Overcoming Isolationism: Japan’s Leadership in East Asian Multilateralism Paul Midford

Since the early 1990s, the Asia-Pacific region has witnessed the flourishing of regional security multilateralism (RSM). This is exemplified by the establishment of theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF) in 1993, the ASEAN Plus-Three (APT) in 1997, the East Asia Summit (EAS) in 2005, and the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) in 2010. Although there exists relatively an abundance of literature on Japan’s active roles in the evolution of those regional institutions, Paul Midford was the first scholar who explicitly highlighted the significance of Japanese initiatives for promoting RSM in the early 1990s, most notably the Nakayama proposal of...