Description

Lecture Abstract:  Known for its unique culture and society, Japan’s rapidly ageing society and chronic labour shortages have created long-term structural challenges. While Japanese policy-makers, pundits, and scholars have debated whether or not Japan could address these issues through outsourcing and automation, in recent years, the rising costs of social programs combined with a shrinking economy have threatened to turn Japan’s ageing population into a national crisis. In December of 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party made history by introducing major reforms to Japan’s strict immigration policy that will dramatically increase that country’s immigrant population. Having spent his career working for the Japanese Immigration Bureau and a nationally recognized advocate of immigration reform, Mr. Hidenori Sakanaka discussed why it is necessary for Japan to become a major destination for immigrants and how it can effectively manage immigration in the 21st Century.   

Speaker Biography Graduating with a Master of Law Degree from Keio Gijuku University in 1970, Mr. Sakanaka joined the Japanese Ministry of Justice that same year, going on to become the Bureau Chief of the Immigration Bureau’s Tokyo Office. Since retiring his post at the Immigration Bureau, he has become head of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute. In recent years, he has proposed that Japan admit 10 million immigrants by 2050 in his lecture/article titled, “A Vision for Japan’s Model Immigration State,” and called for the peaceful co-existence of all peoples in his lecture/article, “A Plan for a Community of Different Peoples.” Mr. Sakanaka is the author of several books including: How the immigration control will be implemented (1989), An Immigration Officer`s Memoirs (2005), The Road to Japan`s Model Immigration State (2011), and The Population Decline and the Immigration Revolution (2012).

Description

Lecture Abstract: Canada and Japan have long been key international partners, both bilaterally and multilaterally. The two countries are vibrant democracies that support open trade, investment and the rules-based international order. Their cooperation internationally spans a range of bodies including: the G7, G20, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The two sides are also committed to enhancing trade relations with the now-ratified Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade deal.   But while economic ties have long been the focal point of this relationship, it is a critical moment to reassess the need to elevate security and defense relations in order to make a more comprehensive and strategic partnership. Japan’s security environment continues to be laden with concerns—both short and long term—such as continued instability and uncertainty on the Korean peninsula along with meeting the long-term challenge of China. Meanwhile, Canada (also managing its own challenges in its relations with China) has increasingly voiced a desire to engage more deeply in the Asia-Pacific in security terms, and its relationship with Japan seems to be a natural cornerstone from which to base those evolving efforts. Where is this relationship going in security and defense terms? What are some of the main areas of opportunity? What are the challenges?  

Speaker Biography: Jonathan Berkshire Miller is an international affairs professional with expertise on security, defense and intelligence issues in Northeast Asia.  He has held a variety of positions in the private and public sector. Currently, he is a senior visiting fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). He is also a Distinguished Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada. Additionally, he is a Senior Fellow on East Asia with the EastWest Institute. Miller is also a Senior Fellow on East Asia for the Asian Forum Japan, based in Tokyo.   Previously, he was an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, based in Tokyo. Jonathan also held a fellowship on Japan with the Pacific Forum CSIS from 2013-16. At the Pacific Forum CSIS, he chaired a ten-member group focused on Japan-Korea relations, in the context of the US “rebalance” to Asia. Miller has also held a number of other visiting fellowships on Asian security matters, including at JIIA and the National Institute of Defense Studies (Ministry of Defense – Japan).    In addition, Miller previously spent nearly a decade working on economic and security issues related to Asia with the Canadian federal government and worked both with the foreign ministry and the security community. He regularly attends track 1.5 and track 2 dialogues in the region and lectures to universities, think-tanks, corporations and others across the Asia-Pacific region on security and defense issues. He also regularly provides advice and presents to multilateral organizations and foreign governments on regional geopolitics.   Jonathan is a regular contributor to several journals, magazines and newspapers on Asia-Pacific security issues including The Economist Intelligence Unit, Foreign Affairs, Forbes and Newsweek Japan. He has also published widely in other outlets including Foreign Policy, the World Affairs Journal, the Nikkei Asian Review, the Japan Times, the Mainichi Shimbun, the ASAN Forum, Jane’s Intelligence Review and Global Asia.  Miller has been interviewed and quoted on regional security issues across a wide range of media including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Le Monde, Nikkei, The Japan Times, Asahi Shimbun, the Voice of America, The Globe and Mail and ABC news.

Description

This symposium brough together a distinguished group of scholars whose work either frames contemporary global assessments of the state of democracy around the world or focuses attention directly on the political struggle now underway between democracy and authoritarianism across the Asian region. Its purpose was to bring current comparative research on the evolution of democratic institutions and practices of government into dialogue with cutting-edge conceptual work on democracy and democratization.  The participants together addressed the challenge of maintaining domestic and international stability when countries are facing competing political imperatives generated both by globalizing capitalism and by the contemporary diffusion of systemic power.  

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM  

 2:10-2:15PM

Welcoming Remarks RANDALL HANSEN Interim Director, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy  Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto        

2:15-4:00PM                

Panel I LUCAN AHMAD WAY Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto  Are we actually in the Midst of a Democratic Recession?  SEVA GUNITSKY Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto Great Powers and the Future of Democracy  LYNETTE ONG Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Asian Institute, University of Toronto Studying "China in the World" in 2019  PHILLIP LIPSCY Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Stanford University  Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Democracy, Financial Crises, and Economic Volatility  MAIKO ICHIHARA Associate Professor, Graduate School of Law and the School of International and Public Policy, Hitotsubashi University, Japan Understanding Japan’s International Democracy Assistance Policy  Chair: LOUIS PAULY Interim Director, Centre for the Study of Global Japan J. Stefan Dupré Distinguished Professor of Political Economy, Department of Political Science  Discussant: DAVID A. WELCH University Research Chair and Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo and Balsillie School of International Affairs    

4:00-4:15PM                         

Panel II  YUSUKE TAKAGI Assistant Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), Japan Democracy in Asia: The Case of the Philippines  JOSEPH WONG Professor, Department of Political Science  Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation, Munk School  Associate Vice-President and Vice-Provost, International Student Experience, University of Toronto Japan: Asia’s First Unlikely Democracy  DAN SLATER Professor of Political Science Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of Emerging Democracies  Director, Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED), University of Michigan Indonesia: Asia’s Newest Unlikely Democracy  SANG-YOUNG RHYU Professor, Political Economy, Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea Upgrading Democracy in Korea: Resilient Consolidation and Complex Challenges  DIANA FU Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto State Control in China under Xi Jinping  Chair: LOUIS PAULY Interim Director, Centre for the Study of Global Japan J. Stefan Dupré Distinguished Professor of Political Economy, Department of Political Science  Discussant: DAVID A. WELCH University Research Chair and Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo and Balsillie School of International Affairs   

5:55-6:00PM               

Closing Remarks TAKAKO ITO Consul General of Japan in Toronto  

6:00-7:00PM                

Reception

Description

Beforel the 2019 G20 summit is hosted in Osaka, Japan, this panel event brought together experts to discuss Japan’s role in global governance and plurilateral summitry, specifically in the context of the G7 and G20. Organized by the G20 Research Group, the G7 Research Group, the International Relations Society (IRSOC), the Contemporary Asian Studies Student Union (CASSU), and co-sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Global Japan, this discussion focused on the history of Japan’s involvement in global governance, its contribution to the management of global affairs and the challenges it faces as the current G20 host and on the international stage writ large. This event hosted J. Stefan Dupré Distinguished Professor of Political Economy and Interim Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Japan, Professor Louis Pauly, G7 and G20 expert Dr. Peter Hajnal, and Japan International Cooperation Agency civil servant Mrs. Kazuko Funakoshi.

Speaker Biographies:  Alessandra Cicci is co-chair of the executive of summit studies for the G20 Research Group for the 2019 summit in Osaka, Japan and a Senior Researcher for the G7 Research Group. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Italian and European Union Studies and graduated from St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto in 2018. She currently works in Government Relations at a public affairs firm and will begin a dual-degree program at Sciences Po and the Munk School in September for a Master of Public Policy and Master of Global Affairs.  

Kazuko Funakoshi has extensive career experience in development finance, and is currently studying at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Prior to the Munk School, she was leading the Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan projects team in Nepal at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)—the government agency in charge of Japan’s ODA. At JICA, Kazuko formulated and implemented large-scale infrastructure projects across Asia in various sectors such as energy, environment, transport and housing—some of which were co-financed with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. She also has experience with emergency response operations (Specifically, the 2015 Nepal Earthquake). She holds a master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from Kyoto University in Japan.  

Ji Yoon Han is co-chair, with Alessandra Cicci, of the executive of summit studies for the G20 Research Group for the 2019 Summit in Osaka. She graduated with a Honours Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Bioethics from the University of Toronto. Ji Yoon has previously served as compliance analyst, lead analyst and compliance director for both the G20 and G7 Research Groups. Her research interests are in green financing and renewable energy, developed through her work on clean energy, tax administration and international financial institution reform. Ji Yoon has attended G7 and G20 summits in Hamburg, Charlevoix and Buenos Aires.  

Peter Hajnal is a Fellow of Senior College and Research Associate, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.  He has been a member of the G7/G8/G20 Research Groups since 1988 and attended fourteen G7/G8/G20 summits. Before his retirement he was Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto for 11 years; served as librarian for 25 years at the University of Toronto and 10 years at the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library in New York; and conducted a number of consultancies.  In addition to a number of articles, book chapters and conference presentations, he is the author or editor of eleven books, including The G8 System and the G20: Evolution, Role and Documentation (Ashgate, 2007; also published in Russian and Chinese editions).  His latest book is the second, revised edition of The G20: Evolution, Interrelationships, Documentation (Routledge, 2019).    

Louis W. Pauly is the J. Stefan Dupré Distinguished Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.  He is cross-appointed to the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, where he also serves as Interim Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Japan.  A graduate of Cornell University, the London School of Economics, New York University, and Fordham University, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2011. With Emanuel Adler, he edited the journal International Organization from 2007 to 2012. In 2015, he received the Distinguished Scholar Award in International Political Economy from the International Studies Association. His major publications include Power in a Complex Global System; Hong Kong’s International Financial Centre; Global Ordering: Institutions and Autonomy in a Changing World; Global Liberalism and Political Order; Complex Sovereignty; Governing the World’s Money; Democracy beyond the State?; The Myth of the Global Corporation; Who Elected the Bankers? Surveillance and Control in the World Economy; and Opening Financial Markets: Banking Politics on the Pacific Rim.

Description

In February 2019, seventeen University of Toronto students travelled to Japan to participate in the Kakehashi Project. Promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and facilitated by the Centre for the Study of Global Japan in association with the Canadian administrator of the project, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, the program aims to develop a network of exchanges in order to deepen mutual understanding and friendship between Japan and Canada.

In this workshop, participating students will reflect on their Kakehashi experience, examining its impact on their academic and cultural relationship to Japan and Japanese studies. Join us as students address topics ranging from emerging technologies to economics and feminism in Japan.

PROGRAM

2:10-2:15 Welcome
Professor Louis Pauly, Interim Director, Centre for the Study of Global Japan

2:15-2:45 Panel I: Internet of Things in Japan: Cross-Sectoral Applications

Speakers:
Benson Ompoc, Kakehashi Delegate
Jasmine Wright, Kakehashi Delegate
Vijai Singh, Kakehashi Delegate

Moderator: Dr. Seung Lee, Associate, Centre for the Study of Global Japan

2:45-3:15 Panel II: Feminism in Contemporary Japan

Speakers:
Khadija Ahmed, Kakehashi Delegate
Cydney Melnyk, Kakehashi Delegate
Stephanie Xu, Kakehashi Delegate

Moderator: Dr. Seung Lee

3:15-3:50 Panel III: Japanese Politics and Diplomacy

Speakers:
Dennis Venslauskas, Kakehashi Delegate
Kiara Sunho Lee, Kakehashi Delegate
Yuna Ban, Kakehashi Participant
Irish Marigmen, Kakehashi Delegate

Moderator: Dr. Seung Lee

3:50-4:00 Concluding Remarks, Professor Louis Pauly