This book presents a study of perceptions of food insecurity in East Asia, and explores how individual countries are developing strategies to deal with the situation. It also looks at how the perception of food insecurity has increasingly influenced the nature of international interactions, not just within East Asia, but also in the region’s relations with major external actors.

Many of the challenges facing East Asia are generic food security issues that face people and governments across the world – for example, the implications of climate change and demographic changes on food supplies. This book places the East Asian context in the wider discussion of food (in)security in global politics. However, it also identifies potential regional ‘differences’ – for example, the significance of rice for the region, and the unavoidable impact of China as a major regional player. What the Chinese state, and Chinese companies, decide to do in response to concerns about food insecurity have an impact not just on the rest of the region, but on the rest of the world.

Taking too much of a Sinocentric focus, however, ignores other actors in East Asia, or merely relegates discussion to how they respond to Chinese policies or external strategies. This book considers the region as a whole, both when it comes to thinking about food security challenges and responses within the region itself, and also in the outward projection of regional food insecurity on the rest of the world.

This book was published as a special issue of The Pacific Review.