Asia's reckoning
Subtitle: the struggle for global dominance
By: Richard McGregor
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 396
ISBN-13: 9780241248089
Subjects: Eastern question (Far East); Balance of power; Foreign relations
Description: The dramatic story of the relationship between the world's three largest economies, one that is shaping the future of us all, by one of the foremost experts on east Asia. For more than half a century, American power in the Pacific has successfully kept the peace. But it has also cemented the tensions in the toxic rivalry between China and Japan, consumed with endless history wars and entrenched political dynasties. Now, the combination of these forces with Donald Trump's unpredictable impulses and disdain for America's old alliances threatens to upend the region, and accelerate the unravelling of the postwar order. If the United States helped lay the postwar foundations for modern Asia, now the anchor of the global economy, Asia's Reckoning will reveal how that structure is now crumbling. With unrivalled access to archives in the US and Asia, as well as many of the major players in all three countries, Richard McGregor has written a tale which blends the tectonic shifts in diplomacy with the domestic political trends and personalities driving them. It is a story not only of an overstretched America, but also of the rise and fall and rise of the great powers of Asia. The confrontational course on which China and Japan have increasingly set themselves is no simple spat between neighbors. And the fallout would be a political and economic tsunami, affecting manufacturing centers, trade routes, and political capitals on every continent.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: China, red or green; title: Countering Japan; title: Five ragged islands; title: The golden years; title: Japan says no; title: Asian values; title: Apologies and their discontents; title: Yasukuni respects; title: History's cauldron; title: The ampo mafia; title: The rise and retreat of great powers; title: China lays down the law; title: Nationalization; title: Creation myths; title: Freezing point