Canada-Japan Relations: A Historic Turning Point

Description

 March 27, 2023 7:00 – 8:30 PM (EDT) / March 28, 2023 8:00 – 9:30 AM (JST)  

The Canada-Japan relationship stands at a pivotal moment. Canada recently announced its much-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy, which promises a “generational Canadian response” to the rising influence of the region. For its part, Japan has emerged as a key defender of the rules-based order, and the Kishida government is overseeing a transformational shift of the country’s national security strategy. Both countries face major challenges in retooling their domestic and foreign policies to align with 21st century challenges such as economic and technological disruptions, the rise of China, climate change, and global democratic backsliding. How should we understand recent policy transformations in each country? How can the two countries cooperate to address regional and global concerns? This event assembles a panel of leading experts to address these questions on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the Centre for the Study of Global Japan at the University of Toronto.   

Speakers:  

Yuichi Hosoya is professor of international politics at Keio University, Tokyo. Professor Hosoya was a member of the Advisory Board at Japan’s National Security Council (NSC) (2014-2016). He was also a member of Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security (2013-14), and Prime Minister’s Advisory Panel on National Security and Defense Capabilities (2013). Professor Hosoya studied international politics at Rikkyo (BA), Birmingham (MIS), and Keio (Ph.D.). He was a visiting professor and Japan Chair (2009–2010) at Sciences-Po in Paris (Institut d’Études Politiques) and a visiting fellow (Fulbright Fellow, 2008–2009) at Princeton University.   

Rie Kijima is an assistant professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. Her research addresses topics such as international assessments, education reforms, gender and STEAM learning. Previously, she was a Lecturer and Interim Director in the International Comparative Education/International Education Policy Analysis Program at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in International Comparative Education from Stanford University and her B.A. from International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. She has previously worked at the World Bank as an education consultant specializing in monitoring and evaluation and traveled frequently to Morocco, Tunisia, Vietnam, and Laos. She has been affiliated with the Stanford Program in International and Cross-Cultural Education, Keio Graduate School of Media Design, Japan International Cooperation Agency, Silicon Valley Japan Platform, and the United States Japan Council. She is the Scott M. Johnson Fellow of the United States Japan Leadership Program. In 2016, she co-founded SKY Labo, an education non-profit organization to promote inquiry-based approaches to STEAM learning. She co-authored a book on Design Thinking and STEAM Education which was published by Asahi Shinbun Press in January 2019. She was featured as one of 100 women entrepreneurs around the world by Forbes Japan in March 2019.  

David A. Welch is University Research Chair and Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. He teaches at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and is co-editor (with Toni Erskine and Stefano Guzzini) of International Theory. 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 most recently of Security: A Philosophical Investigation (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and is also co-author of Understanding Global Conflict and Cooperation (Pearson Education, 2020); Vietnam if Kennedy had Lived: Virtual JFK (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History (Oxford University Press, 2011);  On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (Noonday, 1990); and Cuba on the Brink: Castro, The Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). He is co-editor of Japan as a ‘Normal Country’? (University of Toronto Press, 2011) and Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Frank Cass, 1998), and his articles have appeared in Asian Perspective, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Ethics and International Affairs, Foreign Affairs, The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Intelligence and National Security, Group Decision and Negotiation, International Journal, International Negotiation, International Security, International Journal, International Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, The Mershon International Studies Review, The Review of International Studies, and Security Studies. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1990.  

Moderator:  

Louis W. Pauly, the J. Stefan Distinguished Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toronto, established the Centre for the Study of Global Japan in the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in 2017 and directed it until June 2019. He remains an affiliated faculty member of the Centre as well as of the Innovation Policy Lab and the International Relations Program. He served as Chair of the Department of Political Science from 2012 to 2017 and held the Canada Research Chair in Globalization and Governance from 2002 to 2016. He was Director of the Centre for International Studies at the U of T from 1997 to 2011. A graduate of Cornell University, the London School of Economics, New York University, and Fordham University, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Senior Fellow of Massey College, and a Fellow and Governing Board Member of Trinity College (Toronto). He has held visiting positions at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, Oxford University, Northwestern University, Osaka City University, the University of Munich, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, and the Brookings Institution. With Emanuel Adler, from 2007 to 2012 he edited International Organization, a top-ranked journal in the fields of international relations and international political economy. He was given the Distinguished Scholar Award in International Political Economy by the International Studies Association in 2015. Before his initial appointment at the U of T in 1987, Pauly held management positions in the Royal Bank of Canada, won an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, and served on the staff of the International Monetary Fund.

Introductory Remarks:   

Phillip Lipscy (Director, Centre for the Study of Global Japan, Munk School)  

Consul-General Takuya Sasayama (Consul-General of Japan, Toronto)