Japan is on the verge of a sea change. After more than fifty years of national pacifism and isolation including the "lost decade" of the 1990s, Japan is quietly, stealthily awakening. As Japan prepares to become a major player in the strategic struggles of the 21st century, critical questions arise about its motivations. What are the driving forces that influence how Japan will act in the international system? Are there recurrent patterns that will help explain how Japan will respond to th...

A young boy rides the train through Tennessee's beautiful, historic, and interesting landscapes. From the Blue Ridge to the Appalachian Ridge and Valley Region, the Cumberland Plateau, the Highland Rim, and the Nashville Basin, the narrator experiences the marvels of his home state. He hikes, fishes, and even tours Graceland! This is Maggie Bunn's fifth project and she is looking forward to sharing and creating more stories. Rosalind Bunn is the author of nine children's books and is excit...

With the loosening of restrictions on the Chinese economy in the 1980s and 1990s and the rise of the middle class, many observers thought that Western-style democracy would soon follow. Instead, China has adopted its own version, with a market-driven economy where actions that might call into question the decisions of the governing party are strictly forbidden. In this fascinating account, Cormier chronicles numerous failed attempts to bring democracy to China in the last century, starting...

Singapore's demographic diversity was the driving force for the country's founding leaders as they forged a nation. They sought to navigate the many differences in the country's ancestral, social and cultural affiliations even as they embarked on the urgent task of nation-building. A decade into the new century, many of the country's traditional understandings of differences are being challenged, even as new differences, spawned by immigration, new media and globalisation, emerge.The Singa...

This clear and nuanced introduction explores the Philippines’ ongoing and deeply charged dilemma of state-society relations through a historical treatment of state formation and the corresponding conflicts and collaboration between government leaders and social forces. Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso examine the long history of institutional weakness in the Philippines and the varied strategies the state has employed to overcome its structural fragility and strengthen its bond wi...

Korea Focus is a monthly webzine accessible at (www.koreafocus.or.kr), which includes editorials, columns, features, interviews, and essays on Korean current affairs and related international issues. Since its inception in 2010, the journal has served asƐ脀䀀䜀맑은 고딕⻨உ￰Ɛ脀䀀㜀%&()+29

This book brings a fresh, original approach to understand social action in China and Vietnam through the conceptual lens of informal environmental and health networks. It shows how citizens in non-democratic states actively create informal pathways for advocacy and the development of functioning civil societies.

Written by scholars from both inside and outside China, this wide-ranging collection of essays explores the complexity of the relationship between governance and civil society by combining theoretical exploration and empirical case studies based on the governance practice in China.

China’s increasing involvement in Africa is a controversial and hotly debated issue. On the one hand, China has brought significant economic and political opportunities to the continent with large amounts of investment and infrastructure. On the other hand, however, China’s interests in Africa - including international strategy for multipolarity, a boom in China-Africa trade, and a strategic focus on energy – have been challenged as a form of neo-colonialism with claims that support for au...

China's transition to a market economy has propelled its remarkable economic growth since the late 1970s. In this book, Nicholas R. Lardy, one of the world's foremost experts on the Chinese economy, traces the increasing role of market forces and refutes the widely advanced argument that Chinese economic progress rests on the government's control of the economy's "commanding heights." In another challenge to conventional wisdom, Lardy finds little evidence that the decade of the leadership...

This book offers an assessment of China’s assertive foreign policy behavior with a special focus on Chinese policies in the South China Sea (SCS). By providing a detailed account of the events in the SCS and by analyzing power dynamics in the region, it identifies the driving forces behind China’s assertive foreign policy. Considering China’s power on a domestic as well as an international level, it examines a number of different sources of hard and soft power, including military, economic...

This book provides a comprehensive review of relations between China and the EU from the perspectives of politics, economy and culture in order to provide a better understanding of the development of the China-EU Strategic Partnership over the past ten years and to explore its future direction. It goes on to discuss China-EU relations against the backdrop of global governance, as well as China’s relations with some of the EU member states. The final part of the report presents a comparativ...