Network Power: Japan and Asia

Network Power: Japan and Asia. Edited by Peter Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. 399p. $55.00 cloth, $22.50 paper.

This edited volume is aptly titled. Indeed, it examines the informal "network power" in terms of the economic, security, and cultural identities that characterize Japan's position in Asian regionalism. The subtitle, "Japan and Asia," not "Japan in Asia," suggests a highly problematic and extremely complex regional identity for Japan. In the Introduction, Conclusion, and nine chapters, an ensemble of leading scholars from Japan and the United States bring multiple disciplinary perspectives to bear on tackling issues of Asian regionalism and Japanese power. The result is an extraordinary book that leaves almost no stone unturned in illuminating the multifaceted and in many ways distinctive nature of both subjects.

Katzenstein's Introduction and his co-authored (with Shiraishi) Conclusion situate Asian regionalism and Japan's role in a comparative perspective. It is argued that differences in regional power, norms, and domestic structures are responsible for the legalistic and institutionalized regional dynamics in Europe and for the relative weakness in Asian regionalism. Particularly innovative, albeit suggestive, is Katzenstein's argument that the distinctiveness in Asian regionalism may simply reflect the informal network-style power structures that characterize the states in East Asia. For the editors, the difference between the regional positions in Asia and Europe of Japan and Germany is attributable to the difference in the historical legacies of regional order, U.S. strategies, regional power configuration, postwar occupation experiences, domestic institutions and national identity, and their positions under U.S. hegemony. The nine chapters deal with the aspects in detail.

Takeshi Hamashita traces Asianism to the ancient Chinese-dominated tributary system, which he states lasted for more than a thousand years and reached its apex under the Ming and Qing dynasties. He challenges the notion that Western imposition of the treaty system on Asia in the midnineteenth century brought about an abrupt and complete replacement of tributary relations. Rather, these continued to coexist with the treaty system. It was Japan that "launched the project of abolishing the tributary system" (p. 132) under Chinese dominance and sought "to move...