The United States-Japan-China Triangle in the Post-Cold War Early Decades: A Case Study of Applied Political Science
Power and Insecurity
by Jalel Ben Haj Rehaiem
Bertrand Russell said: “There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”; both motives apply to “The United States-Japan-China Triangle in the post-Cold War Early Decades: A Case Study of Applied Political Science.” First, you enjoy reading this book because it relates to the precarious state of world affairs after the Cold War, particularly the increasingly rising tensions within this US-Japan-China troubled triangle over power and security calculations in the New World Order of Pax Americana. Second, you can boast about the manuscript, as it has transpired that it was ahead of its time because it did anticipate the three paths of the U.S. foreign policy trajectory in East Asia in the following decades after the end of the Cold War: China would have to be either engaged or contained, North Korea would need to be disarmed from any nuclear weaponry, and Russia ought to be reminded from time to time of the strong U.S. military presence in the region.
Dr. Lanouar Ben Hafsa
University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France
This book examines the post-Cold War U.S.-Japan-China Triangle through the lens of two core international relations variables: power and security. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S., as the sole superpower, aimed to prevent the rise of any rival in Asia or elsewhere that could threaten its global position. This approach aligns with a realist view of international relations, championed by scholars like John Mearsheimer, tracing back to the principles of interstate competition seen as far back as the 1648 Westphalia Treaty and the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC. The book argues that the U.S. aims to prevent China from becoming a revisionist power by strategically using its alliance with Japan as a deterrent within the American-led regional order.
Historically, the U.S.-Japan-China relationship has seen consistent U.S. support for Japan, often at China’s expense, except during World War II. Since the 19th century, the U.S., alongside European powers, pressured China through treaties such as the 1844 Wanghia Treaty and direct interventions like the Opium Wars. Japan’s industrialization after the Meiji Restoration led to imperialist ambitions that eventually clashed with Western interests, culminating in Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor—a short-lived break in the U.S.-Japan alignment. After the Communist rise to power in China in the late 1940s, the U.S. renewed its strategic ties with Japan to contain Chinese influence, solidified by the 1951 security treaty.
Dr. Jalel Ben Haj Rehaiem, three-time Fulbrighter, three-time awardee from the United States State Department upon completion of three Fulbright programs, and alumnus of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), the University of Pittsburgh (1997/98), was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at North Central College, Naperville, Chicago (2005/2006), Japan Foundation Fellow (2008), and an International Research Collaborator with ARENA, Tsukuba University, Tokyo. He is currently a scholar on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia and an international news media consultant with a panoply of international news stations in three languages: English, French, and Arabic.
Dr. Rehaiem has also taught American foreign policy for 25 years, from Tunisia to the United States and the Persian Gulf. He has supervised tens of MA dissertations on subjects ranging from the U.S.-China relationship to political discourse analysis related to U.S. presidents’ and State Secretaries’ series of speeches on various issues and across different spans of time in the political history of the United States.
Moreover, Dr. Rehaiem has published a series of articles in SCOPUS-indexed journals, including ‘The North Korea Review’ (Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies, Seoul, South Korea) – “The Trump-Kim ‘Ripeness’ Paradox and the Problematic ‘Precipitants’”; ‘The International Journal of Humanities and Social Science’ (George Mason University, U.S.) – “The Price of the U.S. Entanglement in China’s Domestic Affairs: The Chinese Civil War as a Case Study”; and ‘Asian Social Science’, Canadian Center of Science and Education – “The United States-China Mutually Assured Distrust.” Dr. Rehaiem is currently working on an article deciphering China’s Afghanistan dilemma in the aftermath of the 2021 U.S. hasty withdrawal and the perceived strategic United States defeat in Central Asia.
Hegemony, strategic rivalry, animus belligerendi, animus dominandi, longitudinal analysis, extraterritoriality, power, security, international relations, Wanghia Treaty, Opium Wars, China, Taiwan, Japan, Meji Restoration, East Asia, negative security factor, ASEAN, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Theater Missile Defense (THAD), John Mearsheimer, Wang Guangya, Peter W. Rodman, Christopher R. Hill, Chalrmers Johnson, Ezra Vogel, Bruce Cumings, John K. Fairbank
See also
Bibliographic Information
Book Title
The United States-Japan-China Triangle in the Post-Cold War Early Decades: A Case Study of Applied Political Science
Book Subtitle
Power and Insecurity
ISBN
979-8-8819-0044-1
Edition
1st
Physical size
236mm x 160mm
