Cold War Undercurrents: The Extreme-Right Variants in East Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-430
Author(s):  
Yoonkyung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
North America ◽  
East Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Institutional Sustainability ◽  
The Cold War

This study examines the mobilization of the Far Right in Korea and Japan in the 2000s and probes how and why the actors and political claims of East Asian extremists differ from their counterparts in Europe and North America. The Far Right forces in Korea and Japan are politically regressive in glorifying the authoritarian or colonial past and cling to unchanging ideological claims from the postwar decades in their current targeting of old-time, internal “others.” This divergence is explained by the United States–led Cold War geopolitics in Asia, under which Far Right elites were fortified in postwar Japan and Korea. The Cold War that has not ended in Asia as opposed to Europe or North America further allows the institutional sustainability of the radical Right and the political resonance of its old ideology of anticommunism and colonial racism. As such, democratic politics in East Asia is predicated on Cold War undercurrents.

East Asia and Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enyu Zhang ◽  
Qingmin Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Policy Analysis ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The Taiwan Strait ◽  
The Cold War

The study of East Asian foreign policies has progressed in sync with mainstream international relations (IR) theories: (1) from perhaps an inadvertent or unconscious coincidence with realism during the Cold War to consciously using different theoretical tools to study the various aspects of East Asian foreign policies; and (2) from the dominance of realism to a diversity of theories in studying East Asian foreign policies. Nonetheless, the old issues from the Cold War have not been resolved; the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait remain two flashpoints in the region, with new twists that can derail regional stability and prosperity. New issues also have emerged and made East Asia most volatile. One issue is concerned with restructuring the balance of power in East Asia, particularly the dynamics among the major players, i.e. Japan, China, and the United States. Regionalism is another new topic in the study of East Asian foreign policies. A review of the current state of the field suggests that two complementary issues be given priority in the future. First, the foreign policy interests and strategies of individual small states vis-à-vis great powers in the region, particularly those in Southeast Asia and the Korean peninsula. Second, what could really elevate the study of East Asian foreign policies in the general field of IR and foreign policy analysis is to continue exploring innovative analytical frameworks that can expand the boundaries of existing metatheories and paradigms.

scholarly journals Reassessing the Cold War and the Far-Right: Fascist Legacies and the Making of the Liberal International Order after 1945

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-395
Author(s):  
Alexander Anievas ◽  
Richard Saull
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Order ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Uneven And Combined Development ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract This article intervenes in IR debates on the origins and character of the postwar liberal international order. Dominant theorizations of the US-led Western order rest on a shared assumption of its essentially post-fascist character based on the liberal-democratic properties of its constitutive members. This article challenges this prevailing view. It does so through a critical historical and theoretical exploration of the role of far-right ideopolitical forces in the development of the liberal international order during the early Cold War period. Drawing on the concepts of “uneven and combined development” and “passive revolution” as alternative theoretical frames, the article focuses particular attention on the significance of former fascists in the workings and institutional fabric of a number of West European states and the relationship between the United States and NATO in far-right coup-plotting and violence that punctuated their national histories. Demonstrating these far-right “contributions” to the making and evolution of the Cold War order, the article offers a reconceptualization of liberal order construction and US hegemony that not only problematizes existing accounts of Cold War geopolitics but also demonstrates the structural interconnections between the far-right and liberal order-building projects that goes beyond the Cold War era.

scholarly journals Changing Context, Persistent Frames: The United States and the Absence of Multilateral Institutions in Post-Cold War East Asia

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-100
Author(s):  
Clint Work
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Multilateral Institutions ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Critical Historiography

After the Cold War, conditions appeared ripe for the formation of new multilateral institutions that would have more accurately reflected the altered distribution of power in East Asia. However, no new or robust institutions were established. Despite the value of certain historical and structural arguments, this study emphasizes the role of the United States in contributing to this outcome. Building upon critical historiography, this article sketches three frames of U.S. foreign policy held by U.S. elites (including: expansion, preponderance, and exceptionalism), traces their operation in the discourse and rationales behind U.S. policy during the post-Cold War interregnum, and argues that these frames worked against any attempt by the United States to establish new multilateral institutions.

The Struggle to Rearm Japan: Negotiating the Cold War State in US-Japanese Relations

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Assistance ◽  
Assistance Program ◽  
Postwar Japan ◽  
Political Relationship ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

The Cold War brought forth an unprecedented level of global interactions, creating relationships that not only brought states together but altered the trajectories of societies. To explore the impact of the Cold War on postwar Japan, this article examines the negotiations between the United States and Japan over Japanese membership in the Mutual Security Program, the United States’ postwar military assistance program. It considers debates over Japanese rearmament and their effect on Japan’s economy and democracy, both within Japan and between Japan and the United States, the negotiations that resulted in Japan’s membership in the program, and Japanese reactions to this membership. It argues that Japanese rearmament both brought the United States and Japan together, and created tensions between them, highlighting the complicated Cold War dynamics between domestic and international politics. Further, it asserts that the Cold War altered the nature of the state by fostering a multilayered relationship between government policy-making, international negotiations, institutional developments, and socio-political mobilizations, creating a new political relationship that it calls the Cold War State.

Cold War Shadows of Japan’s Imperial Legacies for Women in East Asia

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 659-675
Author(s):  
Kozue Akibayashi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
East Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

Japan occupies a unique position in the history of East Asia as the sole non-Western colonial power. Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific War that ended its colonial expansion did not bring justice to its former colonies. The Japanese leadership and people were spared from being held accountable for its invasion and colonial rule by the United States in its Cold War strategy to make post–World War II Japan a military outpost and bulwark in the region against communism. How then did the Cold War shape feminisms in Japan, a former colonizing force that never came to terms with its colonial violence? What was the impact of the Cold War on Japanese women’s movements for their own liberation? What are the implications for today? This article discusses the effects of Japan’s imperial legacies during the Cold War and the current aftermath with examples taken from the history of the women’s movement in Japan.

scholarly journals The Helms-Burton Law: Development, Consequences, and Legacy for Inter-American and European-US Relations

1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquín Roy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
North America ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cold War

On April 11, 1997, the European Commission, represented by its vice president and UK commissioner, Leon Brittan, responsible for foreign trade and relations with North-America; and the government of the United States, represented by Under Secretary of State for Foreign Trade Stuart Eizenstat, agreed on a compromise that in effect would temporarily neutralize the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton law, just a year after its approval. In the event that all the portions of the agreement are implemented, this accommodation will represent the end of one of the most serious episodes of disagreement between Washington and Brussels since the end of the Cold War, as well as between the United States and its partners in NAFTA.

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