In the South China Sea territorial disputes, China has shifted from a delaying strategy characterized by strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity and an increasingly assertive stance. Yet, this power play, asserting sovereignty over a large portion of the South China Sea, has not prompted a decisive push-back from regional states or major powers, raising the question of what kind of norms China will bring to the regional order and indicating the difficulty of building rules-based order in a region characterized by unbounded power politics in a twenty-first-century Hobbesian struggle.

In response to a more-contested Asia, Australia has placed the ‘rules-based order’ at the heart of its declaratory strategic policy. This move signals Australia’s commitment to this order, to its alliance with the United States, and to a more active strategic role in the region. However, a failure to match rhetoric with action risks undermining Australia’s strategic interests by emboldening China and reducing Australia’s value as an American ally.

The dynamics of institutional balancing is the predominant factor prompting East Asian countries to move to mega-FTAs. Rather than seeking mega-FTAs purely on the basis of economic benefits, these countries, particularly major powers, have attempted to form mega-FTAs to counter the target state’s vision of the regional architecture.

Both Russia’s 2012 APEC chairmanship and recent dynamics in its dialogue partnership with ASEAN indicate Russia’s intention and ability to act as a constructive player engaged in regional institutional activities in East Asia. However, the implementation of this intention faces both domestic and international limitations.

Given several possible strategic scenarios for East Asia, I argue that the region is likely to be divided by China’s growing power and the American presence along with its allies. The bipolar system in Asia will be relatively stable, however, because of conventional military balance, nuclear deterrence, and economic interdependence.

The “ASEAN family” of regional security institutions has a mixed record: it has proved very helpful in improving interstate trust, fairly helpful in managing peaceful change, somewhat helpful in enhancing regime stability, but virtually useless in resolving interstate conflict. Overall, East Asia remains dominated by conventional forms of international relations.

In 2003, a highly pathogenic version of an avian influenza virus——H5N1——began to emerge in a number of countries in Southeast Asia. The subsequent spread of this virus to nearly all parts of the world has raised concerns about a possible pandemic. This article explores how the virus spread and the policy implications for regional states.

This article explores changes in employment systems in Japan and Korea following the economic crisis of the 1990s. It finds significant changes as well as continuities in both countries that reflect similarities and differences.