Description

The world is in an economic crisis of a magnitude that is said to be seen only once in a century. How much havoc will it wreak? While circumstances will vary from country to country, there is a sense that full recovery will take three years for the most fortunate, with an expectation of five years for most, and a desperate hope that it will not take ten years, reminiscent of Japan’s slump in the 1990s. When considering the current economic crisis, what can we learn from the Great Depression of the 1930s, the oil crisis of the 1970s and the Japanese Bubble Economy of the 1990s? Historically, how have terrorist and fringe political groups exploited economic instability for their own gain? How does the current financial crisis affect East Asia? Dr. Makoto Iokibe will discuss the current economic crisis, and the impact it will have on Japan’s Foreign Policy.

Dr. Makoto Iokibe was born in 1943 and received his Doctor of Law degree from Kyoto University in 1987. He has taught at Hiroshima University, Harvard University, Kobe University, the University of Tokyo and the University of London, U.K. Dr. Iokibe has served on numerous councils and commissions, including the Prime Minister’s Advisory Group on Security and Defense, the Science Council of Japan, and the Council for Reforming the Ministry of Defense. In 2007, he became chair of Prime Minister Fukuda’s Foreign Policy Study Group. He has written and edited publications including Sengo Nihon Gaikoshi (History of Japan’s Diplomacy since the War (1999) and Japanese Diplomacy in the 1950s: From Isolation to Integration (2008). Dr. Iokibe is currently the President of the National Defense Academy of Japan.