Abstract
Northeast Asia is at the vortex of the Asia-Pacific Basin where four of the world’s five centers of power — the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan — meet and interact. This is the only region in the world where such a mixture of two-power (superpower), three-power (strategic triangle), and four-power games are played out on multiple chessboards with all their complexities and configurations. Like great tectonic plates of the earth’s crust, any collision or collusion between and among the Big Four tends to restructure the alignment patterns not only of the region but globally as well. Northeast Asia also seems to be the only region where superpower conflict persists contrary to the more synchronized rhythms and the expanding virtuous circle of Soviet-American détente elsewhere.
I would like to thank Henry Bienen and William Feeney for their valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the chapter. I wish also to acknowledge the support of much of the research and writing of this paper by the Peter B. Lewis Fund of the Center of International Studies, Princeton University.
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Notes
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© 1991 Roger E. Kanet and Edward A. Kolodziej
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Kim, S.S. (1991). Superpower Cooperation in Northeast Asia. In: Kanet, R.E., Kolodziej, E.A. (eds) The Cold War as Cooperation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11605-8_14
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