ‘indigenous’ great powers at the regional level, then the place of
China and Japan in contemporary East Asia appears to challenge assump-
tions about the special role of great powers in international society as
providers and managers of order.
The contemporary East Asian order is best understood as a continu-
ation of a long process of transition that began during the mid nineteenth-
century rupture between China and Japan, with Japan’s self-removal from
the Sino-centric regional society and China’s decline in the face of
Western technological competition and imperial encroachment (Suzuki
2009; Gong 1984). This was followed by the interpolation of the United
States as ring-holder in the wake of the Second World War, keeping apart
China and Japan by simultaneously assuring each of security against the
other by means of its alliance with Japan. Together, these developments
deformed regional international society. On the one hand, the unresolved
conflict and power transition between China and Japan left East Asia
1
This broader point is sometimes obscured in studies intent on revealing Southeast Asian
agency, but for excellent treatments see Ba 2009 and Emmers 2003.
167
168 Evelyn Goh
without indigenous great power leadership at best and an eventual return

to a conflictual power-political order at worst. On the other hand, the
extraordinary penetration of and dependence upon external great powers
during the Cold War grafted selected East Asian states on to their global
strategic preoccupations and wider security complexes, while leaving
other states behind, thus forestalling the creation of social boundaries
around a clear ‘region’.
With the end of the Cold War, the rise of China and the region’s
growing economic interdependence, East Asia’s development both as an
identifiable regional security complex and as a putative regional interna-
tional society has become easier to track (see Buzan and Wæver 2003:
164). In part, this is negatively derived – from the common nuclear threat
emanating from North Korea and a shared concern about the negative
implications of China’s growing power – but it also arises from growing
institutionalized security and economic interdependence between
Northeast and Southeast Asia, including deliberate efforts to construct a
regional identity and society. At the same time, however, the twin prob-
lems of Sino-Japanese estrangement and dependence on the United
States have remained.
Any attempt to study and characterize East Asian regional society
must thus grapple with the peculiar nature of the existing primary
institution of great power management here. The following analysis
investigates the distinctive concepts and practices of great power man-
agement in the evolving East Asian security order, paying particular
attention to the roles of China and Japan. The first section introduces
the concept of great power management as an institution of interna-
tional society, highlighting the limited nature of Hedley Bull’s initial
conceptualization and the silence in existing works regarding the oper-
ation of this institution at the regional level. The empirical analysis that
follows applies to East Asia Bull’s basic notion of great power manage-
ment as (a) the management of relations between great powers and
(b) regional leadership. While the ending of the Cold War brought
regional great powers out of pure power-political dynamics in their
relations with each other and with the region, China and Japan have
not yet developed substantive means of managing their bilateral rela-
tions directly. As the US ring-holding position disintegrates, Japan and
China have largely avoided direct conflict by channelling their compet-
itive relationship through other means, but these two regional great
powers have not moved substantially towards a shared notion of coex-
istence or co-operation. More importantly, in terms of directing the
evolving regional order, they have both – to different degrees – chosen
to subcontract many great power management functions to the United
East Asia as regional international society 169
States and to the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN).

Crucially, the reliance on the United States as provider of regional
order through its security guarantees and public goods suggests that
the East Asian version of this primary institution is more akin to a
preponderance or hierarchy of power, rather than a balance of power.
The final section highlights the close interactions between the regional
and global levels of great power management in East Asia, and argues
that these unorthodox practices associated with the primary institution
of great power management hinder East Asia’s development as a recog-
nizable, autonomous regional society that can be differentiated from
surrounding regional complexes and from global international society.
Great power management and regional

As an institution of international society, great power management
reflects the twin imperatives of unequal power in any functioning soci-
ety: the drive of superior power to shape disproportionately the shared
order; and the need to tame the excesses of this unequal power by
constraining it within agreed practices and norms. In Bull’s (1977)
definitive conception, via collaborative management, great powers con-
solidate and sustain the privileges of their special position in interna-
tional society by promoting the very order that produces these benefits
for them. This management is aimed at preserving the society of states
itself by regulating the boundaries within which great powers exercise
their influence. Hence, great powers promote international order in two
key ways. First, by managing their relations with each other in order to
ensure that their rivalries do not spill over into disrupting the society of
states. This is achieved through maintaining the balance of power and by
limiting the systemic impacts of their conflicts through crisis manage-
ment and war limitation. Second, great powers manage international
order by using their preponderance to impart ‘central direction’ to
international affairs, by means ranging from the imposition of their will
to legitimate leadership (ibid.: 200). Bull’s account is evenly divided
between the unilateral exploitation of local preponderance, the estab-
lishment of mutually respected spheres of influence, and joint action in
the form of condominium or concert. By minding their own backyards,
respecting each others’ spheres and sometimes jointly imposing order on
the recalcitrant, great powers discipline and regulate the social and
physical boundaries where their interests and spheres meet. But Bull’s
emphasis misses out on how great powers actually provide strategic and
normative leadership to other states.
170 Evelyn Goh
Similar limitations to conceptualizing great power management as a key

institution of international society are also found in more recent contribu-
tions to refining the English School. In his influential work distinguishing
between primary and secondary institutions, Barry Buzan (2004: 183)
helpfully groups great power management, war, alliances, guarantees and
neutrality under the master institution of balance of power, understood as
Westphalian social practice. In considering contemporary international
society, Buzan (ibid.: 233) elevates great power management to the master
institution in place of balance of power, which he sees as operating less
vigorously since anti-hegemonism has been eroded by the forces of
economic liberalism and globalization. But he suggests that the two remain-
ing derivative institutions – war and alliances – are also declining in impor-
tance, leaving the question of what great power management consists of
now. Also writing with globalization and US preponderance in mind,
Andrew Hurrell (2007a: 31–2) observes that the issue is not simply or
even primarily the need to countervail new rising powers with similar
opposing capabilities. Rather, the main challenge is how to harness great
powers to some collective authority, or to embed them within stable struc-
tures of inter-state co-operation – not just to prevent war between them, but
more to protect the orderly functioning of international life along agreed
rules and norms. In sum, then, contemporary international society offers
more scope than realists and liberals assume for how great power manage-
ment is derived, and one aim of this chapter is precisely to shed light on
some salient derivative means of institutionalizing inequalities of power.
The second conceptual question this chapter addresses is: what does
great power management look like at the regional level? As we would
expect, Bull’s seminal work provides little guidance on this issue. His
summation is that
Great powers contribute to international order by maintaining local systems of
hegemony within which order is imposed from above, and by collaborating to
manage the global balance of power and, from time to time, to impose their joint
will on others. (Bull 1977: 89, emphasis added)
This seems to suggest that great powers act hierarchically at the regional
level and co-ordinate (and even co-operate) to maintain order in an anar-
chical society at the global level. In assuming separate local or regional
bases for great powers, Bull concentrates on the Cold War cases of the US
and Soviet Union, rather than, say, pre-1914 Western Europe. But this
assumption reflects the prescriptions of Second World War realists – such
as Nicholas Spykman, Winston Churchill and Walter Lippmann – of
eventually dividing the world into regional blocs led by a number of
recognized great powers in order to maintain peace. Like them, Bull does
not delve into questions about how unequal power is exercised within these
local spheres.
We are thus left with the following questions: is great power manage-
ment also a master institution in regional international society? Do the
great powers have to be indigenous? How do we distinguish regional great
power roles from global superpower roles in great power management at
the regional level? To what extent are regional great power management
strategies and their manifestations distinctive? How do they affect the
character of the regional international society? To contribute to these
considerations, the rest of this chapter analyses China’s and Japan’s
roles in great power management in East Asia according to Bull’s two
variables of bilateral constraint and central direction. To wrap up this
conceptual preface, it is useful to ask what we might expect regional great
powers to do in terms of managing regional order. We should expect at
least two functions, the first of which is relatively obvious. Regional great
powers ought to manage their relations in such a way as to sustain the
existing regional society of states – they should provide public goods and
otherwise cultivate shared norms and values that allow them to establish
acceptable preponderance or leadership within the region, whether as a
hegemony or in the form of a stable balance of power. It is the second
function that is more distinctive: regional great powers should also have to
mediate between the regional and the global order. Great powers are by
definition those whose actions and influence bear strategic impact at the
global level (Buzan and Wæver 2003: 35–7); therefore they are hinges that
connect the regional and global. Hence, the ‘central direction’ provided
by great powers at the regional level also gains meaning because of the
potential for initiating systemic change. Great powers as mediators may
shape or lead regional orders that maintain and help spread, or challenge,
global order.
China–Japan: managing great power relations

The key element of the institution of great power management is that the
relevant great powers manage their relations with each other through a
shared understanding of the need for sufficient mutual constraint and
co-ordination so as to avoid excesses that would destabilize the existing
international order. The means of doing so can be simplified into the
maintenance of the balance of power, crisis management and the limita-
tion of wars. In East Asia, these mechanisms have been developed most
obviously between the United States and China, not China and Japan.
The United States and China have a history of bilateral strategic
co-ordination reaching back to the last decade of the Cold War; direct
172 Evelyn Goh
confrontation over a key regional hotspot, Taiwan; and mutual recogni-

tion of the systemic dimensions of their relationship. China’s growing
economic and military capabilities have been closely tracked by
Washington and, given the grave disparity of power, China has not chal-
lenged US military dominance directly. Shifting from open calls for the
United States to end its bilateral alliances and to withdraw from the
region, since the mid 1990s Beijing has muted its opposition to the US
presence in the region, participated in multilateral co-operative security
and economic forums, become a mediating partner in the Six Party Talks
to manage the North Korean nuclear crisis, and supported the US global
war against terrorism. The two sides have also broadly managed to main-
tain a stable balance of power across the Taiwan Straits, underpinned by a
widening structure of regular bilateral security dialogues and developing
conflict management measures. These include the US–China Strategic
Economic Dialogue established in 2006 and upgraded to the two-track
Strategic and Economic Dialogue since 2009; and, in the military realm, a
hotline between their presidents and between defence ministers, and the
initiation of bilateral Defence Consultative Talks and the Military
Maritime Consultative Agreement in 1997 (see Kan 2010). While these
measures have not always been effective in avoiding crises such as the
April 2001 EP3 incident2 and the March 2009 Impeccable incident, their
existence and increasing institutionalization are a reflection of conscious
great power management of bilateral relations through on-going testing
and negotiation of mutual norms and constraints.
The same cannot be said for the two indigenous great powers, China
and Japan. The key dyad for potential conflict endogenous to East Asia
has been traditionally, and remains, Japan–China. There has been a
partial power transition between China and Japan that began with Japan
tearing away from the decaying Sino-centric order to rise with the aid of
Western education and technology in the nineteenth century, and that
reached an impasse with Japan’s defeat in the Second World War. Since
then, the balance of power in East Asia has been determined by the United
States, which stepped into the breach as the ring-holder between them, an
‘outside arbiter play[ing] a policing role, lessening the perceived need for
regional actors to begin destabilizing security competitions’ (Christensen
1999: 50). Using a security treaty that rendered Japan dependent on the
United States for its national defence, the latter extended a ‘dual reassur-
ance’, simultaneously guaranteeing China and Japan their security against
2
A US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet sent to intercept it over the South China
Sea, and was forced to land on Hainan Island, where its crew were detained by the Chinese
authorities.
each other (H. White 2009). This arrangement was thus based on US
military preponderance keeping Japan down, and holding China and
Japan apart using US security protection for Japan.
Since the end of the Cold War, though, uncertainties about the US
commitment to East Asia, China’s growing power, Japan’s potential
‘normalization’ and the nuclear threat posed by North Korea have all
disrupted the post-war East Asian great power management system.
The result has been an uncertain on-going order transition, in which the
institution of great power management has had to diversify beyond the
US-local-preponderance model to develop substantive management of
relations among the three central great powers, the United States, China
and Japan. To some extent, we may continue to read these developments
in a US-centric manner: at the same time as it was gradually developing
balance of power and constraining norms and practices with China,
Washington was revising its alliance with Japan to incorporate more
‘burden-sharing’ and to shift the emphasis from sheer capabilities to
expanded alliance functions. The expansion of Japan’s military role in
the alliance in the past twenty years was centred on two clusters of
changes. The 1995–7 revisions reoriented the alliance beyond the defence
of the Japanese isles towards enhancing regional security more generally,
and expanded Japan’s role to include non-combat support in regional
contingencies not directly involving Japanese territory. This was followed
by special legislative measures in 2001–3 to allow Japan to deploy troops
overseas to provide logistical support for the US war in Afghanistan in
2001 and reconstruction in Iraq in 2003. The Koizumi Junichiro govern-
ment further deepened Japan’s ‘global alliance’ by participating in the US
global missile defence system from 2003, agreeing to host a nuclear-
powered aircraft carrier in 2005, declaring the alliance to be based on
‘universal values’ in 2006, and committing to strengthening US global
power projection from Japanese bases and military inter-operability
between the allied forces (see C. W. Hughes and Krauss 2007).
These developments breach the previous common understanding
among the three great powers about constraints on Japanese power.
Japan’s role in the alliance has expanded in geographical and situational
scope; brought into question the country’s renunciation of nuclear weap-
ons; and increasingly challenged the constitutional ban on collective self-
defence (see Hughes 2009b; Samuels 2007). Beijing perceives itself to
have suffered net losses from these changes; since the assurance that Japan
was being kept down within the US alliance no longer holds, China is
inclined to see Japan as unleashed and facilitated by the alliance to contain
China (Midford 2004). Tokyo’s formal articulation of its concerns about
China’s military modernization and lack of transparency (Government of
174 Evelyn Goh
Japan 2010; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan 1995), as well as the

Japanese military’s emphasis on acquiring more significant air and naval
power projection capabilities that will enable it to conduct offensive
operations within the region, and its defensive repositioning of ground
forces in the remote southwestern islands facing Taiwan, also suggest
balancing against China.3 Thus, the indigenous great power dynamic
has gradually switched from a coexistence one towards a power-political
one, and serves to undermine the task of achieving common understand-
ings on conflict management and war limitation even before they have
begun between China and Japan. In the current context, this translates
into a more active and confrontational role for Japan within the US
alliance in deterring and possibly containing China. Over the medium
term, China’s tolerance for Japan’s regional military role and for
Washington’s role in East Asia is likely to diminish if these three great
powers do not achieve some new understanding of mutual constraint and
respect for legitimate interests and behaviour. In that situation, a Sino-
Japanese conflict will become inevitable.
In the meantime, to conceive of Sino-Japanese bilateral relations within
the context of the institution of great power management is problematic
because these two states have not yet developed a shared understanding
of mutual constraint and co-ordination to promote regional order.
Strategically, China and Japan have remarkably low levels of direct dealings
compared with what each has with the United States. Tokyo and Beijing did
start a defence ministers’ dialogue in 2003 and a high-level strategic dia-
logue in 2005, the latter including the exchange of views about their
territorial disputes in the East China Sea. Since Koizumi’s departure
from office in 2005, each subsequent prime minister has held summit
meetings with his Chinese counterpart. Yet, it was only in June 2010 that
both sides agreed to set up a hotline between the heads of state. In spite of
maritime tensions such as the stand-off in October 2010 when a Japanese
coast guard ship detained a Chinese trawler that had rammed it near the
disputed Senkaku Islands, there is no maritime communication mecha-
nism between the two defence departments. Previous attempts to manage
these disputes – the 1997 agreement to establish a 200-nautical mile ‘joint
management zone’ around the Senkaku Islands and the 2008 agreement for
3
These plans include the first increase of Japan’s submarine fleet (from sixteen to twenty-
two) since 1976, in addition to the deployment of two helicopter destroyers that may be
converted to aircraft carriers, and the acquisition of F-22 fighter aircraft (‘Patriot Batteries
to Be Expanded’, Japan Times, 11 Dec. 2010; ‘Hurdles to a Japanese F-22’, Japan Times,
16 May 2009). While the exact implications of such developments for the Sino-Japanese
military balance of power is debated, their symbolic and potential operational significance
should not be dismissed.
some Japanese participation in developing the disputed East China Sea gas
fields (Japan Times, 19 Jun. 2008) – have either been ignored in practice or
are still awaiting negotiation of details. In response to the deterioration of
relations over the history disputes in 2004–5, a bilateral Joint History
Research Committee was established in 2006, but after three years
Chinese and Japanese scholars were unable to agree on a joint version of
recent history (see Kitaoka 2010).
Japan and China have not engaged in what we would recognize as great
power management practices in recent centuries. Apart from the Sino-
Japanese war, they have avoided direct armed conflict through a range of
unorthodox unilateral means. From the seventeenth to the mid nine-
teenth century, Tokugawa Japan denied China’s position as the Middle
Kingdom and promoted its own alternative regional hierarchy. In the face
of nominal acceptance of its superiority in the Sino-centric order from the
other states in the East Asian international society, China largely ignored
Japan’s indirect challenge as arising from unworthy savages (Suzuki
2009:46–50). Since the end of the Second World War, China could
continue to ignore Japan for as long as the latter remained constrained
and subordinated in its security dependence on the United States.
However, as Japan activated and expanded its security persona after the
Cold War, the two great powers have moved towards a more active
‘mutual denial of status recognition’ at the state level (Deng 2008: 273)
to accompany their continued mutual denial of justice claims to do with
history and memory at both the state and popular levels.
These dynamics stem from deep-seated social and political sentiment
and mobilization, as well as domestic political forces on both sides. The
ending of the Cold War dissolved the strategic imperatives that had forced
a lid on bilateral conflicts between China and Japan. Within China, its
growing economic power fuelled the recovery of national confidence
alongside the surfacing of long-standing sentiments of national humilia-
tion and historical entitlement, which found voice more often than not
against its most recent aggressor, Japan (see, e.g., Callahan 2010; He
2009). For a central government that cultivates nationalist credentials as
a partial replacement for ideological authority, the widespread use of
social media and other public communications renders often hard-line
public opinion regarding Japan an unexpectedly significant form of con-
straint. Japanese domestic politics, on the other hand, has been driven by
its declining economic power and the dissolution in the 1990s of the
so-called 1955 system, which saw the dominance of the largely pragmatic
Liberal Democratic Party inclined towards engaging with China. In the
subsequent political transitions, first towards a more conservative and
pro-United States coalition under Prime Minister Koizumi, then a
176 Evelyn Goh
Democratic Party of Japan government rhetorically wedded to more

balanced relations with the United States and China, Tokyo has consis-
tently maintained a working consensus around the core strategic imper-
ative of maintaining the US alliance (see Goh 2011b; Hughes 2009a).
Alongside Japan’s attempts to arrest its declining power by exerting more
deliberate economic and political leadership regionally and globally, this
is an imperative that has at times entailed ‘collateral damage’ in relations
with China.
The domestic political drivers of Chinese and Japanese relations are
more often than not manifested in foreign policies that undermine each
other. Many Chinese view Japan as blocking China’s rise as a great power
by spreading the fear of a Chinese threat, and by deepening its alliance with
the United States to contain China. China, on the other hand, has refused
to recognize Japan’s aspirations to become a more ‘normal’ great power, by
opposing its bid for a UN Security Council seat and by blocking Japan’s
various regional institutional initiatives. The latter included Tokyo’s
suggestions for an Asian Monetary Fund in 1997, a United States-China-
Japan-Russia security summit in April 1998, a meeting of the five perma-
nent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and Japan to
discuss the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in June 1998, and Japan’s
invitation to China to join the G7 meeting in 2000 (Green 2003: 104–5).
Over the past fifteen years, Japan and China have switched to more
directly competitive relations under the cover of developing East Asian
regionalism through secondary institutions. Examples of this ‘institution-
racing’ (Goh and Acharya 2007: 7) range across the political and economic
realms. Most notable was the highly publicized disagreement about mem-
bership of the proposed East Asian Summit (EAS) in 2005: Beijing pushed
for an exclusively ‘East Asian’ meeting of ASEAN plus China, Japan and
South Korea, but Tokyo successfully lobbied for the inclusion of Australia,
India and New Zealand, in an unsubtle move to stave off potential Chinese
domination. China consequently dropped its interest in the EAS and
steadfastly insisted on the primary role of ASEAN Plus Three (APT) as
the main framework for regional co-operation (S. Chu 2007; M. Li 2009).
The hottest contest though, was in their competing initiatives for regional
economic integration. After Beijing surprisingly proposed a China–
ASEAN free-trade agreement (FTA) in 2000, Tokyo followed up with a
suggestion for a Japan–ASEAN FTA in 20024 and a Japan–ASEAN
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2008. In 2004,
4
Takashi Terada (2006: 10) reports that Tokyo was less interested in the economic potential
of such a move than in catching up with China. For more details of Sino-Japanese
competition over these FTAs and over the EAS/EAC, see also You 2006.
Beijing supported the idea of creating an East Asian FTA within the
ASEAN Plus Three framework; and in 2007 Japan countered by suggesting
a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in East Asia in the
EAS. They have also competed for symbolic leadership in the evolving
ASEAN Plus Three regional mechanisms for financial co-operation, mak-
ing equally large contributions to the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) multi-
lateral currency swap arrangements agreed in 2009.5
As C. W. Hughes (2009a: 855) points out, Japan has been using
regional institutions to counter China’s rising influence by deflecting
Beijing’s bids for dominance and ‘deliberately “over-supplying” region-
alism so as to diffuse China’s ability to concentrate its power in any one
forum’. On both sides, these often appear to be ad hoc measures to ‘block’
and ‘dilute’ each other’s influence, with less attention paid to developing
mutual constraints or co-operative endeavour for order maintenance. For
instance, Sino-Japanese disagreement resulted in the creation of the EAS
alongside ASEAN Plus Three, only to replicate its mandate for regional
co-operation in finance, energy, education, disease and natural disaster
management. Further, while the CMIM has been held up as an example
of new Sino-Japanese co-operation, Japan was instrumental in creating
the rule that members wishing to make significant currency swaps must
apply to the IMF6 – a rule that effectively subcontracts disbursement
decisions, financial monitoring and some liquidity provision to the inter-
national financial institution. William W. Grimes (2009: 81–2, 105–6)
suggests that Tokyo’s aim was partly to avoid having to co-operate more
concretely with China to manage regional financial stability. He also
cautions that their divergent interests make Japan vulnerable to potential
Chinese pressures to abandon the IMF link. China may be tempted to
make political hay by supporting such a move as it will not bear much of
the direct economic costs – Japan, as the richest regional economy, will
have to underwrite a potentially more autonomous regional scheme.
Thus, the management of great power-to-great power relations in East
Asia still revolves around the United States as the apex of the triangle,
enjoying more developed norms of conduct and constraint with Japan and
China than the latter two have with each other. In terms of derivative
institutions of great power management, we see the United States employing
alliances as the means of trying to sustain its local preponderance in the
5
In what is called the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), it was agreed that
the $120 billion reserve pool would come from Japan and China co-leading the contribu-
tions at 32% each, with ASEAN contributing 20% and South Korea 16%.
6
Since 2012, members wishing to draw upon more than 30% of their available funds from
the CMI pot would have to apply to the IMF, meaning that significant swaps would be
subject to IMF regulations.
178 Evelyn Goh
military realm. The United States and Japan are together and independently
developing military balance-of-power practices with China. But China and
Japan are diversifying into fiercer contestation in the international
and regional political-economic arena, employing a mix of social denial and
direct competition within and across various secondary institutions. I would
suggest that these amount to a different category of derivative institutions
more alongs the lines of ‘balance-of-influence’ mechanisms, which channel
countervailing activity into non-military realms (Goh 2007/8). However, in
these realms, common understandings about management and limitation of
great power conflict are based on assumptions – for instance, that greater
economic interdependence would lead to peace, or that competitive great
power trade initiatives would help create regional economic integration (e.g.
Terada 2006). Yet, as frequent observations about the ‘hot economics and
cold politics’ between China and Japan indicate, insufficient attention has
been paid to the potential zero-sum nature of such political competition for
disrupting the existing order and how to manage it. Even less sustained
thought has been expended on co-ordinating these great powers’ expect-
ations of how the new regional order should evolve.
‘Central direction’: leadership in the evolving

regional order
Clearly, understanding great power management as using preponderance
to impart ‘central direction’ to international affairs the way Bull inter-
preted it – local preponderance, spheres of influence, concerts – bears
limited utility in contemporary East Asia. China and Japan are quite
effectively blocking the other’s local preponderance, not least because
they share the same sphere of influence, and a condominium is unlikely
in the foreseeable future for the reasons discussed in the previous section.
Instead, this section examines ‘central direction’ in the sense of great
powers leading the region by giving strategic and normative direction to
the rest. By this measure, Japan and China also fall short, victims both of
mutual denial and of lasting regional suspicions and opposition.
Leaders of both countries have tried to provide central direction in
regional security at important junctures after the Cold War: the idea for
an Asia-Pacific Economic Forum – what eventually became Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) in 1989 – originated in the Japanese
Ministry of International Trade and Industry, while Japanese foreign min-
ister Nakayama Nariaki’s 1991 proposal to ASEAN to convene a regional
security dialogue was crucial to the creation of the ASEAN Regional
Forum (ARF) in 1994 (Funabashi 1995; Soeya 1994). However, Tokyo
was obliged by concerns about regional suspicions due to its historical
aggression to let other regional actors, including the Australians and South
Koreans, promote these ideas. China tried to impart leadership and direc-
tion in initiating the second phase of East Asian regionalism with its land-
mark proposal for an FTA with ASEAN in 2000. China was the first
regional great power to recognize ASEAN as a single economic unit and
to use its close engagement with this secondary institution to push for
broader ‘East Asian’ regionalism, first through economic integration, but
also by initiating socio-political linkages as well as urging security and
military dialogue. The idea of an East Asia-wide FTA and East Asian
summit came from Beijing, as did suggestions of high-level exchanges
between Chinese and ASEAN military leaders. But China’s attempts to
provide central direction for exclusive regional integration have been diluted
not just by Japan’s competitive counter-proposals but also by ASEAN
caution. Thus, when convened in 2005 the EAS included Australia, New
Zealand and India, and it was further expanded in 2011 to include the
United States and Russia; and ASEAN has channelled China’s repeated
requests for military dialogue into an annual gathering of ASEAN defence
ministers with counterparts not only from China, but also from seven other
Asia-Pacific countries (ADMM Plus). Any leadership positions China and
Japan have held in regional security endeavours have involved the inclusion
of the other in a blandly countervailing (rather than co-operative) way (e.g.
APT, early EAS), or – more often than not – other external great powers
(e.g. Six Party Talks, ARF, evolved EAS and ADMM Plus).
Both China and Japan suffer serious legitimacy deficits within East Asia
for historical, political and strategic reasons. In spite of Beijing’s adept
diplomacy, its neighbours still harbour doubts about its lasting benignity
and suspicions about its authoritarian communist leadership, and they are
not reassured by how China has managed its territorial and historical
conflicts with Japan and several Southeast Asian states (Goh 2011a;
Shambaugh 2004/5). At the same time, regional wariness about Japan’s
aggression during the Second World War is not assuaged by its deliberate
external orientation and ‘Western’ identity, its asymmetrical capabilities,
its boosting of US global strategic priorities, and the way it has managed
conflicts with China. In spite of their efforts, therefore, there remains a
deeper problem related to the great power status of both China and Japan,
which necessarily derives from the recognition of the relevant regional
constituency. As Ian Clark (2011b: 25) observes, ‘To be a great power is
to be located in a social relationship, not to have a certain portfolio of
material assets.’ China’s and Japan’s difficulties with performing the great
power management role of imparting central direction to regional order
has facilitated the relocation of this social relationship upwards and down-
wards in the regional hierarchy.
180 Evelyn Goh
It often seems that it is the United States that imparts central direction
to East Asia as the external superpower, through its security relationships,
the management of its great power relationship with China, and its critical
role in managing regional crises and providing public goods. By their
deadlock, Japan and China present little challenge to Washington’s posi-
tion of incumbent preponderance but rather a de facto acquiescence to the
United States as regional order provider. The United States still retains
legitimacy as the region’s relatively benign superpower, whether this is
based on its superior military capabilities and security guarantees or on the
perception that it is an ‘offshore’ hegemon with no direct territorial
ambitions in the region. These states have helped maintain a credible
regional identity for the United States by retaining the notion of ‘open
regionalism’ in the form of secondary institutions incorporating the ‘Asia-
Pacific’ or other trans-regional groupings. Since 2001, they have also
deferred to US strategic priorities, such as counter-terrorism, and accom-
modated to varying degrees US agenda items, such as free trade and
defence transparency.
If actions are anything to go by, East Asian states prefer US great power
management in terms of maintaining military preponderance and a secur-
ity umbrella under which they may shelter or upon which they may call in
crisis. Apart from the reinvigoration of alliances and security relations
with the United States after the Cold War, since 2010, South Korea, Japan
and ASEAN have all turned to the United States for reassurance in the
face of threats from North Korea and China’s harder line on maritime
disputes. Since North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean corvette
Cheonan in March 2010, Seoul has prioritized alliance-building, for
instance by deciding to redeploy troops to aid the US campaign in
Afghanistan. That summer, ASEAN states sought high-level public assur-
ances from the Obama administration against China’s repeated references
to the South China Sea as a ‘core national interest’ (Pomfret 2010;
M. Richardson 2010). And, in spite of the Democratic Party govern-
ment’s rhetoric critical of over-reliance on the United States and in favour
of closer ties with China, it proved quick to fall back on the alliance during
the Sino-Japanese stand-off in October 2010 when, as noted earlier, Japan
detained a Chinese trawler near the Senkaku Islands.7
One of the major great power management roles the United States
undertakes in East Asia is the provision of public goods in the security
realm. It is a principal in managing the two main regional crisis points, the
Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Straits; equally importantly – even
7
‘Obama: US–Japan Alliance a Security “Cornerstone”’, Seattle Times, 23 Sep. 2010;
‘Japan, US Affirm Cooperation on Disputed Senkaku Islands’, Japan Today, 12 Oct. 2010.
though all too often it is Washington that trumpets this itself – the US
forward deployment in the region also keeps open sea lines of communi-
cations. Indeed, one might argue that the United States oversupplies this
public good to the extent that it precludes regional great powers’ contri-
butions. China especially is cautious about the naval expansion that
Beijing sees as necessary partly to protect its widening international inter-
ests ranging from trade to citizens overseas: People’s Liberation Army
Navy officers and Chinese naval experts reportedly counsel their leaders
to limit naval modernization only to defending maritime sovereignty
in disputes not involving the United States and to contributing in ‘non-
traditional’ security public goods provision such as disaster relief (Glosny
and Saunders 2010). It is notable that China’s first contribution to an
international anti-piracy effort was in the Gulf of Aden and not some of
the pirate-infested waters within East Asia.
At the same time, Sino-Japanese inertia also reinforces and facilitates
concerted efforts by ASEAN to impart central direction to regional affairs
‘from below’. Since the grouping stepped into the breach as the least
offensive and most organized regional actor to help create the first
regional security institution in the immediate aftermath of the Cold
War, it has been trying to facilitate the ‘omni-enmeshment’ of all relevant
great powers through the proliferation of secondary institutions (Goh
2007/8). Yet these security organizations are more reflective of the limited
goals of multilateral co-operation held by the great powers than of any
collective desire to deepen norms of coexistence and co-operation
between them. The ASEAN-led secondary institutions are aimed primar-
ily at facilitating great power interaction and co-operation over functional
issues, with ASEAN in the ‘driver’s seat’ determining the substantive as
well as normative agendas. ASEAN’s role approximates more to the
‘management of great powers’ than to great power management as we
understand it here. There is no provision for great power participants
proactively to discuss or develop mutually acceptable norms, constraints
or co-operative understandings among themselves. An excellent example
is provided by the series of great power accessions to ASEAN Treaty of
Amity and Cooperation – begun by China in 2003, including Japan in
2004, and culminating in the US accession in 2009 – all of which explicitly
exclude the applicability of these norms in their relations with other
signatories apart from ASEAN.
Indeed, the ASEAN norms of non-interference, consensus and moving
at a pace comfortable for everyone have not only made it difficult to
construct a more ambitious reconciliation and integration between the
estranged regional great powers, but also have actually offered the latter a
platform from which they can actively resist the politically charged
182 Evelyn Goh
processes of negotiating mutual understanding on key strategic issues.8

For instance, the ‘ASEAN way’ has helped institutionalize the means by
which China can stall the development of norms that would entail more
mutual restraint, transparency and scrutiny; it has lent its considerable
weight to some ASEAN countries’ concerns about potentially intrusive
norms which could be developed within the new regional institutions, and
has successfully hampered progress towards preventive diplomacy and
conflict resolution in the ARF (Bisley 2009; Stubbs 2008). At the same
time, Beijing further entrenched ASEAN’s non-intervention principle
from the start by ruling out altogether any discussion of Taiwan and
other domestic Chinese security affairs such as Tibet and Xinjiang within
these institutions. More generally, the conflict-avoidance aspect of
ASEAN’s norms has meant that many of the key ‘hard’ cases of regional
security conflicts are managed outside these institutions. Because the
great powers concerned do not want and are not obliged to use these
secondary institutions as the channels of first resort in managing, prevent-
ing or resolving their conflicts, they continue to rely instead on bilateral
and other avenues – the Six Party Talks mechanism for dealing with the
North Korean nuclear problem is another case in point.
These secondary institutions also reflect ASEAN’s imperative of rele-
vance, which arises from the small states’ fear of being sidelined in
regional affairs on the basis of capacity. Hence, its member states would
logically prefer some continuation of tensions among the great powers, to
the extent that they would find it difficult to conduct independent dia-
logue or create a concert, to the exclusion of smaller states and entities
such as ASEAN. Thus even ASEAN’s ambition to broker great power
management in East Asia is critically hampered, and its secondary insti-
tutions are not a solution to the unresolved dilemmas of power, order and
justice between the regional great powers.9
East Asian states can afford to sustain such secondary institutions
because, for as long as the US role in East Asia holds, creating Sino-
Japanese reciprocal great power management can be postponed. However
much China may resent US hegemonism and Japan may fear entrapment,
they continue to subcontract order provision to the United States because
it is there, because it is willing and because they can. In addition, East
Asia’s reliance on the United States as an extra-regional, apparently
8
This paragraph and the next are derived from Goh 2011c.
9
It is simply inadequate to suggest that ASEAN constitutes middle-power order manage-
ment in spite of its power deficit; as I have argued elsewhere, these Southeast Asian states
leverage on structural conditions and harness great power dynamics as part and parcel of
their strategies (Goh 2007/8).
benign ‘broker’ is reinforced by core–periphery dynamics playing out

within the region: regional supporters of the Western vanguard (including
Japan) resisting from within East Asia a potential shift to a China-
dominated regional (and eventually perhaps global) international society.
This has been seen quite clearly in the political-economic realm, in
Japan’s efforts to diminish the distance and putative challenge East
Asian economic regionalism might create to global economic regimes,
by returning to the IMF link in the CMI, for instance. This is indicative of
the openness and penetrated nature of the regional political economy,
whose boundaries with the global are particularly difficult to draw. China
too does not diverge greatly from this imperative because of its own
limited capacity to provide an alternative – in essence, public goods in
the economic realm are global, not regional.
In the face of such stunted indigenous great power management, then,
we might add three additional ways of conceptualizing how this primary
institution is manifested and practised in East Asia (as opposed to the
usual balance of power, alliance and war): (1) balance of influence
between regional powers, as discussed in the previous section; (2) pre-
ponderance of US power, conceived along the lines of a consensual
hegemonic stability;10 and (3) differentiated (or hierarchical) power,
which emphasizes the crucial role of the US as preponderant power and
ring-holder, China as having to manage between costly conflict with the
superior United States and challenges and blocking from an inferior
Japan, and Japan as occupying an ambiguous position wielding asym-
metrical but ‘spoiler’ power.
Regional and global international society

The de facto subcontracting of great power management to the United
States on the one hand, and ASEAN on the other, hinders East Asia’s
development as a recognizable, autonomous regional society that can be
differentiated from surrounding regional complexes and from global
international society. There are two problems. First, the regional–global
divide is blurred. In promoting the study of regional security complexes,
for instance, Buzan and Wæver (2003) start by identifying patterns of
relations among the major powers within the region, and then add the
effects of the penetrating external powers, reasoning that the conflict
originates within regional actors and that the external power cannot by
itself define, desecuritize or reorganize the region. The exception they
10
For an account of hegemony as a primary institution of international society, see Clark
2011b.
184 Evelyn Goh
make is when the international system is unipolar and both sides to a

conflict depend on the external power. Arguably, this is a condition that
may apply to the contemporary global order and the United States’ ring-
holder position between China and Japan. The end of the Cold War
elevated rather than reduced the US strategic role in East Asia; and, by
continuing to interpose itself between China and Japan, the United States
acts as a ‘hinge’ that locks the global and regional levels into each other.
This US hinge entails the determining influence of US global strategic
priorities; thus its allies and partners are implicated in ‘global alliances’,
while China’s rise is not just securitized but globalized – in terms of being
conceived as a systemic challenge to the United States in arenas ranging
from currency and climate change to foreign aid and developmental
ideology. While US dominance in regional security orders is to be
expected in the post-Cold War unipolar context, the degree of super-
power penetration into the East Asian order may be unusual to the extent
that this region contains a rising global challenger (unlike the Middle East,
for instance), lacks well-developed indigenous institutions of great power
management (unlike Europe) and evinces a significant degree of consen-
sus on the general desirability of this state of affairs.
The second problem is that the boundaries between East Asia and other
neighbouring regions are blurred. Crowding the landscape are the rival
conception of the ‘Asia-Pacific’ region, the prevalence of ‘open’ and
inclusive regionalism, and trans-regional enterprises such as APEC, the
Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM), and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for
Multisectoral and Technical Cooperation (BIMSTEC). The United
States has tried to shape the evolving regional order by promoting loose
and wide regional institutions that keep Washington involved, and
constrain China and other states more than itself (Hurrell 2006: 9;
Mastanduno 2009). The inclusion of India and Russia in many East
Asian initiatives and security dialogues will exacerbate the already prob-
lematic prospect of moving forward with the substantive agenda on issues
ranging from nuclear norms to financial regulation, making it harder to
craft an East Asian strategic agenda, norms and identity. At the same time,
the United States and China both have concrete and growing strategic
interests and imperatives in abutting regions, and they may conceive of
national strategy across these regions rather than confined within East
Asia. The United States has traditionally regarded East Asia in the wider
context of its Pacific strategy, with implications for the claims of Australia
and New Zealand to be part of East Asia, as well as trans-regional enter-
prises such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations. With its
growing economic interests, China has also developed trans-regional
strategic imperatives, such as the need to secure access to sea lines of
communications running from the East China Sea, into the Malacca
Straits, across the Indian Ocean and towards the Persian Gulf to ensure
energy supplies (see Danyluk, Macdonald and Tuggle 2004).
As long as these two problems persist, the putative East Asian interna-
tional society will be critically limited in its degree of differentiation and
thus its potential for playing a more prominent or core role in global
international society, in spite of the fact that it contains two of the most
promising non-Western rising powers in the international system.
Furthermore, it faces strong obstacles from the two sets of actors engaged
in great power management. Because the East Asian security complex is
so deeply penetrated by the remaining global superpower, East Asian
international society has to develop within the context of a global interna-
tional society defined by preponderant, even hegemonic, power. As such,
any potential modus vivendi or reconciliation between the two East Asian
regional great powers will have ramifications for the global superpower in
terms of potential balance-of-power shifts. Thus, it is in the interest of the
United States to help maintain restrained power-political dynamics while
preventing a serious rapprochement or alignment between China and
Japan, in order to maintain its own privileged position in providing
international order. Whether undertaken specifically with this aim in
mind, key US actions serve to exacerbate the distance between the two
regional powers. These include the naming of the peaceful resolution of
issues concerning the Taiwan Straits in a 2005 list of ‘common strategic
objectives’ for the US–Japan alliance.11 Since the second Bush adminis-
tration, Washington has also paid more attention to the imperative of
reinvigorating its presence in East Asia to make up for the ground lost to
growing Chinese influence, and to strengthening its relationship with
Japan to keep the United States included in the regional security land-
scape (Armitage and Nye 2007). American defence officials are now less
reluctant to ask for ‘boots on the ground’ and less reticent about their
expectation that Japan rethink fundamentally its security identity
(Finnegan 2009). Further, the Obama administration’s stance in support
of Japan on the territorial dispute in the East China Sea in 2010 was a
departure from its predecessors’ more studied neutrality. At the other
end, ASEAN works from the more pessimistic logic of trying to prevent
what they see as likely Sino-Japanese reversion to conflictual power pol-
itics by sustaining the United States as ring-holder; and to maintain its
own strategic relevance by oversupplying regional secondary institutions.
11
Joint Statement of the US–Japan Consultative Committee, 15 Feb. 2005, www.mofa.go.
jp/region/n-america/us/security/scc/joint0502.html
186 Evelyn Goh
The result is a stunted crucial primary institution of great power manage-

ment, which severely limits the viability of regional international society.
With its support for and reliance upon US hegemony, East Asia becomes –
deliberately or not – an important part of the vanguardist movement to
establishing and boosting post-Cold War US global hegemony (Buzan
2004: 213–14).12
Conclusion
This chapter has demonstrated that great power management as practised in
East Asia is conducted mainly by the United States and, to a more limited,
evolving extent, between the United States and China. Collaborative man-
agement of order between the two indigenous great powers, China and
Japan, is so limited as to be questionable, while their attempts at independ-
ent direction of regional strategic developments are so circumscribed that
they tend to be overlooked. Beijing and Tokyo manage the most conflictual
elements of their bilateral strategic relations via Washington, and channel
their growing geo-political competition for regional influence by often
unproductive means in secondary institutions, while what central direction
there is for the post-Cold War transition in regional order has been provided
by the United States and supplemented by ASEAN.
The larger question in this project this analysis speaks to is whether the
East Asian experience is distinct from that of global international society
in that either (a) it lacks a key primary institution present at the global level
or (b) it has the same nominal primary institution of great power manage-
ment but interprets it differently and so has significantly different practi-
ces associated with it. I have suggested in the analysis some alternative
ways to conceptualize the practices I have identified as relating to great
power management in East Asia – balance of influence, preponderance of
power and possibly hierarchy – in addition to the continuation of US
alliances. However, the basic characteristic of the East Asian regional
order – also the main source of its divergence from existing conceptions
of how the institution of great power management works – is the dominant
role of the global superpower. This not only means that the East Asian
order is partially tacked on to the global, it also means that its key primary
institution of preponderant power mirrors that of global international
society. Therefore, if distinction from global international society is a
12
By implication, I take a more committed stance than Buzan and Wæver (2003) on what
happens to a regional security complex when the global level predominates – in the form of
superpower penetration and great power–superpower dynamics – to such a significant
degree.
requirement for the existence of a regional international society, East Asia

is not easily identifiable as one on the basis of the master institution of
great power management. Further, if indigenous great power manage-
ment is an essential primary institution of regional international society,
then the putative East Asian one is crippled or underdeveloped.
Sino-Japanese antagonism stems from a deep-rooted geo-political and
historical incompatibility that constituted the main strategic fault-line in
East Asia upon which the post-Second World War American–Japanese
alliance was superimposed. The relative material power of China and
Japan may vary with time, but ultimately Charles A. Kupchan (1998:
63) was correct in his observation that ‘American might and diplomacy
prevent conflict [in East Asia], but they do so by keeping apart the parties
that must ultimately learn to live comfortably alongside each other if
regional stability is to endure.’ In the longer run, therefore, the problem
at the heart of the developing East Asian international society is less the
difficulty of drawing boundaries between the regional and the global than
the fact that these indigenous great powers are not exercising their roles.
This impacts upon the (under)development of security interdependence
within the region in the sense of privileging regional rather than global
dimensions of security issues or crises (which further translates into an
underdeveloped regional security complex). Regional core–periphery
dynamics are also underdeveloped, since the prevalent core–periphery
relations in East Asia peg on to US/global versus China, with Japan as
part of the US/global vanguard. Finally, the lack of indigenous great
power leadership undermines the ability of East Asian states to imagine
and conceptualize, much less collaborate about, how the region as a whole
relates and responds to the global level.
9 Social boundaries in flux: secondary regional
organizations as a reflection of regional
Rosemary Foot
Several formal and informal multilateral regional organizations have

been established in East Asia, particularly in the post-Cold War era,
with design, scope and membership influenced by a diversity in social
values that is a mark of the region. These multilateral forms have stood
alongside rather than replaced Cold War structures when bilateralism
and unilateralism mostly shaped the regional order. Heterogeneity of
experience, size, religions, culture and levels of political and economic
development (Beeson and Stubbs 2012: 2–4), together with strategic
insecurities and rivalries have prevented full transcendence of that Cold
War framework, resulting in sometimes uneasy coexistence between the
formal multilateral regional organizations and a ‘complex patchwork’ of
bilateral, trilateral and other plurilateral ties (Cha 2011).1 One result of
this regional diversity is selective compatibility between the secondary
regional inter-governmental organizations (SRIGOs) and the region’s
primary institutions. Primary institutions, as Barry Buzan has defined
them (2004: 181) involve ‘durable and recognised patterns of shared
practices rooted in values held commonly by the members of inter-state
societies, and embodying a mix of norms, rules and principles [emphasis
added]’. In the absence of those rooted shared values, the SRIGOs –
that is formal, generally state-based multilateral bodies with regular
meetings, agreed memberships and agendas – have found it difficult to
agree a settled definition of the region and to advance to deeper forms
of integration.2 The SRIGOs do not provide a clear sense of which
countries are covered by the term ‘East Asia’, whether that term is a
1
Victor Cha (2011) discusses this ‘complex patchwork’ in mainly optimistic terms.
2
A number of these formal organizations do have non-governmental organizations asso-
ciated with them – sometimes as precursors (e.g. the Pacific Economic Cooperation
Council prior to APEC) or as sources of ideas (e.g. the Council for Security Cooperation
in the Asia Pacific as a Track II organization for the ARF). However, it is the inter-
governmental bodies that yield the strongest insights into the central questions associated
with this volume.
188
Social boundaries in flux 189
helpful descriptor of the regional international society at the centre of

this chapter,3 and which states are actually external to the region rather
than full members of it.4 While regional awareness has certainly grown
over the last ten years or so, regional cohesion and co-operation have
been more difficult to achieve.
The main goal of this chapter is to explore the complexity of the relation-
ship between the primary and secondary regional institutions. It assesses the
extent to which the secondary and derivative inter-governmental organiza-
tions broadly reflect the underlying social structure of the region’s primary
institutions and explains the causes of deviation from or alignment
with them. As a secondary aim, it assesses whether the primary regional
institutions (PRIs), even where they emerge from this investigation in
contested form, are distinct from or similar to global primary institutions
(GPIs). The chapter does not take up in any depth the question of the
success or otherwise of the SRIGOs in terms of their stated or implicit
mandates and the means chosen to advance these mandates. Instead, it
aims to sustain the focus on the core questions of concern in this volume:
that is, to investigate the extent to which East Asia represents an interna-
tional society distinct from other regional societies and from global society.
The SRIGOs I focus on are the ASEAN5 Regional Forum (ARF) –
established in 1994, made up originally of twenty-one participants, and
now comprising twenty-seven countries;6 the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation forum (APEC), set up in 1989 and with twenty-one member
economies;7 the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) arrangement of thirteen
states,8 which first came together after the 1997 Asian financial crisis; and
the more recently established East Asian Summit (EAS), with an inaugural
3
For example, we might ask whether the term ‘Asia-Pacific’ rather than ‘East Asia’ better
reflects the reality of the region. This chapter will use the term ‘East Asia’ to refer to both
the larger and more restricted geographical groupings.
4
As President Barack Obama put it in November 2009 while in Japan, the United States is
an ‘Asia Pacific Nation’ and he is the United States’ ‘first Pacific President’. Both Russia
and the United States joined the East Asia Summit in December 2011 (‘Obama Says He Is
First Pacific President’, 13 Nov. 2009, UPI.com).
5
The five founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Brunei joined in 1984, Burma/
Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam in 1995, and Cambodia in 1999.
6
That is, the ten ASEAN countries, plus ASEAN’s ten dialogue partners (Australia,
Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the
United States), together with six other members – Bangladesh, Mongolia, North Korea,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Timor Leste, and an ASEAN observer (Papua New Guinea).
7
The member economies are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong,
Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the
Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the United
States and Vietnam.
8
The Plus Three are China, Japan and South Korea.
190 Rosemary Foot
meeting held in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005 with sixteen member

countries.9 Since ASEAN, first established in 1967, has been a primary
shaping mechanism in all these bodies, which straddle the Cold War and
post-Cold War eras (with the partial exception of APEC), that Southeast
Asian subregional grouping also is an essential focus of attention. These
bodies are chosen because of their durability and because the founding
bodies – ASEAN, APEC and ARF – have spawned other multilateral
organizations, such as the EAS, APT and ASEAN Plus Eight (ASEAN
Defence Ministers Meeting, plus EAS as ASEAN Plus Ten after December
2011). Since there is some overlap in membership (more so, for example,
than if I had also included discussion of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization) there is greater potential for a distinctive regional society to
emerge. These bodies also permit a wide-ranging analysis of three
key elements important to the determination of regional organizational
distinctiveness: organizational design (procedural and ideational); organ-
izational purpose (stated and unstated); and organizational boundaries
(cognitive and social). Inevitably, much of the discussion in this chapter
will focus on developments in the post Cold War era, leaving it to earlier
chapters in this volume to trace the deeper historical underpinnings of
regional international society.
The chapter first lays out what I see as the primary institutions in East
Asia and illustrates these institutions’ relationships with those organizations
established at the regional level. Next it explains how design, purpose
and boundary questions associated with the SRIGOs weaken the ability
to construct a regional international society. As noted earlier, I do acknowl-
edge that regional awareness has increased considerably over the past two
decades and especially since the Asian financial crisis of 1997–8. That crisis
generated what Ralf Emmers and John Ravenhill describe as a ‘deep feeling
of vulnerability’ (2011: 134) and a sense that East Asian states had to find a
mechanism other than reliance on the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
to bolster financial stability. However, deeper forms of co-operation and
community still remain elusive. The chapter argues that this absence of
more robust forms of inter-state co-operation is mostly a function of the
absence of trust among states associated with this region, which in turn has
influenced institutional design. This has meant, inter alia, that states have
had difficulty in agreeing a definition of the social boundaries of the region
and thus in building a regional identity, let alone strong regional cohesion
given the range of social values that are contained within the regional
organizations.
9
The ASEAN 10 plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, with
Russia and the United States joining in late 2011.
Primary regional institutions and secondary

institutional reflections
Four PRIs seem to be of most significance when interpreting the under-
lying social structure in East Asia, though they embrace neither each state
nor each primary or secondary regional organization to the same extent or
in the same manner – a point that is central to the main argument of this
chapter.
The four PRIs are sovereignty, nationalism, great power management
and economic development. I choose these four on the grounds that they are
essential building blocks of a stable regional order and allow the greatest
opportunity for a distinctive regional society to emerge. They have each
been a strong focus of attention in scholarly writings on this region
(e.g. Acharya 2009; Ba 2009; Beeson 2007; Emmers 2003; Haacke 2003).
Sovereignty allows for a discussion of the derivative institutions of non-
intervention and non-interference and permits a focus on matters of
state autonomy. Nationalism opens up a discussion of ideas of self-
determination, the relationship of the state to international law, and the
possibility of supra-nationalism in organizational design. I favour the phrase
‘economic development’ over the term ‘market’ because I want to empha-
size both a prominent concern with growth and development as a source of
regime and state security (what we now often refer to as ‘performance
legitimacy’), and that there is a continuum in play with a developmental
state model at one end and something closer to a neo-liberal model of
economic development at the other (Pempel 2010; Stubbs 2011).10 I have
subsumed diplomacy under the term ‘great power management’ since
the derivative institutions of bilateralism and multilateralism function in
important ways as a means to deal predominantly with forms of power.
Balance-of-power mechanisms also form a part of the understanding of
great power management. I leave aside discussion of other primary regional
institutions such as environmental stewardship and equality of people11
because strong attachment to these institutions, or to common values in
reference to them, are even more difficult to find in these areas. This is most
likely related to the intrusiveness associated with these ideas: they both
imply a more solidarist interpretation of international society than that
present in some significant parts of the region.
10
As T. J. Pempel (2010: 213) has put it, ‘Economic development has become the driving
preoccupation of virtually every East Asian government, and “economic security” has
been integral to achieving what most call “comprehensive security”.’
11
These latter two are included in the make-up of master institutions referred to in Buzan
(2004: 187), where ‘equality of people’ refers to human rights and humanitarian
intervention.
192 Rosemary Foot
Of the four PRIs, the most important in any discussion of international

society is that of sovereignty, which sets up the state, and what it contains in
the way of shared values, as a primary building block. Among those states
that make up East Asian regional organizations, however, the meaning
of sovereignty is contested, and understandings have evolved over time.
So too have the power and relevance of sovereignty’s derivative institu-
tions – such as non-interference and non-intervention. Neither the United
States nor Australia (nor other similar states that are members of the
SRIGOs) would focus particularly strongly on an interpretation of sover-
eignty that stressed non-interference, given their sense of themselves as
resilient, consolidated states. These states would prefer, therefore, the
SRIGOs to become more functionalist in form and to tackle some of the
outstanding sovereignty disputes and transnational regional governance
issues in a more direct and purposeful way.
However, for the more recently decolonized state or for other weaker
states of the region, matters are somewhat more complicated. In the early
years after independence, legal sovereignty helped to promote formal
equality and thus was attractive because of those equalizing properties.
The idea of territorial sovereignty – the exercise of effective control over
land and peoples – aided them in a quest to build their population’s
identification with the state. Westphalian sovereignty assisted with the
formal and legitimate exclusion of the interference of external forces,
also significant for states containing multiple ethnicities, some of which
may have had stronger transnational than national political and cultural
loyalties.12 State and regime security remains, then, a primary focus of
concern influencing organizational design and purpose.
Nevertheless, for the weaker states, each of these forms of sovereignty has
been challenged by unequal power, competing norms such as human
rights, and solidarist demands for trans-border co-operative action in the
face of global threats to human survival. Sovereignty has become somewhat
more contingent even for these states, as ASEAN itself recognized explicitly
in the 1990s when it debated ‘flexible engagement’ and ‘enhanced inter-
action’ prompted by trans-border pollution, the question of Burma/
Myanmar’s admission to the group, the 1997 coup in Cambodia and the
Asian financial crisis (Khong and Nesadurai 2007: 45). In 2007, ASEAN’s
Charter actually promised the promotion and protection of ‘human rights
and fundamental freedoms’ (Sukma 2011).13 For the middle powers,
Westphalian sovereignty has become more contingent still. Japan, for
12
I am obviously borrowing ideas from Stephen D. Krasner here (1999) and his discussion
of ‘four meanings of sovereignty’.
13
This is proving difficult to realize, as Rizal Sukma (2011) attests.
example, has long proven itself to be comfortable with the idea of human
security, and South Korea has given strong support to the idea of sover-
eignty as responsibility. Thus, for those states that continue to prefer a more
conservative interpretation of sovereignty, they find themselves embroiled
in sovereignty debates within the SRIGOs with the more consolidated of
the East Asian states. Even within ASEAN, we see this debate causing
division among the members, a division that is managed only because of a
continuing commitment to the consensus decision-making style, given its
proven track record in ameliorating disputes. This commitment allows the
more conservative among this grouping to determine outcomes.14
Nationalism, sometimes expressed via anti-colonialist sentiment or as
pride in the accomplishments of one’s state, similarly, has been a primary
institution of great value to several of the states in East Asia. As with
common understandings of Westphalian sovereignty, nationalism has
been perceived as a major means of building state and regime security
through the generation of domestic unity and national identity. It has helped
liberation movements (as in Indochina) prevail in anti-colonial wars against
materially superior foes. However, other consequences of nationalism
have been far less positive: it has complicated the relationship with other
important institutions of international society, including international law
and other softer forms of international standard setting. Many of these
normative and rule-based types of institutions are highly valued by certain
members of the SRIGOs as sources of greater certitude and ‘stickiness’.
Those impatient with the pace of accomplishment of the regional organ-
izations often call for greater legal formality, and proper dispute resolution
mechanisms with enforcement powers (Simon 2007: 123).15
Moreover, nationalism deriving from the experience of colonialism has
weakened attempts to generate pan-Asian sentiment, a project that lost even
more of its appeal as a result of late nineteenth-century Japanese colonialism
and its promotion of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere during the
Second World War. Instead, nationalism has been expressed through
the territorial state, reifying difference and sometimes division (Acharya
2009: 33–4).16 Even when attempts were made, for example, to develop a
pan-Asian concept of ‘Asian values’ in the human rights debate of the 1990s,
this was less a genuine assertion of similarity or of common social values and
14
For example, the discussion of ‘flexible engagement’ gave way to those who preferred to
emphasize regime security and non-interference. See also Sukma 2011.
15
As Sheldon W. Simon argues, ‘Canada, Australia, Japan, and the United States would like
to see the ARF strengthened’ (2007: 123).
16
There were temporary exceptions such as Jawaharlal Nehru’s contemplation of an Asian
federation. But as Amitav Acharya (2009: 33–4) puts it, ‘the force of these pan-Asian
aspirations was not great’.
194 Rosemary Foot
more another move to consolidate individual regimes. For example, the

Singaporean elite feared for the strength of the country’s national identity as
a result of globalization and the Malaysian government was disturbed by
potentially increased levels of Western interference associated with the
triumphalism of the early post-Cold War era, whereas China perceived the
1989 Tiananmen protest movement as having been caused by the penetra-
tion of Western values into the country (Foot 1997). Furthermore, China’s
attempts to fill the ideological vacuum arising from the overthrow of the
Maoist political-economic order after 1978 has generated a nationalism that
is expressed as ‘victimhood’, often centred on the Pacific War of 1937–45
and highlighting Japan’s role as aggressor (see e.g. Callahan 2010).
Finally, nationalism at the state level has been instrumental in raising
the levels of hostility towards supra-national forms of decision-making,
leaving trans-border conflicts subject at best to management rather than
resolution. Thus, while ASEAN in its 1976 Treaty of Amity and
Cooperation established a formal mechanism for resolving disputes
among members, that provision has never been invoked. Notably, the
Indonesia and Malaysian governments decided not to use the ASEAN
High Council to mediate their dispute over ownership of the islands
of Sipadan and Ligatan, preferring instead to take the case to the
International Court of Justice (ICJ).17 In April 2011, Cambodia similarly
preferred to take its boundary dispute with Thailand to the ICJ, both
parties appearing before the court in June that year (Global Times 2011).
Great power management has also been a central feature of East Asian
primary institutions but this particular primary institution has to be
understood in three different senses. First, great powers (and the
United States in particular) have acted as managers of regional order
through formal alliances and other less formal but similar alignments.
Second, weaker states, such as the ASEAN members, have attempted to
provide an open organization focused on internal and external security.
Third, later on and with the creation of bodies such as the ARF and
EAS, the ASEAN goal has been to bind the power of those great powers
with a presence or interests in the region.18 Thus, we see a sometimes
uneasy coexistence between SRIGOs that embrace ideas of co-operative
security with others, as well as security mechanisms that are designed to
balance power.
17
The court, much to Jakarta’s chagrin, ruled in Malaysia’s favour in December 2002.
18
Paragraph 5 of the preamble to ASEAN’s founding declaration states that they share a
‘primary responsibility for strengthening the economic and social stability of the
region . . . and that they are determined to ensure their stability and security from
external interference in any form or manifestation in order to preserve their national
identities’.
In the Cold War era, for example, the United States created a ‘hubs and
spokes’ system of bilateral alliances that was both a response to the
perceived threat from Sino-Soviet communism as well as an attempt to
prevent regional states dragging the United States into conflicts which it
did not want to support or to involve itself in. The former Soviet Union
and People’s Republic of China signed a bilateral treaty of alliance in 1950
as a bulwark against the West and Japan, but Moscow also attempted
(unsuccessfully) to use it to cement its place as the controlling head of
the socialist camp in Asia – a position that Mao found difficult to tolerate
(Goldstein 1994). The UK and its Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement
(AMDA) – signed in 1957 and terminated in 1971, but replaced with
the Five Power Defence Arrangement – provided some protection for
Western-friendly regimes against pro-communist and radical states,
notably during the time of conflict in the early 1960s between Indonesia
and Malaysia, known as konfrontasi. However, the defence arrangement
acted predominantly as a consultative mechanism and was never formally
invoked. A more significant stab at management came with the advent
of ASEAN, established in 1967 with an implicit goal not only to bind
the power of its largest member (Indonesia) but also, as circumstances
permitted, to be inclusive of former enemy states such as the communist
states of Indochina; to manage intra-ASEAN (mostly sovereignty)
disputes; and to discourage external great power involvement and inter-
vention in the subregion’s difficulties. As Michael Leifer put it, ASEAN
wanted to diminish opportunities for ‘extra-regional predators . . . to fish
in troubled waters’ (Leifer 1996: 15). Unlike the AMDA and Sino-Soviet
treaty, US bilateral alliances largely remain in place, and some – such as
that with Japan – have been strengthened; but they now coexist with
multilateral regional frameworks such as the ARF that the weaker states
perceive as providing opportunities to bind, socialize or integrate the
power of states such as the United States, China and Japan.19
The development of strong economies, often allocating a prominent
role for the state in developing growth strategies, has also been important
to the local East Asian states. However, again this imperative varies as a
priority among members of the SRIGOs, and even where a similar path
is followed this does not necessarily generate regional cohesion. For
those local countries where development has been predominant as a
social value, (the one outstanding major exception is North Korea)
19
As Jose T. Almonte put it: ‘East Asia’s greatest single problem is how to incorporate China
into its regional arrangements – how to “socialize” the country by reducing the element of
threat while accentuating the positive elements in China’s regional relationships’ (quoted
in Foot 1998: 426 n. 2; see also Goh 2007/8).
196 Rosemary Foot
economic development reflects a widely held belief among many of the

elites in these states that there is a reciprocal relationship between
economic growth and the promotion of regime and state security
(Pempel 2010: 213). In China’s case, officials regularly and explicitly
link high levels of growth to the maintenance of social and political
stability, and they are not alone in the region in stressing this reciprocity.
Despite this distinctive attachment to economic security, several govern-
ments have adopted an export-oriented strategy in order to achieve these
political-economic development objectives, thereby tying themselves
strongly to the mature markets of the West as the final destination of
products assembled through intra-regional production networks.20
Moreover, different stages of economic development among the
states of the region have added a further layer of complexity and
dissonance at the regional level, with divergence between those who
have chosen deeper and those that prefer shallower integration into the
global economy. Some states have had more mercantilist approaches to
development, and others have favoured the open market (Solingen
2008: 268). Some have preferred to keep political control in the area
of financial regulation, while others have converged with neo-liberal
practices in regulatory areas (Walter 2008). These differing preferences
were soon reflected in APEC debates, eventually resulting in a stymieing
of its agenda because of a division between those who rejected its legal-
istic multilateral trade liberalization objectives in favour of softer forms
of economic and technical co-operation, and unilateral and voluntary
economic trading agreements (Ravenhill 2001). A further consequence
of these divisions was the creation in 2005, and with four founding
members only, of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership
(TPSEP) with an agenda to further liberalize the economies of the
Asia-Pacific. A significantly expanded version of the TPSEP came in
2010 with the development of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
This has attracted a number of Asia-Pacific negotiating partners, but
its remit generates domestic controversy in a number of countries, such
as Japan and South Korea, and its membership as well as the degree of
economic liberalization it can promote yet remain unsettled.
Similarly, the region has experienced the benefits and costs associated
with financial interdependence. While export-oriented strategies and
integration into global financial markets have been highly successful in
promoting growth in a number of conspicuous cases, they have also been
responsible for generating economic crisis, as was the case in 1997–8.
20
This topic is taken up in much greater depth in Chapter 5 in this volume, by Mark Beeson
and Shaun Breslin.
That event created great scepticism about ties to a Western liberal

economic order among some of the local states and a preference for
trying to manage the economic order at the regional level. The ASEAN
Plus Three (APT) arrangement was born out of that crisis and developed
the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) with its currency swap arrangements.
At first it seemed to be the organization to make up for APEC’s and
ASEAN’s inability to provide solutions in 1998 (APEC finance ministers
in 1997–8 concluded, for example, nothing more significant than that
the financial crisis was ‘a global problem with regional manifestations’
(quoted in Emmers and Ravenhill 2011: 137)). But neither in Indonesia
in the summer of 2006, nor as the Thai baht came under attack in
December 2007, nor during the financial crisis of 2008 was the CMI
swap arrangement activated. Moreover, the APT’s version of regional
boundary has also been challenged by the addition of new bodies utiliz-
ing the ASEAN Plus formulation and resulting in ASEAN Plus Six, and
later ASEAN Plus Eight. This has come, in part, from a realization that a
Pacific-based version of the region better reflects the economic and
security relationships of importance to certain of the APT members
(Terada 2010: 81).21
Secondary regional organizational design and purpose

Each of these PRIs contains, then, competing ideas about the relative
weight to be given to particular institutions, and how they should be
interpreted. These institutions are normally deemed as primary because
they should reflect shared values and illustrate patterns in behaviour.
However, the diversity of ideas and behaviour that is apparent in relation
to these PRIs is particularly consequential for the SRIGOs. That diversity
has shaped the design as well as the stated and underlying purposes
associated with the SRIGOs established over the past twenty years, as I
will argue next.
I can best illustrate the impact of the primary institutions on the
secondary regional organizations by probing more deeply the extant
features of the SRIGOs, relating to their design and normative under-
pinnings; the official purposes for which these institutions were created;
and – of critical importance – the unofficial roles they perform. At the
root of this approach is agreement with those who argue that institutions
matter, in part because they are the ‘self-conscious creation’ of political
21
Takashi Terada (2010: 81) argues that Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
wanted Australia in because it is a large supplier of the country’s coal and iron ore and
some 25% of its uranium.
198 Rosemary Foot
actors who want to advance both individual and joint interests (Acharya
and Johnston 2007a: 12).22
Organizational design concerns matters of geographical scope and mem-
bership, decision-making (including agenda-setting) rules, and degrees of
supra-nationalism (Acharya and Johnston 2007b). In terms of its relation-
ship to the PRIs of East Asia, organizational design in East Asia relates most
strongly to traditional conceptions of sovereignty and the related preference
for state autonomy, as well as to aspects of nationalism. The SRIGOs
examined here all draw from the organizational features of ASEAN and
accord ASEAN a distinctive role. Both the APT and EAS are always
chaired by an ASEAN state, as is the yearly ARF summit, though it has a
co-chair in its inter-sessional meetings. APEC chairs rotate among all
members, but it too has followed an organizational design similar to that
of ASEAN. The ASEAN formula, as Amitav Acharya has put it, has meant
a particular emphasis on non-intervention, which has led to ‘consensus-
based decision making, an aversion to legalization, and avoidance of any
form of supranational bureaucratic structure’ (2009: 69).
As has frequently been noted, consensus-based decision-making results
in lowest-common-denominator outcomes, which ensures that certain
topics fail to make progress or to get on to the agenda of some organiza-
tions at all. Thus, while the ARF, billed as a regional security co-operation
organization, may make statements critical of North Korea’s nuclear tests,
it will not debate how best to resolve the matter of nuclear proliferation
on the Korean peninsula.23 The movement from the 1995 formal agenda
of confidence-building, followed by preventive diplomacy, and finally
‘elaboration of approaches to conflict’ – itself a watered-down version of
an original call for the ‘development of conflict-resolution mechanisms’–
has been difficult in the face of a stated commitment that the ARF would
advance its agenda only at a pace ‘comfortable’ to all participants. An
aversion to legalization results in ‘voluntarism’. Thus, while it is valuable
that the ARF mechanism has encouraged member states to produce
defence white papers and to participate in the United Nations
Conventional Arms Registry in order to enhance transparency in the
defence field, the organization relies on social rather than legal pressures
to accomplish these specific goals. Similarly, the ‘ASEAN-way’ prefer-
ence for voluntarism has influenced APEC’s agenda since its early incep-
tion: as noted earlier, when APEC adopted an economic liberalization
agenda for the Pacific region, ASEAN governments that were members
22
This is a slight modification of a point these two authors make at p. 12 (Acharya and
Johnston 2007a: 12).
23
North Korea is a member of the ARF.
of this organization insisted that this not be legally binding but voluntary,
and as a result of unilateral rather than multilateral decision (Khong and
Nesadurai 2007: 49).
Indeed, avoidance of supra-nationalism in these various regional
organizations is perhaps more important than Acharya allows for
among the three features that he uses to describe the ‘ASEAN way’,
its corollary being that state autonomy and regime security rather than
regional community remain uppermost as the ideational underpinning
of these bodies. As T. J. Pempel has robustly put it: ‘Since key states in
the region continue to identify their interests and challenges quite
differently from one another as well as quite distinctly in the separate
spheres of economics and security, most have been reluctant to surren-
der significant components of their national autonomy to these bodies.
As such, most regional bodies in East Asia continue to reflect the
pre-eminence and driving force of individual state strategies rather
than any collective predisposition toward regionalism or multilateralism
per se’ (Pempel 2010: 211).
Thus, while the ARF relies for some functions on the ASEAN
Secretariat, for example, despite some attempts at strengthening that
secretariat, it is still lacking in resources and does not have much
of a remit beyond acting as a depository of organizational decisions.
A consequence of that for this body as well as the others discussed here
is that they rely on the energy of individual states to generate proposals
for agenda advancement (Haacke 2009: 443).24 Yet, in order for these
individual state proposals to make headway, these recommendations also
must be attentive to the priority given to state autonomy among some
members of the regional organization. ARF moves towards giving greater
emphasis to non-traditional security issues need to be examined in this
light. While this turn can be explained in part as a response to some of the
major non-traditional security challenges that these states face, it also
reflects the discomfort that some participants experience when confront-
ing the traditional security agenda. This turn has additionally been made
because it can be perceived both as a way of building individual state
capacity and also sustaining state autonomy. Jürgen Haacke argues that
three particular non-traditional security issues have dominated the ARF
agenda in the past ten years or so: terrorism, maritime security and
disaster relief, with the latter having seen most progress (ibid.: 428).
However, the basic principles that were agreed to be applied to disaster
24
According to Jürgen Haacke (2009: 443), within the ARF, initiatives to move beyond
dialogue to practical co-operation have mainly come from Australia, Canada, Japan and
the United States.
200 Rosemary Foot
relief co-operation illustrate my point about the continuing state-centric

nature of the security agenda even in these non-traditional areas:
(1) the affected country has the primary responsibility to respond to the human-
itarian needs following natural disasters;
(2) where needed, the affected country should facilitate humanitarian assistance
from other countries and international organizations . . .
(3) external assistance should be based on a request from the affected country;
and
(4) disaster relief efforts should be undertaken under the latter’s overall coordi-
nation. (quoted ibid.: 442).25
Other examples can readily be cited: the ASEAN Agreement on
Transboundary Haze Pollution, finally adopted in June 2002, ‘endorsed
national monitoring and enforcement mechanisms over regional ones,
while acknowledging in Article 3 the “sovereign right” of member states
to “exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental
and developmental policies”’ (Khong and Nesadurai 2007: 49). The
global financial crisis of 2008–9 also appears to have exposed political
weaknesses at the heart of the CMI, although later on it did prompt
further multilateralizing efforts, resulting in the Chiang Mai Initiative
Multilateralization (CMIM). During and immediately after the 2008
crisis, members of that organization preferred unilateral or global
solutions to regional ones: for example, none of the liquidity provisions
of the Chiang Mai initiative were utilized by any APT member, and the
Republic of Korea, Singapore and Japan decided to turn to the US
Federal Reserve for lines of credit (Searight 2010). Emmers and
Ravenhill (2011: 141) argue that this represented an abysmal failure of
the CMI’s first major test.
These state-based rather than region-based preferences are often in
tension with the explicit goals articulated in the founding charters or
documents of the various SRIGOs. There is in fact an overlap in
the official goals of all the organizations studied here. Each details a
long-term vision to develop regional community (security, political,
economic and social) and an emphasis on dialogue and co-operative
mechanisms as a means of reaching this vision. As the most recent of
these bodies, the East Asia Summit, put it in its first declaration in
December 2005, its objectives were to foster ‘strategic dialogue’ and to
promote ‘cooperation in political and security issues’, as well as in
‘development, financial stability, energy security, economic integration
and growth, the eradication of poverty’ and so on in order to realize
25
Haacke is quoting from the ARF Chairman’s Statement, 15th ARF, 24 Jul. 2008.
an East Asian Community.26 However, as we have seen, the means

articulated to reach this vision have not had much traction: confidence-
building in the ARF has not propelled the members forward to preven-
tive diplomacy even though most of the Western members of the ARF
would like to see this happen and, within Southeast Asia, Singapore, the
Philippines and Thailand have also on some occasions supported such
forward movement (Simon 2007: 123–4).
Much of this slow pace of the SRIGOs as they seek to advance their
agendas can be attributed, as noted earlier, to concerns that many local
states have about protecting state autonomy. But there are other impor-
tant features of the SRIGOs that reinforce this concern with sovereignty,
bolster nationalist sentiment, lead to an absorption with managing great
powers and, relevant to this section of the analysis, influence design and
purpose. Central among these features is a continuing lack of trust among
members that is self-reinforcing in certain ways. First, many of the states
are reluctant to move beyond dialogue into deeper forms of co-operation,
let alone supra-nationality, because they perceive other members of these
groups as competitors or rivals ready to take strategic advantage. Second,
over time it has become clear that the membership issue is also being used
as a competitive diplomatic signalling device as well as a way of keeping
rivals at bay or their power diluted.
Thus, the institutional design of the 27-member ARF reflects continuing
strategic uncertainty. As a dialogue and socialization mechanism, it has had
some success in generating areas of security co-operation and some greater
transparency (e.g. the regular production of defence white papers, desk-top
and field exercises in disaster relief, and participation of defence officials in
ARF gatherings). Regular meetings and dialogue provide opportunities
to increase transparency and to build elite connections. But movement
from confidence-building to preventive diplomacy immediately raises
fears among some ARF members that their critical security interests will
be threatened27 and that strategic autonomy will be lost. Certainly, the APT
and its associated Chiang Mai Initiative make more geographical sense as a
regional body: it reflects the enhanced levels of economic inter-dependence
among the members; it links a smaller number of states together (with an
implied assumption that common values will be easier to find); and it also
makes use of the economic power of those that hold large foreign exchange
reserves. Nevertheless, actual behaviour since the establishment of the CMI
does not suggest that tighter membership and economic power yield
26
The Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the East Asian Summit, 14 Dec. 2005, Kuala
Lumpur, www.aseansec.org/18098.htm.
27
E.g. the Taiwan issue, South China Sea and nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula.
202 Rosemary Foot
outcomes that might be reasonable to expect. On the occasions when it

has been appropriate for CMI to play a role, state behaviour suggests a
reluctance to be beholden to those who have provided the financial reserves
based on a continuing lack of trust and absent sense of common fate. In
addition, even in its more multilateralized 2010 form – a form yet to be
tested – the CMIM remains linked to the IMF and thus ‘nested in the global
architecture’ (Grimes 2011: 82).
In addition, China’s presumed preference for the APT over wider
membership bodies has engendered a sense in the region that Beijing’s
unstated purpose is to dominate this geographically narrower organiza-
tion. This sentiment has deepened with increases in China’s relative
power from the start of the twenty-first century. One result has been the
spawning of regional institutional competition (Terada and Ong 2011).
Yoshihide Soeya (2010) argues that Japan fears (and Japan is not alone in
this fear) Chinese hegemony within the APT, and the organization’s
inevitable development as a regional organization that shows a preference
for closed over open regionalism, one that, in particular, underlines the
exclusion of the United States as an Asia-Pacific state. Chinese preference
for the APT is perceived, then, less as a means for the development of an
East Asian community and more as a function of Sino-American strategic
rivalry and Chinese hegemony (see also Goh this volume).
This perception has led the Tokyo government to promote the more
open EAS or ASEAN Plus Six – a policy preference supported by others
in East Asia such as Singapore and Indonesia (Terada 2010: 81; Terada
and Ong 2011). This more open form of regionalism accomplishes two
ends for Japan. As Soeya argues, the inclusion of states such as Australia
and New Zealand (and to some extent India as well) ‘holds a double
function. First, they provide a venting channel leading to the United
States as a security anchor in East Asia . . . Secondly, the membership of
Australia and New Zealand is also important from the point of view of
universal values that will sustain, as well as keep open, the basis of an
East Asian Community to the rest of the world.’28 Shaun Breslin (2010)
has described this expansion in membership beyond the APT states as
‘anti-region’ and illustrative of the absence of deep attachment to the
idea of a more exclusionary, more obviously East Asian regional,
body.29
28
Yoshihide Soeya, ‘An East Asian Community and Japan-China Relations’, www.jiia.or.
jp/en_commentary/201004/30-1.html; see also Terada 2010.
29
Shaun Breslin, ‘An Alternative Look at the Forces Driving East Asian Community
Building’ Policy Analysis Brief, Stanley Foundation, stanleyfoundation.org/publications/
pab/Breslin_07_PAB.pdf.
ASEAN states themselves also have another reason for preferring

more open regional organizations than narrower versions as reflected
in the APT. A major ASEAN goal in helping to develop the ARF was to
ensure ASEAN’s continuing relevance in a region that might come to be
dominated by China and Japan. A fear of irrelevance within an APEC
dominated by the major economies resulted in the idea of an East Asian
Economic Caucus and a preference for ASEAN Plus One Preferential
Trade Agreements, rather than something more regionally based. As
Alice Ba has shown, there is a strong link between a desire to keep
ASEAN at the centre of the region’s security and economic frameworks
and the institutional make-up of new bodies. For example, ASEAN
strongly if unsuccessfully opposed the establishment of separate secre-
tariats for bodies such as the APT, fearing that an ‘APT secretariat would
“steal the shine” from the ASEAN Secretariat’, and even ASEAN itself
could ‘“lose its luster as a regional entity” in the face of a new East Asian
entity’ that would contain the giant states of North Asia, such as China
(Ba 2009: 217).30 This fear of irrelevance is entirely understandable
among a group of weaker states if we assume that they understand
great power management less as a stabilizing or ordering arrangement
undertaken by the great powers themselves, but in these circumstances
as a potential source of domination and control with the outcome that
their policy options are constrained. ASEAN, then, tries to shift the
terms of great power management towards the idea of weaker states
binding and socializing the dominant players. Whereas there is some
evidence in the proposals for regional organization that have emerged
from, for example, Japan and Australia that such states might prefer
another form of great power management, most of ASEAN clearly
sustains its preference for its alternative constraining mechanism.
Emerging from this discussion of the SRIGOs is an on-going debate
about where the social boundaries of the region should be, whether
regional society would best be promoted by open or more closed forms
of regionalism, whether regional trust and identity would more likely
emerge through dialogue or the advancement of functional, problem-
solving agendas, and how unequal power should be managed. This debate
seems to indicate that participants understand which are the major com-
ponents of regional order, but there is little agreement on which aspects of
the mix will best contribute to the creation of that order. Given the failure
30
Unsurprisingly, therefore, ASEAN members were especially hostile to the proposal by the
former Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, for an Asia Pacific Community, a body
that was to span the whole region, but that failed to ‘give adequate recognition to
ASEAN’s central role in regional architecture’ (Searight 2010).
204 Rosemary Foot
as yet to settle the debate on these questions we have an unresolved

tension at the heart of the relationship between primary regional institu-
tions and their secondary regional offshoots. The unsettled and contested
nature of the debate about regional institutions at the primary level
feeds into the secondary organizational level and shapes them in many
consequential ways. The secondary-level institutions are the reified form
of this dissension at the primary institutional level. If, as Buzan and Zhang
have put it (see Chapter 1), primary institutions are what define the social
structure of any inter-state society and are constitutive of both the players
and the game, then the analysis of the SRIGOs contained within this
chapter suggests that these PRIs still contain significant fractures that
are reflected in the regional organizations.
The relationship between primary global institutions

and primary regional institutions
How does this particular finding about the relationship between PRIs and
SRIGOs affect the relationship with the global-level master institutions
(referred to here as the PGIs)? Here I need to return first to what I have
argued about the PRIs: that four institutions are prominent, and that
we can find a preoccupation with these four arising from historical
experience, the perceived relationship between development and regime
and state security, and particular understandings about the workings of
relative power.
Buzan has listed in full the classical institutions that provide order in
global society. These are sovereignty, non-intervention, territoriality,
diplomacy, international law, war, balance of power, great power manage-
ment, equality of people, nationalism, the market and environmental
stewardship. He sees the less well embedded among these primary and
derivative PGIs as human rights, democracy and the protection of the
environment. At their most expansive, they cover both coexistence as well
as co-operative mechanisms in international society.
Depending on the social boundaries of East Asia that are under
review, the relationship between the PRIs and PGIs can be perceived
either as reasonably closely aligned or in some respects as challenging the
global social structure. If we take the broadest definition of East Asia,
then there is little that is distinctive about East Asian international
society. We can find an embrace of all these master institutions at
some level and within some parts of the region. But if we adopt a
narrower conception of region, then there are various forms of adapta-
tion, sometimes resistance, to: the idea of the market in favour instead of
a greater role for the state in guiding the economy; equality of people as
related to human rights in favour of community rights or freedom from

want; sovereignty as a protector of territory and regime, rather than of
people; a preference for nationalism as self-determination and a source
of regime legitimacy rather than nationalism as popular sovereignty; a
preference for voluntarism over legalization; and an absence of war in
favour of mechanisms for great power management, such as institutional
socialization, alignments and balancing against threat.
However, matters cannot be left here because even within this narrower
geographical definition of region we see ways in which GPIs are drawn
upon in order to shake off or dilute some of the regional social practices.
The GPIs can be used by regional states as a way of signalling difference or
changes in allegiance from one social structure to another. Indonesia, Japan
and South Korea, for example, value their links with the democratic world
and have a stronger relationship with the ‘equality of people’ institution
than is the case in North Korea, but also more than the Indochinese states,
plus China and possibly Malaysia. In the recent debate at the United
Nations on the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ there is a clear spectrum of
views among the local states on sovereignty as responsibility from the
more liberal to more conservative (Foot 2011). While there is evidence of
a continuing state role in economic development throughout this tighter
conception of region, Japan and Singapore stand out as economies that
more highly value certain liberal economic goals than other economies,
with stronger interests in the liberalization of the service sector and protec-
tion of intellectual property rights (Terada 2010: 81). In terms of the
relationship with great powers, the question of power management for
countries such as Japan and South Korea is less about diluting the impact
of the powerful (as is the case with many ASEAN states) and more to do
with drawing on their strength to balance threat.
International society in East Asia at the primary and secondary levels for
both positive and negative reasons has been open to global primary
institutions. While this interaction may have happened through coercive
means in the past, there is more positive value attached to that interaction
for those states that perceive themselves as part of a globalized economy or
that wish to project more solidarist conceptions of state identity.
Conclusion
The multilateral regional organizations of East Asia are reflections of the
dissension contained within the primary institutions that make up the
basis of regional society. This is shown by the continuing uncertainties
about the social boundaries of the region, by the competitive nature
of institutional creation, and by the preference for a design which shows
206 Rosemary Foot
an unwillingness to invest real power in these regional bodies. That

lack of invested power demonstrates an individual state reluctance to
constrain state autonomy, even when this requires regional states to
reach for global-level mechanisms to help manage order at the regional
level.
One major consequence of these features is a less distinctive but also a
less coherent regional society than might otherwise be thought likely
given the significant economic and strategic prominence that this region
has recently gained. For these states to move in the direction of a less
open, narrower, membership base for regional organization requires a
significant advancement in inter-state trust, further evidence of state
consolidation, and an acceptance that the most powerful states cannot
pursue a hegemonic project detrimental to the interests of the weak.
Were these questions to be resolved, the secondary regional organiza-
tions would strengthen their contribution to regional order as well as to
regionalism itself.
10 Conclusion: the contest over East Asian
The general question behind this book is whether or not international

society exists in distinctive form at the regional level, and if it does how
it can be differentiated from, and/or related to, the more commonly dis-
cussed global international society. The specific aim is to investigate whether
or not significant, distinct, international social structures exist at the regional
level represented by ‘East Asia’ and, if so, what they look like and how they
relate to Western–global international society. We set out to conduct our
enquiries with three main audiences in mind: the English School, East Asian
area specialists and comparative regionalists. Summing up the findings so
far, we can certainly say that the idea of an East Asian regional international
society is politically active in a major way. But this idea is manifested mainly
in contestation over what such a regional international society should look
like. There is no agreement on membership, on legitimate behaviour or on
the key issue of whether, in what ways and by how much East Asia should
differentiate itself from Western–global international society.
To summarize our findings, we return first to the four general charac-
teristics of regional international societies set out in Chapter 1:
Their degree of differentiation from the Western–global core: high to
low;
Their degree of differentiation from neighbouring regional interna-
tional societies: high to low;
Their degree of internal homogeneity and integration: high to low; and
Their general type in terms of placement on a spectrum from pluralist
to solidarist (power political, coexistence, co-operation, convergence –
see glossary of terms).
In the final section we draw out lessons and pay-offs that our findings offer
for our three audiences.
Degree of differentiation from the Western–global core

In terms of its general degree of integration with/alienation from the
Western–global core, East Asia is incoherent, with different states covering
207
almost the whole spectrum. Japan and South Korea are at one end of the
spectrum, with Japan in particular having had a long-standing debate about
whether it was part of Asia or had become part of the Western–global core.
This debate still rumbles on, suggesting that some states in East Asia are
highly integrated with the Western–global core and have relatively little
alienation from it. At the other end of the spectrum are states such as North
Korea, and until recently Burma, whose governments are treated as pariahs
by the West, and which do their utmost to distance themselves from it. In
between lie many variations of mixed love/hate relationships with the West.
China hotly defends its rights to cultivate ‘Chinese characteristics’ in its
political and social practices, and to plough its own distinctive furrow of
cultural and political development. At the same time, it embraces quite a bit
of Western economic liberalism in relations both with its neighbours and
with the rest of the world, and is diffident about projecting itself as an
economic model for others. Many Southeast Asian states are likewise
torn, albeit for different mixtures of reasons. The Philippines has much
less political and cultural difference with the West than does China, but still
wants to chart its own path, and the same could be said for Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. There is insufficient uniformity here to
point to this as a marker for an East Asian regional international society.
This variation is matched by the diversity of types of state and historical
experience, with no dominant form.
To look at this issue more specifically, there are three questions set out
in Chapter 1 about how to differentiate regional international societies
both from each other and from the Western–global level in terms of their
primary institutions. Our shift from posing this question in terms of
regional versus global, to regional versus Western–global international
society, enables us to avoid the contradictions raised by assuming that
‘global’ includes everyone and everything. Western–global points to a
core–periphery structure in which the core is distinctive in its own right,
and yet also provides some elements on a global scale. We therefore focus
here on how primary institutions and their associated practices in East
Asia are differentiated from those in the Western core.
How does the research in this book enable us to answer these questions
for East Asia? For the purposes of this exercise we will focus here just on
the fifteen countries1 that comprise geographical Northeast and Southeast
Asia, deferring until later the issue of how exactly to define ‘East Asia’ in
international society terms.
1
For the purpose of this analysis, North and South Korea count as two countries, and
Taiwan is empirically an independent state despite its weak juridical sovereignty and the
‘one-China’ view.
Conclusion 209
(1) The regional international society contains primary institutions not

present at the Western–global level
This book points to two primary institutions distinctive to East Asia: the
developmental state (Chapters 5 and 6) and regional production structures
(Chapter 5). Both of these stem from the particular approach with which
East Asian states intertwine politics and economics in a close way, placing a
high priority on rapid economic development as the key to political stability
and regime security both domestically and regionally. As Peter Katzenstein
(1996: 135) notes: ‘Asian regionalism is defined foremost in market terms.
But Asian markets do not consist of myriads of private individual trans-
actions. Markets express instead institutional and political relationships
that in their operations implicate deeply both business and government.’
These two institutions not only demarcate the region, but also play a
substantial role in how East Asia interacts with both Western–global inter-
national society and the rest of the world. There are some exceptions to
this rule, most obviously North Korea. Yet these two institutions are
remarkable for having transcended the big differences in state type and
culture within the region. That said, however, these two institutions both
coexist with a broader adherence to the Western–global institution of the
market indicated by East Asian memberships of the World Trade
Organization, and are integral to and constitutive of global production
networks. They also do more to differentiate East Asia from the West
than from its neighbouring regions. So while these two primary institutions
do demarcate East Asia, they do so within a very significant acceptance of
Western–global norms. To what extent this acceptance is rooted in belief in
the market, or is merely instrumental and calculated, is an important issue
on which East Asia is divided. If the Western power backing the market
declines and East Asian behaviour is mainly instrumental, then the
developmental state and regional production structures could gain in
significance as sources of differentiation from the Western core.
(2) The regional international society lacks primary institutions present

at the Western–global level
It is more difficult to answer this question clearly in relation to East Asia,
not least because differences in state type within the region mean that there
is too much variation within it. The obvious difference to point to between
East Asia and the West is the one at the political and social end of the liberal
spectrum. Whereas many East Asian states have taken up economic liber-
alism, some of them, most obviously North Korea and China, but also
Malaysia and Singapore, still contest hotly Western liberal values expressed
as human rights, individualism and democracy. On the one hand, the basic
Westphalian institutions and principles, sovereignty, territorial integrity
and international law, among others, have all been internalized by East
Asian states in their state-formation and state-building. State sovereignty
and non-intervention have been used both normatively and instrumentally
to defend the right of East Asian state societies to develop in their own
way. On the other hand, the on-going contest between changing norms
of sovereignty and human rights highlights clearly the fact that the
Westphalian state ‘heritage’ has been effectively challenged. The changing
global normative context, in other words, widens the gap between East
Asian states and the Western–global core in their understanding of the
content and practice of primary institutions, such as sovereignty and
human rights, in international society.
An additional problem is that this difference is hardly distinctive to East
Asia, but can be found wherever authoritarian regimes, and/or regimes
with strong cultural projects (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia) have to relate to
Western values.
(3) The regional international society shares primary institutions with

the Western–global level, but has significantly different practices associated
with them
The answers to this question given in this book suggest a number of
variations of practice, pointing to this as the key mode that differentiates
East Asia from Western–global international society. Chapters 7 and 8
argue that East Asia is distinctive in the way it interprets great power
management. There is an inversion of the usual rule that local great powers
lead the regional order, and strongly linked to that a widespread acceptance
of US hegemony in the region even though local hegemony is firmly
resisted. US hegemony is, however, up to a point managed by East Asian
institutions. The United States participated in the ASEAN Regional
Forum (ARF) only after the co-operative security norm had been con-
structed and embedded in the ARF. In addition, it had to sign the Treaty
of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) as a precondition to
join the East Asian Summit (EAS), thus committing itself to a regional
normative order defined by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). One of the central features of TAC is non-interference. In both
instances, the United States, the hegemon, is follower rather than leader in
shaping the regional normative environment. Balance of power does not
work strongly against the United States in East Asia, and the US role in the
region means that East Asian states tend to leave to the United States most
of the heavy lifting of balancing China. Other East Asian states are
Conclusion 211
restrained in their own balancing against China, mainly adopting hedging

strategies rather than overt ones. The inversion of great power management
is a very distinctive feature of East Asia, albeit one mediated by the outside
role of the United States as a ring-holder for the region. But the fact of
the United States acting as ring-holder is, in itself, perhaps not all that
distinctive. The United States plays, or has played, a similar role in several
regions, not least Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia.
What we would be looking for as distinctive is, therefore, less the US role as
such, but the particular way in which it is carried out. It would seem, as is
beginning to be suggested in some recent literature (Clark 2009a, 2009b,
2011a, 2011b; Goh 2008; Lake 2009), that hegemony has a significant
functional presence as a primary institution both at the Western–global
level and in several regions, despite its seeming contradiction with balance
of power. This kind of hegemony may well play a quite widespread role in
defining how regions relate to the Western–global level of international
society. Among other things, such a view raises interesting questions
about what would happen if US decline brought about a weakening
or abandonment of that role, leaving regional dynamics to configure them-
selves in a more autonomous fashion.
Chapter 7 points to a relatively high restraint on war in East Asia. Yet
while this may differentiate the region from some other regions, most
obviously South Asia and the Middle East, it does not differentiate it from
Latin America, and it puts it more in line with the Western–global level,
where this restraint is likewise strong. The puzzle in East Asia is why this
should be so, given the region’s relatively weak security institutions. The
strong and widespread commitment to joint development is part of the
answer, as is the influence of the US presence, perhaps particularly on
Japan. There might also be a link here to the institutional leadership of the
smaller powers in the region, which might naturally favour such a norm.
Additionally, this may be attributable to an unusually intense diplomatic
culture in East Asia aimed at minimizing friction, as discussed in
Chapter 7. This is often referred to as ‘the ASEAN way’, combining
frequent ‘dialoguing’ and an aversion to confrontation. This variant on
diplomatic practice does seem to be distinctive to East Asia, and might be
worth more attention than it has received. It might, for example, be
interesting to see whether it relates to the commonly observed, but not
much discussed (at least in international relations) characteristic of East
Asian culture where attention to ‘face’ is held to be both distinctive and
important (see, for example, Gries 2004; D. Y.-F. Ho 1976; Hu 1944;
Paine 2003: 257, 306, 349–51).
Lastly, there is the observation that East Asia is distinctive for its
stronger interpretation of sovereignty and non-intervention. There is
considerable variation in practice within East Asia about this, with China
prominent among those taking the strongest line in order to defend their
greater degree of political difference from the West. Strong sovereignty is
equally a noted feature of ASEAN, and also of Japan and the two Koreas.
But it is not clear that strong sovereignty is distinctively East Asian, and it
might be hypothesized that the claim for strong sovereignty is a necessary
feature of the developmental state, whose degree of political engagement
in the economy will tend to put it at odds with the purer form of economic
liberalism projected by the Western core. While it does differentiate East
Asia from contemporary European practice, strong sovereignty claims are
fairly common in many other regions. Even Europe is not immune to
these, e.g. France, Norway and, for different reasons, Britain. And the
United States is sovereigntist to a fault. Thus, while the institution of
sovereignty is widely shared, the practice within it varies significantly.
While nearly all of East Asia supports strong rights of sovereignty and
non-intervention, in the Arab world such rights are strongly held against
outsiders, but are conspicuously weaker among the Arab states themselves
(Buzan and Gonzalez-Pelaez 2009a: 229).
The principal conclusion to be drawn about these three questions is that
there is almost no coherent way of differentiating East Asia from the
Western–global core. In terms of its primary institutions, East Asia is
divided, with some states quite close to the Western–global model, and
heavily integrated with it institutionally, and others rejecting the more
politically liberal parts of it and trying to keep significant insulation
between their domestic realms and the Western–global one. Thus, while
there is some regional differentiation in terms of primary institutions and
practices, the region as a whole remains closely bound both to the basic
Westphalian institutions plus nationalism and to the global economy.
Like several other regions, East Asia has been heavily penetrated by the
United States for the past six decades, both economically and in security
terms, whether as ally or enemy.
A number of chapters in this book have noted the strong interplay in
East Asia between the regional and global levels. Could this be taken as
evidence that no coherent conception of regional international society for
this region is possible? That is, since there is so little distinctive differ-
entiation on the regional scale, there is no East Asian regional interna-
tional society. We think, however, that this is too simple a conclusion, not
least because another general observation is that there is also an intense
regionalist discourse within and about East Asia, which does suggest the
existence of a strong regional consciousness. This discourse is heavily
structured by divisions over the question of how East Asia should relate to
Western–global international society, and this quickly transforms into two
Conclusion 213
questions: what is East Asia? And who is part of East Asia? At some risk of
oversimplifying, this division can be characterized as follows. On one side
is a narrow conception of East Asia as a region with clear geographical
boundaries, which define its membership. China strongly supports this
conception. This group would like a fairly tight East Asian international
society that adheres to a strong practice of sovereignty and non-
intervention, and features the distinctively East Asian developmental
state. It would also like to differentiate itself from Western political liberal
values (while supporting economic liberal ones in terms of joint develop-
ment). On the other side is a broader conception of East Asia as a region,
with fluid social boundaries. This group would like a more open and
extensive ‘East Asia’ that is less differentiated from the Western–global
core. One of the purposes of this broader conception of East Asia is to
bring in more liberal, democratic, pro-Western regimes to balance the
influence of China in the region. The formation of the EAS as ASEAN
Plus Eight clearly shows that the broader conception of East Asia prevails.
The coexistence of ASEAN Plus Three (APT) and the EAS, however,
demonstrates the on-going contentions between the ideas behind the
narrow and broad conceptions of East Asia.
Should the broader East Asia group win, then the degree of differ-
entiation of this regional level from the Western–global one would even-
tually be reduced, but with an extremely fluid definition of East Asia.
Should the narrow group win, the degree of differentiation would be
substantial, although probably at the cost of excluding some East Asian
states. The likelihood is that contestation over this will continue. China
might hope that its rising power and wealth will eventually draw the region
together around it. The more liberal group might hope that as China
modernizes it will soften, narrowing the gap between itself and its more
liberal neighbours and the West. Perhaps a convergence of these two
trends will one day generate a coherent East Asian international society,
but this will not be soon. The equation around this question is remarkably
complex. It involves not just the rise of China and the weakening of the
West in power terms, but also the rise of the rest and the issue of how they
will align themselves. Perhaps most important is whether economic devel-
opment and generational change will transform the internal structure and
external outlook of the rising powers, and whether this will happen in a
liberal or illiberal direction.
So this question cannot be answered in terms of some uniform degree of
differentiation between East Asia and Western–global international soci-
ety. What is significant under this heading is that East Asia is deeply
embroiled in a debate about what the degree of differentiation should
be. In other words, while there is a strong consciousness of East Asian
identity, this is for now principally structured by a vigorous debate about

how East Asian regional international society should relate to the
Western–global one. There is not yet a clear institutional differentiation
that demarcates an East Asian regional international society.
The answer to this first question largely shapes the answers to the other
three.
Degree of differentiation from neighbouring regional

international societies
Aside from the idea that there is a distinctive East Asian form of devel-
opmental state it is difficult to differentiate East Asia from its neighbours in
terms of dominant state type. As with the argument about Western–global
above, the diversity of state types in East Asia does not demarcate bounda-
ries with its neighbours. Since there are as yet no studies of the regional
international societies that border East Asia we cannot do any systematic
comparison in terms of primary institutions. It is, however, clear that strong
interpretations of sovereignty and non-intervention, opposition to liberal
ideas about human rights and democracy, resistance to hegemony, regional
production structures and developmental states are hardly unique to
East Asia. Since these institutions are widespread, any systematic study
differentiating East Asia from its neighbours would need to focus mainly on
whether the differences in practice among them were significant or not. For
example, resistance to hegemony varies in its articulation even among
emerging powers such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa,
the so-called BRICS countries, and regional production structures are
present wherever global production networks spread, but it is the density
and integral nature of regional production structures that make East Asia
distinctive. Studies of comparative regionalism have important contribu-
tions to make in illuminating varied institutional practices in different world
regions.
Given the many and deep divisions within East Asia, the answer to this
question plays closely into the next one about the degree of homogeneity
and integration of the region. One indicative source of evidence for both
questions comes from the pattern of cross memberships in regional
inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). East Asia’s market-led,
bottom-up, network-style, inclusive-rather-than-exclusive process of
regional integration is often contrasted to that of the EU’s more politics-
led, top-down, institutionalist approach. This difference is comple-
mented by the contrasting roles that the United States played in the
two regions: encouraging multilateral inter-governmental organizations
in Europe, while building a more bilateral, hub-and-spokes model in
Conclusion 215
Asia. Nevertheless, the IGO institutional architecture in and around

East Asia can tell us a lot about both the nature and form of regional
international society there, and about how East Asia is differentiated, or
not, from its neighbours. As indicated in Chapter 9, this evidence is
especially strong since the boom in such institutions that began during
the 1990s.
Although regional IGOs are not a precise marker for regional inter-
national societies, they can be a good indicator. The constitutional
documents and statements of aims and purposes of such organizations
usually offer insights into the underlying primary institutions on which
the members agree. As T. J. Pempel (2010: 211) observes, East Asia
differs from other regions in having multiple, discrete IGOs rather than
one, more or less dominant one. Rather than having some core organ-
ization such as the European Union for Europe, the African Union for
Africa, the Organization of American States in the Americas or the
Arab League in the Middle East, East Asia and the countries around
it participate in a large complex cloud of often overlapping IGOs.
While other regions often have multiple regional IGOs, most of these
are usually within the frame set by a more overarching body, such as
Mercosur within the Organization of American States or the Eurozone
group within the EU. And, as Evelyn Goh and Amitav Acharya
(2007: 7) note, this distinctive East Asian format embodies what they
call ‘institution racing’, in which struggles over the membership of
particular regional institutions express competing views about both
what the region should be and how it should relate to Western–global
international society. A brief tour of these regional IGOs shows this
twin-track contestation clearly.
If we take the ten countries of Southeast Asia and the five of Northeast
Asia as being ‘geographical’ East Asia, then there is no regional IGO that
contains them all. APT and its various associated bodies come closest, but
exclude North Korea and Taiwan. This APT cluster has taken the lead
since the late 1990s in defending the East Asian developmental state
against financial domination from the Western–global level, and challeng-
ing the older and more Western-oriented Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) (Pempel 2010: 216–19). ASEAN, of course, orig-
inally differentiated Southeast from Northeast Asia, but since the Asian
financial crisis in the late 1990s it has been busily knitting them together.
Northeast Asia was always notable for its lack of any regional IGO,
although recently a China-Japan-South Korea summit meeting indepen-
dent of APT has emerged (ibid.: 229).
The EAS does not frame the region, either. China wanted it to have an
East Asian integrating focus but, after lobbying by Japan, it ended up with
a membership expanding well beyond East Asia (Goh this volume).2 As

both Goh and Rosemary Foot (this volume) argue, there has been quite
fierce behind-the-scenes rivalry between Beijing and Tokyo to influence
the creation and membership of regional IGOs advantageous to their view
of both what the region should be and how it should relate to Western–
global international society. At the risk of some oversimplification, it
might be argued that China generally prefers narrower East Asian regional
IGOs in which it can more easily bring its preponderance to bear and
where the aim is to consolidate differentiation from the Western–global
core on some key issues (most obviously democracy, human rights and
financial self-control). Chinese policy could be read as an extension of the
typical great power preference for bilateralism: wanting China to be the
big player in a variety of individual regional IGOs while keeping them
separate from each other. China is aware of the need to moderate its threat
image among its neighbours, as well as of the dangers of too intense a
leadership rivalry with Japan. While it serves these goals by accepting
ASEAN leadership, it still prefers a core East Asia region, with
‘open regionalism’ such as EAS and ARF as a ‘supplement’ (Ren 2009:
317–19). Japan and also many in ASEAN prefer wider regional IGOs,
even mega-regional ones (Foot this volume). They want to bring India
and others in, both to dilute Chinese influence and to create stronger links
to the Western–global core. What further complicates the frame of
the region is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) currently under nego-
tiation, which explicitly excludes China.
The lack of any inclusive core IGO for East Asia, and the formula of
partial and overlapping IGOs seen there, sets the pattern for a quite
remarkable array of IGOs that both surround East Asia and link its various
states to different parts of a much wider neighbourhood. In many cases
these IGOs link East Asian states to specific neighbouring regions.
In some they link East Asian states to the Western–global level of interna-
tional society. A quick survey suggests not only how widely this pattern
extends, but also how extensive are the linkages across regions that it
creates. Given the absence of a firm East Asian core, this wider pattern
goes a long way to capturing both the debate about the membership and
‘rightful conduct’ of the region, and its relationship to the Western–global
core. Proceeding clockwise around East Asia the picture is as follows.
Stretching north are the Six Party Talks (SPT) and the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO). The SPT comprises China, Japan,
North Korea, South Korea, Russia and the United States, and grew out
2
See also Ren (2009: 313 and 319) on China’s opposition to inclusion of non-East Asian
members in EAS.
Conclusion 217
of the attempt to contain North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. It

spun off the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization
(KEDO), and although not a great success in its primary aims it has
been spoken of as a possible basis for a specifically Northeast Asian
regional body (Pempel 2010: 226). Although SPT is centred on a
Northeast Asian problem, it ties in both Russia and the United States as
key members. The SCO members are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia
and Pakistan are observers, while Belarus, Sri Lanka and Turkey are
dialogue partners. There are also three guest attendees, which are
ASEAN, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Turkmenistan.
SCO excludes the United States, but again brings in Russia and links
China to Central Asia. The observers create cross-links to South Asia and
the Middle East.
Stretching east and south across the Pacific basin is the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation. APEC’s twenty-one member economies link
most of the East Asian states to North America, Australasia and parts of
Latin America. This pattern is complemented by various triangle bodies
extending US bilateral security arrangements: Japan, South Korea and the
United States Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG);
something similar among Australia, Japan and the United States
(ibid.: 223–4); and more recently a China-Japan-United States summit
meeting (ibid.: 230). This again ties the United States into the region, and
at the same time raises Japan-like questions about whether Australasia
should be seen as part of East Asia or an outpost of the Western–global
core. A recent addition to this Pacific panoply is the TPP, linking
Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New
Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam in pursuit of a
free trade pact. This grouping could become quite significant, because if it
can actually achieve a free trade agreement it would become the economic
arm of the United States’ ‘return to Asia’.
Stretching south and west into the Indian Ocean is a counterpoint to
India’s and Pakistan’s being observers in SCO: Australia, Burma, China,
Japan and South Korea are observers in the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which comprises all of the states in
South Asia (Bailes 2007: 3, 10).
Linking more or less to the global level, while at the same time reinforc-
ing the inter-regional linkages already noted, are the ASEAN Regional
Forum and the East Asia Summit. The ARF links most of the East Asian
states to South Asia, Australasia, North America, Russia and the EU. The
EAS likewise includes Australia, India, New Zealand, Russia and the
United States.
The picture that emerges from all of this is a far-reaching array of over-
lapping circles extending outward from, and into, East Asia. Outside
entities that are brought into East Asia can be summarized as follows:
Australia and in APEC, ARF, EAS, TPP
New Zealand:
EU: in ARF
India: in ARF, ASEM (Asia–Europe Meeting),
EAS, observer in SCO
Pakistan: in ARF, ASEM, observer in SCO
Russia: in APEC, ARF, EAS, SCO, SPT
United States: in APEC, ARF, EAS, SPT, TPP.
Going the other way, Australia, Burma, China, Japan and South Korea
are observers in SAARC, and Burma wants to become a full member.
This extensive pattern of overlapping circles strongly reinforces the
argument that there is no very strong or distinctive East Asian core
regional international society that can be clearly differentiated from
its neighbours. Many of the IGOs whose membership extends beyond
geographical East Asia are just as robust (or not) and significant (or not)
as those whose membership is confined within East Asia. East Asia’s
states are certainly linked to each other in some important ways. But they
appear to be just as much linked to their neighbours, and indeed to the
world, as to each other. It is perhaps not so much a question of how much
or little East Asia is differentiated from its neighbours as one of how
many of its neighbours are going to be incorporated into some wider
Asian social construct.
Degree of internal homogeneity and integration

As is by now abundantly clear, East Asia has low levels of internal
homogeneity. Regional integration has nevertheless been happening in
economic and institutional terms. Writing more than a decade and a half
ago, Muthiah Alagappa (1998: 613) argued that the main interest in Asia
was in building strong states and that, aside from some acceptance of
economic interdependence, ‘There is little interest in building larger
political communities.’ What he implicitly suggested is that internal
homogeneity in terms of types of states was not the goal Asian states
strove to achieve. This remains broadly true today. Alagappa (ibid.: 644)
also noted that Asian states are new, and that changes in their practices
might therefore be expected, possibly including participation in a con-
sensual and non-hierarchical, process-driven Asian way. This observa-
tion, though still valid in terms of diplomatic style, has been challenged
Conclusion 219
by the rising evidence that, in its aggressive pursuit of territorial and

boundary claims since 2009, China might be shifting towards an attempt
at regional hegemony. But this shared style does not demarcate a coher-
ent region, either in East Asia or more widely in Asia. East Asia contin-
ues to be marked by cultural diversity and political heterogeneity; as a
region it is quite differentiated and layered both in terms of types of
states, and in political positioning regarding how to relate to the
Western–global level.
Should the eventual social formation of this world region turn out to be
on a wider-Asia basis, then the resultant diversity seems set to ensure that
such an extended regional international society will be thin and only very
lightly integrated. Only if China succeeds in drawing in more of its
neighbours on its own terms does a more homogeneous and integrated
regional international society seem possible. For that to happen, either
China’s dominance would have to become overwhelming and irresistible,
or else China’s view of regional international society would have to
moderate sufficiently for Japan, South Korea and others to feel more
comfortable with it than they do now. Put differently, internal homoge-
neity in East Asia is only a remote possibility, and may never happen.
If regional integration continues regardless of such manifest political
and cultural heterogeneity, can a coherent international society be con-
structed in East Asia without internal homogeneity? The question of how
such a regional international society would relate to the Western–global
one is not going to go away.
Another way of looking at the coherence of a regional international
society is through the concept of legitimacy. Ian Clark (2005) argues that
we should approach the identification of international society through this
concept, which he sees as a deeper constitutive principle than primary
institutions. In his analysis of the iconic treaties of Westphalia, Clark
(ibid.: 51–70) argues that their key significance is about the coming into
existence of a self-aware inter-state society that saw itself as capable of
making legitimate collective decisions about religion and politics. He
(ibid.: 2, 9, 23) also argues that ‘the core principles of legitimacy express
rudimentary social agreement about who is entitled to participate in inter-
national relations, and also about appropriate forms in their conduct’.
International society is about rightful members and rightful conduct, and
legitimacy is about whether or not the fundamental sense of being bound
exists.
What does East Asia look like through this lens? The chapters in this
book suggest that East Asia is very heavily divided on the question of
rightful members. As shown in the previous section, ‘institution racing’
illustrates this division with almost surgical precision. Without an agreed
demos, it is difficult to know to whom standards of ‘rightful conduct’

should apply. These two criteria come into sharper focus within narrow
forums such as ASEAN, where, as suggested above, ‘rightful conduct’
is expressed in observance of a particular diplomatic style. But for the
region as a whole, they are part of what is contested, pointing again to
the difficulty caused by the diversity of state types in play. For some
other regions Clark’s criteria would work better: the EU obviously
defines rightful conduct in relation to many issues; Latin America
does so with its tradition of arbitration and its agreement on being a
nuclear-weapons-free zone.
Type of international society on the scale: power-political,

coexistence, co-operation, convergence
Given the looseness and contested nature of East Asia as a regional
international society, it is difficult to know how to place it on a typology
of international societies. One can find elements of power-political qual-
ities, particularly centred around North Korea. But these are not at all
dominant in the region, which as observed in Chapter 7 has quite high
restraints on the resort to war. Those restraints still leave war as a possi-
bility, especially over Taiwan and between the two Koreas, but point more
generally towards a coexistence model where there is a reasonable degree
of order. This model is supported by the array of secondary institutions in
the region, though here the picture is blurred by the intervening variable of
the US role as security ring-holder in the region. Some case might be
made for the co-operation model, mainly in the economic sector, where
there is the joint project of shared development that links most of the East
Asian states. The regional production structures, and to a certain degree
regional financial arrangements such as the CMI, point to this model.
Given the extensive political and cultural differences across the region, it
is difficult to make much of a case for the convergence model. The
structure of secondary institutions, unlike that of the EU, does not
encourage regional convergence, and as suggested in Chapter 5 such
convergence pressure as one might find in the region comes more from
Western–global economic IGOs than from the regional level. Perhaps
only the developmental state suggests a form of regional convergence,
but if so that process still has a very long way to go to narrow the gap
between authoritarian and democratic states and societies.
The main general conclusion to emerge from this discussion is that
‘East Asia’ is both more diverse and more divided than other regions. It is
particularly strongly divided about the linked questions of what the region
is and how it should relate to Western–global international society. Such
Conclusion 221
tension between a discrete regional form and a highly political discourse

about how to relate to the Western–global international society is not
unique to East Asia. It can certainly be observed in the Middle East and
elsewhere, though perhaps there more within states than, as in East Asia,
between them.
But perhaps nowhere is the relational question about the regional and
the Western–global as dominant as it is in East Asia. There are three broad
futures for such a debate: obsolescence, victory and stalemate.
Obsolescence would come about if there was a convergence of views
within the region on its institutional structure and practices and how
these should relate to Western ones. The most likely scenario here is
one in which on-going market reforms generate more social and
political pluralism within currently authoritarian states, closing the
gap between them and the more democratic states. This is a far from
certain process, and even if things do evolve in that direction it will
take a generation or more.
Victory would come about if one side were able to overawe the other and
impose its view. In essence, the only scenario for this is that China
becomes so strong and dominant that it can impose its view on its
neighbours and construct its own form of suzerain regional international
society. That is not impossible, but neither is it likely, and certainly not
any time soon. For China to do this it would have not only to overawe its
neighbours, but also drive the United States out of its long-standing
engagement in Asia. While the United States may be in relative decline,
this is not certain, and even if it happens it will take a long time. There is
no ‘fall of Rome’ scenario for the United States. It may decline to primus
inter pares, but it will remain a very great power for a long time. Even if the
United States loses some of its global reach and engagement, it is
perfectly capable, as current developments show, of concentrating its
remaining strength in the western Pacific. The case of an earlier declining
hegemon, Britain, concentrating its strength against Germany in the
run-up to the First World War is perhaps instructive. There is also the
fact that, while Japan may be in decline, the rest of Asia is rising alongside
China and will not be so easy to overawe.
Stalemate, in the form of continuation of the debate, therefore appears
to be the default scenario, at least in the short term, and quite possibly
for several decades. So long as the United States remains a significant
player in Asia, China will not be able to dominate its region, and
Western–global international society will remain an attractive option
for many in the region. To the extent that China tries to intimidate its
neighbours by making assertive territorial and boundary claims – as
currently over island disputes in the East and South China Seas and
over the border with India – it will simply drive its neighbours into the
arms of the United States and deepen the stalemate position.
This debate itself therefore emerges as the defining social structural
characteristic of ‘East Asia’, and one that looks set to remain in place for
a long time.
Lessons and pay-offs for our three audiences

What lessons can we draw from all this for our three audiences: the
English School, East Asian area specialists and comparative regionalists?
For the English School

We had two aims for the English School audience: first, to extend the
comparative project into contemporary international society by focusing
on regional international societies and, second, to question the homoge-
neity of global-level international society. The East Asia case suggests that
both the global and the regional levels of international society are more
complex than simple labels might suggest.
The comparative project rested on the assumption that we would find
sufficient coherent differentiation on the regional level to be able to
identify and characterize an East Asian international society. The analogy
was with the EU in being a relatively discrete and well-bounded regional
entity, suggesting that one looks for the things that differentiate the
regional from the global level, and at the degree to which the regional
level is integrated and compatible with the global level and/or detached
and alienated from it. But the specific nature of East Asia’s encounter with
an expanding and intrusive Western international society, and the kind of
states that resulted, means that the EU model is not appropriate, or at least
not yet and probably not for some considerable time, if ever. While the
primary and secondary institutions of the EU differentiate it from the
global level with reasonable clarity, those of East Asia define the on-going
contestation about the linked questions of what the region is and how it
should relate to Western–global international society. Rather than seeing
East Asia as a differentiated societal entity, what is most interesting and
important about it is that the on-going discourse about how it should
relate to Western–global international society is itself the dominant
feature. Thus, although we have found some interesting and significant
institutions and practices distinctive to the region, we cannot say that we
have clearly identified and put boundaries around an East Asian regional
international society. East Asian, or a wider-Asian, international society
remains a work in progress. This suggests that the comparative project
Conclusion 223
for contemporary international society cannot be carried out simply on

the basis of comparing discrete and fairly clearly defined entities. Rather,
there will be variation, perhaps considerable, in how well or not the
regional level captures differentiation in contemporary international soci-
ety. In some places it will, and in some places differentiation will take
more complex forms. This should not be discouraging for those interested
in pursuing the comparative project. We still need more studies of
the regional level in order to compose a fuller picture of what is out
there, and this study confirms that the approach through primary institu-
tions provides a powerful method for doing this kind of work.
The ambiguity of the findings at the regional level underlines the need
to get a better grip on what we take ‘global-level international society’ to
mean. Although East Asia is not a clear regional international society in
the mould of the EU, that certainly does not suggest that there is a
homogeneous global-level international society. On the contrary, it
opens up a rich seam of differentiation quite sufficient to call into serious
question the idea of a relatively homogeneous, if thin, ‘global-level
international society’. While there is an impressive number of shared
primary institutions and practices related to Western–global international
society, we also see much alienation and resistance to some aspects of the
Western project, and significant variations in practice, whether found in
regional form or not. On this basis, we think the term ‘Western–global
international society’ works well. It both establishes the uneven, core–
periphery basis for the global level and leaves room for variation and
resistance. The global level and the regional level of international society
are engaged in a game of co-constitution. For East Asia, and perhaps also
for other regions, the global level is the foil against which it either succeeds
in generating, or fails to generate, some form of coherent whole. At the
same time, the East Asian debate determines much about the extent,
shape and influence of Western–global international society. This game
of co-constitution between the regional and global levels can be charted
through the lens of primary institutions, and enriches more conventional
approaches to difference such as state type, formative history and nature
of encounter with the expanding Western–global international society.
Co-constitution can be found throughout international society and,
although it is particularly starkly played in East Asia, the East Asian case
suggests that this perspective is the one we should adopt when trying to
think either about ‘global-level’ international society or about regional
differentiations within it. In contemporary international society, the
broad differences of culture that so worried the classical English School
(Buzan 2010b) seem to be less important than specific political differences
that can be identified in quite precise institutional terms. This suggests
that a project parallel to the one of comparative regions might be a global

mapping of primary institutions to identify which are consensual, which
contested and what (and where) the variations in practice are in observ-
ance of such institutions.
While primary institutions have worked well as an analytical tool for this
study, one further lesson for the English School is that this concept itself
needs more work. It is a familiar criticism of the English School that it has
still not paid enough attention to the economic sector. A first step towards
rectifying this deficiency has been to pay more attention to the market as
one of the key primary institutions of modern Western–global interna-
tional society. But particularly in Chapter 5 it was questioned whether this
was sufficient, or whether one needed more nuanced tools to understand
social structure in the economic sector. It is not only about ‘market or
not’, but also about the particular form and type of derivative primary
institutions that can exist within the market. Given the importance of the
economic sector in the international social structure of East Asia, this
seems a valid point, identifying a weakness in English School theory that
needs attention.
For East Asian specialists

The English School, as we noted in Chapter 1, provides a relatively new
(and unfamiliar) conceptual framework and analytical construct for inves-
tigating East Asian international relations, with its emphasis on historical
depth and institutional practices. To the extent that the interrogations of
East Asian international society conducted in this volume shed light on
how contemporary East Asian international order has been mediated,
negotiated, constructed and contested, the English School, with its con-
cept of primary institutions as a particular interpretive lens, has offered
important insights into the historical, structural and institutional forces
that are at work in the production of order in East Asia. Although there is
clearly no easy fit between the cases examined in this volume and the
empirical expectations of the English School theory, four findings arrived
at in this volume through purposeful engagement with the analytical
perspective of international society are helpful to explain how the regional
world of East Asia hangs together. In other words, East Asia specialists
may find in this volume at least four specific pay-offs that critically inform
a regionally derived understanding of order in East Asia and its problems
and prospects.
First is the historically grounded appreciation of the contingent nature
of contemporary East Asian international order. The English School
approach puts particular emphasis on a ‘genetic understanding’, to
Conclusion 225
borrow from Charles Taylor (1984: 17), of contemporary problems,

issues and questions in international relations. An English School reading
of East Asian historical experience with Western–global international
society provides insight into the formative history of East Asian interna-
tional society. In foregrounding a historical analysis of traditional East
Asian order in international society terms, discussions of a long existing
international society in East Asia before the arrival of the expanding
Westphalian society of states in the region (see Chapter 2) are instructive
in contextualizing and foreshadowing the normative conflicts and institu-
tional clashes between the two world orders, European and East Asian, in
the nineteenth century. It is in these historical encounters and clashes and
with the collapse of the traditional Sino-centric world order that East Asia
as a region becomes imaginable in the emerging global context. The
contestation between the expanding European international society and
regional normative and social orders in East Asia has, ever since, become
an integral part of the social construction of the region.
Interrogations of the Japanese inter-regnum in East Asian history
(in Chapter 3) perform another genetic analysis, that of historical encoun-
ter of Japan with the expanding European international society and the
consequences of this for East Asian regional order. Japanese imperialist
expansion in Asia, the Sino-Japanese Wars, the Pacific War and the
eventual military defeat of Japan have all had long-lasting impacts on the
construction of an East Asian regional international society in terms of
cultural belonging, material power and regionalist ideas. Japan’s aspira-
tion to ‘leave Asia and enter Europe’ embodies a shifting discourse about
Japan’s cultural belonging – from tongwen tongzhong (share the same
language and belong to the same race with China) to perceiving China,
and more broadly Asia, as the ‘uncivilized other’ fated to serve as a
regional periphery to Japan’s modern core. A Japan that belongs to the
‘West’ proves to be an uncompromising challenge to East Asian regional
identity-formation. Materially, the emergence of an indigenous imperia-
list power in East Asia that assumed a European/Western identity has
proved to be historically transformative of the landscape of power politics
in East Asia. It not only resulted in the destruction of the traditional East
Asian social order, but also made Sino-Japanese rivalry for regional
hegemony and leadership a permanent feature in East Asian politics.
Thanks to Japan, both as an enemy and as an ally, American power has
since the Pacific War been integral to great power social structure in the
imagined geo-political space of East Asia. Ideationally, the Japanese
attempt to construct a ‘Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere’, despite
its political opportunism and imperialistic design flaws, amounts to an
earlier indigenous articulation of region and regionalism in Asia.
The post-colonial remapping of East Asia with contentious state-

formation and the Cold War political economy, which had unintended
and unforeseen consequences for regional economic development and
integration (outlined in Chapters 5 and 6), both further highlight different
historical routes through which East Asian states arrived at their varied
relationship with Western–global international society. On this reading,
the emergence of East Asia as a putative region in the twentieth century
has been significantly shaped by the unique experience of East Asian
states’ encounters with the expanding Western–global international
society. East Asia as a regional designation, in other words, is not
geographically pre-defined. It is but an artefact of specific and changing
historical circumstances of these encounters.
Second is the centrality of the political agency of regional actors to
understanding the production and shaping of normative order in East
Asia. Taken at face value, it seems indisputable that the Western–global
international society triumphed in East Asia, where societies and states
were remade in their historical encounters with the expanding European
international society. It is true that the Westphalian state, sovereign and
independent, became the only legitimate statehood recognized and
accepted, and it was deeply internalized in East Asia. Primary institu-
tions of the expanding European international society, ranging from
sovereign equality and territoriality, to diplomacy and international
law, provided the institutional foundation for the new normative order
in East Asia. This is at best, however, only half of the story. Even as
norm-takers at the receiving end of global norm diffusion and imposi-
tion, regional actors – post-colonial and revolutionary states alike – have
exercised considerable agency in creatively accepting, interpreting,
engaging and practising primary institutions of Western–global interna-
tional society on their own terms. Regional contestations to and local-
ization of global norms and institutions, as shown in Chapters 5, 6 and
7, are expressed in terms not of total rejection, but of different inter-
pretations and variations in institutional practices. This is a particularly
important dynamic for regional order.
Take sovereignty and non-interference as examples. As discussed in
Chapter 6, state-formation and -consolidation in the post-colonial
context, and in the shadow of the Cold War military and ideological
confrontations in East Asia, generated considerable deficits in both inter-
nal and external legitimacy for the new ‘Westphalian’ state in the region.
The lack of unconditional legitimacy of state boundaries, state institutions
and regimes presented triple challenges to these states in East Asia,
namely, domestic stability, the integrity of the post-colonial state and
regime security. In this particular context, statist ideologies and the
Conclusion 227
unitary state mentality informed and were informed by a particular under-

standing and practice of sovereignty and nationalism, two primary insti-
tutions, and their derivative institutional practices of non-interference and
national self-determination, which are appreciably different from, though
not entirely at odds with, those understood and practised originally in the
European context. As in all other post-colonial regions, nationalist
movements in East Asia were both inspired by and targeted at European
(and Japanese) imperialism and colonialism. National self-determination
was defined principally though not exclusively in opposition to imperial
dominance and colonial rule.
The design of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation as an important
regional institution to protect sovereignty, to delegitimize interventionist
behaviour and to manage regional conflict is a contemporary manifesta-
tion of this statist approach to regional order. Even in the changing global
normative environment, the non-intervention norm, as Amitav Acharya
(2004) argues, remains the ideational underpinning for the institutional
design of the ‘ASEAN Way’. Recent accessions to this treaty by the
United States and the EU, both in 2009, provide intriguing cases of how
extra-regional powers endorse regional institutional practices and norms
in East Asia that are contrary to the evolving sovereignty norm as a
primary institution in the global normative context. Both accessions,
like the previous accessions by other great powers, notably China, Japan
and Russia, however, explicitly exclude the applicability of the TAC
norms in their relations with other TAC parties beyond ASEAN.
Take for another example the market, and think about how this primary
institution as conceptualized by the English School has been significantly
mediated at the regional level in East Asia through the developmental
state. As an institutional phenomenon, the developmental state represents
a distinctive way of adopting and creatively evolving capitalist ideas
and economic practices in East Asia. It has fostered a special set of
relationships between state and market in late state developmentalism.
In East Asia, therefore, the market is constitutive of particular institutional
and political relationships that closely implicate both business and govern-
ment under the local conditions. In other words, the capitalism that has
developed in East Asia is distinctive, and it follows that the market has a
different institutional logic. It is worth recalling that as trading states,
Japan and Germany, observed Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi
(1997a: 367), ‘embody [a] different institutional logic of capitalism.
Although they embrace market competition, the terms by which players
entered markets, the rules of competition, and the social purposes that
competition is to serve all reflect different norms embodied in different
institutions and organizational routines.’
Whether these variations in the institutional practices of primary

institutions discussed above are sufficiently significant to differentiate
East Asian international society from the Western–global core is very
much a matter of debate, as discussed earlier. What the English School
approach has highlighted in this instance is the importance of local
agency exercised through institutional practices in shaping regional
normative and economic order.
The third pay-off relates to the dynamics of power in East Asia. Given
the hype about a global power shift towards East Asia and great power
rivalries in the region, it is unsurprising that there is an obsession about
power transition in the existing literature of both realist and liberal
persuasions on East Asian international relations. Excessive attention
has been paid to regional balance of power in the discussion of the
uncertainties of regional order. The English School, however, offers a
different and valuable interpretive lens through which to highlight differ-
ent dynamics of power politics in the region through its conceptualization
of great power management as a primary institution in international
society, because great powers play a custodial role and take special respon-
sibility in upholding regional and global order. To the extent that great
power management tells us about power dynamics in regional interna-
tional society, three arguments have been made in Chapter 8.
First and foremost is the abject failure of indigenous powers, China and
Japan, as either providers or managers of regional order in East Asia. The
two regional great powers have not even managed to develop a shared
notion of coexistence or co-operation, not to speak of jointly providing
leadership in defining and stabilizing regional order through cultivating
shared norms and values. Both China and Japan suffer serious legitimacy
deficits within East Asia for historical, political and strategic reasons. This
simple fact may have prevented them from taking and exercising regional
leadership.
This has led to rather unorthodox practices associated with the
primary institution of great power management in East Asia. This is
the second point. Two indigenous great powers, China and Japan, have
effectively outsourced the function of great power management in two
directions: upwards to the United States, the hegemon; and downwards
to ASEAN as the least offensive and most organized regional actor.
There emerges a so-called consensual hegemonic stability in East Asia.
The penetration of American power into East Asia in this sense is by
invitation. What makes East Asia stand out is the fact that ASEAN-led
secondary institutions such as ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia
Summit have taken over the role of facilitating and managing great
power interaction and co-operation over functional issues, with
Conclusion 229
ASEAN in the ‘driver’s seat’ determining the substantive as well as

normative agenda of the regional projects embodied in the ASEAN
Plus institutions. ASEAN’s role, in other words, approximates more to
the ‘management of great powers’ than ‘great power management’ in
search of a regional order. A good example of how even the hegemon, the
United States, is ‘managed’ by ASEAN in the construction of regional
projects is the US accession to the TAC as one of the conditions for its
participation in the EAS.
Finally, rivalries for regional dominance and leadership between China
and Japan have some unintended political consequences for regional
institutional development. Through ostensibly regionalist initiatives in
developing secondary regional institutions, China and Japan have
engaged in ‘mutual social denial’ through deliberately oversupplying
regionalism. This ‘institution racing’ explains, at least partially, the
proliferation of secondary institutions with overlapping functions after
the Asian financial crisis in 1997–8. The political logic and strategic
rationale behind such institution racing are particularly clear in a number
of ASEAN Plus institutional arrangements, from APT to EAS, that are
pivotal to the regional institutional landscape today.
The fourth specific pay-off for East Asian area specialists concerns the
understanding of the developmental state and to a lesser extent regional
production networks as distinctive regional institutions constitutive of
regional international society. The developmental state has long been
examined in international political economy (Johnson 1982; Low 2004;
White 1988). It is seen as a peculiar combination of states and markets in
East Asia that represents authoritarian state developmentalism in which
East Asian governments stake their stability, regime security and legiti-
macy. State interventionism and policies that are not necessarily or even
primarily market-oriented are justified as unproblematic and necessary by
a political logic that privileges economic development. As Chapter 5
notes, the developmental state as an ideal type has been practised in the
region in different ways that reflect contingent historical circumstances
and political and economic conditions, for example in China, Korea,
Taiwan and the countries of Southeast Asia. It is a relatively uncontro-
versial claim that the developmental state is one of the most distinctive
features of the political and economic order of the region.
To what extent is the developmental state constitutive of the institu-
tionalized regional order in East Asia? Chapter 5 makes an analytically
innovative and essentially contentious proposal. The developmental state,
it suggests, should be conceptualized as a distinctive regional primary
institution in East Asia, mainly for two reasons. One is the transformative
historical role that the developmental state has played in ordering East
Asia both domestically and regionally; and the other is that, in its ideal
type, the developmental state represents an important variant on the sort
of competition or market-state model that has become widely associated
with the Anglo-American political economies. The developmental state,
in this interpretation, is not only constitutive of East Asian regional
international society, but also represents an articulation of a regional
contestation to the Western–global core.
For comparative regionalists

For those whose interest stretches beyond a particular region to the phe-
nomenon of regionalism more broadly, this analysis offers five possible
insights.
First, by defining region in a societal perspective the English School
approach problematizes the concept in a distinctive way. If regions are
understood in material terms, then their existence is more easily taken as
given. But by seeing regions as socially constructed, the question of
whether they exist or not becomes more active and acute. In societal
terms, East Asia is both there, in the sense that a highly active discourse
exists about it, and not there, in the sense that the discourse is precisely a
dispute about its social content and membership.
This suggests a second point, which is that regions conceived in societal
terms necessarily define themselves both as an expression of their internal
identity dynamics, and in relational terms against others, both neighbour-
ing and ‘global’. In societal terms, regions and the global level of interna-
tional society are co-constitutive. This co-constitution can be done in a
great variety of ways. Some of these ways will generate relatively clear and
coherent regional structures and some, as in contemporary East Asia, will
not. The dynamics of co-constitution are universal when there is a global-
level international society, but the particularities may be very varied.
Regional international societies may be one outcome, but there are many
other ways of differentiating the local from the global and playing the game
of co-constituting identities. This provides a useful way of differentiating
and comparing regions.
A third lesson is that history matters, and that the particular co-
constitution of the local and the global social structures can be understood
only in the light of earlier developments and encounters. This is perhaps
mainly a methodological lesson, requiring deep historical rooting as part
of the comparative process.
Fourth is another methodological point: if one wants to understand
regions in societal terms, then primary institutions provide a useful toolkit
for comparing and differentiating international social structures. This
Conclusion 231
toolkit enables regions not only to be compared to and differentiated from

each other, but also to be differentiated from global-level international
society in a way that makes accessible the dynamics of integration and
differentiation between them.
Fifth, and finally, is the point about the importance of local agency made
in relation to East Asia, but applicable to all regions. Encounters are never
just simple one-way streets, even when the terms of the encounter are highly
unequal. This is as true for encounters between regions, for example
between Christendom and the Islamic world, as it is for encounters
between a global-level international society and individual regions, like
that attending the ‘expansion of international society’. There is always a
two-way street even if the lane on one side of it is much wider than that on
the other. Even when primary institutions are coercively imposed, they are
reworked and adapted by those on the receiving end to bring them into
compatibility with local normative and material conditions. The way in
which seemingly ‘universal’ institutions are mediated locally offers another
tool for the comparative regionalist.
Although the English School may at first sight appear to be a bit
remote from the interests of either Asian specialists or comparative
regionalists, we hope this book has demonstrated that there is a signifi-
cant amount of useful common ground among them. If the English
School is to understand properly what international society means, it
needs to engage both with specific regions and with comparative region-
alism. Yet, while the English School has been slow to take up an interest
in regions, its approach offers a useful range of analytical tools for doing
so. These are available to area and comparative specialists, and suggest
both mutually beneficial synergies and an opportunity for extending the
cross-disciplinary conversation.
Glossary
international society Refers to the institutionalization of shared

interest and identity among states, and puts the
creation and maintenance of shared norms, rules
and institutions at the centre of IR theory. It is
therefore a more developed form of international
system in which there are rules and institutions
that mediate the interaction (see also inter-state
society below).
international system Refers to the macro side of the interactions that
tie the human race together and more specifically
to the interactions among states. Its usage in
classical English School thinking is close to that
in realism, being about power politics among
states within a political structure of international
anarchy. The term is often used as a counterpoint
to ‘international society’ because it suggests a
mechanical analogy in which there is interaction
among the units of the system, but no society.
inter-state society Means the same as international society as defined
above, but makes clearer that it is restricted to
what happens among states. There is a spectrum
of types of inter-state society arranged along a
spectrum from pluralist to solidarist:
power political represents here much the same
as Hobbesian does for Wendt (1999) and the
traditional English School’s ‘international
system’ pillar, namely an international society
based largely on enmity and the possibility of
war, but where there is also some diplomacy,
alliance-making and trade. Survival is the main
motive for the states, and no values are
necessarily shared. Institutions will be
232
Glossary 233
minimal, mostly confined to rules of war,

recognition and diplomacy.
coexistence occupies some of the zone taken by
Wendt’s (1999: 279–97) uncomfortably broad
Lockean category, focusing on the exemplar of
modern Europe, and meaning by it the kind of
Westphalian system in which the core
institutions of inter-state society are the
balance of power, sovereignty, territoriality,
diplomacy, great power management, war and
international law. In the English School
literature this form is labelled pluralist and
incorporates the realist side of Grotianism.
co-operative requires developments that go
significantly beyond coexistence, but that fall
short of extensive domestic convergence. It
incorporates the more solidarist side of what
the English School calls Grotian, but might
come in many guises, depending on what type
of values are shared and how/why they are
shared. Examples of inter-state co-operative
projects might include the creation of a
shared market economy, the pursuit of
human rights, joint pursuit of big science,
collective environmental management and
suchlike. Such co-operation probably
downgrades war as an institution, and other
institutions might arise to reflect the solidarist
joint project(s).
convergence means the development of a
substantial enough range of shared values
within a set of states to make them adopt
similar political, legal and economic forms.
The range of shared values has to be wide
enough and substantial enough to generate
similar forms of government (liberal
democracies, Islamic theocracies, communist
totalitarianisms, etc.) and legal systems based
on similar values in respect of such basic issues
as property rights, human rights and the
relationship between government and citizens.
234 Glossary
Under convergence, one would expect quite

radical changes in the pattern of both primary
and secondary institutions of international
society. In a society of states, the Kantian form
of solidarism around liberal values identified
by the English School and Wendt is one
option, but not the only one.
pluralism defines inter-state societies with a relatively low
degree of shared norms, rules and institutions
among the states, where the focus of society is on
creating a framework for orderly coexistence and
competition, or possibly also the management of
collective problems of common fate (e.g. arms
control, the environment). Pluralism generally
reflects a conservative view of international
society which sees its potential as constrained by
the system logic of realism to not more than a
limited pursuit of coexistence.
primary institutions refers to the institutions talked about by the
English School as constitutive of both states and
international society in that they define the basic
character and purpose of any such society. This
type of institution is evolved rather than
designed, and constitutive rather than
instrumental; it can be found as far back as one
can trace the history of states in its broadest sense.
The classical (pluralist) institutions are:
sovereignty, non-intervention, territoriality,
diplomacy, international law, war, balance of
power and great power management.
Nationalism and the market are more recent
additions, and solidarists are promoting, with
some but by no means complete success, human
rights, democracy and environmental
stewardship. Classical civilizations had some
distinctive institutions such as suzerainty, or in
China the tribute system (F. Zhang 2009;
Y. Zhang 2001). Primary institutions are what
define the social structure of any inter-state
society. They are constitutive of both the players
and the game, and tracking how they evolve and
Glossary 235
change is the key to benchmarking changes in

social structure. Because they are not time-
limited, primary institutions can be used to
analyse and compare inter-state societies across
all of history.
secondary institutions refers to the institutions talked about in regime
theory and by neo-liberal institutionalists. Such
institutions are the products of certain types of
international society (most obviously liberal, but
possibly other types as well). They are
consciously designed to serve the instrumental
purposes of the entities that create them, and they
are with very few exceptions not older than the
mid nineteenth century. In the inter-state domain
they are inter-governmental organizations
(IGOs) such as the United Nations and the
World Trade Organization, or regimes. In the
transnational domain they are (con)federative
bodies such as the umbrella organizations that
oversee world football or chess, or peace
movements, or banks, or many other lobbying or
interest groups. Secondary institutions are a quite
recent instrumental creation of Western inter-
state societies and are distinctive to that type of
inter-state society. They reflect the underlying
primary institutions rather than in themselves
constituting such societies.
solidarism defines international societies with a relatively high
degree of shared norms, rules and institutions
among states, where the focus is not only on
ordering coexistence and competition, but also
on co-operation over a wider range of issues,
whether in pursuit of joint gains (e.g. trade) or
realization of shared values (e.g. human rights,
environmental stewardship) or even structural
convergence among a group of states (as in
the EU). Solidarism generally reflects a more
liberal or progressive view of international society
which sees its potential as essentially open, and
in principle capable of extending beyond
coexistence into co-operation and even
236 Glossary
convergence. The EU can be taken as a model

of a very advanced solidarist international society,
albeit on a regional scale. Contemporary
solidarism is mainly liberal in inspiration, and so
normally assumes interlinked developments
across the three domains, and not just in the
inter-state domain. Solidarism, however, does
not have to be based on liberal values.
world society takes individuals, non-state organizations and
ultimately the global population as a whole as the
focus of global societal identities and
arrangements, and puts transcendence of the
state system at the centre of IR theory.
References
Abu-Lughod, J. 1991. Before European Hegemony: The World System AD

1250–1350. Oxford University Press.
Acharya, A. 1999. ‘Containment, Engagement, or Counter-Dominance?
Malaysia’s Response to the Rise of China’. In A. I. Johnston and R. S. Ross,
eds., Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power. London:
Routledge, pp. 129–51.
2001. Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia. London: Routledge.
2004. ‘How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and
Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism’, International Organization 58:
239–75.
2007a. ‘The Emerging Regional Architecture of World Politics’, World Politics
59 (4): 629–52.
2007b. ‘Made in America? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism’, Journal of
East Asian Studies 7: 370–8.
2009. Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
2011. ‘Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories
Beyond the West’, Millennium 39 (3): 619–37.
Acharya, A. and Buzan, B. 2010. Non-Western International Relations Theory:
Perspectives on and Beyond Asia. London: Routledge.
Acharya, A. and Goh, E., eds. 2007. Reassessing Security Cooperation in the Asia-
Pacific: Competition, Congruence, and Transformation. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Acharya, A. and Johnston, A. I. 2007a. ‘Comparing Regional Institutions: An
Introduction’. In Acharya and Johnston 2007b, pp. 1–31.
eds. 2007b. Crafting Cooperation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative
Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
Adler, E. 2005. ‘Barry Buzan’s Use of Constructivism to Reconstruct the English
School: Not All the Way Down’, Millennium 34: 171–82.
Adler, E. and Barnett, M. 1998. Security Communities. Cambridge University Press.
Akyüz, Y. 2010. ‘Export Dependence and Sustainability of Growth in China and
the East Asian Production Network’, Geneva: South Centre Research Paper 27.
2011. ‘Export Dependence and Sustainability of Growth in China’, World
Economy and China 19 (1): 1–23.
Alagappa, M. 1995. Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia: Quest for Moral Authority.
Stanford University Press.
237
238 References
1998. Asian Security Practice. Stanford University Press.

2003a. Asian Security Order: Instrumental and Normative Features. Stanford
University Press.
2003b. ‘Constructing Security Order in Asia: Concepts and Issues’. In Alagappa
2003a, pp. 71–105.
Amirahmadi, H. and Wu, W. 1995. ‘Export Processing Zones in Asia’, Asian
Survey 359: 828–49.
Anderson, B. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism. London: Verso.
Anderson, J. 2007. ‘Is China Export-Led?’, UBS Investment Research Asian Focus,
26, www.allroadsleadtochina.com/reports/prc_270907.pdf.
Anderson, J. A. 2007. The Rebel Den of Nùng Trí Cao: Loyalty and Identity Along the
Sino-Vietnamese Frontier. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Arima, M. 2006. ‘Dare ni mukatte katarunoka: “Daitōa sensō to shin chitsujo no
gensetsu” ’. In T. Sakai, ed., Teikoku’ nippon no gakuchi, vol. I, ‘Teikoku’
hensei no keifu. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, pp. 251–86.
Armitage, R. and Nye, J. 2007. ‘The US–Japan Alliance: Getting Asia Right
Through 2020’, www.cfr.org/japan/csis-us-japan-alliance-getting-asia-right-
through-2020/p13071.
Arrighi, G., Hui, P.-K., Hung, H.-F. and Selden, M. 2003. ‘Historical Capitalism,
East and West’. In G. Arrighi, T. Hamashita and M. Selden, eds., The
Resurgence of East Asia, 500, 150, and 50 Year Perspectives. London:
ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Secretariat. 1976. Treaty of
Amity and Cooperation, 1976, www.aseansec.org/1217.htm.
Ayakawa, T. 1935. ‘Shin kokusai gensoku no hōkō?’, Dai ajia shugi 30: 33–6.
Aydin, C. 2007. The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in
Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ayoob, M. 1995. The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional
Conflict, and the International System. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
1989. ‘The Third World in the System of States: Acute Schizophrenia or
Growing Pains?’, International Studies Quarterly 33 (1): 67–79.
Ba, A. D. 2009. (Re)Negotiating East and Southeast Asia: Region, Regionalism, and
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Stanford University Press.
Bacevich, A. J. 2002. American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US
Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Back, A. 2011. ‘External Surpluses Root Cause of China’s Inflation Problem’,
Wall Street Journal, 26 Feb.
Bailes, A. J. K. 2007. ‘Regionalism and Security Building’. In A. J. K. Bailes,
J. Gooneratne, M. Inayat, J. A. Khan and S. Singh, Regionalism in South Asian
Diplomacy, SIPRI Policy Paper no. 15, Stockholm: Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute.
Bain, W. 2003. Between Anarchy and Society: Trusteeship and the Obligations of
Power. Oxford University Press.
Ball, D. 1993. ‘Strategic Culture in the Asia-Pacific Region’, Security Studies 3 (1):
44–74.
Beasley, W. G. 1987. Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
References 239
Beeson, M. 2002a. ‘East Asia and the International Financial Institutions: The
Politics of Regional Regulatory Reform’, Working Papers Series, 32. City
University of Hong Kong.
2002b. ‘Southeast Asia and the Politics of Vulnerability’, Third World Quarterly
233: 549–64.
2006. ‘American Hegemony and Regionalism: The Rise of East Asia and the
End of the Asia-Pacific’, Geopolitics 114: 541–60.
2007. Regionalism and Globalization in East Asia: Politics, Security and Economic
Development. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
2008. ‘Geopolitics and the Making of Regions: The Fall and Rise of East Asia’,
Political Studies 57: 498–516.
2009. ‘Developmental States in East Asia: A Comparison of the Japanese and
Chinese Experiences’, Asian Perspective 332: 5–39.
2011. ‘Crisis Dynamics and Regionalism: East Asia in Comparative Perspective’,
Pacific Review 243: 357–74.
Beeson, M. and Islam, I. 2005. ‘Neo-Liberalism and East Asia: Resisting the
Washington Consensus’, Journal of Development Studies 412: 197–219.
Beeson, M. and Jayasuriya, K. 1998. ‘The Political Rationalities of
Regionalism: APEC and the EU in Comparative Perspective’, Pacific Review
11 (3): 311–36.
Beeson, M. and Stubbs, R. 2012. ‘Introduction’. In M. Beeson and R. Stubbs, eds.,
Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 1–8.
Bell, S. and Hindmoor, A. 2009. Rethinking Governance: The Centrality of the State
in Modern Society. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Bellamy, A., ed. 2005. International Society and Its Critics. Oxford University Press.
Bello, W. 2009. ‘States and Markets, States Versus Markets: The Developmental
State Debate as the Distinctive East Asian Contribution to International
Political Economy’. In M. Blyth, ed., Routledge Handbook of International
Political Economy. New York: Routledge, pp. 180–200.
Berger, T. 2003. ‘Power and Purpose in Pacific Asia: A Constructivist
Interpretation’. In Ikenberry and Mastanduno 2003a, pp. 387–419.
Bisley, N. 2009. Building Asia’s Security. Adelphi Papers 408. London: Routledge
for International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Bobbitt, P. 2002. The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History. New
York: Knopf.
Booth, A. 1999. ‘Initial Conditions and Miraculous Growth: Why Is South East Asia
Different from Taiwan and South Korea?’, World Development 272 (2): 301–21.
Breslin, S. 1999. ‘The Politics of Chinese Trade and the Asian Financial Crises:
Questioning the Wisdom of Export-Led Growth’, Third World Quarterly 20 (6):
1179–99.
2005. ‘Power and Production: Rethinking China’s Global Economic Role’,
Review of International Studies 314: 735–53.
2006. ‘Foreign Direct Investment in the People’s Republic of China:
Preferences, Policies and Performance’, Policy and Society 25 (1): 9–38.
2007. China and the Global Economy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
2009. ‘Understanding China’s Regional Rise: Interpretations, Identities and
Implications’, International Affairs 85 (4): 779–813.
240 References
2010. ‘An Alternative Look at the Forces Driving East Asian Community
Building’, Policy Analysis Brief, Stanley Foundation, stanleyfoundation.
org/publications/pab/Breslin_07_PAB.pdf.
Breslin, S. and Higgott, R. 2000. ‘Studying Regions: Learning from the Old,
Constructing the New’, New Political Economy 53: 333–52.
Brooks, S. and Wohlforth, W. 2008. World out of Balance: International Relations
and the Challenge of American Primacy. Princeton University Press.
Brown, C. 2001. ‘World Society and the English School: An “International
Society” Perspective on World Society’, European Journal of International
Relations 7: 423–41.
Brzezinski, Z. and Mearsheimer, J. J. 2005. ‘Clash of the Titans’, Foreign Policy,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2005/01/05/clash_of_the_titans.
Bull, H. 1966. ‘The Grotian Conception of International Society: The Viability of
the Middle Way’. In Butterfield and Wight 1966, pp. 51–73.
1977. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. London:
Macmillan.
1984. ‘The Revolt Against the West’. In Bull and Watson 1984a, pp. 217–28.
Bull, H. and Watson, A., eds. 1984a. The Expansion of International Society.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
1984b. ‘Introduction’. In Bull and Watson 1984a, pp. 1–9.
Butterfield, H. and Wight, M., eds. 1966. Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the
Theory of International Politics. London: Allen & Unwin.
Buzan, B. 1983. People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in
International Relations. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
2004. From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social
Structure of Globalisation. Cambridge University Press.
2007 [1991]. People, States and Fear. Colchester: ECPR Press.
2009. ‘The Middle East Through English School Theory’. In Buzan and
Gonzalez-Pelaez 2009, pp. 24–44.
2010a. ‘Conceptualising Regional International Society in Asia’. Mimeo.
2010b. ‘Culture and International Society’, International Affairs 86 (1): 1–26.
2012. ‘How Regions Were Made, and the Legacies of That Process for World
Politics’. In T. V. Paul, ed., When Regions Transform: Theories of Change in
World Politics. Cambridge University Press, pp. 22–46.
Buzan, B. and Gonzalez-Peraez, A. 2009a. ‘Conclusions’. In Buzan and
Gonzalez-Pelaez 2009b, pp. 226–50.
eds. 2009b. International Society and the Middle East. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Buzan, B. and Little, R. 2000. International Systems in World History: Remaking the
Study of International Relations. Oxford University Press.
2010. ‘The Historical Expansion of International Society’. In R. Denemark, ed.,
International Studies Encyclopedia, DOI: 10.1111/b.9781444336597.2010.x.
Buzan, B. and Wæver, O. 2003. Regions and Powers. Cambridge University Press.
Caballero-Anthony, M. 2008. ‘Challenging Change: Non-Traditional Security,
Democracy, and Regionalism’. In D. K. Emmerson, ed., Hard Choices.
Stanford, CA: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center,
pp. 191–217.
Callahan, W. A. 2010. China: The Pessoptimist Nation. Oxford University Press.
References 241
Carlson, A. 2011. ‘Moving Beyond Sovereignty: A Brief Consideration of Recent

Changes in China’s Approach to International Order and the Emergence of
the Tianxia Concept’, Journal of Contemporary China 20 (68): 89–102.
Case, W. 2002. Politics in Southeast Asia: Democracies or Less. Richmond, UK:
Curzon Press.
2009. ‘Low-Quality Democracy and Varied Authoritarianism: Elites and Regimes
in Southeast Asia Today’, Pacific Review 22 (3): 255–69.
Cerny, P. G. 1995. ‘Globalization and the Changing Logic of Collective Action’,
International Organization 49 (4): 595–625.
1997. ‘Paradoxes of the Competition State: The Dynamics of Political
Globalization’, Government and Opposition 32 (2): 251–74.
Cha, V. 2011. ‘Complex Patchworks: US Alliances as Part of Asia’s Regional
Architecture’, Asia Policy 11: 27–50.
Chan, H.-C. 2006. ‘China and ASEAN: A Growing Relationship’, Speech at the
Asia Society Texas Annual Ambassadors’ Forum and Corporate Conference,
Houston, TX, 3 Feb.
Chang, H.-J. 2002. Kicking away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical
Perspective. London: Anthem Books.
Chang, Y.-T., Chu, Y.-H. and Park, C.-M. 2009. ‘Authoritarian Nostalgia’,
Journal of Democracy 18(3): 66–80.
Checkel, J. T. 2005. ‘International Institutions and Socialization in Europe:
Introduction and Framework’, International Organization 59 (4): 801–26.
Chen, J. 2008. ‘China and the Bandung Conference: Changing Perceptions and
Representation’. In S. S. Tan and A. Acharya, eds., Bandung Revisited: The
Legacy of the 1955 Asian–African Conference for International Order. National
University of Singapore Press, pp. 132–59.
China National Tourism Office, n.d. ‘China Tourism Statistics’, www.cnto.org/
chinastats.asp#Stats.
Christensen, T. J. 1999. ‘China, the US–Japan Alliance, and the Security
Dilemma in East Asia’, International Security 23 (4): 49–80.
Chu, S. 2007. ‘ASEAN+3 and East Asian Security Cooperation’. In Acharya and
Goh 2007, pp. 155–76.
Chu, Y.-H., Diamond, L., Nathan, A. and Shin, D. C. 2009. ‘Comparative
Perspectives on Democratic Legitimacy in East Asia’. In Y.-H. Chu,
L. Diamond, A. J. Nathan and D. C. Shin, eds., How East Asians View
Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 1–38.
Clark, I. 1999. Globalization and International Relations Theory. Oxford University
Press.
2005. Legitimacy in International Society. Oxford University Press.
2007. International Legitimacy and World Society. Oxford University Press.
2009a. ‘Bringing Hegemony Back In: The United States and International
Order’, International Affairs 85 (1): 23–36.
2009b. ‘Towards an English School Theory of Hegemony’, European Journal of
International Relations 15 (2): 203–28.
2011a. ‘China and the United States: A Succession of Hegemonies?’, International
Affairs 87 (1): 13–28.
2011b. Hegemony in International Society. Oxford University Press.
242 References
Clissold, T. 2005. Mr China. New York: Harper Business.

Collier, R. B. and Collier, D. 1991. Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures,
the Labor Movement and Regime Dynamics in Latin America. Princeton
University Press.
Conroy, H. 1960. The Japanese Seizure of Korea, 1868–1910: A Study of Realism and
Idealism in International Relations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Crossley, P. K. 1997. ‘Review of Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual
and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 by James L. Hevia’, Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies 57 (2): 597–611.
1999. A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
2010. The Wobbling Pivot: China Since 1800. An Interpretive History. Malden,
MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Cui, L., Shu, C. and Su, X. 2009. ‘How Much Do Exports Matter for China’s
Growth?’, China Economic Issues 1. Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Cui, L. and Syed, M. 2007. ‘The Shifting Structure of China’s Trade and
Production’, IMF Working Paper, WP/07/214.
Cui, M. 2007. Zhongguo Gudai Heqin Tongshi. Beijing: People’s Press.
Cumings, B. 1997. ‘Japan and Northeast Asia into the Twenty-First Century’. In
Katzenstein and Shiraishi 1997b, pp. 136–68.
1999. ‘Webs with No Spiders, Spiders with No Webs: The Genealogy of the
Developmental State’. In Woo-Cumings 1999, pp. 61–92.
Danyluk, B., Macdonald, J. and Tuggle, R. 2004. ‘Energy Futures in Asia:
Perspectives on India’s Energy Security and Policies’, Report prepared by
Booz Allen Hamilton for Director of Net Assessment, US Department of
Defense.
Dées, S. and Vansteenkiste, I. 2007. ‘The Transmission of US Cyclical
Developments to the Rest of the World’, European Central Bank Working
Paper Series, No. 798, www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp798.pdf.
Dellios, R. 2003. ‘Mandala: From Sacred Origins to Sovereign Affairs in
Traditional Southeast Asia’. CEWCES Research Papers, Paper 8, works.
bepress.com/rosita_dellios/3.
Deng, Y. 2008. China’s Struggle for Status: The Realignment of International
Relations. Cambridge University Press.
Dent, C., ed. 2008. East Asian Regionalism. London: Routledge.
Dewitt, D. 1994. ‘Common, Comprehensive, and Cooperative Security’,
Contemporary Southeast Asia 71: 1–15.
Di Cosmo, N. 2003. ‘Kirghiz Nomads on the Qing Frontier: Tribute, Trade, or
Gift-Exchange?’. In Di Cosmo and Wyatt 2003, pp. 351–72.
Di Cosmo, N. and Wyatt, D. J., eds. 2003. Political Frontiers, Ethnic Boundaries,
and Human Geographies in Chinese History. London: Curzon Press.
Dicken, P. 2011. Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the Global
Economy, 6th edn. New York: Guilford Press.
Diez, T. and Whitman, R. 2002. ‘Analyzing European Integration: Reflecting on
the English School – Scenarios for an Encounter’, Journal of Common Market
Studies 40 (1): 43–67.
References 243
Dosch, J. 2008. ‘ASEAN’s Reluctant Liberal Turn’, Pacific Review 214: 527–45.
Dudden, A. 1998. ‘International Terms: Japan’s Engagement in Colonial
Control’, University of Chicago, unpublished PhD thesis.
Duncan, J. 2002. ‘The Uses of Confucianism in Modern Korea’. In B. A. Elman,
J. B. Duncan and H. Ooms, eds., Rethinking Confucianism: Past and Present in
China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Asia Institute, University of California,
Los Angeles. pp. 431–62.
Duran, P. 1936. ‘Firipin ni okeru dai ajia shugi und?’, Dai ajia shugi 44: 35–8.
Elliott, M. C. 2001. The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late
Imperial China. Stanford University Press.
2009. Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World. New York: Longman.
Elson, R. 1992. ‘International Commerce, the State and Society: Economic and
Social Change’. In N. Tarling, ed., The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia,
vol. II, part I. Cambridge University Press, pp. 131–95.
Emmers, R. 2003. Cooperative Security and the Balance of Power in ASEAN and the
ARF. London: Routledge Curzon.
Emmers, R. and Ravenhill, J. 2011. ‘The Asian and Global Financial Crises:
Consequences for East Asian Regionalism’, Contemporary Politics 17 (2):
133–49.
Emmerson, D. 1996. ‘Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore: A Regional Security
Core?’ In R. Ellings and S. Simon, eds., Southeast Asia in the New Millennium.
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, pp. 34–88.
Ernst, D. and Ravenhill, J. 2000. ‘Convergence and Diversity: How Globalisation
Reshapes Asian Production Networks’. In M. Borrus, ed., International
Production Networks in Asia: Rivalry or Riches? London: Routledge,
pp. 226–56.
Eskildsen, R. 2002. ‘Of Civilization and Savages: The Mimetic Imperialism of
Japan’s 1874 Expedition to Taiwan’, American Historical Review 107 (2):
388–418.
Evans, P. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation.
Princeton University Press.
2005. ‘Between Regionalism and Regionalization: Policy Networks and the
Nascent East Asian Identity’. In Pempel 2005b, pp. 195–215.
Fairbank, J. K. 1942. ‘Tributary Trade and China’s Relations with the West’, The
Far Eastern Quarterly 1 (2): 129–49.
1953. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports,
1842–1854. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
ed. 1968. The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fairbank, J. K. and Teng, S. Y. 1941. ‘On the Ch’ing Tributary System’, Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies 6 (2): 135–246.
Fan, G. 2000. ‘论体制转轨的动态过程 Lun Tizhi Zhuangui de Dongtai
Guocheng’, Jingji Yanjiu: 11–21.
Feigenbaum, E. and Manning, R. 2012. ‘A Tale of Two Asias’, Foreign Policy,
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/30/a_tale_of_two_asias.
Finnegan, M. 2009. ‘Managing Unmet Expectations in the US–Japan Alliance’,
NBR Special Report, 17.
244 References
Finnemore, M. 2001. ‘Exporting the English School?’, Review of International

Studies 27 (3): 509–13.
Fletcher, J. F. 1968. ‘China and Central Asia, 1368–1884’. In Fairbank 1968,
pp. 206–24.
Foot, R. 1997. ‘Human Rights, Democracy and Development: The Debate in
East Asia’, Democratization 4 (2): 139–53.
1998. ‘China in the ASEAN Regional Forum: Organizational Processes and
Domestic Modes of Thought’, Asian Survey 38 (5): 425–40.
2001. ‘Chinese Power and the Idea of a Responsible State’. In Y. Zhang and
G. Austin, eds., Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy. Canberra:
Asia Pacific Press, pp. 21–47.
2011. ‘The Responsibility to Protect R2P and Its Evolution: Beijing’s Influence on
Norm Creation in Humanitarian Areas’, St Antony’s International Review 6 (2):
47–66.
Frank, A. G. 1998. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Franke, H. 1983. ‘Sung Embassies: Some General Observations’. In Rossabi
1983, pp. 116–48.
Friedberg, A. 1993–4. ‘Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in a Multipolar Asia’,
International Security 18 (3): 5–33.
2011. A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in
Asia. New York: W. W. Norton.
Friedman, T. L. 2005. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.
New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Fukuzawa, Y. 2001. Bunmeiron no gairyaku. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.
Funabashi, Y. 1995. Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC. Washington, DC:
Institute for International Economics.
Gallagher, M. 2002. ‘“Reform and Openness”: Why China’s Economic Reforms
Have Delayed Democracy’, World Politics 54 (3): 338–72.
Gao, M. 2008. Tianxia Zhixu yu Wenhuaquan de Tansuo – yi Dongya Gudai de
Zhengzhi yu Jiaoyu wei Zhongxin. Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Gereffi, G., Humphrey, J. and Sturgeon, T. J. 2005. ‘The Governance of Global
Value Chains’, Review of International Political Economy 121: 78–104.
Gerschenkron, A. 1966. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Gill, B. and Green, M. J. 2009. ‘Unbundling Asia’s New Multilateralism’. In
M. Green and B. Gill, eds., Asia’s New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition,
and the Search for Community. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 1–29.
Glaser, B. and Medeiros, E. 2007. ‘The Changing Ecology of Foreign Policy-
Making in China: The Ascension and Demise of the Theory of “Peaceful
Rise”’, China Quarterly 190 (1): 291–310.
Glaser, C. 2011. ‘Will China’s Rise Lead to War? Why Realism Does Not Mean
Pessimism’, Foreign Affairs 90 (2): 80–91.
Global Times 2011. ‘Thai–Cambodia Dispute Seeks ICJ Resolution, Sidelines
ASEAN’, 2 Jun.
Glosny, M. A. and Saunders, P. C. 2010. ‘Correspondence: Debating China’s
Naval Nationalism’, International Security 35 (2): 161–9.
References 245
Gluck, C. 1985. Japan’s Modern Myths. Princeton University Press.

Goh, E. 2007/8. ‘Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast
Asia: Analyzing Regional Security Strategies’, International Security 32 (3):
113–57.
2008. ‘Hierarchy and the Role of the United States in the East Asian Security
Order’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 8 (3): 353–77.
2011a. ‘How Japan Is Crucial to Asian Security’, International Affairs 87 (4):
887–902.
2011b. ‘Institutions and the Great Power Bargain in East Asia: ASEAN’s
Limited Brokerage Role’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 11 (3):
373–401.
2011c. ‘Rising Power . . . To Do What? Evaluating China’s Power in Southeast
Asia’, RSIS Working Paper No. 226. S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Goh, E. and Acharya, A. 2007. ‘Introduction’. In Acharya and Goh 2007, pp. 1–17.
Goldsmith, B. 2007. ‘A Liberal Peace in Asia?’, Journal of Peace Research 445: 5–27.
Goldstein, S. M. 1994. ‘Nationalism and Internationalism: Sino-Soviet
Relations’. In T. Robinson and D. Shambaugh, eds., Chinese Foreign Policy:
Theory and Practice. Oxford University Press, pp. 224–65.
Gong, G. W. 1984. The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Gourevitch, P. 1978. ‘Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of
Domestic Politics’, International Organization 32 (4): 881–912.
Government of Japan. 2010. ‘Summary of National Defence Programme
Guidelines for FY2011 and Beyond’, www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/kakugikettei/
2010/summary_ndpg_e.pdf.
Green, M. J. 2003. Japan’s Reluctant Realism: Foreign Policy Challenges in an Era of
Uncertain Power. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gries, P. H. 2004. China’s New Nationalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2005. ‘The Koguryo Controversy, National Identity, and Sino-Korean
Relations Today’, East Asia 22 (4): 3–17.
Grimes, W. W. 2009. Currency and Contest in East Asia: The Great Power Politics of
Financial Regionalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2011. ‘The Asian Monetary Fund Reborn? Implication of Chiang Mai Initiative
Multilateralization’, Asia Policy 11: 79–104.
Haacke, J. 2003. ASEAN’s Diplomatic and Security Culture: Origins, Developments
and Prospects. London: Routledge Curzon.
2009. ‘The ASEAN Regional Forum: From Dialogue to Practical Security
Cooperation?’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 22 (3): 427–49.
Haggard, S. 1990. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly
Industrialising Countries. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2004. ‘Institutions and Economic Growth in East Asia’, Studies in Comparative
International Development 38 (4): 53–81.
Haggard, S., Kang, D. C. and Moon, C.-I. 1997. ‘Japanese Colonialism and
Korean Development’, World Development 25 (6): 867–81.
Hall, E. and Hall, M. 1990. Hidden Differences: Doing Business with the Japanese.
New York: Anchor.
246 References
Hall, P. A. and Soskice, D., eds. 2001. Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional
Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford University Press.
Halper, S. 2010. The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will
Dominate the Twenty-First Century. New York: Basic Books.
Hamashita, T. 2008. China, East Asia and the Global Economy: Regional and
Historical Perspectives. Edited by L. Grove and M. Selden. London:
Routledge.
Han, S. 2009. Dongya Shijie Xingcheng Shilun. Shanghai: Fudan University Press.
Hatano, Sumio. 1995. ‘Shigemitsu Mamoru to daitōa kyōdō sengen’, Kokusai seiji
109: 38–53.
Hatch, W. and Yamamura, K. 1996. Asia in Japan’s Embrace: Building a Regional
Production Alliance. Cambridge University Press.
He, Y. 2009. The Search for Reconciliation: Sino-Japanese and German–Polish Relations
Since World War II. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Henderson, J., Dicken, P., Hess, M., Coe, N. M. and Yeung, H. W.-C. 2002.
‘Global Production Networks and the Analysis of Economic Development’,
Review of International Political Economy 93: 436–64.
Hevia, J. L. 1995. Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney
Embassy of 1793. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press.
2009. ‘Tribute, Asymmetry, and Imperial Formations: Rethinking Relations of
Power in East Asia’, Journal of American-East Asian Relations 16 (1–2): 69–83.
Higgot, R. 2007. ‘The Theory and Practice of East Asian Regionalism: Peter
Katzenstein’s Value Added’, Journal of East Asian Studies 7 (3): 378–87.
Ho, D. Y.-F. 1976. ‘On the Concept of Face’, American Journal of Sociology 81 (4):
867–84.
Ho, P.-T. 1998. ‘In Defense of Sinicization: A Rebuttal of Evelyn Rawski’s
“Reenvisioning the Qing”’, Journal of Asian Studies 57 (1): 123–55.
Hobson, J. M. 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge
University Press.
2012. ‘A Non-Eurocentric Global History of Asia’. In M. Beeson and
R. Stubbs, eds., Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism. Abingdon, UK:
Hodgson, J. D., Sano, Y. and Graham, J. 2007. Doing Business with the New Japan:
Succeeding in America’s Richest International Market. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Hollingsworth, J. R. and Boyer, R., eds. 1997. Contemporary Capitalism: The
Embeddedness of Institutions. Cambridge University Press.
Howard, M. 1989. ‘Ideology and International Relations’, Review of International
Studies 15 (1): 1–10.
Hu, H. C. 1944. ‘The Chinese Concept of “Face”’, American Anthropologist 46 (1):
45–64.
Huang, S. 2008. Zhongguo Gudai Fanshu Zhidu Yanjiu. Changchun: Jilin Renmin
Chubanshe.
Huang, Y. 2010. ‘Debating China’s Economic Growth: The Beijing Consensus or
the Washington Consensus’, Academy of Management Perspectives 24 (2): 31–47.
Hughes, C. R. 1997. ‘Globalization and Nationalism: Squaring the Circle in
Chinese IR Theory’, Millennium 26 (1): 103–24.
References 247
Hughes, C. W. 1999. ‘Japanese Policy and the East Asian Currency Crisis: Abject
Defeat or Quiet Victory?’, University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of
Globalisation and Regionalisation Working Paper No. 24.
2009a. Japan’s Remilitarisation. London: Routledge.
2009b. ‘Japan’s Response to China’s Rise: Regional Engagement, Global
Containment, Dangers of Collision’, International Affairs 85 (4): 837–56.
Hughes, C. W. and Krauss, E. 2007. ‘Japan’s New Security Agenda’, Survival 49
(2): 157–76.
Hui, V. T.-B. 2005. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern
Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Human Security Report Project. 2009/10. ‘Trends in Reported Battle Deaths
from State-Based Armed Conflicts by Region, 1946–2008, and Trends in
Reported Battle Deaths from State-Based Armed Conflict: East Asia Versus
the Rest of the World, 1946–2008’, www.hsrgroup.org/human-security-
reports/20092010/graphs-and-tables.aspx.
Hung, H.-F. 2011. Protest with Chinese Characteristics: Demonstrations, Riots, and
Petitions in the Mid-Qing Dynasty. New York: Columbia University Press.
Huntington, S. H. 1992. ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs 72: 22–39.
1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
Hurrell, A. 1994. ‘Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective’. In L. Fawcett and
A. Hurrell, eds., Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and
International Order. Oxford University Press, pp. 37–73.
2006. ‘Hegemony, Liberalism and Global Order: What Space for Would-Be
Great Powers?’, International Affairs 82 (1): 1–19.
2007a. On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International
Society. Oxford University Press.
2007b. ‘One World? Many Worlds? The Place of Regions in the Study of
International Society’, International Affairs 83 (1): 127–46.
Hutchcroft, P. D. 1998. Booty Capitalism: The Politics of Banking in the Philippines.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2002. ‘Colonial Masters, National Politicos, and Provincial Lords: Central
Authority and Local Autonomy in the American Philippines, 1900–1913’,
Journal of Asian Studies 59 (2): 277–306.
Ikenberry, G. J. and Mastanduno, M., eds. 2003a. International Relations Theory
and the Asia-Pacific. New York: Columbia University Press.
2003b. ‘Introduction: International Relations Theory and the Search for
Regional Stability’. In Ikenberry and Mastanduno 2003a, pp. 1–21.
IMF (International Monetary Fund). 2007. ‘Decoupling the Train? Spillovers and
Cycles in the Global Economy’. In International Monetary Fund, World
Economy Outlook. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, pp. 121–60.
Institute for International Education. 2008. Open Doors: Report 2008, www.iie.org/
en/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors.
Iwata, M. 1964. Okubo Toshimichi: The Bismarck of Japan. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Jackson, R. 1990. Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third
World. Cambridge University Press.
248 References
Jacques, M. 2009. When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and
the End of the Western World. New York: Penguin.
Jansen, M. B. 1954. The Japanese and Sun Yat-sen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Jayasuriya, K. 1994. ‘Singapore: The Politics of Regional Definition’, Pacific
Review 7 (4): 411–20.
Jervis, R. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton
University Press.
Job, B. 1992. The (In)Security Dilemma: The National Security of Third World States.
Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Johnson, C. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industry Policy
1925–1975. Stanford University Press.
1998. ‘Economic Crisis in East Asia: The Clash of Capitalisms’, Cambridge
Journal of Economics 22 (6): 653–61.
1999. ‘The Developmental State: Odyssey of a Concept’. In Woo-Cumings
1999, pp. 32–60.
Johnston, A. I. 2003. ‘Socialization in International Institutions: The ASEAN
Way and International Relations Theory’. In Ikenberry and Mastanduno
2003a, pp. 107–62.
2008. Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980–2000. Princeton
University Press.
2012. ‘What (If Anything) Does East Asia Tell Us About International
Relations Theory?’, Annual Review of Political Science 15: 53–78.
Jomo, K. S. 2004. ‘Southeast Asian Development in Comparative East Asian
Perspective’. In Low 2004, pp. 57–77.
Jones, C. A. 2007. American Civilization. London: Institute for the Study of the
Americas.
Jones, D. M. 2008. ‘Toward Relative Decency: The Case for Prudence’. In
D. K. Emmerson, ed., Hard Choices: Security, Democracy, and Regionalism in
Southeast Asia. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford
University, pp. 265–91.
Jones, D. M. and Smith, M. L. R. 2007. ‘Making Process, Not Progress: ASEAN and
the Evolving East Asian Regional Order’, International Security 32(1): 148–84.
Jones, L. 2009. ‘ASEAN Intervention in Cambodia: From Cold War to
Conditionality’, Pacific Review 20 (4): 523–50.
2012. ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Kahin, G. and Lewis, J. 1967. The United States and Vietnam. New York: Dial
Press.
Kan, S. 2010. ‘US–China Military Contacts: Issues for Congress’, Congressional
Research Service report for Congress, www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32496.pdf.
Kang, D. C. 2002. Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea
and the Philippines. Cambridge University Press.
2003. ‘Getting Asia Wrong: The Need for New Analytic Frameworks’,
2007. China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia. New York: Columbia
University Press.
References 249
2010. East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Kaplinsky, R. and Messner, D. 2008. ‘Introduction: The Impact of Asian Drivers
on the Developing World’, World Development 362: 197–209.
Katz, R. 1998. Japan: The System That Soured. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Katzenstein, P. 1996. ‘Regionalism in Comparative Perspective’, Cooperation and
Conflict 31 (2): 123–59.
2005. A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium. Ithaca, NY:
ed. 2009. Civilizations in World Politics. London: Routledge.
ed. 2012. Sinicization and the Rise of China: Civilizational Processes Beyond East
and West. London: Routledge.
Katzenstein, P. and Shiraishi, T. 1997a. ‘Conclusion: Regions in World Politics,
Japan and Asia – Germany in Europe’. In Katzenstein and Shiraishi 1997b,
pp. 341–80.
eds. 1997b. Network Power: Japan and Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
eds. 2006. Beyond Japan: Dynamics of East Asian Regionalism. Ithaca, NY:
Keene, E. 2002. Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in
World Politics. Cambridge University Press.
Kelke, W. H. H. 1896. ‘Feudal Suzerains and Modern Suzerainty’, Law Quarterly
Review 47: 215–27.
Kelley, L. 2003. ‘Vietnam as a “Domain of Manifest Civility”, Van Hien chi
Bang’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34 (1): 63–76.
2005. Beyond the Bronze Pillars: Envoy Poetry and the Sino-Vietnamese Relationship.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Kelly, P. F. 2002. ‘Spaces of Labour Control: Comparative Perspectives
from Southeast Asia’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 274:
395–411.
Kelly, R. 2011. ‘A “Confucian Long Peace” in Pre-Western East Asia?’, European
Journal of International Relations (July): 1–24.
Keohane, R. O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political
Economy. Princeton University Press.
Khong, Y. F. 1999. ‘Singapore: A Time for Economic and Political Engagement’.
In A. I. Johnston and R. S. Ross, eds., Engaging China: The Management of an
Emerging Power. London: Routledge, pp. 109–28.
2004. ‘Coping with Strategic Uncertainty: Institutions and Soft Balancing
in ASEAN’s Post-Cold War Strategy’. In P. J. Katzenstein, A. Carlson and
J. J. Suh, eds., Rethinking Security in East Asia. Stanford University Press,
pp. 172–208.
2013/14. ‘Primacy or World Order: The United States and China’s Rise’,
Khong, Y. F. and Nesadurai, H. E. S. 2007. ‘Hanging Together: Institutional
Design, and Cooperation in Southeast Asia’. In Acharya and Johnston 2007b,
pp. 32–82.
Kim, D.-J. 1994. ‘Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia’s Anti-Democratic
Values’, Foreign Affairs 73 (6): 189–201.
250 References
Kitaoka, S. 2010. ‘A Look Back on the Work of the Joint Japanese–Chinese

History Research Committee’, Asia-Pacific Review 17 (1): 6–20.
Kivimäki, T. 2001. ‘The Long Peace of ASEAN’, Journal of Peace Research 381:
5–25.
2011. ‘The East Asian Relative Peace and the ASEAN Way’, International
Relations of the Asia Pacific 11: 57–85.
Kohli, A. 2004. State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in
the Global Periphery. Cambridge University Press.
Koschmann, J. V. 1997. ‘Asianism’s Ambivalent Legacy’. In Katzenstein and
Shiraishi 1997b, pp. 83–110.
Krasner, S. D. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton University Press.
Kuhn, D. 2009. The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Kuhonta, E. M. 2006. ‘Walking a Tightrope: Democracy Versus Sovereignty in
ASEAN’s Illiberal Peace’, Pacific Review 193: 337–58.
2008. ‘Studying States’. In E. M. Kuhonta, D. Slater and T. Vu, eds., Southeast
Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region, and Qualitative Analysis. Stanford
University Press, pp. 30–54.
Kuhonta, E. M., Slater, D. and Vu, T. 2008. ‘Introduction’. In E. M. Kuhonta,
D. Slater and T. Vu, eds., Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region,
and Qualitative Analysis. Stanford University Press, pp. 1–29.
Kuik, C.-C. 2008. ‘The Essence of Hedging: Malaysia and Singapore’s Response
to a Rising China’, Contemporary Southeast Asia 30 (2): 159–85.
Kupchan, C. 1998. ‘After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and
the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity’, International Security 23 (2): 40–79.
Lake, D. A. 2009. Hierarchy in International Relations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Lam, T. B. 1968. ‘Intervention Versus Tribute in Sino-Vietnamese Relations,
1788–1790’. In Fairbank 1968, pp. 165–79.
Latham, R. 1997. The Liberal Moment: Modernity, Security, and the Making of
Postwar International Order. New York: Columbia University Press.
Layne, C. 2006. The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the
Present. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Lee, Y. W. 2006. ‘Japan and the Asian Monetary Fund: An Identity–Intention
Approach’, International Studies Quarterly 50 (2): 339–66.
Leftwich, A. 1995. ‘Bringing Politics Back In: Towards a Model of the
Developmental State’, Journal of Development Studies 31 (3): 400–27.
2000. States of Development: On the Primacy of Politics in Development. Oxford:
Polity Press.
Leifer, M. 1983. Indonesia’s Foreign Policy. Canberra: Allen & Unwin.
1996. ‘The ASEAN Regional Forum: Extending ASEAN’s Model of Regional
Security’, International Institute for Strategic Studies Adelphi Paper, 302.
Oxford University Press.
Lemke, D. 2003. ‘African Lessons for International Relations Research’, World
Politics 56 (1): 114–38.
Lewis, M. E. 2007. The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han. Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
References 251
2009a. China Between Empires: The Northern and Southern Dynasties. Cambridge,
MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
2009b. China’s Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty. Cambridge, MA:
Li, D. 2006. Hantang Fanshu Tizhi Yanjiu. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue
chubanshe.
Li, M. 2009. ‘China and Asian Regionalism: Pragmatism Hinders Leadership’,
RSIS Working Paper No. 179. S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, Nanyan Technological University, Singapore.
Li, Y. 2004. Chaogong Zhidu Shilun – Zhongguo Gudai Duiwai Guanxi Tizhi Yanjiu.
Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe.
Lin, H.-T. 2009. ‘The Tributary System in China’s Historical Imagination:
China and Hunza, c. 1760–1960’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 19 (4):
489–507.
Linklater, A. and Suganami, H. 2006. The English School of International Relations:
A Contemporary Reassessment. Cambridge University Press.
Lipscy, Phillip Y. 2003. ‘Japan’s Asian Monetary Fund Proposal’, Stanford Journal
of East Asian Affairs 3 (1): 93–104.
Little, R. 2000. ‘The English School’s Contribution to the Study of
International Relations’, European Journal of International Relations 6:
395–422.
2007. The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and
Models. Cambridge University Press.
Low, L., ed. 2004. Developmental States: Relevancy or Reconfiguration? New York:
Nova Science Publishers.
Maddison, A. 2007. Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD. Oxford University
Press.
Mansfield, E. D. and Milner, H. V. 1999. ‘The New Wave of Regionalism’,
International Organization 53 (3): 589–627.
Mao, H. 2005. Tianchao de Bengkui: Yapian Zhanzheng zai Yanjiu. Beijing:
Sanlian shudian.
Mastanduno, M. 2009. ‘The United States: Regional Strategies and Global
Commitments’. In W. Tow, ed., Security Politics in the Asia-Pacific:
A Regional–Global Nexus? Cambridge University Press, pp. 67–84.
Matsui, Y. 2004. ‘Gurōbaruka suru sekai ni okeru “fuhen” to “chiiki”: “daitōa
kyōeiken” ron ni okeru fuhenshugi hihan no hihanteki kentō’, Kokusaihō
gaikō zasshi 102 (4): 1–22.
Mattlin, M. 2009. ‘Chinese Strategic State-Owned Enterprises and Ownership
Control’, Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies Asia Paper,
4(6),www.vub.ac.be/biccs/site/assets/files/apapers/Asia%20papers/Asia%
20Paper%204(6).pdf.
Mayall, J. 1991. ‘Non-Intervention, Self-Determination, and the New World
Order’, International Affairs 673: 421–29.
McGregor, J. 2005. One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing
Business in China. New York: Free Press.
Mearsheimer, J. J. 2010. ‘The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power
in Asia’, Chinese Journal of International Politics 3 (4): 381–96.
252 References
Merke, F. 2011. ‘The Primary Institutions of Latin American Regional Interstate

Society’, Paper for IDEAS Latin America Programme, London School of
Economics.
Midford, P. 2004. ‘China Views the Revised US–Japan Guidelines: Popping the
Cork?’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 4: 113–45.
Millward, J. A. 1992. ‘Qing Silk-Horse Trade with the Qazaqs in Yili and
Tarbaghatai, 1758–1853’, Central and Inner Asian Studies 7: 1–42.
1998. Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia,
1759–1864. Stanford University Press.
2007. Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan. 1995. ‘National Defence Programme Outline
in and After FY1996’, www.mofa.go.jp/policy/security/defense96/index.
html.
Morris, I. 2010. Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History and What
They Reveal About the Future. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.
Narine, S. 2002. Explaining ASEAN: Regionalism in Southeast Asia. Boulder: Lynne
Rienner Publishers.
2004. ‘State Sovereignty, Political Legitimacy, and Regional Institutionalism in
the Asia-Pacific’, Pacific Review 173: 423–50.
Nesadurai, H. E. 2003. Globalisation, Domestic Politics and Regionalism: The
ASEAN Free Trade Area. London: Routledge.
Neumann, I. B. 1999. Uses of the Other: ‘The East’ in European Identity Formation.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
2011. ‘Entry into International Society Reconceptualized: The Case of Russia’,
Review of International Studies 37 (2): 463–84.
Neumann, I. B. and Welsh, J. 1991. ‘The Other in European Self-Definition: An
Addendum to the Literature on International Society’, Review of International
Studies 17 (4): 327–48.
New York Times. 2011. ‘US and China Defense Chiefs Agree to Keep Talking’,
10 Jan., www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/world/asia/11military.html?_r=0.
Norrlof, C. 2010. America’s Global Advantage: US Hegemony and International
Cooperation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
O’Brien, R. and Williams, M. 2007. Global Political Economy: Evolution and
Dynamics. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Ōkawa, S. 1922. Fukkō ajia no shomondai. Tokyo: Daitōkaku.
Ozawa, T. 2009. The Rise of Asia: The ‘Flying Geese’ Theory of Tandem Growth and
Regional Agglomeration. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Paine, S. C. M. 2003. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power and
Primacy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Park, E. 2006. ‘War and Peace in Premodern Korea: Institutional and Ideological
Dimensions’. In Y.-K. Kim-Renaud, R. Grinker and K. W. Larsen, eds., The
Military and Korean Society, Sigur Centre Asia Papers, 26: 1–14. Washington,
DC: George Washington University Press.
Park, S.-H. 2009. ‘The Language of Sovereign-Nationalism in Japanese and
Korean Security’, Paper presented at the International Studies Association
Annual Convention, New York, 15–19 Feb.
References 253
Paul, T. V. 2010. South Asia’s Weak States: Understanding the Regional Insecurity
Predicament. Stanford University Press.
Pempel, T. J. 2005a. ‘Introduction: Emerging Webs of Regional Connectedness’.
In Pempel 2005b, pp. 1–29.
ed. 2005b. Remapping East Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
2010. ‘Soft Balancing, Hedging, and Institutional Darwinism: The Economic–
Security Nexus and East Asian Regionalism’, Journal of East Asian Studies
102: 209–38.
Peng, D. 2002. ‘Invisible Linkages: A Regional Perspective of East Asian Political
Economy’, International Studies Quarterly 46 (3): 423–47.
Perdue, P. C. 2003. ‘A Frontier View of Chineseness’. In G. Arrighi, T. Hamashita
and M. Selden, eds., The Resurgence of East Asia: 500-, 150- and 50-Year
Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 51–77.
2005. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge,
MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
2009. ‘China and Other Colonial Empires’, Journal of American–East Asian
Relations 16 (1–2): 85–103.
Perry, E. 2008. ‘Chinese Conceptions of “Rights”: From Mencius to Mao – and
Now’, Perspectives on Politics 6: 37–50.
Perry, J. 1966. ‘Great Britain and the Emergence of Japan as a Naval Power’,
Monumenta Nipponica 21 (3/4): 305–21.
Perry, W. H. 1995. ‘US Strategy: Engage China, Not Contain It’, Remarks as
delivered by Secretary of Defense William H. Perry to the Washington State
China Relations Council, Seattle, 30 Oct.
Pilling, D. 2010. ‘Why China and Japan Are Oceans Apart’, Financial Times, 11 Nov.,
presscuttings.ft.com/presscuttings/s/3/articleText/41489857#axzz31IjpXgep.
Polanyi, K. 1957. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of
Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press.
Pomfret, J. 2010. ‘Clinton Wades into South China Sea Territorial Dispute’,
Washington Post, 23 Jul.
Prestowitz, C. 1993. Trading Places: How We Are Giving Our Future to Japan and
How to Reclaim It. New York: Basic Books.
Pu, X. 2012. ‘Socialisation as a Two-Way Process: Emerging Powers and
Diffusion of International Norms’, Chinese Journal of International Politics
5 (4): 341–67.
Pula, G. and Peltonen, T. 2009. ‘Has Emerging Asia Decoupled? An Analysis of
Production and Trade Linkages Using the Asian International Input–Output
Table’, European Central Bank Working Paper Series, 993, www.ecb.
europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp993.pdf.
Qin, Y. 2010. ‘International Society as Process: Institutions, Identities,
and China’s Peaceful Rise’, Chinese Journal of International Politics 3:
129–53.
Rasiah, R. 2010. ‘Industrialization in the Second-Tier NIEs’. In R. Rasiah and
J. D. Schmidt, eds., The New Political Economy of Southeast Asia. Cheltenham,
UK: Edward Elgar, pp. 44–102.
Ravenhill, J. 2001. APEC and the Construction of Pacific Rim Regionalism. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
254 References
Reid, A. 1999. ‘Economic and Social Change’. In N. Tarling, ed., The Cambridge
History of Southeast Asia, vol. I, part II. Cambridge University Press, pp. 116–63.
2005. ‘Aceh Reflects New Thinking in Asia’, Straits Times, 23 Aug.: 17.
Reilly, B. 2002. ‘Internal Conflict and Regional Security in Asia and the Pacific’,
Pacific Review 14 (1): 7–21.
2007. ‘Political Engineering in the Asia-Pacific’, Journal of Democracy 18 (1):
58–72.
Ren, X. 2009. ‘Between Adapting and Shaping: China’s Role in Asian Regional
Cooperation’, Journal of Contemporary China 18 (59): 303–20.
2010. ‘Traditional Chinese Theory and Practice of Foreign Relations: A
Reassessment’. In Y. Zheng, ed., China and International Relations: The Chinese
View and the Contribution of Wang Gungwu. London: Routledge, pp. 102–16.
Reus-Smit, C. 1997. ‘The Constitutional Structures of International Society and
the Nature of Fundamental Institutions’, International Organization 51 (4):
555–89.
1999. The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional
Rationality in International Relations. Princeton University Press.
2002. ‘Imagining Society: Constructivism and the English School’, British
Journal of Politics and International Relations 4 (3): 487–509.
Richardson, M. 2010. ‘Changing Tides to Watch in the South China Sea’, Straits
Times, 14 Jun.
Richardson, S. 2010. China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Coexistence. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Robinson, K. 2000. ‘Centering the King of Chosŏn: Aspects of Korean Maritime
Diplomacy, 1392–1592’, Journal of Asian Studies 59 (1): 109–25.
Robinson, T. 1969. ‘Peking’s Revolutionary Strategy in the Developing World:
The Failure of Success’, Annals of the American Political and Social Science 386:
64–77.
Rossabi, M., ed. 1983. China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors,
Tenth–Fourteenth Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2011. ‘Review of East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and
Tribute’, Political Science Quarterly 126 (3): 511–12.
Rowe, W. T. 2009. China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing. Cambridge, MA:
Ruggie, J. G. 1998. ‘What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism
and the Social Constructivist Challenge’, International Organization 52 (4):
855–85.
Ruigrok, W. and van Tulder, R. 1995. The Logic of International Restructuring.
London: Routledge.
Saaler, S. 2002. ‘Pan-Asianism in Meiji and Taisho Japan – A Preliminary
Framework’, Working Paper 2:4, Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien, Tokyo.
2007. ‘The Construction of Regionalism in Modern Japan: Kodera Kenkichi
and His “Treatise on Greater Asianism” 1916’, Modern Asian Studies 41(6):
1261–94.
Sakai, K. 2009. Kindai nippon gaikō to ajia taiheiyō chitsujo. Kyoto: Shōwadō.
Samuels, R. 2007. Securing Japan: Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East
Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
References 255
Satō, T. 1940. ‘Tōa kyōdōtai no rinen to jissen’, Dai ajia shugi 83: 11–15.
Schmid, A. 1997. ‘Rediscovering Manchuria: Sin Ch’aeho and the Politics of
Territorial History in Korea’, Journal of Asian Studies 56 (1): 26–46.
2002. Korea Between Empires, 1895–1919. New York: Columbia University Press.
Schwartz, H. M. 1994. States Versus Markets: History, Geography, and the
Development of the International Political Economy. New York: St Martin’s
Press.
Searight, A. 2010. ‘Special Assessment: Asian Regionalism. New Challenges,
New Vision, Pedestrian Progress’, Comparative Connections 12 (1).
Seldon, M. 2009. ‘East Asian Regionalism and Its Enemies in Three Epochs:
Political Economy and Geopolitics, Sixteenth to Twenty-First Centuries’,
Asia Pacific Journal.
Shambaugh, D. 2004/5. ‘China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order’,
Shepheard, W. P. B. 1899. ‘Suzerainty’, Journal of the Society of Comparative
Legislation 1 (3): 432–8.
Shiba, Y. 1983. ‘Sung Foreign Trade: Its Scope and Organization’. In Rossabi
1983, pp. 89–115.
Shimazu, N. 1989. ‘The Japanese Attempt to Secure Racial Equality in 1919’,
Japan Forum 1 (1): 93–100.
Shirk, S. 2007. China, Fragile Superpower: How Internal Politics Could Derail China’s
Peaceful Rise. Oxford University Press.
Sidel, J. T. 2008. ‘Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Revisited:
Colonial State and Chinese Immigrant in the Making of Modern Southeast
Asia’, Comparative Politics 40 (2): 122–47.
Simon, S. 2007. ‘Whither Security Regionalism? ASEAN and the ARF in the Face
of New Security Challenges’. In Acharya and Goh 2007, pp. 113–34.
SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). 2011. ‘Background
Paper on SIPRI Military Expenditure Data, 2010’. Stockholm: Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute.
Slater, D. 2011. ‘Southeast Asia’s Security and Political Outlook’. In
M. Montesano and Lee P. O., eds., Southeast Asia Outlook 2012–2013.
Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 3–9.
Soeya, Y. 1994. ‘The Evolution of Japanese Thinking and Policies on Cooperative
Security in the 1980s and 1990s’, Australian Journal of International Affairs
48 (1): 87–95.
2010. ‘An East Asian Community and Japan–China Relations’, www.jiia.or.jp/
en_commentary/201004/30–1.html.
Solingen, E. 2007. ‘Pax Asiatica Versus Bella Levantina: The Foundations of War
and Peace in East Asia and the Middle East’, American Political Science Review
101: 757–80.
2008. ‘The Genesis, Design and Effects of Regional Institutions: Lessons from
East Asia and the Middle East’, International Studies Quarterly 52 (2): 261–94.
2013. Comparative Regionalisms: Economics and Security. New York and London:
Routledge.
Spruyt, H. 1994. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors. Princeton University
Press.
256 References
Standen, N. 2003. ‘Raiding and Frontier Society in the Five Dynasties’. In Di

Cosmo and Wyatt 2003, pp. 160–91.
Straits Times. 2010. ‘China: Alert to Washington’s Rising Profile’, 17 Nov., www.
straitstimes.com/print/Asia/China/Story/STIStory_604047.html.
Stubbs, R. 1995. ‘Legitimacy and Economic Growth in Eastern Asia’. Eastern
Asia Policy Papers. New York and Ontario: University of Toronto–York
University.
1999. ‘War and Economic Development’, Comparative Politics 313: 337–55.
2002. ‘ASEAN Plus Three: Emerging East Asian Regionalism?’, Asian Survey
42 (3): 440–55.
2008. ‘The ASEAN Alternative: Ideas, Institutions and the Challenge to
“Global” Governance’, Pacific Review 214: 451–68.
2009. ‘Whatever Happened to the East Asian Developmental State? The
Unfolding Debate’, Pacific Review 22 (1): 1–22.
2011. ‘The East Asian Developmental State and the Great Recession: Evolving
Contesting Coalitions’, Contemporary Politics 17 (2): 151–66.
Sturgeon, T. J. 2002. ‘Modular Production Networks: A New American Model of
Industrial Organization’, Industrial and Corporate Change 113: 451–96.
Sturgeon, T. J. and Gereffi, G. 2009. ‘Measuring Success in the Global Economy:
International Trade, Industrial Upgrading, and Business Function
Outsourcing in Global Value Chains’, Transnational Corporations 182: 1–35.
Suetsugu, Y. 1940. ‘Sekaiteki dōran to kōkoku no shimei’, Dai ajia shugi 81: 2–9.
Sukma, R. 1999. Indonesia and China: The Politics of a Troubled Relationship.
London and New York: Routledge.
2011. ‘ASEAN’s Human Rights Agenda: Modest Beginning, Reasonable
Prospects – and How the West Can Help’, Asia Paper Series. Washington,
DC: German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Sun, Z. 1986. Sun Zhongshan Quanji, vol. XI. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.
Suzuki, S. 2007. ‘The Importance of “Othering” in China’s National Identity: Sino-
Japanese Relations as a Stage of Identity Conflicts’, Pacific Review 20 (1): 23–47.
2009. Civilization and Empire: China and Japan’s Encounter with European
International Society. London: Routledge.
Tabb, W. K. 1995. The Postwar Japanese System: Cultural Economy and Economic
Transformation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Takei, J. 1940. ‘Shin tōa kensetsu to nanpō seisaku’, Dai ajia shugi 82: 6–10.
Takekoshi, Y. 1996. Japanese Rule in Formosa. London: Longmans, Green and
Co., reprinted by Taipei: SMC Publishing.
Taylor, C. 1984. ‘Philosophy and Its History’. In R. Roty, J. B. Schneewind and
Q. Skinner, eds., Philosophy in History. Cambridge University Press, pp. 17–30.
Taylor, K. W. 1983. The Birth of Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1999. ‘The Early Kingdoms’. In N. Tarling, ed. The Cambridge History of
Southeast Asia: From Early Times to c. 1500, vol. I, part I, 2nd edn.
Cambridge University Press, pp. 137–69.
Terada, T. 2006. ‘Forming an East Asian Community: A Site for Japan–China
Power Struggles’, Japanese Studies 26 (1): 5–17.
2010. ‘The Origins of ASEAN+6 and Japan’s Initiatives’, Pacific Review 23 (1):
71–92.
References 257
Terada, T. and Ong, B. 2011. ‘Japan and Management of the Transatlantic Crisis:
International Responses and Domestic Struggles’, Contemporary Politics 172:
201–15.
Thompson, J. 2010. ‘Wilsonianism: The Dynamics of a Conflicted Concept’,
International Affairs 86 (1): 27–48.
Thurbon, E. 2001. ‘Two Paths to Financial Liberalisation: South Korea and
Taiwan’, Pacific Review 14 (2): 241–67.
Toby, R. 2001. ‘Rescuing the Nation from History: The State of the State in Early
Modern Japan’, Monumenta Nipponica 56 (2): 197–237.
Tønnesson, S. 2009. ‘What Is It That Best Explains the East Asian Peace Since
1979? A Call for a Research Agenda’, Asian Perspective 331: 111–36.
True, J. 2005. ‘Feminism’. In A. Bellamy, ed., International Society and Its Critics.
Oxford University Press, pp. 151–62.
Tsou, T. 1986. The Cultural Revolution and Post Mao Reforms: A Historical
Perspective. University of Chicago Press.
US Office of Travel and Tourism Industries. N.d. ‘Market Research’, tinet.ita.doc.
gov/outreachpages/inbound.general_information.inbound_overview.html.
Van Wolferen, K. 1989. The Enigma of Japanese Power. New York: Knopf.
Vatikiotis, M. 2006. ‘Resolving Internal Conflicts in Southeast Asia: Domestic
Challenges and Regional Perspectives’, Contemporary Southeast Asia 281: 27–47.
Vincent, R. J. 1982. ‘Race in International Relations’, International Affairs 58 (4):
658–70.
1986. Human Rights and International Relations. Cambridge University Press.
Vu, T. 2007. ‘Vietnamese Political Studies and Debates on Vietnamese
Nationalism’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2 (2): 175–230.
Vuving, A. 2001. ‘The References of Vietnamese States and the Mechanism of
World Formation’, Asien 79: 62–86.
Wade, R. 1992. ‘East Asia’s Economic Success: Conflicting Perspectives, Partial
Insights, and Shaky Evidence’, World Politics 44 (2): 270–320.
Wæver, O. 1998. ‘The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American
and European Developments in International Relations’, International
Organization 52 (4): 687–727.
Waldron, A. 1990. The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth. Cambridge
University Press.
Walter, A. 2008. Governing Finance: East Asia’s Adoption of International Standards.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Waltz, K. N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Wang, G. 1983. ‘The Rhetoric of a Lesser Empire: Early Sung Relations with Its
Neighbors’. In Rossabi 1983, pp. 47–65.
Wang, L. 2000. Wangli Guhanyu Zidian. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Watson, A. 1992. The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical
Analysis. London: Routledge.
Weiss, L. 1995. ‘Developmental States in Transition: Adapting, Dismantling,
Innovating, Not “Normalizing”’, Pacific Review 13 (1): 21–56.
Wendt, A. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge University Press.
Wheeler, N. 1992. ‘Pluralist or Solidarist Conceptions of International Society’,
Millennium 21: 463–88.
258 References
2000. Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society.

Oxford University Press.
White, G. 1988. Developmental States in East Asia. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
White, H. 2009. ‘Why War in Asia Remains Thinkable’, Survival 50 (6): 85–104.
2011. ‘Contain China?’ Straits Times, 26 Nov., www.straitstimes.com/print/
Review/Others/STIStory_738244.html.
2012. The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power. Victoria, Australia:
Black, Inc.
Whitmore, J. K. 1994. ‘Cartography in Vietnam’. In J. B. Harley and
D. Woodward, eds., Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian
Societies, vol. II, book 2. University of Chicago Press, pp. 478–508.
2005. ‘Vietnamese Embassies and Literati Contacts’, Paper presented at the
Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, 31 Mar.–3 Apr.
Wienert, M. 2011. ‘Reframing the Pluralist–Solidarist Debate’, Millennium 40 (1):
1–21.
Wight, M. 1966. ‘Western Values in International Relations’. In Butterfield and
Wight 1966, pp. 89–131.
1977. Systems of States. Leicester University Press.
1996. ‘Why Is There No International Relations Theory’. In Butterfield and
Wight 1966, pp. 17–34.
Wildau, G. 2008. ‘Enterprise Reform: Albatross Turns Phoenix’, China Economic
Quarterly 12 (2): 27–33.
Williams, J. 2002. ‘Territorial Borders, Toleration and the English School’,
Review of International Studies 284: 737–58.
Wills, J. E. Jnr. 1974. Pepper, Guns, and Parleys: The Dutch East India Company and
China, 1662–1681.Cambridge: Figueroa Press.
1984. Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-hsi, 1666–1687.
Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University.
1988. ‘Tribute, Defensiveness, and Dependency: Uses and Limits of Some
Basic Ideas About Mid-Qing Dynasty Foreign Relations’, American Neptune
48: 225–29.
ed. 2009. ‘From “Tribute System” to “Peaceful Rise”: American Historians,
Political Scientists, and Policy Analysts Discuss China’s Foreign Relations’,
Special issue for Journal of American–East Asian Relations 16: 1–2.
Wolters, O. W. 1982. History, Culture, and Religion in Southeast Asian Perspectives.
Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies.
Womack, B. 2006. China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry. Cambridge
University Press.
2008. ‘China as a Normative Foreign Policy Actor’, CEPS Working Document,
Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels, Belgium.
2009. ‘China Between Region and World’, China Journal 61: 1–20.
2010. China Among Unequals: Asymmetric Foreign Relationships in Asia.
Singapore: World Scientific Press.
Wong, D. C. 2003. ‘Ethnicity and Identity: Northern Nomads as Buddhist
Art Patrons During the Period of Northern and Southern Dynasties’. In
Di Cosmo and Wyatt 2003, pp. 80–118.
Wong, J. 2004. ‘The Adaptive Developmental State in East Asia’, Journal of East
Asian Studies 4: 345–62.
References 259
Wong, R. B. 1997. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of the
European Experience. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Woo-Cumings, M. 1998. ‘National Security and the Rise of the Developmental
State in South Korea and Taiwan’. In H. S. Rowen, ed., Behind East Asian
Growth: The Political and Social Foundations of Prosperity, London: Routledge,
pp. 319–37.
ed. 1999. The Developmental State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Woodside, A. 1971. Vietnam and the Chinese Model. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Yamamuro, S. 2001. Shisō kadai to shite no ajia: kijiku, rensa, tōki. Tokyo: Iwanami
shuppansha.
Yan, X. 2006. ‘The Rise of China and Its Power Status’, Chinese Journal of
International Politics 1 (1): 5–34.
Yap, D. J. 2012. ‘Aquino to Push for Less ASEAN Meetings at Summit’,
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 16 Nov., newsinfo.inquirer.net/308026/aquino-to-
push-for-less-asean-meetings-at-summit.
Yen, S. S.-F. 1965. Taiwan in China’s Foreign Relations 1836–1874. Hamden: Shoe
String Press.
Yengoyan, A. A. 2009. ‘Clifford Geertz, Cultural Politics’, Journal of Asian Studies
684: 1215–30.
Yeung, H. W.-C. 2009. ‘Regional Development and the Competitive Dynamics
of Global Production Networks: An East Asian Perspective’, Regional Studies
43 (3): 325–51.
Yoshihara, K. 1988. The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in Southeast Asia. Quezon City:
Manila University Press.
You, J. 2006. ‘East Asian Community: A New Platform for Sino-Japanese
Cooperation and Contention’, Japanese Studies 26 (1): 19–28.
Yü, Y.-S. 1967. Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-
Barbarian Economic Relations. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
1986. ‘Han Foreign Relations’. In D. Twitchett and M. Loewe, eds., The
Cambridge History of China, vol. I, The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 BC– AD
220. Cambridge University Press, pp. 377–462.
Zagoria, D. S. 1967. Vietnam Triangle: Moscow/Peking/HaNoi. New York: Penguin
Books.
Zakaria, F. 1994. ‘Culture Is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kwan-yew’.
Foreign Affairs 73 (2): 109–26.
Zhang, F. 2009. ‘Rethinking the “Tribute System”: Broadening the Conceptual
Horizon of Historical East Asian Politics’, Chinese Journal of International
Politics 2 (4): 545–74.
2011. ‘Not Just the “Tribute System”: International Society in East Asia Before
the Western Intrusion’, Paper prepared for workshop on International
Society and East Asia: English School Theory at the Regional Level,
Shanghai, 25–7 May.
Zhang, X. 2011. ‘China in the Conception of International Society. The English
School: Engagements with China’, Review of International Studies 37 (2):
763–86.
260 References
Zhang, Y. 1991. ‘China’s Entry into International Society: Beyond the Standard
of “Civilization”’, Review of International Studies 17 (1): 3–16.
1998. China in International Society Since 1949: Alienation and Beyond.
Basingstoke: Macmillan.
2001. ‘System, Empire, and State in Chinese International Relations’, Review of
International Studies 27: 43–63.
Zhang, Y. and Buzan, B. 2012. ‘The Tributary System as International Society in
Theory and Practice’, Chinese Journal of International Politics 5 (1): 3–36.
Zhou, F. 2011. ‘Equilibrium Analysis of the Tributary System’, Chinese Journal of
International Politics 4 (2): 147–78.
Zhou, H. 1941a. ‘Dai ajia shugi no hitsuzensei’, Dai ajia shugi 95: 16–21.
1941b. ‘Dai ajia shugi to han’a rengō: “tōa renmei” ka “ajia renmei” ka’, Dai ajia
shugi 96: 21–7.
Index
abuse-activism 141 and open regional organizations 203

Acharya, Amitav 84–5, 129 and peace 26
AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area) 19–20, Plus One 19–20, 203
94, 162 Plus Three (APT) 15, 19–20, 115,
Alagappa, Muthiah 83, 132, 164, 214–18 161, 162, 176–7, 196–7, 198,
AMDA (Anglo-Malayan Defence 201–2, 203, 215
Agreement) 195 Plus Six 19–20, 196–7, 202
American power 18–19, 23, 25 Plus Eight 19–20, 196–7, 213
see also United States Post-Ministerial Meeting 162
Anderson, Jonathan 109 power management functions 168–9
APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic procedural norms 129
Cooperation) 27, 94, 114, 115, 161, relations with China 156
162, 178, 184, 196, 217 reliance on US security 180
APT, see ASEAN Plus Three secondary institutions 181, 182–3
Arab Spring 8, 13 and sovereignty 192, 195, 211–12
area studies, atheoretical 14 summit (2012) 161
ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum) 20–1, TAC (Treaty of Amity and Cooperation)
27, 161, 162, 163, 178, 194, 198–9, see TAC
200–2, 210, 217, 228–9 see also SRIGOs
ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian ASEAN formula 198
Nations) 19–20, 21, 23, 27, 94, 129, ASEAN Way 21, 182, 198–9,
146–7 211, 227
AFTA see AFTA ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) 184
Agreement on Transboundary Haze Asia
Pollution 200 concept/identity of 53–6, 95
authoritarian regimes 130 relationship with West 96
central direction by 181 seen as backward 55–6, 70
China’s involvement in 113 Asia-Pacific region 184
Chinese/Japanese competition in 172–3, Asia-Pacific War (1931–45) 70, 133,
176–7 179, 225, see also Japan
Declaration on Code of Conduct 163 Asian Barometer Surveys 140–1
developmentalism 136 Asian financial crisis 114–15,
diplomacy by 161 157, 215
and disputes/conflicts 145 Asian Monetary Fund (1997) 72, 176
FTAs (free trade agreements) 178–9 Asian regionalism 209
human rights 192 Asian universities 76
and intra-Southeast Asian relations Asian values 22–3
119–20 distinctiveness of 85–6
leadership role 161, 165 Atlantic Charter 65
Ministerial Meeting 161, 162 Australia, membership in East Asian
non-interference policy 181–2 organizations 218
261
262 Index
authoritarian domestic regimes 130, 133–4, current international role 88–92

140–1 decline of imperial power 95–6
authoritarian values 140–1 developmental ideology 138–9
authoritative communication 45 as developmental state 229
Aydin, Cemil 59–61 diplomatic relations 88–9, 90, 91
diplomatic relations reintegration 138–9
balance of power 26–7, 46–7, 147–8, 158, domestic economy 110
165, 169, 170, 191, 204, 228 and East Asian power distribution 152–8
politics 37–8, 46–7 economic expansion 94, 116–17,
Balkanization 129 137–8, 175
Bandung Conference 138 impact of 94–5
Bandung Principles of Coexistence 129, 138 effects of globalization 117
Beeson, Mark 22 as European International Society 55–6
Beijing consensus 25, 166 and evolution of capitalism in East Asia
Berkeley mafia 83–4 107–13
BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for exchange rate policy 110
Multisectoral and Technical exports 107–8
Cooperation) 184 and GDP 109
boundaries, blurring of 184–5 and GNP 110
Breslin, Shaun 22, 202 FIEs (foreign invested enterprises) 107–8
Brown, Chris 123 financial system 112
Bull, Hedley 5, 71, 124, 146–8, 149, 157–8, Five Principles of Coexistence 129, 138
161, 168–71, 178 future stability issues 89
Burma, Western–global integration 208 great power management, see great power
Buzan, Barry ix, 1–2, 29–30, 40, 70, 73, management
98, 143, 146–7, 155, 158, 166, 170, historical subordination to 76–7
183–4, 188–9, 204–5 and human rights 88
and IGOs 215–16
Caballero-Anthony, Mely 135 imports and GDP 109
Cambodia improving relations with neighbouring
and Thailand 144 countries 156
and Vietnam 144 inflation 110
capitalism 5 institution racing 176
development of 94 integration in global economy 107
evolution in East Asia 107–13 investiture 43
varieties of 98 investment by 108–9
centrality of political agency 226 investment in 107–8
Cheonan sinking 180 and Japanese hegemony 71–2
China Japan’s blocked institutional initiatives
anti-piracy activities 181 176
and APT 202 legitimacy crises 131
and ASEAN free trade 113 legitimacy deficits 179, 228
and Asian financial crisis 115 Leninism 133
and Asian unity 71 market protection 112–13
as authoritarian state 88 market reforms 137–8
banks 112 military power increase 158–9
and central order 79 mistrust by neighbouring countries
Communist Party emergence/dominance 155–6, 168, 179, 215–16
90, 91, 133–4, 155–6, 160–1 mistrust of white people 63
conflict with Vietnam 144 Mongol ethnicity 64–5
Confucian influence/institutions, see mutual denial of status recognition 175
Confucian culture; Confucian kingly mutual social denial 229
way; Confucian Peace; Confucian national goals 111
systems nationalism 67, 69–70, 90, 130–1
cultural history 85, 89–90 naval expansion 180–1
Index 263
nineteenth-century domestic political and US dominance 91–2

structure 125–6 and Vietnam 78–9, 145
and non-intervention 130 Vietnamese border wars 79
pan-Asianism 53 Washington Consensus growth principles
and Philippines 145 111
as political centralized unit 77 Western–global integration 208
popular culture 87 in World Trade Organization 112–13
post-Cold War rivalry with United States see also institutions; Sino-centric
184 economic order; Sino-centric
post-colonial/imperial 130 international society; Sino-centric
pragmatic developmemt 139 production region; Sino-centric
pre-modern 29–47 tribute system; Sino-centrism
privatization 111–12 Chinese hegemony society, see fanshu
production international society
ownership of 111–12 Chinese world order 30
and state policies 108–9 Chosun dynasty 81
racial war 63 civilizing policies 52–3
reform process 111 Clark, Ian 64, 219–20
regime change 137–9 Clinton, Hillary 149
regional co-operation 117–18 CMI (Chiang Mai Initiative) 114, 196–7,
and regional economic integration 201–2
initiatives 176–7 CMIM (Chiang Mai Initiative
regional leadership/dominance/ Multilateralization) 200
hegemony 89–90, 115, 146, 167–71, Cold War 15, 25, 93–4, 96–7, 133–4
178–83, 202, 215–16, 218–19 declining influence of 98
and regionalism 84–5 post-Cold War conflict 144–6
relations with neighbouring countries post-Cold War expansion 97, 168
155–7 colonialism 5, 10–11, 81, 93, 95–6, 132
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute 159–60, communal division 129
174–5 communist victories in Asia 133–4
shared use of language 58, 67 communitarian versus liberal-cosmopolitan
and Singapore 42, 44 views 124
Sino-American relationship 15, 18–19, comparative regionalism 230–1
25, 91–2, 144, 171–2 Confucian culture 23, 24–5, 66, 70, 73,
Sino-Japanese relationship 27, 91, 78, 80
158–61, 167–8, 168–78, 185, Confucian kingly way 65–6
187, 202, 228 Confucian Peace 17
and sovereignty 83–4 Confucian systems 125–6
see also sovereignty consensual hegemonic stability 228–9
state capitalism 110–13 contemporary organization 86–7
state ownership/control 111–12, 113 contract manufacturing enterprises
strategic culture 84 108–9
strategic interests in abutting regions contractual relations 46
184–5 convergence theory 117, 220–2
and Taiwan 144 cultural profile 119–20
talks with United States 172 cultural spread 73, 75–88
tourism by 87 culture
trade surpluses/deficits 108 and East Asia 17–18, 73–4
trade with 156 and hierarchical behaviour 155
transition to Western/Westphalian and history 74
culture 74–5, 88 shared 70
see also Westphalian institutions
tribute system, see tribute system (China) decision-making, consensus-based 198–9
Twenty-One Demands to 63 deep rules, of international society, see
unity and vulnerability 130–1 primary institutions
264 Index
delinking trade, from United States/West embedded autonomy 101

109, 110 encounter-reform 10–11
democracy 204, 214 English School theory 1–3, 4–5, 11, 12, 13,
and authoritarianism 140–1 14–22, 25, 28, 29–30, 49–50, 52, 93,
in East Asia 120 143, 222–5
democratization of international society 61 and balance of power 47, 170
Deng Xiaoping 156, 157 and domestic 121, 123–5
developmental goals 102–3 general arguments for use 14–15, 231
developmental policies 103 of great powers 161
developmental state 9, 26, 142 local agency 228
and Cold War 93–4 market as primary institution 98, 227
European/Western influence 95, 96 and political economy 97–9
in Japan 101–3 and political ideology 119, 120–1
as primary institution 99, 101 and power politics 228
as regional institution 229–30 questions about 16–18
spread of 122 Enigma of Japanese Power, The 86
developmentalism 129, 136, 142–3 enmeshing 18
differentiation/coexistence 166 environmental stewardship 204
diguo international society 23–4, 37, 47, equality of people 76–7, 82, 204, 205
49–50 ES, see English School theory
history of 36–41 EU
institutions of 44–9 as international society 12
theory of 35–6 membership in East Asian organizations
diplomacy 26–7,48, 149,161–4, 191,204,226 218
disaster relief co-operation 199–200 Eurocentrism 29
disintegration 10 European expansion 51–3
domestic European international society, see regional
and English School theory 121, 123–5 international societies
ideologies 122 European/Western racism 59–61, 62
domestic legitimacy 128
domestic political structures 125–6 Fairbank, John K. 30, 43, 48
domestic regimes, authoritarian 130 fanshu international society 23–4, 37, 47,
domestic–international interactions 122 49–50
domestic–international legitimacy 124 history of 36–41, 49
Dosan Ahn Chang Ho 76 institutions of 41–4, 47–9
dynasties, summary of 37 theory of 32–6
see also individual dynasties FIEs (foreign invested enterprises) 107–8
financial interdependence 196–7
EAS (East Asian Summit) 19–20, 27, 115, Five Dynasties period 37, 39
149, 161, 162, 176–7, 179, 194, 198, Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA)
200–1, 213, 215–16, 217, 228–9 151–2, 195
East Asia specialists 224–30 signatories to 151
East Asian international society 64–6, 72 flying-geese model 160
East China Sea territorial dispute 185 Foot, Rosemary 137
Eastern Han dynasty 37, 38 Fordist production processes 104
economic development 27–8, 191, 195–7 Fourteen Points 68
and interventionist government 116–17 Franke, Herbert 47
Japan model 135 fried-eggs metaphor 70
and regime legitimacy 134–9 FTAs (free trade agreements) 19–20, 178–9
economic evolution, East Asia 25 Fukuzawa Yukuchi 56
economic growth and security 196
economic interdependence 23 global economy
economic liberalism 209 China’s integration in 107
economic nationalism 134 East Asia as centre of 116
electoral politics, nationalization of 142 and key secondary institutions 98
Index 265
global international society, East Asia historical domestic political structures

183–6 125–6
global level international society, see history and East Asia 17–18, 23–4,
international society 120–1, 230
global power restructuring 18–19 Ho Chi Minh 76
global production networks, as primary Hobson, J. M. 95
institution 99 Hong Kong
global production restructuring 21–2 contract manufacturing enterprises 108–9
globalization 5, 96 supply-chain management 105
and economic entities’ status 98 Howard, Michael 122
effects on economies 117 hubs-and-spokes bilateral alliances 195
Gonzalez-Pelaez, Ana ix, 1–2 human rights 204, 210, 214
Gourevitch, Peter 120–1 Human Security Report Project 150
GPE (global political economy) 94, 113 Hung Ho-fung 85
GPIs (global primary institutions) 189 Huntington, Samuel 84
and PRIs (primary regional institutions) Hurrell, Andrew 15, 20, 71
204–5
Gramscian hegemony 71 ICJ (International Court of Justice) 194
great power management 26–8, 148, IGOs (international governmental
158–61, 165, 167–87, 191, 194–5, organizations) 214–16
203, 204, 211 imagined communities 51
at regional level 170–1 IMF (International Monetary Fund) 98,
balance of power 169, 228 114, 190
bilateral constraint 171 India
central direction 169, 171, 178–83 and East Asian initiatives/dialogues 184
China–Japan relations 171–8 membership in East Asian organizations
dominant role of global superpower 218
186–7 and regionalism 84–5
hierarchical power 183 Indonesia
influence boundaries 169 as informal US ally 155
as institution of international society Japanese investment 106
168–71 liberalization 140–2
leadership in evolving regional order nationalism 132–3
178–83, 226 pragmatic developmemt 139
managing relations 169 regime change 136
outsourcing by China/Japan 228–9 statist ideology 141–2
regional order 171 Western–global integration 208
regional powers balance of influence industrial developmental policies 103
183, 226 institution-building 115
US power dominance 183, 185, 186–7, institution-racing 20, 176, 229
210–11 institutional capacity 86–7
war limitation 150–2, 169 institutional initiatives 114
see also ASEAN; United States institutionalized regional co-operation
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 116
17–18, 64–6, 67–8, 193, 225 institutions
Greater East Asia Conference (1943) 65 authoritative communication 45
Greater East Asia Joint Declaration 65 balance of power 26–7
Greek city-states 124–5 of diplomacy 26–7
Grotian solidarism 124 economic development 27–8
heqin 37–8, 44–5, 46, 47, 49–50
Han dynasty 33, 36–8, 42–3, 45, 48 limits on force 45
hedging 18 membership 45
heqin institution 37–8, 44–5, 46, 47 nationalism 27–8
hierarchical behaviour 155 property rights 45
hierarchical power 183 and regional politics 19–20
266 Index
institutions (cont.) Jacques, Martin 83

sovereignty 27–8, 29–30, 55, 65, 71, Jansen, Marius B. 60
76–7, 83–4, 126–31 Japan
trade 48–9 and ASEAN Plus Six 202
travelling embassy 48 Asia-Pacific War (1931–45) 70, 133,
treaties 46, 47 179, 225
of war 26–7 and Asian unity 71
war 49 authoritarian development 100
see also primary institutions; PRIs; benefits from war 133–4
secondary institutions; SRIGOs blocked institutional initiatives 176
intellectual property rights 205 Caucasian links 59–60
inter-state society conceptualization 123 civilizing role 69, 81–2
internal homogeneity 218–20 coercion by 17–18
internal integration 218–20 as Cold War US ally 102, 135
internal legitimacy 128 colonialism in Korea 81
international economic integration common strategic objectives with United
86–7 States 185
international institutions 19–20 corporate migration 106
international law 204 development speed 86
international political economy, see GPE as developmental state 101–3, 135
(global political economy) and East Asian power distribution 152–8
international society effects of globalization 117
as analytical constructs 16 elites post-war 133–4
basic principles 6–7 and European influence/standards
and capitalism 5 99–100
conceptualizing 4–13 as European international society 51–3,
core–periphery structure 6 55–6
deep rules of, see primary institutions external expansion 106
democratization of 61 as first developmental state 101–3, 135
East Asian international society 64–6, 72 flying-geese model 160
European international society, see great power management, see great power
regional international societies management
fried-eggs metaphor 70 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
global level 5–6 17–18, 64–6, 67–8, 193, 225
institutions 41–4 imperial aggression of 66, 67, 70, 71, 81,
integration with 9–10 100, 160–1, 225, 226–7
as legitimist 64 institution racing 176
malleability of 40–1 invasion of Taiwan 57–8
pan-Asianism and alternative investment 108–9
international society 58–61 Japanese hegemony 71–2
primary institutions, see primary legitimacy deficits 179, 228
institutions liberal economic goals 205
regional, see regional international market-authoritarian state 135–6
societies Meiji Restoration 100
rules 41–2 Mongol ethnicity 64–5
shared norms 41–2 mutual denial of status recognition 175
Sino-centric 23–4 mutual social denial 229
as socializing environment 20–1 nationalism 67, 69–70, 132–3
tribute system 17, 23–4 Naval Policy Research 65, 67
types of 23–4, 220–2 1955 system 175
Western–global 2, 5, 9–11, 12, 21, pan-Asianism 53
22, 28 after World War I 61–3
International Society and the Middle East ix and alternative international society
intra-regional trade 109 58–61
investiture 43 and European powers 62
Index 267
failure of 66–70 key secondary institutions 98

suppression of 62 Kim Dae-jung 85–6
as political centralized unit 77 kingly way 65–6
popular culture 87 Koguryà kingdom 81
post-war development 101, 135 Korea
power management 205 and Asian unity 71
quest for civilized identity 56–8 development speed 86
race/ethnicity 59–61, 68 as developmental state 229
racial equality 64 industrial developmental policies 103
racial war 63 Japanese colonialism 81
racism by Europe/West 59–61, 62, 68 nationalism 67
regional co-operation 117–18 pan-Asianism 53, 60–1
and regional economic integration as political centralized unit 77
initiatives 176–7 popular culture 87
regional institutions and China’s rising as post-colonial state 130
influence 177 relations with China 91
regional leadership by 65–6, 115, 146, and sovereignty 83–4
167–71, 178–83 see also sovereignty
regional role 106–7 tourism by 87
reliance on US security 180 transition to Westphalian culture 74–5
Russo-Japanese war (1904–5) 58–9 as Westphalian state 130
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute 159–60, see also North Korea; South Korea; tribute
174–5 system
Sino-Japanese relationship 27, 91, Korean War 153–4
158–61, 167–8, 168–78, 185, 187, Koschmann, J. V. 66
202, 225, 228 Kuhonta, E. M. 128
Sino-Japanese war (1894–5) 58–9, 225
and sovereignty 83–4, 192–3 Lam Truong Buu 79–80
and state interventionism 102 Layne, Christopher 153
statist ideology 141–2 Le Dynasty 78
tourism by 87 Le Quy Don 78
trade tensions with United States 135 leadership, by great powers 148
transition to Westphalian culture 74–5 League of Nations 61, 62, 63
Twenty-One Demands to China 63 Lee Kwan-yew 85–6
and uncivilized Asian ‘other’ 69 Leftwich, Adrian 102
United States’ relationship with 172–3 legitimacy and regional coherence 219–20
and US Federal Reserve 200 legitimate conduct 65–6
and US Immigration Act (1924) 62 Leifer, Michael 195
as US treaty ally 155, 172–3 liberal values/perspective 13, 26
Western domination/hegemony 71–2 liberalist conception of the state 124
Western philosophical influence 66, 68–9 liberalization pressures 140–2
Western–global integration 208 limited pluralism 141
see also institutions; Sino-centric limits on force 45
economic order; Sino-centric Little, Richard 29–30, 124
international society; Sino-centric local agency 231
production region; Sino-centric
tribute system; Sino-centrism; Malaysia
tribute system benefits from war 133–4
Japan model, of economic development 135 exports 108
Johnson, Chalmers 101 as informal US ally 155
Johnston, Alastair Iain 20–1, 84 Japanese investment 106
liberalization 140–2
Kang, David 14, 30, 41, 155 post-Cold War expansion 97
KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Western–global integration 208
Development Organization) 216–17 mandala states 126
268 Index
manufacturing sector 104 Okuma Shigenobu 68–9

market operation in East Asia 96–7, open regionalism 180
204, 227 organizations, diversity of 188
market as primary institution 98, 227 out-sourcing 105
market-authoritarian states/ideologies overlapping organization membership 218
135–6, 140–1, 142–3
Meiji Restoration, see Japan Pakistan, membership in East Asian
membership institution 45 organizations 218
military expenditure 151–2 pan-Asianism 53
Ming Dynasty 37, 39–40, 42–3, 42–4, 95 after First World War 61–3
MNCs (multinational corporations) and alternative international society 58–61
104, 105 and European powers 62
Japanese 106–7 failure of 66–70
moral purpose of the state 121, 124–5 and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
multilateral diplomacy, criticism of 163–4 Sphere 17–18, 64–6
multilateralism 149, 205–6 legitimate conduct 65–6
mutual social denial 229 and nationalism 193–4
and race/ethnicity 59–61, 64–5
nation-state equality 76–7, 82 Paracel Islands dispute 145
national resilience 129 PECC (Pacific Economic Cooperation
nationalism 27–8, 67, 142, 191, 193–4, Council) 162
204, 226–7 Pempel, T. J. 199, 215
at state level 194 performance legitimacy 191
economic 134 Perry, Elizabeth 85
and electoral politics 142 Perry, William 84
and pan-Asianism 193–4 Philippines
and political construction 134 and China 145
and self-determination 132–4 Japanese investment 106
trade-centric 139 liberalization 140–2
see also sovereignty statist ideology 141–2
NEACD (Northeast Asia Cooperation as US treaty ally 155
Dialogue) 162 Western–global integration 208
neo-liberal agenda, Anglo-American 114 pluralist views 123
Nesadurai, H. E. 135 political agency, centrality of 226
Neumann, Iver 83, 85 political construction and nationalism 134
New Zealand, membership in East Asian political divide 28
organizations 218 political economy and English School
Nguyen Du 79 theory 97–9
1955 system 175 political ideology
non-interference 129, 132, 142, 181–2, 210, definition of 120
226–7 domestic 26, 120, 121
non-intervention 129, 130, 132, 142, 204, and English School 119, 120
211–12, 214 popular culture 87
North Korea post-colonial view 6, 26
Cheonan sinking 180 power distribution 152–8
military/nuclear threat of 144, 168, 172, power restructuring/dynamics 18–19
173, 180 primary institutions 6–7, 13, 22, 25, 26–8,
and regional formation 97 41–2, 222–3, 226, 230–1
Western–global integration 208 balance of power, see balance of power
see also Korea; South Korea differences in 7
diplomacy, see diplomacy
Obama administration policy 154, 185 functions of 45
obsolescence in regional dominance debate global, see GPIs
221–2 great power management, see great power
Offices of Overseas Trade 48–9 management
Index 269
of international society 145, 146–9 regional integration 218–20

regional, see PRIs and global production 21–2
and SRIGOs (secondary regional regional international societies
inter-governmental organizations) containing primary institutions not
188–9, 191–7 present at Western–global
and strategic interactions in East Asia level 209
149–64 differentiation from neighbouring
war 20, 26–7, 147, 164–5 regional international societies
war limitation, post-Cold War 150–2 214–18
see also institutions differentiation from Western–global core
PRIs (primary regional institutions) 207–14, 223–4
19–20, 22 differentiation in 12, 207
balance of power, see balance of power East Asia 183–6
diplomacy see diplomacy European international society 12, 51–3,
economic development, see economic 55–6
development Far East 53
and GPIs (global primary institutions) general characteristics 3–4, 207
189, 204–5 internal homogeneity and integration
great power management, see great power 218–20
management lacking primary institutions present at
nationalism, see nationalism Western–global level 209–10
and secondary regional institutions Latin America 12
188–9, 191–7 Middle East 13
sovereignty, see sovereignty sharing primary institutions (but
private-sector importance 104 different practices) with
processes of mutual constitution Western–global level 210–12
120–1 regional leadership 115
production regional order 145
comparative advantages 105 regional powers, regional order balance of
Fordist 104 influence 183
horizontal to vertical integration 104 regional production hierarchy 103–6
regional production networks, see regional regional production networks
production networks and East Asian unity 107
production hierarchy, regional 103–6 as primary institution 99
production networks 104 regional production structures 108, 220
property rights 45 regional relationships 155–7
regional resilience 129
Qin Dynasty 37 regional robustness 145–6
Qing Dynasty 33, 35, 37, 39, 40–1, regional security 178–9
42–4 regional security complexes 183–4
regional systems as global subsystems
racial equality clause 62 126–7
racial war 63 regional–global divide, blurring of 183–4
racial/ethnic makeup 59–61 regions
racism, Western 24 and global co-constitution 230
Raise/Rise Asia Society 60, 67 as socially constructed 230
regime changes 136–9 repopulation 10–11
regime legitimacy and economic Republic of Korea, see South Korea
development 134–9 responsibility to protect debate 205
regional dominance debate 221–2 Reus-Smit, Christian 121, 124–5, 142
regional financial arrangements 220 Revolt Against the West 71
regional identity 115, 166 rival equality see diguo
regional IGOs 214–16 Russia
regional institutional development 114 and East Asia 23
regional institutions, role of 162–3 and East Asian initiatives/dialogues 184
270 Index
Russia (cont.) society

membership in East Asian organizations coexistence model 220–2
218 convergence model 220–2
Russo-Japanese war (1904–5) 58–9 co-operation model 220–2
power-political model 220–2
SAARC (South Asian Association for solidarism 123, 124, 143
Regional Cooperation) 217, 218 Solingen, Etel 135
San Francisco system 84–5 Song Dynasty 37, 39, 46, 48–9
Sato Tasuku 66 South Korea
SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) authoritarian development 100, 101–2
216–17 benefits from war 133–4
secondary institutions 25, 27–8, 113–16, Cheonan sinking 180
129, 181, 182–3, 220, 222–3 decolonization 101–2
see also SRIGOs liberalization 140–2
security post-Cold War expansion 97
and ARF 199 power management 205
and economic growth 196 reliance on US security 180
and stability 135 and sovereignty 192–3
and US dominance 185–6 statist ideology 141–2
self-contained global subsystems 126–7 and US Federal Reserve 200
self-determination and nationalism 132–4 as US treaty ally 155
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute 159–60, Western–global integration 208
174–5 see also Korea
Seo-hyun Park 83–4 sovereignty 27–8, 29–30, 55, 65, 71,
service-sector liberalization 205 76–7, 83–4, 126–31, 132, 140–2,
Shangri-La Dialogue 162 191, 192–3, 195, 204, 210, 211–12,
shared ideological disposition 122 214, 226–7
Shaw, Martin 123 special economic zones 105
Shiga Shigetaka 69–70 Spratly Islands dispute 144, 145
ship-building 48–9 SPT (Six Party Talks) 27, 144, 161, 163,
Silk Road 48 172, 216–17
Singapore SRIGOs (secondary regional
benefits from war 133–4 intergovernmental organizations)
contract manufacturing enterprises 108–9 and co-operative security 194
industrial developmental policies 103 growth strategies 195
as informal US ally 155 and lack of trust 201
liberal economic goals 205 organizational design/purpose 197–204
liberalization 140–2 participants in 189–90
supply-chain management 105 and primary institutions 188–9, 197–8
and US Federal Reserve 200 and social boundaries debate 203–4
Western–global integration 208 and sovereignty 192
Sinic-nomadic zones 41 and state autonomy 201
Sino-Altaic system 38–9 and state-based policy 200–1
Sino-centric economic order 108–10, see also APEC; APT; ARF; ASEAN; EAS
126, 175 stabilizing trends 121
Sino-centric international society 23–4 stalemate in regional dominance debate
Sino-centric production region 110 221–2
Sino-centric tribute system, see tribute standard of civilization 5, 51–3, 55–6, 56–7,
system 59–61, 100
Sino-centrism 42, 44 state
Sino-Japanese relationship 27, 91, 158–61, diversity/variations 8–9, 15, 16, 23
167–8, 168–78, 185, 187, 202, 228 role of 99
Sino-Japanese war (1894–5) 58–9, 175, 225 state capitalism, in China 110–13
situation of balance 157–8 state consolidation 128
Slater, Dan 141 state elites 6
Index 271
state interventionism 102, 229–30 Three Kingdoms period 47

state-building 103 Tønnesson, Stein 127, 136
statist ideology 26, 141–2 tourism 87
statist self-determination 142 TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) 19,
strategic uncertainty, and ARF 201–2 154, 217
Stubbs, Richard 133–4 TPSEP (Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic
Sui dynasty 37, 38–9 Partnership) 196
Sun Yat-Sen 63, 69–70, 76 Tracks I–III 161
supply-chain management 105 trade 48–9
suzerainty, see fanshu delinking from United States/West 109
Suzuki, Shogo 81–2, 100 facilitation 139, 142
syncretist cultural spread 73, 82–8 importance of Chinese 156
syncretist view 40, 74–5 liberalization 139, 142
travelling embassy 48
TAC (Treaty of Amity and Cooperation) treaties 46, 47, 150–1
129, 150–1, 181, 194, 227 tribute system (China) 17, 23–4, 29, 30–1,
signatories to 150–1, 164–5, 210 42–4, 47, 48, 57, 66, 75–6, 77, 78,
Taguchi Ukichi 59–60 82–3, 93, 96, 155
Taiwan Tuong Vu 80
authoritarian development 100, 101–2 Twenty-One Demands 63
benefits from war 133–4
and China 144 UN responsibility to protect debate 205
contract manufacturing enterprises 108–9 UN Security Council, Japan’s membership
decolonization 101–2 bid 176
development speed 86 unitary state mentality 127
as developmental state 229 unitary states 126–31
industrial developmental policies 103 United States
Japanese invasion of 57–8 bilateral alliances 195
liberalization 140–2 central direction by 180
post-Cold War expansion 97 and China relations 144, 171–2
regional co-operation 117–18 and China’s military increase 158–9
and regional formation 97 common strategic objectives with
statist ideology 141–2 Japan 185
supply-chain management 105 crisis point management 180–1
transition to Westphalian culture 74–5 and East Asian power distribution 152–8,
Taizong, Emperor 38 165–6
Takekoshi Yosaburo 57 East Asian wars 153–4
Takeshi Hamashita 48–9 East Asia’s reliance on 182–3
Tang Dynasty 37, 38–9, 40–1, 42, 46, 48–9 Federal Reserve 200
Tang Taizong 46 great power management by 186
Tang–Turkic society 38–9 hegemony in Asia 71–2
Taylor, Keith 79 Immigration Act (1924) 62
territorial state model 5 international dominance of 91–2
territoriality 204 membership in East Asian organizations
Thai baht 195–7 218
Thailand military bases 154
benefits from war 133–4 as military/naval deterrent 180–1
and Cambodia 145 Obama administration policy 154
exports 108 Pacific strategy 184–5
Japanese investment 106 post-Cold War rivalry with China 184
nationalism 132–3 post-Cold War strategic role 184
post-Cold War expansion 97 power-management functions 168–9
statist ideology 141–2 public goods provision in security realm
as US treaty ally 155 180–1
Western–global integration 208 role in East Asia 165–6, 172–3
272 Index
United States (cont.) war 204

San Francisco system 84–5 limitation post-Cold War 150–2, 169, 211
security dominance in East as primary institution 26–7, 49, 147,
Asia 185–6 164–5
as security umbrella 180 Warring States period 29
as seen by East Asia 155, 165 Washington Consensus growth principles 111
status in East Asia 155, 165, 166 Watson, Adam 29
strategic interests in abutting regions weak and strong states/powers 8
184–5 Wendt, Alexander 6–7
talks with China 172 Western domination/hegemony 71–2
treaty allies 155 Western Han dynasty 33, 36–8, 45
unity/disunity and insecurity/vulnerability Western ideals 83–5
130–1 Western IR theory 14–15
universities 76, 84 Western–global international society see
vanguardist cultural spread 73, 75–82 Westphalian institutions 5, 22–3, 24–5, 49,
Versailles Peace Conference (1919) 62 71, 74–5, 80, 126, 130, 225
victory in regional dominance assimilation into 131, 226
debate 221–2 heritage 210
Vietnam social practice 170
border wars 79 sovereignty 128, 192–3
and China 78–9, 145 spread of 127
Chinese cultural/political influences syncretist approach to 11, 73, 74–5, 82–8
78, 81 vanguardist approach to 73, 75–82
Chinese tributary relationship 78 Wight, Martin 70, 124
see also tribute system Wikileaks 149
colonialism in 80, 81 Wilhelm II, Kaiser 59–61
conflict with China 144 Womack, Brantly 79, 85, 137
Confucian ideas 78, 80 Woodside, Alexander 79
independence wars 80 WTO (World Trade Organization) 98,
as informal US ally 155 112–13, 209
nationalism 80, 81 Wu, Emperor 42–3
as political centralized unit 77
relations with China 91 Xiongnu nomadic state 36–8, 42–3, 45
twentieth-century wars 80
and Westphalian ideas 80 Yan Xuetong 157
Vietnam War 153–4 Yasukini shrine 159
voluntarism 198–9 yellow peril phrase 59–61
Yuan dynasty 35, 37, 39
Wæver, Ole 155, 183–4
Waltz, Kenneth 6–7 Zhang, Feng 95
Wang Gungwu 46 Zhang, Yongjin 29–30
Wang Tao 67 Zhao, Ziyang 137

BUZAN. Contesting International Society in East Asia-Cambridge University Press (2014) PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

BUZAN. Contesting International Society in East Asia-Cambridge University Press (2014) PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Contesting International Society in East Asia

Bringing together some of the most innovative scholars in both the

b a r r y b u z a n is a Senior Fellow at LSE IDEAS, Emeritus Professor in

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

List of tables page vii

1 Introduction: interrogating regional international

9 Social boundaries in ﬂux: secondary regional

Table 2.1 Imperial China’s dynasties and primary

a l ic e d . b a is Associate Professor of Political Science and International

This project is an offshoot of Barry Buzan’s interest in exploring the

for arranging this. Fudan provided not only excellent accommodation,

Barry Buzan and Yongjin Zhang

begun by Martin Wight (1977) and Adam Watson (1992) in historical

essence beyond discourse’. There is certainly a discourse around and

all specialists on the region, in their enquiries in individual chapters of this

Conceptualizing international society in East Asia

just regions. The empirical study of primary institutions should tell us

 What might be called the post-colonial view, which sees international

to Western–global international society, and these differences are even

some parallels between Northeast Asia and the encounter experience of

social structure might be found at the regional level, certainly in terms of

The earlier study of regional international society in the Middle East

East Asia and the English School approach

has become a site where a Sino-American ‘contest for supremacy’ is

There is, in essence, as claimed by Evan Feigenbaum and Robert

important insight to explain regional practices distinctive to East Asia that

historical state-formation in the region. The historical process of the

have been signiﬁcant formal regional institutional developments pivoted

reasoning and argumentation’. Johnston (2003) has long noted the

institutions and practices in East Asian political economy from global

equality); traditional Westphalian views on non-intervention; anti-

approach to pre-modern international society in East Asia for being much

Chapter 6 addresses the question of domestic political ideology in

probably fair to argue that on balance greater prominence is given in East

Was there an international society in East Asian history during China’s

have recently articulated the constitutional structure of the tribute sys-

International societies of fanshu and diguo: theory

substitute (Zhang and Buzan 2012). I will refer to fanshu as a distinctive

By trying to establish a fanshu framework, the Chinese primarily wanted

hegemonic, the other was based on relationships of more or less equal

Qing (1644–1911) periods, and was therefore by no means a marginal or

International societies of fanshu and diguo: history

Table 2.1 Imperial China’s dynasties and primary international societies

Dynasty or period Duration Primary international societies

Qin 221–206 BC Dynasty too short-lived to permit analysis.

the army) and external balancing (seeking alliances in the Western

Institutions of fanshu society

The tribute system

signiﬁcance of Han fanshu society. The tribute system went through

Institutions of diguo society

The balance of power

Balance-of-power politics manifested itself, ﬁrst, in the epic struggles

Table 2.2 Primary international societies and institutions in pre-modern

International societies Unique institutions Common institutions

Fanshu (Chinese The tribute system Travelling embassy,

were the primary international societies in East Asian history, we should

indiscriminate Europeanization’, and some were even concerned that the

The discovery of ‘Asia’ in Asia

this sense of shared culture may have contributed to the emergence of an

The expansion of European international society

Leaving Asia: Japan’s quest to become a ‘civilized’ state

government’s goal to fulﬁl the ‘standard of civilization’, and to differ-

commercial press repeated this theme. Woodblock prints published

What might be called the post-colonial view, which sees international