Beyond Bilateralism

This is the first comprehensive analysis of the ways in which changes in the geopolitical context have altered the nature of the long-stable U.S.-Japan relationship: much of what had once been a bilateral and relatively exclusive relationship has been transformed in the past two decades. The authors present eleven case studies of important domains—ranging from increased flows of private capital to international security concerns to the growing importance of multilateral organizations—in which the relationship has been altered to a greater or lesser degree. Individual chapters present new ways of understanding international financial flows, U.S.-Japan trade relations, and U.S.-Japan manufacturing rivalry. Others present very cogent synthetic analyses of the changing context of U.S.-Japan relations. Together they provide an account of the bilateral, regional, and global institutions—political, military, and financial—that dominate the geopolitics of U.S.-Asia relations. Although written to a consistently high intellectual level, the chapters in this timely volume are intended for a nonspecialist audience and will be useful to practitioners in business and government, as well as to students and teachers.

“This book provides one of the most detailed explanations of U.S.-Japan relations and clearly presents a new way of understanding U.S.-Japan trade and security relations. The contributors to this volume have done a first-rate job in accounting for the myriads of issues that dominate the geopolitics of U.S.-Japan relations.”—Asian Affairs, “Written at a highly intelligent level, this volume is, overall, one of the most solid and thorough studies of US-Japan relations in the new context in east Asia, with specific policy suggestions for the US.”—Choice

Ellis S. Krauss is Professor of Japanese Politics and Policy Making at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. T. J. Pempel is Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies and Il Han New Professor of Asian Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.