Ezra Vogel’s China and Japan, it is fair to say, is more than just the definitive book on Asia’s two great powers, the relationship between which he describes as ‘tense, dangerous, deep and complicated’. For Vogel, one of the pre-eminent scholars of east Asia for decades, it is very much the product of a life’s work.
Vogel speaks and reads Chinese and Japanese and is well connected in top-level political and academic circles in both countries. Not only does this give him a first-hand familiarity with the intensity of feeling that often overwhelms efforts to get political ties between Beijing and Tokyo back on an even keel; Vogel has long been committed to building a greater understanding between the two nations.
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