The Two Coasts of China Introduces the concept of a "balancing act" in China's elite's perceptions of  external threats and opportunities that in one form or another have presented themselves ever since the creation of a unified Chinese state..  Most of this episode, however, takes place in the 19th century when the threat was overwhelmingly from the seacoast with the arrival of aggressive Western traders and,ultimately, their countries' warships.  The Meiji Revolution Japan became the first industrially and technically underdeveloped nation to modernize itself and become a great power. Its transformation took place under the authority of the young, newly installed Meiji Emperor whose profound symbolic importance to the Japanese people was skillfully used by a talented, elite group of government leaders.  Such a rapid ascent led Japan to entertain imperial ambitions, resulting in a direct territorial clash with Russia.  The social costs and cultural impact of such radical change haunted the Japanese psyche, but the economic and political effects for the region were equally profound. From the Barrel of a Gun Taking its title from Mao Zedong's famous dictum, "Power comes from the barrel of a gun," the lives of Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh and the Indonesian leader Sukarno are traced and compared with reference to their leadership of successful independence movements against their French and Dutch colonial masters, respectively, in the aftermath of World War II. Writers and Revolutionaries In the period of rapid social and political change leading up to World War II, Chinese writer Lu Xun and Japanese right-wing philosopher Kita Ikki are profiled as intellectuals who sought to resolve the conflict between the national character and international standing of their homelands. Reinventing Japan This transformation of the Asia Pacific region in the wake of World War II was profound, with the Pacific victor, the United States, taking a direct hand in reforming Japan under a new, hastily drafted constitution. The expanding and often contentious American - Japanese relationship included the ambiguous roles of conqueror and conquered.  Meanwhile, the revolution in China combined with the beginning of the cold war in Asia, substantially altered America's expectations of Japan -- and vice versa. The Fight for Democracy The rising level of expectations among Asian peoples for greater political freedom and self-determination is explored with the example of the Republic of Korea in the 1980s when rapid economic growth fostered democratic aspirations and popular challenges to autocratic power.