Insights to East Asia: Bridging the Past and Present (UM Press)

Book excerpt: The East Asian region continues to experience rapid transformation, revealing both dynamic changes as well as unresolved issues. This innovative book is a valuable resource in understanding the extent to which countries in East Asia are confronting old and new challenges. Similarly, at the regional level, the book tackles the trials in consolidating East Asia as a region. Within this context, Insights to East Asia provides an introduction to a wide ranging array of issues, actors, and institutions interacting inside and outside the region. The book reflects the diverse ways in which state and non - state actors are responding to numerous concerns. The complexity of issues is unravelled through an informed analysis of contemporary concerns that include the development of East Asian regionalism, impact of China’s foreign aid on Timor Leste, the competition from Chinese manufacturers to their South Korean counterparts, protracted North Korean denuclearisation, the influence of pressure groups in Japanese politics as well as the dilemma of an emerging plural society in Japan. By reflecting on these key issues, students, scholars and policy practitioners will nd that the book engages readers to think critically of the ever-changing East Asian landscape.