The China-Japan-US Triangle

The most critical factor for maintaining regional stability in East Asia over the next few decades is the relations between the three great powers in the region: China, Japan and the United States. This paper discusses relations between China, Japan and the United States since World War II. It looks at three periods of critical changes in their relations - 1947 to 1951, 1969 to 1978 and 1989 to 1993. It considers in detail the three bilateral relationships in the current period of uncertainty. The paper demonstrates that although until now the officials in the three countries have thought bilaterally, the fates of the three countries are interlinked. The challenge for the US-Japan-China triangle is to create the positive synergy that the three nations enjoyed from 1971 to 1989. [George Ernest Morrison Lecture on Ethnography, 2001, The Contemporary China Centre]