Historic shifts within East Asia have driven efforts to build up regional institutions. The United States has been largely absent from these efforts, despite its longstanding ties to the region. Recently, though, American officials declared that the United States is "back in Asia" and began a flurry of activities to strengthen U.S. involvement in the region's emerging institutions.

There are still many questions about what role the United States will ultimately play in the evolving regional architecture and how the region will react to this. In this volume, experts from around Asia Pacific explore the latest changes in U.S. involvement in the region's affairs and analyze the region's divergent perspectives on the role that America should play in a new East Asia community.

Contributors include James Gannon (Japan Center for International Exchange), Han Intaek (Jeju Peace Institute, South Korea), Joey Long Shi Ruey (Nanyang Technical University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore), Noel Morada (Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, University of Queensland), Amy Searight (Center for Strategic and International Studies), Takashi Terada (Waseda University, Tokyo), and Yu Wanli (Beijing University's School of International Studies).