China And Japan At Odds

The running saga of China and Japan at odds is unparalleled in world history. Its long stretch of recurrent conflicts, going back to the 16th century, through two savage wars in the 19th and 20th centuries, saw a new surge in recent months, despite normal trade relations. The worst scenario had it that the two nations might go to war for their conflicting claims to the vast seabed oil resources in the East China Sea, further exacerbated by their festering territorial and other disputes.

This edited book offers a rare attempt to decipher the perpetual conflict, from the Chinese, Japanese, and American perspectives. It places Sino-Japanese relations in a diachronic context but looks into the future from the present. This book is a penetrating study of the long conflict between China and Japan.

Drawing upon history, geopolitics, geoeconomics, and international law, this volume examines these two important Asian powers at the bilateral, regional, and global levels. Throwing a floodlight on the complex tangle of Sino-Japanese relations, contributors examine critical issues including oil feuds, the Taiwan factor, and implications for US interests in the Asia Pacific.

Review: China and Japan are major regional powers with an increasing global presence. This timely volume speaks to the important topic of their relations. The contributing scholars provide informative discussions of various dimensions of these relations, and help to put contemporary developments in a historical context. --Steve Chan, Chair and Professor of Political Science, University of Colorado Skillfully bringing together historical, economic, cultural, territorial, and security dimensions, Hsiung and his collaborators show us how this pivotal Asian nexus, never an easy one, became so troubled.

Yet the book also leaves us with a vision of how these old rivals might like Germany and France become reconciled, inaugurating a new Asian political architecture. --Lowell Dittmer, Professor of Political Science and Editor, Asian Survey, University of California at Berkeley