The United States between China and Japan

From its insistence that Japan should favour diplomatic normalization with the Republic of China over the People’s Republic of China in 1952, through its role, via the Security Treaty, of keeping the ‘cap in the bottle’ of Japanese militarism, to weighing in on the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute between China and Japan, the United States has played a pivotal, and at times controversial, role in the development of China-Japan relations since the end of World War II. By extension, US influence on China-Taiwan and Taiwan-Japan relations, in addition to its impact on the efforts of various actors to construct a Northeast Asian regional community, continues to pose important questions about the nature of the US role in East Asia in the 21st century. This volume provides a multi-faceted overview of the nature of America’s interaction in East Asia since the end of the war, and highlights the obstacles to improved bilateral and regional integration. The contributors offer a range of perspectives from their respective US, European, and East Asian vantage points, and point to the ongoing and prominent involvement of the US in the region for the foreseeable future.