In a world that has more than its share of trouble spots and possible flashpoints, the East China Sea looms as one of the most potentially problematic and combustible. The increasingly uncompromising and assertive—if not aggressive—regional foreign policy of China in particular has done much to undermine East Asia’s hard-won and surprising reputation as an arena of relative stability. Indeed, it has become increasingly commonplace to make comparisons between contemporary East Asia and Western Europe on the eve of World War I, when few expected—or wanted—the “war to end all wars.” And yet that is precisely what happened, of course.

This is the context that James Maincom analyzes in Bridging Troubled Waters. This book has the great merit of being both mildly optimism inducing and counterintuitive. His principal claim is that despite all the concern that the bilateral tensions between China and Japan are generating, “cooperation will endure” (p. 5). The author supports this thesis with a very detailed analysis of bilateral negotiations over a number of key issues, including the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, the exploitation of fisheries, marine research, and resource development. In all of these issue areas, he argues that China’s and Japan’s “interactions on maritime issues, which are so important for lasting cooperation, remain robust” (p. 185).

No doubt we all hope that Manicom is correct in this assessment as the stakes could clearly not be higher. Surprisingly, however, relatively little attention is given to the wider context in which this pivotal bilateral relationship is embedded. While Manicom is surely correct in asserting that neither side has any great desire to become embroiled in a full-blown conflict with the other, as he acknowledges, “near collisions could spark a political crisis” (p. 184). Actual collisions, be they deliberate or accidental, could spark a war. Not only would both sides find it difficult to extricate themselves from such a confrontation without losing face in the eyes of important domestic audiences, but the United States might also find itself dragged into such a conflict in support of its increasingly emboldened and nationalistic ally Japan.

Manicom might dismiss such possibilities as alarmist and remote. Perhaps, so, but the book might have been considerably strengthened and consequently have been of interest to a wider audience if it had taken such possibilities more seriously. How would the bilateral negotiating mechanisms and processes with which the book is primarily concerned actually cope with an entirely unforeseen, rapidly evolving crisis that resisted easy central control and management? He is no doubt right to remind us that the record thus far is surprisingly encouraging and that both sides have recognized their mutual interest in continuing cooperation, but this has occurred under relatively benign circumstances. It is worth remembering that both Xi Jinping and Abe Shinzo are still relatively new leaders who have made much of their ability and desire to defend supposedly vital national interests in the face of an old foe, something that would make the resolution of any conflict more difficult.

To Manicom’s credit, he is not oblivious to this possibility, even if it is relatively underplayed. As he points out, “by tying its legitimacy to nationalist foreign policy agendas that favour a confrontational stance on issues of territorial integrity, particularly with Japan, Beijing has left little room for compromise” (p. 178). Much the same could be said of Japan, of course. I could not help wondering whether the positive view of the bilateral relationship was—in part, at least—a function of the distinctively North American–style approach to the subject. Manicom suggests that the dynamics of the bilateral relationship in this issue area are best understood by what he calls a “maritime value matrix.” Whatever the heuristic merits of these sorts of devices, they have the effect of rendering even the most complex and unpredictable of problems as somehow susceptible to judicious analysis and management if only the right variables can be indentified and applied. No doubt such frameworks have their uses, but they tend to neglect the sorts of unexpected events that have always played such a pivotal role in human history and the evolution of conflicts.

It might have been worth saying something about “liberal interdependence theory” as this relationship is the quintessential test of the efficacy of that particular approach. Until a couple of years ago, liberals looked to have a powerful point to make. Now things look much less certain, Manicom’s claims notwithstanding. It might have been helpful to draw on some of the debates in Japan and China to get a real sense of how much room policymakers have for maneuvre and just how influential domestic sentiment is likely to be. Despite a voluminous number of references, it is noteworthy that none of them is in Chinese or Japanese, and this will necessarily devalue some of the conclusions in the eyes of some readers. It is not necessary to be proprietorial about area expertise to recognize that indigenous sources and voices can add a lot to our understanding of the highly contingent forces that shape this particular relationship.

Nevertheless, there is much to admire about this book. It offers a very detailed—too detailed for the nonspecialist reader, perhaps—analysis of a key part of one of the world’s most important bilateral relationships. There is plainly something in Manicom’s overall argument, and—if peace continues to prevail—his book will stand as an important explanation of this possibility. How much is due to the internal dynamics of this particular relationship and how much to the more generalized decline of interstate warfare is another important question that the author might have raised. I will, however, resist the temptation to tell him what sort of book he should have written and commend him for the one he did write.