JAPAN AND THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION

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Lcl us say from the outset that any Japanese dominated bloc alter the fashion of the East Asia Co-Prosperity sphere is unlikely to develop in the near future. The Japanese economy is too interdependent globally. As Jeffrey Frankel writes in a recent essay, Japanese investment for the years 1985-1989 in Europe and North America shows a rise as dramatic as, if not more than, the Asian region(l). Similarly regarding trade, the Asian share of global trade, of which Japan constitutes a very substantial part, has grown even more than intra Asian trade for the years 1980-1989, impressive as the latter growth may have been(2). Such statistics suggests no trend towards Asian autarky, as the Co-Prosperity Sphere was. Nor do the present Japanese elite, and indeed the Japanese population, posses the will to effect political-military domination of the region. They realise the folly of Japan's militaristic past and are only too aware of the immense difficulties involved