Kei Koga
Biographic Data
| ID | 4064394 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kei Koga |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kei |
| FAMILY NAME | Koga |
| SIGNATURE | KOGA K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Nanyang Technological University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0373-3088 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 68 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Withering Foip? Japan’s Evolving Indo-Pacific Vision from Kishida to Ishiba
Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) has become one of the most important strategic narratives in its foreign policy, yet it has not developed in a linear manner. Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the government advanced detailed plans for FOIP while also introducing a related concept, the “Free and Open International Order” (FOIO). As FOIO gained visibility, scholars debated whether this shift diluted FOIP’s achievements or whether situ…
Asean's Institutional Strategic Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific
How has ASEAN developed its strategic relationships with external partners in the Indo-Pacific through strategic partnerships (SPs) and comprehensive strategic partnerships (CSPs) since the end of the Cold War, and what strategic functions do these statuses serve? This paper focuses on institution-based SPs and develops a typology of institutional strategic partnerships (ISPs), arguing that their strategic functions vary across four forms: functi…
The East China Sea: The Flashpoint of War Among China, Japan, and the United States
Southeast Asia
This chapter explores how Southeast Asia has coped with various great power competitions since the end of World War II. Given Southeast Asia’s strategic location and the existence of natural resources, great powers (namely the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan) have been attracted to the region and played a significant role in shaping the regional strategic balance, which has created political and economic divergences within the r…
Tactical hedging as coalition-building signal: The evolution of Quad and Aukus in the Indo-Pacific
How are the rise, fall, and evolution of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region explained? To address this question, I examine the cases of the Quad and AUKUS, and argue that they were caused by the success and failure of coalition-building efforts made through ‘tactical hedging’. As the world transitions from a unipolar to a non-unipolar world, states attempt to formulate coalitions to safeguard their national interests. However, the challeng…
The Enduring Dilemma of Japan’s Uniqueness Narratives
From the Meiji Restoration (1868) to the Reiwa era (2019–) and despite its intermittent international prominence, Japan has never managed to establish either a consistent or universal narrative that would express the significance of its place in the world. Instead, Japan has been facing an enduring dilemma posed by its own uniqueness narratives. The Japanese narratives of its success as the only Asian nation that had managed to modernize and mili…
Japan’s New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific
Journal Article Japan's New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific Get access Japan's New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific by Saori KatadaNew York: Columbia University Press, 2020, 344 pp., $35.00 (paper ISBN 9780231190732) Kei KOGA Kei KOGA Nanyang Technological University [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0373-3088 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar So…
Struggle for coalition‐building: Japan, South Korea, and the Indo‐Pacific
One of the most important defining features of Japan's “Free and Open Indo‐Pacific” (FOIP) vision is coalition‐building. Given the Yoon administration's strong political will to commit to the Indo‐Pacific affairs and improve its ties with Japan, can Japan and South Korea finally forge cooperation in the Indo‐Pacific region? I argue that Japan has not incorporated South Korea in its FOIP vision because of four main factors: timing, leadership tran…
Getting Asean Right in US Indo-Pacific Strategy
How strategic is “asymmetric” strategic partnership? Japan’s partnership diplomacy toward Cambodia and Laos
I argue that the asymmetric strategic partnership (ASP) between a regional great power and a small power is not necessarily based on their shared goals, but such a partnership would help them achieve their own strategic objectives. For a regional great power, an ASP helps prevent a weak partner from excessively depending on a rival state for its economy and security. For a small power, the partnership increases the legitimacy of domestic politica…
Conceptualizing equidistant diplomacy in international relations: The case of Singapore
How can we systematically conceptualize equidistant diplomacy? This article argues that while ‘equidistant diplomacy’ has its own tactical utility to signal and shape a state’s image of political neutrality to the target states, it is not indicative of the state strategy. This is because state strategy is generally determined by material capabilities and is categorized as balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging. Rather, equidistant diplomacy is perc…
Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision under Suga: Transition and Future Challenges in Southeast Asia
While the Suga administration has managed Japan’s foreign policy towards ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) relatively well on the basis of the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” that former Prime Minister Abe had envisioned, the administration left a task for the next prime minister to creatively devise a foreign policy strategy to manage the three main challenges in the Indo-Pacific region concerning ASEAN Centrality, Indo-Pacific institu…
The Burden of the Past: Problems of Historical Perception in Japan-Korea Relations
Why have Japan and South Korea been unable to overcome historical disputes on issues such as history textbooks, comfort women, and the Yasukuni Shrine, which hinder furthering bilateral cooperation? Indeed, the renewed bilateral tension triggered in 2019 by South Korean Supreme Court’s decision to order Japanese companies to pay repatriation for war-time forced labor invited Japan’s fierce reaction. Japan raised the 1965 Treaty on the Basic Relat…
The evolution of Japan’s ‘misplacement’: From the Meiji Restoration to the Post-Cold war era
This article argues that since the Meiji Restoration, the degree of Japan’s misplacement has changed, depending on its structural power and ability to shape the concept of ‘Asia’ as a region. More specifically, there are three historical turning points: first, from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War (hard misplacement); second, post-World War II to the end of the Cold War (soft misplacement); and third, post-Cold War to the present (relativ…
Misplaced states and the politics of regional identity: Towards a theoretical framework
Whilst there is no shortage of analyses on the politics of regions in International Relations, little attention has been paid to states who perceive that they do not properly fit in the regions they happen to be located in. These are the ‘misplaced states’: they stand out not so much because of material capacities but because they espouse an identity, manifested in different ways, in marked contrast to the states around them. This article asks wh…
Japan's 'Indo-Pacific' question: Countering China or shaping a new regional order
Japan's primary objective of the 'free and open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives-shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence f…
Japan’s Diplomatic Strategy toward East Asia: Creation and Evolution of ‘Dual-Track Diplomacy’ in the Post-Cold War Era
Japan’s diplomatic strategy toward East Asia underwent three main changes in the post-Cold War era. The first change occurred soon after the 1991 Persian Gulf War propelled Japan to consider a potential way to contribute to international security, resulting in the creation of dual-track diplomacy. The second was the consolidation of Japan’s dual-track diplomacy by strengthening the US–Japan alliance and supporting the ASEAN’s multilateral initiat…
Institutional collapse and shifting balance of ontological security: Role of Malaysia’s dual identity in the decay of Aspac in the 1960s and 1970s
This article examines the causal process of the institutional collapse of the Asia Pacific Council (ASPAC) in 1973 by focusing on Malaysia’s foreign policy behavior, and highlights implications for today’s ASEAN. Specifically, it argues that the institutional collapse of ASPAC was caused by Malaysia’s withdrawal, which stemmed from a shift in its balance of ontological security from security dependence on the UK and the West to greater political …
Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” Strategy: Tokyo’s Tactical Hedging and the Implications for Asean
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 41, Number 2, August 2019
Asean’s Evolving Institutional Strategy: Managing Great Power Politics in South China Sea Disputes
This article argues that a change in institutional strategy enables The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to manage its great power relations and prevent their abrupt political intrusion into the region by providing the policy options of pursuing institutional balancing, bandwagoning, hedging, or co-option. ASEAN’s strategy is not only to choose optimal policy under a changing security environment, but also to create an institutional…
Japan’s strategic interests in the South China Sea: Beyond the horizon
Japan has a national interest in the South China Sea issue. Although its direct commitment is ultimately limited in a material sense due to a lack of military capabilities, as well as political and constitutional constraints on the Self-Defense Force, Japan has maintained its firm stance to uphold international maritime rules and norms, and nurtured strong diplomatic relations and conducted maritime capacity-building programs with the South-East …
Image and Substance Failures in Regional Organisations: Causes, Consequences, Learning and Change
States often pool their sovereignty, capacity and resources to provide regionally specific public goods, such as security or trade rules, and regional organisations play important roles in international relations as institutions that attempt to secure peace and contribute to achieving other similar global policy goals. We observe failures occurring in these arrangements and activities in two areas: substance and image. To analytically account for…
The rise of China and Japan’s balancing strategy: Critical junctures and policy shifts in the 2010s
This article argues that as opposed to the conventional wisdom of Japan’s hedging policy, Japan has been constantly taking balancing behavior vis-à-vis China since the end of the Cold War; however, the incremental shift to explicit balancing began after the 2010 Senkaku Boat Collision Incident. The shift was accelerated by the 2012 Japanese Government Purchase of the Senkaku Islands. Since then, Japan has attempted to engage in both internal and …
The Yasukuni question: Histories, logics, and Japan–South Korea relations
This article argues that the problem of the Yasukuni Shrine between Japan and South Korea stems from the differential growth of Yasukuni discourses in both countries after the Pacific War. While the Japanese post-war discourse split into three schools of thought – Nationalists, Moderates, and Progressives – South Korean discourse has been consolidated into one dominant anti-Yasukuni perspective, largely shaped by Japan's political discourse and a…
Institutional transformation of Asean: Zopfan, TAC, and the Bali Concord I in 1968–1976
Many international relations (IR) scholars discuss whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) possesses institutional utility in maintaining security in Southeast Asia or East Asia. While this has important implications for both academics and policy-makers, ASEAN's role has been too often evaluated in terms of what has persisted within the association rather than what changed. Yet, exploring the causes and processes of institution…
Japan's 'Indo-Pacific' question: Countering China or shaping a new regional order
Japan's primary objective of the 'free and open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives-shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence f…
Struggle for coalition‐building: Japan, South Korea, and the Indo‐Pacific
One of the most important defining features of Japan's “Free and Open Indo‐Pacific” (FOIP) vision is coalition‐building. Given the Yoon administration's strong political will to commit to the Indo‐Pacific affairs and improve its ties with Japan, can Japan and South Korea finally forge cooperation in the Indo‐Pacific region? I argue that Japan has not incorporated South Korea in its FOIP vision because of four main factors: timing, leadership tran…
The Yasukuni question: Histories, logics, and Japan–South Korea relations
This article argues that the problem of the Yasukuni Shrine between Japan and South Korea stems from the differential growth of Yasukuni discourses in both countries after the Pacific War. While the Japanese post-war discourse split into three schools of thought – Nationalists, Moderates, and Progressives – South Korean discourse has been consolidated into one dominant anti-Yasukuni perspective, largely shaped by Japan's political discourse and a…
Misplaced states and the politics of regional identity: Towards a theoretical framework
Whilst there is no shortage of analyses on the politics of regions in International Relations, little attention has been paid to states who perceive that they do not properly fit in the regions they happen to be located in. These are the ‘misplaced states’: they stand out not so much because of material capacities but because they espouse an identity, manifested in different ways, in marked contrast to the states around them. This article asks wh…
Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” Strategy: Tokyo’s Tactical Hedging and the Implications for Asean
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 41, Number 2, August 2019
The rise of China and Japan’s balancing strategy: Critical junctures and policy shifts in the 2010s
This article argues that as opposed to the conventional wisdom of Japan’s hedging policy, Japan has been constantly taking balancing behavior vis-à-vis China since the end of the Cold War; however, the incremental shift to explicit balancing began after the 2010 Senkaku Boat Collision Incident. The shift was accelerated by the 2012 Japanese Government Purchase of the Senkaku Islands. Since then, Japan has attempted to engage in both internal and …
Institutional transformation of Asean: Zopfan, TAC, and the Bali Concord I in 1968–1976
Many international relations (IR) scholars discuss whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) possesses institutional utility in maintaining security in Southeast Asia or East Asia. While this has important implications for both academics and policy-makers, ASEAN's role has been too often evaluated in terms of what has persisted within the association rather than what changed. Yet, exploring the causes and processes of institution…
Tactical hedging as coalition-building signal: The evolution of Quad and Aukus in the Indo-Pacific
How are the rise, fall, and evolution of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region explained? To address this question, I examine the cases of the Quad and AUKUS, and argue that they were caused by the success and failure of coalition-building efforts made through ‘tactical hedging’. As the world transitions from a unipolar to a non-unipolar world, states attempt to formulate coalitions to safeguard their national interests. However, the challeng…
Conceptualizing equidistant diplomacy in international relations: The case of Singapore
How can we systematically conceptualize equidistant diplomacy? This article argues that while ‘equidistant diplomacy’ has its own tactical utility to signal and shape a state’s image of political neutrality to the target states, it is not indicative of the state strategy. This is because state strategy is generally determined by material capabilities and is categorized as balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging. Rather, equidistant diplomacy is perc…
Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision under Suga: Transition and Future Challenges in Southeast Asia
While the Suga administration has managed Japan’s foreign policy towards ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) relatively well on the basis of the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” that former Prime Minister Abe had envisioned, the administration left a task for the next prime minister to creatively devise a foreign policy strategy to manage the three main challenges in the Indo-Pacific region concerning ASEAN Centrality, Indo-Pacific institu…
The evolution of Japan’s ‘misplacement’: From the Meiji Restoration to the Post-Cold war era
This article argues that since the Meiji Restoration, the degree of Japan’s misplacement has changed, depending on its structural power and ability to shape the concept of ‘Asia’ as a region. More specifically, there are three historical turning points: first, from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War (hard misplacement); second, post-World War II to the end of the Cold War (soft misplacement); and third, post-Cold War to the present (relativ…
Japan’s strategic interests in the South China Sea: Beyond the horizon
Japan has a national interest in the South China Sea issue. Although its direct commitment is ultimately limited in a material sense due to a lack of military capabilities, as well as political and constitutional constraints on the Self-Defense Force, Japan has maintained its firm stance to uphold international maritime rules and norms, and nurtured strong diplomatic relations and conducted maritime capacity-building programs with the South-East …
The East China Sea: The Flashpoint of War Among China, Japan, and the United States
Institutional collapse and shifting balance of ontological security: Role of Malaysia’s dual identity in the decay of Aspac in the 1960s and 1970s
This article examines the causal process of the institutional collapse of the Asia Pacific Council (ASPAC) in 1973 by focusing on Malaysia’s foreign policy behavior, and highlights implications for today’s ASEAN. Specifically, it argues that the institutional collapse of ASPAC was caused by Malaysia’s withdrawal, which stemmed from a shift in its balance of ontological security from security dependence on the UK and the West to greater political …
Image and Substance Failures in Regional Organisations: Causes, Consequences, Learning and Change
States often pool their sovereignty, capacity and resources to provide regionally specific public goods, such as security or trade rules, and regional organisations play important roles in international relations as institutions that attempt to secure peace and contribute to achieving other similar global policy goals. We observe failures occurring in these arrangements and activities in two areas: substance and image. To analytically account for…
The Anatomy of North Korea's Foreign Policy Formulation
IntroductionNorth Korea itself is a puzzle. At the end of the Cold War, it was widely believed that North Korea would collapse, considering the loss of its economic patron and ideological backbone in the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, this logic seems to be fading out. Despite its economic setbacks, North Korea has successfully developed its missile and nuclear capability and thus increased the survivability of its regime without sufferin…
Institutional transformation of Asean: Zopfan, TAC, and the Bali Concord I in 1968–1976
Many international relations (IR) scholars discuss whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) possesses institutional utility in maintaining security in Southeast Asia or East Asia. While this has important implications for both academics and policy-makers, ASEAN's role has been too often evaluated in terms of what has persisted within the association rather than what changed. Yet, exploring the causes and processes of institution…
The Yasukuni question: Histories, logics, and Japan–South Korea relations
This article argues that the problem of the Yasukuni Shrine between Japan and South Korea stems from the differential growth of Yasukuni discourses in both countries after the Pacific War. While the Japanese post-war discourse split into three schools of thought – Nationalists, Moderates, and Progressives – South Korean discourse has been consolidated into one dominant anti-Yasukuni perspective, largely shaped by Japan's political discourse and a…
Image and Substance Failures in Regional Organisations: Causes, Consequences, Learning and Change
States often pool their sovereignty, capacity and resources to provide regionally specific public goods, such as security or trade rules, and regional organisations play important roles in international relations as institutions that attempt to secure peace and contribute to achieving other similar global policy goals. We observe failures occurring in these arrangements and activities in two areas: substance and image. To analytically account for…
The rise of China and Japan’s balancing strategy: Critical junctures and policy shifts in the 2010s
This article argues that as opposed to the conventional wisdom of Japan’s hedging policy, Japan has been constantly taking balancing behavior vis-à-vis China since the end of the Cold War; however, the incremental shift to explicit balancing began after the 2010 Senkaku Boat Collision Incident. The shift was accelerated by the 2012 Japanese Government Purchase of the Senkaku Islands. Since then, Japan has attempted to engage in both internal and …
Asean’s Evolving Institutional Strategy: Managing Great Power Politics in South China Sea Disputes
This article argues that a change in institutional strategy enables The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to manage its great power relations and prevent their abrupt political intrusion into the region by providing the policy options of pursuing institutional balancing, bandwagoning, hedging, or co-option. ASEAN’s strategy is not only to choose optimal policy under a changing security environment, but also to create an institutional…
Japan’s strategic interests in the South China Sea: Beyond the horizon
Japan has a national interest in the South China Sea issue. Although its direct commitment is ultimately limited in a material sense due to a lack of military capabilities, as well as political and constitutional constraints on the Self-Defense Force, Japan has maintained its firm stance to uphold international maritime rules and norms, and nurtured strong diplomatic relations and conducted maritime capacity-building programs with the South-East …
Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” Strategy: Tokyo’s Tactical Hedging and the Implications for Asean
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 41, Number 2, August 2019
Japan’s Diplomatic Strategy toward East Asia: Creation and Evolution of ‘Dual-Track Diplomacy’ in the Post-Cold War Era
Japan’s diplomatic strategy toward East Asia underwent three main changes in the post-Cold War era. The first change occurred soon after the 1991 Persian Gulf War propelled Japan to consider a potential way to contribute to international security, resulting in the creation of dual-track diplomacy. The second was the consolidation of Japan’s dual-track diplomacy by strengthening the US–Japan alliance and supporting the ASEAN’s multilateral initiat…
Institutional collapse and shifting balance of ontological security: Role of Malaysia’s dual identity in the decay of Aspac in the 1960s and 1970s
This article examines the causal process of the institutional collapse of the Asia Pacific Council (ASPAC) in 1973 by focusing on Malaysia’s foreign policy behavior, and highlights implications for today’s ASEAN. Specifically, it argues that the institutional collapse of ASPAC was caused by Malaysia’s withdrawal, which stemmed from a shift in its balance of ontological security from security dependence on the UK and the West to greater political …
The Burden of the Past: Problems of Historical Perception in Japan-Korea Relations
Why have Japan and South Korea been unable to overcome historical disputes on issues such as history textbooks, comfort women, and the Yasukuni Shrine, which hinder furthering bilateral cooperation? Indeed, the renewed bilateral tension triggered in 2019 by South Korean Supreme Court’s decision to order Japanese companies to pay repatriation for war-time forced labor invited Japan’s fierce reaction. Japan raised the 1965 Treaty on the Basic Relat…
The evolution of Japan’s ‘misplacement’: From the Meiji Restoration to the Post-Cold war era
This article argues that since the Meiji Restoration, the degree of Japan’s misplacement has changed, depending on its structural power and ability to shape the concept of ‘Asia’ as a region. More specifically, there are three historical turning points: first, from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War (hard misplacement); second, post-World War II to the end of the Cold War (soft misplacement); and third, post-Cold War to the present (relativ…
Misplaced states and the politics of regional identity: Towards a theoretical framework
Whilst there is no shortage of analyses on the politics of regions in International Relations, little attention has been paid to states who perceive that they do not properly fit in the regions they happen to be located in. These are the ‘misplaced states’: they stand out not so much because of material capacities but because they espouse an identity, manifested in different ways, in marked contrast to the states around them. This article asks wh…
Japan's 'Indo-Pacific' question: Countering China or shaping a new regional order
Japan's primary objective of the 'free and open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives-shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence f…
How strategic is “asymmetric” strategic partnership? Japan’s partnership diplomacy toward Cambodia and Laos
I argue that the asymmetric strategic partnership (ASP) between a regional great power and a small power is not necessarily based on their shared goals, but such a partnership would help them achieve their own strategic objectives. For a regional great power, an ASP helps prevent a weak partner from excessively depending on a rival state for its economy and security. For a small power, the partnership increases the legitimacy of domestic politica…
Conceptualizing equidistant diplomacy in international relations: The case of Singapore
How can we systematically conceptualize equidistant diplomacy? This article argues that while ‘equidistant diplomacy’ has its own tactical utility to signal and shape a state’s image of political neutrality to the target states, it is not indicative of the state strategy. This is because state strategy is generally determined by material capabilities and is categorized as balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging. Rather, equidistant diplomacy is perc…
Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision under Suga: Transition and Future Challenges in Southeast Asia
While the Suga administration has managed Japan’s foreign policy towards ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) relatively well on the basis of the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” that former Prime Minister Abe had envisioned, the administration left a task for the next prime minister to creatively devise a foreign policy strategy to manage the three main challenges in the Indo-Pacific region concerning ASEAN Centrality, Indo-Pacific institu…
Getting Asean Right in US Indo-Pacific Strategy
The Enduring Dilemma of Japan’s Uniqueness Narratives
From the Meiji Restoration (1868) to the Reiwa era (2019–) and despite its intermittent international prominence, Japan has never managed to establish either a consistent or universal narrative that would express the significance of its place in the world. Instead, Japan has been facing an enduring dilemma posed by its own uniqueness narratives. The Japanese narratives of its success as the only Asian nation that had managed to modernize and mili…
Japan’s New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific
Journal Article Japan's New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific Get access Japan's New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific by Saori KatadaNew York: Columbia University Press, 2020, 344 pp., $35.00 (paper ISBN 9780231190732) Kei KOGA Kei KOGA Nanyang Technological University [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0373-3088 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar So…
Struggle for coalition‐building: Japan, South Korea, and the Indo‐Pacific
One of the most important defining features of Japan's “Free and Open Indo‐Pacific” (FOIP) vision is coalition‐building. Given the Yoon administration's strong political will to commit to the Indo‐Pacific affairs and improve its ties with Japan, can Japan and South Korea finally forge cooperation in the Indo‐Pacific region? I argue that Japan has not incorporated South Korea in its FOIP vision because of four main factors: timing, leadership tran…
Southeast Asia
This chapter explores how Southeast Asia has coped with various great power competitions since the end of World War II. Given Southeast Asia’s strategic location and the existence of natural resources, great powers (namely the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan) have been attracted to the region and played a significant role in shaping the regional strategic balance, which has created political and economic divergences within the r…
Tactical hedging as coalition-building signal: The evolution of Quad and Aukus in the Indo-Pacific
How are the rise, fall, and evolution of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region explained? To address this question, I examine the cases of the Quad and AUKUS, and argue that they were caused by the success and failure of coalition-building efforts made through ‘tactical hedging’. As the world transitions from a unipolar to a non-unipolar world, states attempt to formulate coalitions to safeguard their national interests. However, the challeng…
Withering Foip? Japan’s Evolving Indo-Pacific Vision from Kishida to Ishiba
Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) has become one of the most important strategic narratives in its foreign policy, yet it has not developed in a linear manner. Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the government advanced detailed plans for FOIP while also introducing a related concept, the “Free and Open International Order” (FOIO). As FOIO gained visibility, scholars debated whether this shift diluted FOIP’s achievements or whether situ…
Asean's Institutional Strategic Partnerships in the Indo-Pacific
How has ASEAN developed its strategic relationships with external partners in the Indo-Pacific through strategic partnerships (SPs) and comprehensive strategic partnerships (CSPs) since the end of the Cold War, and what strategic functions do these statuses serve? This paper focuses on institution-based SPs and develops a typology of institutional strategic partnerships (ISPs), arguing that their strategic functions vary across four forms: functi…
Political science (22 works) · Economics (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Political economy (13 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (12 works) · Law (12 works) · China (11 works) · International trade (10 works) · Business (9 works)