ABSTRACT
This book examines Asia Pacific security in terms of the values and identities of the major actors: China, Japan, Korea and the US. The main theme is that ultimately security is about protection of identity, and that identity constitutes the irreducible core of a country’s security policy which cannot be compromised, negotiated or traded. Threatened identity arouses the deepest passions, it is the source of conflict and the justification for war. Over certain issues in international relations there comes a point when reason disappears, when compromise and accommodation are replaced by intransigence, and when the language becomes sharp. These issues touch upon identity or the self-understanding of the actors concerned. Each of the actors considered in the book have strong identities that have developed from long cultural traditions or powerful ideologies which have shaped their histories. For these major actors identity can be demonstrated historically or culturally as a source of foreign policy and security values and as a basis for interaction in the Asia Pacific region. The irreducible core of identity acts to shape and influence all around it, policies are drafted with the purpose of protecting it even when the language may suggest otherwise. Leaders are obligated to give expression to its values in foreign policy, they invoke its symbols to gain support for their policies and actions and they will manipulate it to discredit political rivals. Those that fail to respect it for reasons related to political insensitivity or intellectual pride do not last in politics, they are quickly outmanoeuvred, they lose elections by large margins and become critics on the sidelines. Until we understand the deeper core of politics, that element of identity to which the political leaders refer their actions, we will be simply examining the surface chatter of a country in a superficial study.
