The Strategic Quadrangle

by Michael Mandelbaum

In The Strategic Quadrangle five experts on East Asia explore the new shape of power among the major players in the region - Russia, China, Japan, and the United States. The authors examine the web of alliances, historical rivalries, and conflicting worldviews that define the relations among these four powers and analyze how the interactions among them will affect East Asia and the international system as a whole. Robert Legvold, surveying the sweeping changes that have taken place in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, contends that genuine integration into East Asia requires the kind of economic changes that have just begun in Russia and will take years to complete. David Lampton, in his chapter on China, examines the Chinese leadership's policy of military detente and economic cooperation with the other three powers in order to sustain the remarkable economic performance of the last two decades. In his chapter on Japan, Michael Mochizuki discusses the uncertainty that th