Introduction

This book examines a topic that is succinct in title and extremely diverse, complex and even nebulous in terms of conceptualization and actuality: that of Japanese influence and presence in Asia in the present day, by which we mean roughly the latter part of the twentieth century, but with an eye also to the near future. We shall focus more closely on the meanings of this title later but will start by sketching out important areas of interest that condition and colour this study. All the chapters included herein (as well as a number of other papers) were originally presented at a workshop held in Stockholm in August 1996.