This collection examines literature and film studies from the late colonial and early postcolonial periods in Taiwan and Korea, and highlights the similarities and differences of Taiwanese and Korean popular culture by focusing on the representation of gender, genre, state regulation, and spectatorship. Calling for the "de-colonializing" and "de-Cold Warring" of the two ex-colonies and anticommunist allies, the book places Taiwan and Korea side by side in a "trans-war" frame. Considering Taiwan-Korea relations along a new trans-war axis, the book focuses on the continuities between the late colonial period's Asia-Pacific War and the consequent Korean War and the ongoing conflict between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, facilitated by Cold War power struggles. The collection also invites a meaningful transcolonial reconsideration of East Asian cultural and literary flows, beyond the conventional colonizer/colonized dichotomy and ideological antagonism.

Various domestic factors impact upon China's foreign policy making, such as bureaucracy, academics, media and public opinion. This stimulating book examines their increasing influence and focuses in particular on China's policy towards the United States, exploring whether there has been an emergence of societal factors, independent of the Communist Party, that have begun to exert influence over the policy process. It also debates questions such as how it will affect the ability of the Chinese government to frame and implement its policy towards the US, and whether it has generated institutional arrangements in China for cooperation on issues such as trade, human rights and Taiwan. The book provides a better understanding of the role of societal forces in China's foreign policy making process.