ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 elaborated how Japan was excluded from political, economic and security interaction with East Asia at the start of the post-war era. In turn, Chapters 9 and 10 examined the ways in which Japan has begun to reintegrate and reassert a position of leadership over an emergent East Asia region in the dimensions of politics and economics. This chapter now moves on to the dimension of security, in order to examine the extent to which Japan has been able to fulfil a similar role in reintegrating and leading a security region in East Asia, instrumentalized by means of both military and economic power. The discussion begins by looking at the structure, agency and norms factors which have influenced the nature of Japan’s security role in the region, and then considers Japan’s changing bilateral and multilateral links with the East Asian states during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods.
