Session 6 Reading analysis Yahuda - The Limits of Economic Interdependence - Why has the growing economic interdependence between China and Japan failed to prevent the deterioration of their political relations? - The key to understanding is the structural change in the international politics of East Asia occasioned by the end of the Cold War - The end of the Cold War was significantly less dramatic in East Asia, but led to a repositioning of regional great powers . Collapse of the Soviet model paved the way for China to embrace globalisation - Rise in nationalism in China and Japan, and Chinas rise: now, neither power is willing to defer to the other in their relations - Yahuda argues that the USA plays a significant role in the deterioration of Sino- Japanese relations, as both China and Japan mediate their issues with each other through the US - Sino-Japanese relational issues stem from lack of empathy from both sides, Japan's unwillingness to take ownership of their "terrible past", and offer redress to victims of their wartime actions, and China's pursuit of their short-term goals by shaming the Japanese for the above. · Bilateral difference causing a divide in interdependence: . Historical legacy of the Japanese invasion of China . The Taiwan Question · Disputed sovereign claims of Islands in the East China Sea · Disputes over EEZs fiexclusive economic zones) etc - The shakiness of Sino-Japanese relations places immense pressure on the USA as their ultimate guarantor - And the US relations with each country are distorted by growing nationalism in China and Japan - the absence of proper Sino-Japanese strategic understandings means they are forced to depend on the US for regional security, and lessens the capacity for strengthened interdependence - though Chian was unimpressed with Japanese attempts to join talks over the future of the Korean Peninsula with the US, China and South and North Korea, the two states do share common interests when it comes to addressing North Korea's nuclear armament - Japanese ODA provides a concerning, rather than cordial, view of Sino-Japanese economic interdependence, but both states appear to be well aware of how it would by crucial to a Sino-Japanese relationship. - Yahuda provides a fairly balanced analysis of the situation facing Sino-Japanese economic interdependence and strategic relations. Having been updated and from the article it was based on, this chapter provides a much more detailed and valid commentary on Sino-Japanese relations from the time of publication.
Session 6 Reading analysis Robert Ayson and Desmond Ball - Can a Sino-Japanese War Be Controlled? - The greatest threat to peace in the Asia-Pacific is the rising tension between China and Japan. - Rising tension is immediately focused on the territorial dispute in the East China Sea - Spiked by the 2013 introduction of China's Air Defence Identification Zone in 2013 fiseen as a shift to a more dangerous world by Singapore) - Exacerbated by Japanese President Abe's 2013 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine ficommemoration soldiers, some