Description

Japan Today will examine the country’s prominence in global Asia, with a focus on contemporary political, social, and diplomatic issues in Japan. The panel discussion aims to take an academic approach to strengthening bilateral relations between Canada and Japan and forming the basis of future cooperation and friendship with Japan.

A light lunch will be provided, please register.

The JAPAN NOW Lecture Series is presented jointly by the Asian Institute and the Consulate General of Japan

Abstracts:

André Sorensen – The Tokyo region presents a unique set of urban policy challenges, in part because of its vast size and high population density and in part because it has the world’s best heavy rail transit system. High population densities, excellent public transit, and extremely mixed land uses mean that the standard ‘sustainable city’ solutions prescribed for the cities of Europe and North America (intensification, revitalization, mixed use, and improved public transit) don’t make sense for Tokyo. Instead, the major risks for Tokyo are associated with: 1. demographic decline of the Japanese population. 2. the growth of highly vulnerable areas of substandard housing throughout the 20th century, a situation that contributes to the elevated disaster risks facing huge segments of the Tokyo population. 3. the rapid redevelopment and intensification of land use in central areas of the city. This is in large part a product of changes in planning regulations, which are likely to exacerbate rather than limit existing vulnerabilities, and necessitate even more costly interventions later. The factors generating and perpetuating these vulnerabilities, and their spatial consequences are discussed, and Tokyo’s current resilience is evaluated.

Ambassador Caron will reflect on some of the enduring features of Japan’s foreign policy, past and present, and Japan’s priorities in a rapidly changing Asia and the world. He will also speak about Canada’s interests in Japan and elements of an activist foreign policy for Canada.

David A. Welch – Japan finds itself on the geopolitical defensive in East Asia. Possible explanations include changes in the balance of power, material conflicts of interest, clashing national egos, unresolved historical grievances, domestic politics, misunderstanding, or simple artlessness. I seek to determine which of these are important and which are not, and to determine whether there is anything Japan could do to improve its standing in the region as well as its security.

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André Sorensen is Professor and Chair of the Department of Human Geography, University of Toronto Scarborough. He has published widely on Japanese urbanisation, urban planning, and planning history. His monograph ‘The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the 21st Century’ (Routledge 2002) won the book prize of the International Planning History Association in 2004. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the University of Tokyo School of Engineering in recognition of his research on Japanese urbanism and urban planning. His current research examines institutions, urban space, and temporal processes in urbanization and urban governance from an institutionalist perspective, with a focus on urban land and property development, infrastructure management, and the creation of increasingly differentiated property rights in urban settings.

Ambassador Joseph Caron was born and raised in Southern Ontario, and graduated from the Université d’Ottawa with an Hon. B.A. in political science. He joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1972, and subsequently served in Ho Chi Minh City and Ankara Turkey. He began Japanese language studies at the American Foreign Service Institute in Yokohama, Japan in 1975, and over his diplomatic career, spent 18 years in Japan in various capacities, including the private sector. He served as Ambassador to the PRC from 2001 to 2005, and was appointed concurrently as non-resident Ambassador to the DPRK and to Mongolia. He was Canadian Ambassador to Japan from 2005 to 2008. He was subsequently appointed Canadian High Commissioner to India, until 2010, when he retired from the Foreign Service. He is currently a member of the Boards of Directors of Manulife Financial Corporation, Vancouver International Airport and Westport Innovations. He is also a Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and UBC’s Institute of Asian Research. He lives in West Vancouver.

David A. Welch is CIGI Chair of Global Security at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. His 2005 book Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (Princeton University Press) is the inaugural winner of the International Studies Association ISSS Book Award for the best book published in 2005 or 2006, and his 1993 book Justice and the Genesis of War (Cambridge University Press) is the winner of the 1994 Edgar S. Furniss Award for an Outstanding Contribution to National Security Studies. He is the author of Decisions, Decisions: The Art of Effective Decision-Making (Prometheus, 2001), and co-author of Vietnam if Kennedy had Lived: Virtual JFK (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History (Oxford University Press, 2007); On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (1st ed., Hill and Wang, 1989; 2nd ed., Noonday, 1990); and Cuba on the Brink: Castro, The Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (Pantheon, 1993; 2nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). He is co-editor of Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Frank Cass, 1998), and his articles have appeared in Asian Perspective, Ethics and International Affairs, Foreign Affairs, The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Intelligence and National Security, International Security, International Journal, International Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Mershon International Studies Review, The Review of International Studies, and Security Studies. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.