The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Asia-Pacific region greatly surpasses the world average. When the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is better realized, then the world's largest free trade zone will be firmly established. It seems that this region has a very rosy outlook indeed; however, this region also faces a large number of serious problems such as: atomic energy in Japan, conflicts about East Asian regional integration, the decline of the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA), and the TPP's possible impact on the Japanese universal health insurance system. We now face a possible Sino-Japanese military conflict concerning the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyutai Islands). In short, the Asia-Pacific region has both a rosy future and the potential influence from unstable and dangerous elements at work within the region at present. The main purpose of this book is to analyze historical development, whilst looking at the contemporary situation of Japan from interdisciplinary perspectives. This book asks three major questions: (1) Is this really globalization? (2) What are Japan's relations with other Asian countries? (3) Do U.S.-Japan relations still matter? Fourteen leading scholars in their fields answer these questions from interdisciplinary perspectives.

The growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Asia-Pacific region greatly surpasses the world average. When the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is better realized, then the world's largest free trade zone will be firmly established. It seems that this region has a very rosy outlook indeed; however, this region also faces a large number of serious problems such as: atomic energy in Japan, conflicts about East Asian regional integration, the decline of the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA), and the TPP's possible impact on the Japanese universal health insurance system. We now face a possible Sino-Japanese military conflict concerning the Senkaku Islands (or Diaoyutai Islands). In short, the Asia-Pacific region has both a rosy future and the potential influence from unstable and dangerous elements at work within the region at present. The main purpose of this book is to analyze historical development, whilst looking at the contemporary situation of Japan from interdisciplinary perspectives. This book asks three major questions: (1) Is this really globalization? (2) What are Japan's relations with other Asian countries? (3) Do U.S.-Japan relations still matter? Fourteen leading scholars in their fields answer these questions from interdisciplinary perspectives.

Asianisation of Asia, the focus of this book, signifies the synchronous development of Asian regionalism and regionalisation, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. The author probes the interactive processes of Asianisation from political, economic, historical and social perspectives to reveal how an 'East Asian' identity has been constituted and consolidated at the expense of its 'Asian-Pacific' counterpart. The chief objective of this book is to explore the tension between the political and economic forces of globalisation on the one hand, and the resurgence of regional consciousness, or Asianisation, on the other. Asianisation simultaneously challenges and follows the tide of globalisation. Although Asianisation endorses resentment towards the West, it does not reject globalisation as such. It attempts to ameliorate the negative effects of the global economy. 'Asianisation or Globalisation' is therefore a false opposition. The discourses of Asianisation articulate 'Asianisation versus Globalisation', while at the same time it propagates 'Asianisation via Globalisation'.