ABSTRACT
For centuries the struggle for power in the Pacific Rim revolved around the history of people and empires expanding into the vast Pacific region. From the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, in a quadrilateral contest for power, wars occurred between China and Japan (1894-1895), Russia and Japan (1904-1905), China and Japan (1937-45), Japan and the US/Russia (1941-1945), and China and the US (1950-1953). The Cold War emerged as long confrontation between the US and China and Russia that dominated the geo-strategic environment in the region for decades. After the end of Cold War, the politics of region became more complex. China, Japan, South Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Russia and the US were pitted against each other in a series of bilateral and multilateral conflicts over trade, military threats, nuclear weapons, and irredentism and nationalist ambitions. Yet they shared a common interest in the development of cooperative globalisation and the realisation of its benefits.
