This edited collection analyzes the innovative changes in Japan’s foreign policy. Pursuing new relationships with South Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, Japanese initiatives include regional peace-building and human security activities, Asian multilateralism, and the Indo-Pacific concept. This collection focuses on these evolving international relationships through Japan’s unique approach to political change and continuity.

The four countries represented in this volume are East Asian middle powers with strategic constraints upon their traditional security policymaking. These middle powers have pursued diplomatic activities raising their international profile or footprint, and advancing their national interest, through normative foreign policy and humanitarian channels, including peacebuilding, development, and human security. In each case, therefore, there is a happy coincidence of the national interest of th...

This book examines the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute between Japan and China and the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute between Japan and Korea, in order to offer new perspectives on the possible approaches towards amelioration and resolution of these conflicts.Japan’s Island Troubles with China and Korea addresses the prospects of and challenges to achieving resolutions in the island disputes, rather than focusing solely on the origins and the political roles they play in the domestic politics of t...