Description

The Centre for the Study of Global Japan welcomed Professor Saori N. Katada from the University of Southern California, to introduce her book,  ‘Japan’s New Regional Reality – Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific.’   

 Book Description:  Since the mid-1990s, Japan’s regional economic strategy has transformed. Once characterized by bilateralism, informality, and neomercantilism, Japanese policy has shifted to a new liberal strategy emphasizing regional institution building and rule setting. As two major global powers, China and the United States, wrestle over economic advantages, Japan currently occupies a pivotal position capable of tipping the geoeconomic balance in the region.   

Japan’s New Regional Reality offers a comprehensive analysis of Japan’s geoeconomic strategy that reveals the country’s role in shaping regional economic order in the Asia-Pacific. Saori N. Katada explains Japanese foreign economic policy in light of both international and domestic dynamics. She points out the hurdles to implementing a state-led liberal strategy, detailing how domestic political and institutional changes have been much slower and stickier than the changing regional economics. Katada highlights state-market relations and shows how big businesses have responded to the country’s interventionist policies. The book covers a wide range of economic issues including trade, investment, finance, currency, and foreign aid. Japan’s New Regional Reality is a meticulously researched study of the dynamics that have contributed to economic and political realities in the Asia-Pacific today, with significant implications for future regional trends. (Columbia University Press)

Bio: Saori N. Katada is Professor of Political Science and International Relations Department at University of Southern California. Her book Japan’s New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific was published by Columbia University Press in July 2020. She is also a co-author of two recent books: The BRICS and Collective Financial Statecraft (Oxford University Press, 2017), and Taming Japan’s Deflation: The Debate over Unconventional Monetary Policy (Cornell University Press, 2018).  She has her Ph.D. is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Political Science), and her B.A. from Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo).  Before joining USC, she served as a researcher at the World Bank in Washington D.C., and as International Program officer at the UNDP in Mexico City.

Description

Japanese foreign policymaking faces mounting challenges as Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide takes over leadership of the country. The outgoing Trump administration leaves a legacy of diminished US leadership, unsettled trade wars, a more authoritarian and assertive China, and an emboldened North Korea capable of striking North America with nuclear weapons. During the Trump administration, Japan partnered with Canada to defend the liberal international order, most notably pushing forward with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) despite US withdrawal. Japan also articulated the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision, which has been adopted by many likeminded states.

Now that the Trump administration is coming to an end, what comes next for Japanese foreign policy? US President-elect Joseph Biden promises to restore US leadership and reimagine its partnerships with allies like Japan and Canada. How can Japan build on its proactive diplomacy over the past decade in confronting regional and global challenges?

As a part of the JAPAN NOW Lecture Series, this online event will honour Okamoto Yukio’s legacy, examining Japan’s current place in the region and liberal international order. Okamoto was a leading thinker and practitioner of foreign policymaking in Japan who tragically passed away in April 2020 due to complications arising from COVID-19. He was a dear friend, and we have asked the speakers to reflect on Okamoto’s legacy in their presentations.

Remembering Okamoto Yukio: https://archive.munkschool.utoronto.ca/csgj/feature/remembering-okamoto-yukio-1946-2020/

About Okamoto Yukio:
Okamoto Yukio, a former Special Advisor to two Prime Ministers of Japan, was the President of Okamoto Associates and a Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow at MIT. From 1968 to 1991, Mr. Okamoto was a career diplomat in Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His overseas postings were in Paris, Cairo and Washington. He retired from the Ministry in 1991. Post-retirement, Mr. Okamoto served in a number of critical advisory positions. From 1996 to 1998, he was a Special Advisor to Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro. From 2001 to 2004, he was again a Special Advisor to Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, also serving as the Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Foreign Relations. Mr. Okamoto was also a visiting professor of international relations at Ritsumeikan University and sat on the Board of several Japanese multinational companies. He was the Director of the Signal of Hope Fund, an initiative he established to assist the Tohoku fisheries industry recover from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

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Speaker Bios:
Deanna Horton
Senior Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto

As part of her Canadian foreign service career, Deanna Horton spent a total of twelve years in Japan, including as Deputy Head of Mission, and also served as Ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. She was a NAFTA negotiator and then spent seven years in Washington, most recently as Minister (Congressional, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs). As a Munk School Senior Fellow she has led a digital mapping project on Canada’s footprint in Asia https://archive.munkschool.utoronto.ca/canasiafootprint/ and related research on technology multinationals. Ms. Horton is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and a Canadian Global Affairs Institute Fellow and she writes on economic and trade policy issues with a focus on Asia. She received a Diploma in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies Bologna Center, a M.A. (International Affairs) from Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and a B.A. (Hons) from McGill University. She also spent two years studying Japanese at the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute in Yokohama, Japan.

Michael J. Green
Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Director of Asian Studies, Chair in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Michael Jonathan Green is senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) from 2001 through 2005, first as director for Asian affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia, with responsibility for East Asia and South Asia. Before joining the NSC staff, he was a senior fellow for East Asian security at the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center and the Foreign Policy Institute and assistant professor at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses, and senior adviser on Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He also worked in Japan on the staff of a member of the National Diet.

Richard Samuels
Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Richard J. Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2005 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2011 he received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, an Imperial decoration awarded by the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Prime Minister. In 2015 he was named an Albert Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Free University of Berlin. His books have won awards from the Association for Asian Studies, the American Political Science Association, the Society for Italian Historical Studies, and other organizations. He has published articles in International Security, International Organization, The Journal of Japanese Studies, and Foreign Affairs, among other journals, and his most recent book, Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community, was named one of the “Best of Books 2019” by the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs. Nikkei Books will soon publish its Japanese translation.

Tadokoro Masayuki
Professor of International relations, Faculty of Law, Keio University

Dr. Masayuki Tadokoro is Professor of International Relations at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. His primary field is international political economy, but he works also on Japanese foreign and security policy. Currently he is working on international politics of population movement across borders.
Born in Osaka, he attended Kyoto University and the London School of Economics. Previously he was a professor at the National Defense Academy. In 1991 he taught for a semester as Fulbright Scholar in Residence at the University of Pittsburgh and then in 1993-94, he was a scholar in residence at Ralph Bunch Institute on the UN in New York City. He also works the editor of Japanese intellectual journal, AΣTEION.
His publications include International Political Economy (Nagoya University Press, 2008, , Sakuradakai Award of Political Science); The Dollar goes beyond “America” (Chuokoron Shinsha, 2001, Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities); and The Realities of the UN: A Budgetary Analysis (Yuhikaku, 1996). He is also a contributing author of Postwar Japanese Diplomatic History, which was awarded Yoshida Shigeru Prize (ed. By I. Iokibe, Yuhikaku, 2000). His recent publications in English include, “After the Dollar?”, International Relations of the Asia Pacific 10:3 (2010); and “Why did Japan fail to become the ‘Britain’ of Asia”, in David Wolff et al., eds., The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective (Brill, 2007). He also edited with David Welch and Yoshihide Soeya, Japan as a ‘Normal Country’?: A Nation in Search of Its Place in the World, (Toronto U.P. 2011). “Changed Discourses on Demography in Japan”, in Silvio Beretta et al, eds, Italy and Japan: How Similar Are They? , (Springer, 2014).