Sustaining a Resilient Asia Pacific Community
By Wilmar Salim and Kiran Sagoo

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Executions by the Half-Dozen: The Pacification of Burma
Terence R. Blackburn

The aim of this book is to demonstrate that the British, as conquerors, were not universally welcomed. In the case of Upper Burma it was mistakenly believed by the British that the average Burman would be glad to see the back of a murderous drunken King who ruled over them with a rod of iron. In fact, this was not his case. But let us take first the massacre of the princes in 1878. It is true that shortly after King Thibaw's accession most of the royal princes, many with their wives and children, were done to death, but by whom? And why? The King told the special correspondent of The Times that he had ordered their imprisonment but was not aware of the killings until after the event.

The Rebel Den of Nung Tri Cao: Loyalty and Identity along the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier
By James Anderson

In the eleventh century a Tai-speaking chieftain named Nung Tri Cao launched a struggle for independence along Vietnam's mountainous northern frontier that became a pivotal event in Sino-Vietnamese relations. Occurring shortly after Vietnam became independent from China, this event was a vital test of the Vietnamese court's ability to confront local political challenges and maintain harmony with its powerful northern neighbor.

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A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi and the Making of the Paris Agreement
By Pierre Asselin

Using newly available archival sources from Vietnam, the United States, and Canada, the author reconstructs the secret negotiations, highlighting the creative roles of Hanoi, the National Liberation Front, and Saigon in constructing the final settlement.

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Indonesia and the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement: Nationalists and Regional Integration Strategy
By Alexander Chandra

The author analyzes the relationship between Indonesian nationalism and ASEAN regional integration, with specific reference to the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Traditionally, the relationship between nationalism and regionalism has most often been characterized as contentious. Chandra, however, challenges the argument that nationalism and regionalism cannot co-exist, and argues instead that the two ideologies can stand in a symbiotic relationship to each other. The relationship between nationalism and regionalism can be conflicting or mutually exclusive, but can also sometimes by mutually reinforcing. Therefore, nationalists today are not necessarily hostile to free trade and closer economic ties with other states.

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Japan-Vietnam: A Relation under Influences
By Guy Faure and Laurent Schwab

Japan, the reigning economic giant of East Asia, and Vietnam, an industrializing socialist country, have historical connections dating back to a Japanese merchant community that flourished in fourteenth century Hoi An. Relations have often been heavily influenced by external powers, and twentieth century encounters have included violent confrontations, but the new century has brought a growing convergence of interests and the beginning of a new relationship. As the authors point out, relations between the two countries have been greatly influenced by outside powers. In the late nineteenth century, confronted by Western colonialism, Vietnamese nationalists took refuge in Japan and sought inspiration from Japan's economic development and resistance to the West.

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Roads, railway lines and bridges, harbors and cities, irrigation and drinking water supplies; evidence of the presence of Dutch engineers in the former Dutch East Indies may be found everywhere in Indonesia. This book places this legacy from the colonial past in its true perspective - it provides a detailed description of some of the most important works projects of the Dutch East Indies era while simultaneously outlining the contribution made by the Netherlands to the restoration, modernization and development of such works in the Republic of Indonesia.