Deepening regional cooperation in East Asia is one of the most significant developments in the world today. In this book, Joel Rathus examines key institutions in East Asia by conducting interviews with the major players around the region. He weaves together a concise and coherent story out of the complicated, contradictory and often confusing details of East Asian regionalism. He argues that the Sino-Japanese relationship is the driver for much of this regionalism. However, their often strained relations have been the cause of a networked style of cooperation in East Asian institutions as opposed to the more formal and legalistic modes seen in Europe and North America.

JOEL RATHUS is EABER Scholar at the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research of the Australian National University. Previously, he was a Monbukagakusho scholar in Japan and Lecturer at the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He has published in the area of Japanese-Chinese relations and Japan-Australia politics.