Asia Pacific security : values and identity / Leszek Buszynski.

1. Values and identities -- 2. Values and identity and the significance of Taiwan to China -- 3. Values, identity and Japanese security -- 4. The Korean peninsula -- 5. Values, identity and US Asia Pacific policy -- 6. Values, identity and Asia Pacific regionalism -- 7. Values, identity and Asia Pacific security.

"The book examines Asia Pacific security from the perspective of the values and identities of the major actors - China, Japan, the two Koreas and the US. It highlights the importance of the centralised state for the Chinese identity and political culture and identifies the impact upon Taiwan. It surveys Japanese pacifist values which are at odds with the American effort to prod Japan to assume a greater security role in the region. It analyses the clashing value systems of the two Koreas, the South pressing for engagement and the North bound by the logic of its existence to resist it. The book also examines American values as a basis for policy towards the other actors, values which are not as universal as Americans like to think.

The book argues that the development of Asia Pacific regionalism has been deeply affected by a clash of values between the US and Asia, that the values and identities of the Asian actors have been misunderstood by the West, and that there will be no true security in the Asia Pacific region unless those values and identities will be accommodated."--BOOK JACKET.