Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2015. x, 208 pp. US$29.90, paper. ISBN 978-981-4620-41-3.
This book demonstrates clearly that memories of past events as well as the people who participated in creating them can impede current discussions aimed at improving contemporary relationships at the bilateral level. In order to do so the volume’s editor and contributors collectively develop the concepts of legacy and overhang and proceed to use them as tools of analysis as they explain their importance as impediments to successful bilateral interactions between sets of Asian nations. They begin their analysis by noting that interactions among and between nations take place at three levels: the global (or system), the regional (or subsystem) and the bilateral (or nation to nation). They concentrate on the latter, which involves past relationships within historical settings. After reviewing the methodological approaches to analyzing these interactions, they concentrate on bilateralism and the impediments raised by overhangs and legacies and proceed to account for them in five separate but integrated chapters. Each chapter is a case study of a set of interactions involving China-Japan, Japan-Korea, China-Vietnam, Myanmar-Thailand, and Thailand-Cambodia. The chapters “…discuss these bilateral relationships and narrate their importance both in history and the presence, paying special attention to…how these issues became embedded in bilateral discourse, what are the constituencies that invoke them and under what circumstances, and finally, what are the possibilities of such issues eventually fading into the back-ground” (19).
Bilateral legacies are enduring products of past financial and economic conflicts, territorial disputes, tensions, political posturing, security and military threats, armed conflicts, as well as ideological differences that previously arose between two nations. When these legacies fail to fade from memories, the results are hangovers that impede the maturation of amity between nations and over time can lead to enmity. As a result, “one thing is certain—it is incumbent upon political elites to muster sufficient political will and resources to overcome overhangs or legacies…[and] since such overhangs and legacies obtain within the context of a bilateral relationship, such efforts must be pursued by both countries in the relationship simultaneously to achieve progress” (19).
The volume emphasizes emphatically the point that history matters because legacies and overhangs leave a “negative perception that derives from historical interactions and subsequently becomes embedded in the psyche of the state, both at the level of the elites and the citizen body” (22). The primary emphases of the volume are to describe in detail how these perceptions came about and to explore ways for decision-makers (mainly political elites) to resolve them in order for effective and mutually beneficial bilateral interactions to take place.
The emphases are core to the chapters and in his concluding segment the editor summarizes their contents and highlights their implications while reaching this caution: “…negative images of neighboring states should not be played up by a state as part of responsible international behavior. It is certainly no way to accrue good will and soft power in the international arena. Consequently the state and its agencies should refrain from utilizing overhangs or legacies in their foreign policy output” (179). Ganesan goes on to add, “…such efforts among its own citizens and fringe groups trying to gain political mileage should be opposed…In order to preserve cordial ties with proximate neighbours” (170). It’s important to note that over time cordial ties are important because environments change, as in the case of China and Vietnam, which “…share a long history of relations marked by extended periods of collaboration and shorter periods of military conflict” (95). Depending upon when in the course of historical ebbs and flows discussions take place, hangovers might or might not arise and this makes enduring ties essential.
In addition to the rigor exhibited throughout the volume, important attention is paid to key factors such as the importance of civility and mutual respect among leaders and decision-makers as they conduct foreign affairs. Not only is comity likely to bind neighboring personnel (thereby enhancing the likelihood of reaching mutually advantageous bilateral relationships) but it also could have important spillover effects when it comes to discussions about forming broader regional and subregional arrangements. Mutual cordiality among leaders could help to overcome remnants of hangovers involving the nations that they represent during formative deliberations about the future.
The book’s chapters are organized in a logical and linear fashion, are uniformly well-written, and exhibit an impressive level of scholarship, and while reading through the volume readers are likely to think about other bilateral and regional interactions where legacies and overhangs come to mind. The concepts are not simply academic abstractions. They influence outcomes in terms of how well Southeast Asian national leaders are able to form symbiotic interactions: for example, between Thailand and Malaysia in their cross-border development effort; or among four ASEAN members and Yunnan Province of the People’s Republic of China in their effort to take advantage of the natural economic territory contained in the Greater Mekong Subregion; or among the ten-nation participants in a joint effort to create an ASEAN Economic Community that would enable producers to take advantage of horizontal and vertical market linkages that result in long run efficiencies due to the creation of a larger and more integrated region.
The volume is both interesting and useful, and in the judgement of this reviewer it would provide excellent reading material in either advanced upper division courses or graduate level seminars in fields ranging from international economics to international relations. The chapters can serve as case studies in which an individual student or a student-group could either present analyses of specific chapters to fellow classmates or could discover and analyze bilateral relationships among other nations. In effect, the book’s contents accomplish two tasks: they contribute to the state of knowledge about what scholars and decision-makers know about bilateral relationships and they provide students and teachers with ideas worth pursuing within classroom settings.
Robert L. Curry, Jr.
California State University (Emeritus), Sacramento, USA
pp. 113-115