The liberal international order (LIO) has been facing unprecedented challenges from both within and without in recent years. At its geopolitical core, the Brexit and the Trump Presidency, together with the widespread of right-wing populism, raised the thorny question of core liberal countries’ commitment to the LIO. Beyond its geopolitical reach, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further exposed the uncomfortable limitation of the LIO in international affairs.

This research project attempts to explore the geopolitical ‘middle ground’ between the two, which I refer to as ‘the borderland of the liberal international order’, from a historical perspective. Focusing on East Asia, it examines the region’s long-term engagement with the liberal order from the early 20^th century. My research highlights the evolving dynamics of the liberal order over the past one and a half centuries, and reveals East Asia’s uneasy interaction with the liberal order. The outcomes of the project were presented at the APSA Annual Conference in September 2022 and the ISA Annual Convention in March 2023. In addition, I have received a three-year Kaken grant (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) to dig deep into the case studies developed under this project.