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Asia's New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community. Edited by Michael Green and Bates Gill. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. 400 pp. $89.50 (cloth); $32.50 (paper).
Edited by two of the foremost specialists on the region, Michael Green and Bates Gill, Asia 's New Multilateralism: Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community offers an insightful overview of current East Asian international politics. The book focuses on the prospects and pitfalls facing governmental efforts to address common problems in East Asia. It draws together chapters written by top country and issue experts in this very diverse part of the world. Insofar as issues in the region now have consequences that cross borders and require joint responses, the book provides a perceptive appreciation of recent developments. As inclusive as it is, it might, however, have provided a more comprehensive analytical framework as well as more explicit discussions about how key minor actors and changes in structural conditions may affect multilateral cooperation.
Green and Gill organize the book to encourage "cross-referencing of national strategies and debates with regional challenges" (p. 4). This is a clear and useful way to cut into the potentially confusing web that can characterize concerns in East Asia. The introduction, which clearly lays out both the book's goals and the history of multilateralism in East Asia, is followed by seven chapters that discuss approaches to international cooperation taken by the main regional actors. The editors see these chapters as the "x-axis" of their "matrix" when considering the "emerging Asian architecture" (p. 3). The second half...