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The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle, 1972-1989

Edited by Ezra F. Vogel, Yuan Ming, and Tanaka Akihiko
Reviewed by By Lucian W. Pye
March/April 2003
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Edited by Ezra F. Vogel, Yuan Ming, and Tanaka Akihiko
Harvard University Press
2002
268 pp.
0674009606
$40.00

This conference symposium is far superior to most such works because the editors took seriously their responsibilities; consequently, the contributors have produced well-researched and carefully thought through chapters. In Part I, three authors examine how domestic politics influenced their country's relations with the other two. In the subsequent parts, each of the pairs of relations are treated by authors from the two countries. The period is held up as a "golden age" that began with Richard Nixon's visit to China and ended with the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although no subsequent unifying force has arisen comparable to the Soviet threat, the authors generally seek to find lessons that might still apply to make for better relations among the three powers. In spite of such efforts, the work is better read for its excellent chapters of political and diplomatic history.

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