ABSTRACT
This chapter examines contemporary international relations in Northeast Asia in order to discover political traits and practices that can serve as a least common denominator of regional politics. The idea of regional political culture has gained significant currency, and this chapter will argue for the existence of a distinctive, interactive Northeast Asian repertoire. The lens of political culture discovers new points of comparison among Northeast Asian countries. It suggests that Russia has more intimate affinities with China, Japan, and Korea in some political cultural dimensions. Near-future community making in Northeast Asia is still difficult to imagine, because of wide divergences in regime types and styles, but the commonalities detailed earlier leave room to hope for a communal future.
