ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 presented the ASEAN+3 summit meeting in 1997 as a striking example of the progress made in the political, economic and security integration of the East Asia region in the post-Cold War period and Japan’s central role within this process. As noted in Chapter 8, this turnaround in the status of the region as a whole, and Japan’s place within it, appeared even more remarkable in the light of our knowledge of the fractured nature of the region’s political economy in the post-war era, and the rejection of Japan’s legitimacy as a regional actor following its failed efforts to unite the region under its imperial auspices in the years prior to and during the Pacific War. Given these developments in the region, the overall objective of Chapters 9, 10 and 11 was to examine-in the interrelated dimensions of politics, economics and security-the nature of Japan’s relations with East Asia in the post-war era, and the extent to which Japan has functioned to reintegrate the region and succeeded in regaining a central, or even leading, position within it.
