Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: East Asia-the second significant front of the Cold War / Tsuyoshi Hasegawa -- Struggles for modernity: the Golden years of the Sino-Soviet alliance / Odd Arne Westad -- The second front of the Soviet Cold War: Asia in the system of Moscow's foreign policy priorities, 1945-1956 / Ilya V. Gaiduk -- Reorienting the Cold War: the implications of China's early Cold War experience, taking Korea as a central test case / Chen Jian -- Military occupation and empire building in Cold War Asia: the United States and Korea, 1945-1955 / Steven Hugh Lee -- Kim Il Sung's balancing act between Moscow and Beijing, 1956-1972 / Nobuo Shimotomai -- Chinese foreign policy, 1960-1979 / Lorenz Lüthi -- Japan's foreign policy under détente: relations with China and the Soviet Union, 1971-1973 / Kazuhiko Togo -- A strategic quadrangle: the superpowers and the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship, 1977-1978 / Tsuyoshi Hasegawa -- Korea's great divergence: North and South Korea between 1972 and 1987 / Gregg Brazinsky -- Gorbachev's policy toward East Asia, 1985-1991 / Vladislav Zubok -- Inertia and change: Soviet policy toward Korea, 1985-1991 / Sergey Radchenko.