International Relations of East Asia
East Asia holds four great powers, three nuclear weapons states, and two of the world's largest economies, and this MIT OpenCourseWare course examines why the region swings between cooperation and conflict. Lectures and readings move from the historical tribute system and the Sino centric order through the Pacific War, the Cold War alliance structure, and the post 1970s rise of China, testing competing explanations drawn from international relations theory, political science, and diplomatic history for events like the Korean War, the Taiwan Strait crises, and Sino Japanese tension. The syllabus pairs theoretical texts on balance of power, deterrence, and economic interdependence with case specific historical scholarship, asking students to weigh realist, liberal, and constructivist accounts against the actual record. Materials include the full reading list, lecture notes, and assignments as published by MIT, free to access with no certificate offered through OpenCourseWare. The course works as a grounding in both the region's modern history and the analytical tools political scientists use to argue about it.