Summary of Richard McGregor's Asia's Reckoning

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In August 1971, Henry Kissinger greeted Tokyo’s ambassador to the United States, Nobuhiko Ushiba, in his office in the western White House in San Clemente. The meeting was to mend fences with the Japanese, but all of Kissinger’s frustrations about dealing with Tokyo tumbled out anyway.

#2 The opening to China was a moment of rupture for the United States as well, as it saw its strategic and economic preeminence begin to wither.

#3 The Nixon-Kissinger partnership on China policy was very successful, and they decided to keep it that way by unveiling their plans for the secret trip to Beijing in July 1971.

#4 China and Japan had developed largely in isolation from each other until the late nineteenth century. But when both were forced to open up under economic and military threat from the West in the mid-nineteenth century, Japan was transformed from a feudal society into a modern industrial state able to compete with the West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822523371

IRB Media

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Insights on Richard McGregor's Asias Reckoning

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In August 1971, Henry Kissinger greeted Tokyo’s ambassador to the United States, Nobuhiko Ushiba, in his office in the western White House in San Clemente. The meeting was to mend fences with the Japanese, but all of Kissinger’s frustrations about dealing with Tokyo tumbled out anyway.

#2

The opening to China was a moment of rupture for the United States as well, as it saw its strategic and economic preeminence begin to wither.

#3

The Nixon-Kissinger partnership on China policy was very successful, and they decided to keep it that way by unveiling their plans for the secret trip to Beijing in July 1971.

#4

China and Japan had developed largely in isolation from each other until the late nineteenth century. But when both were forced to open up under economic and military threat from the West in the mid-nineteenth century, Japan was transformed from a feudal society into a modern industrial state able to compete with the West.

#5

The two regional giants had never learned how to interact as equals. The triumph of Mao’s Communists in 1949 and the defeat and destruction of Japan and its occupation by the United States would leave the two countries at odds again.

#6

The United States and Japan signed a bilateral security pact after the San Francisco conference in 1951 that set the terms of Tokyo’s return as a sovereign nation. The core bargain of the treaty remains largely intact today. Japan allowed the United States to station its military in the country and aligned itself with the West, in return for American protection from external threats.

#7

The United States helped remodel Japan’s foreign and domestic politics, but it also tried to expunge the raw, recent history of World War II in Asia. It limited Japan’s bill for war reparations, and kept its emperor in place.

#8

In the early 1950s, China was also happy to bury the issue of Japanese culpability in the war. Beijing was diplomatically isolated, desperately short of investment and technology, and had been laid waste by decades of foreign and internecine wars.

#9

Mao had no interest in an apology from Japan, as he genuinely believed that the CCP owed its victory in the civil war to Japan. Chinese scholars of Japan who have tried to tread a more independent path say the truth is simpler: Mao had no interest in an apology because he genuinely believed that the CCP owed its victory in the civil war to Japan.

#10

China’s Japan strategy was to pressure Japan to break with the United States with the kinds of tactics that would become familiar to foreigners decades later, when China was opened to Western commerce. In 1951, Chinese officials wrote to Japanese business leaders to suggest reopening trade.

#11

In the 1950s, Zhou wanted to split the anti-Chinese alliance between Japan and the United States. He almost got his wish, but Japan suddenly changed course.

#12

Kishi Nobusuke was the man the CCP used to represent everything they disliked about Japan. He was a top civilian