INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN EAST ASIA

Level
Semester
Spring 2014
Instructor(s)
Units
4
Section
0
Number
245A
CCN
72042
Times
W 2-4P
Location
706 BARROWS
Course Description

This seminar will focus on the postwar relations in East Asia. Myriad sources of geopolitical conflict lead many to describe the region as “ripe for rivalry” and state-to-state tensions remain high, particularly in Northeast Asia. Yet there have been no shooting wars in Northeast Asia since the Korean armistice in 1953 and Southeast Asia saw its last major war end with the pullback of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia in the Third Indochina War. Despite the absence of overt warfare East Asia has been grappling with a number of ongoing and emerging security problems—North Korea, cross-Straits relations, the rise of China; the low levels of “Asian identity” and the continuation of history-based issues; territorial disputes; coercive diplomacy; and the rise of terrorism and terrorist states. To date many of the problems of the region have been effectively “managed” and more recently the rise of new regional institutions have helped to alleviate certain ongoing tensions. But maritime tensions have suddenly become confrontational. This seminar will focus on this range of issues with particular attention to the various tensions between establishing closer Asian ties and the preservation of national sovereignty and the institutional efforts to reconcile these tensions.