Over the past fifteen years Northeast Asia has witnessed growing intraregional exchanges and interactions, especially in the realms of culture and economy. Still, the region cannot escape from the burden of history.

This book examines the formation of historical memory in four Northeast Asian societies (China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) and the United States focusing on the period from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war in 1931 until the formal conclusion of the Pacific War with the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951.

The contributors analyse the recent efforts of...

South Korea and Vietnam established diplomatic relations only twenty years ago. Today these former adversaries enjoy unexpectedly cordial and rapidly expanding bilateral ties. Leaders of the two nations--perceiving broadly shared interests and no fundamental conflicts--seek to leverage their subregional influence on behalf of common or complementary policy goals. Today they often profess a "middle power" identity as they explain their foreign policy in terms of such classical middle power goals as regional peace, integration, and common goods.

Broadly similar in many respects, South...