The U.S.-China Rivalry and Japan's Position

With the U.S.-China rivalry deepening and the threat of a conflict over Taiwan taking center stage at this geopolitical contest, expectations are particularly high for Japan. How does Japan view the situation? As it looks to increase military spending to levels not seen since World War II, can Japan’s China policy balance deterrence and interaction to maintain stability? Professor Ryosei Kokubun, the Payne Distinguished Fellow at FSI for the 2023 spring quarter, will examine these and other questions related to Japan’s role in the ongoing U.S.-China strategic competition and its potential impact on Asia-Pacific regional security.

Featured Speaker

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Ryosei Kokubun served as president of the National Defense Academy (NDA) from 2012 to 2021. Now he is Professor Emeritus, NDA and Keio University. After completing his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Keio University, he began teaching there in 1981 and became a professor in 1992, and served as director of Keio’s Institute of East Asian Studies and dean of the Faculty of Law and Politics. He has been a visiting scholar at various universities such as Harvard, Michigan, Fudan, Beijing and Taiwan. Kokubun’s research interests encompass Chinese politics and international relations in East Asia. He is a former president of the Japan Association of International Relations and the Japan Association for Asian Studies. Kokubun has published numerous publications including Japan-China Relations through the Lens of Chinese Politics (JPIC, 2021). He was awarded the Asia-Pacific Prize in 1997, the Suntory Prize in 2004 and the Kashiyama Prize in 2017.

Discussants

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Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009. From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

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Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, nuclear dynamics, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she works as a strategic planner at INDOPACOM.

She has published widely, including in International Security, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, Survival, and Asian Security. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member.

Moderator

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Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor, Professor of Sociology, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Deputy Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, where he is also Director of the Japan Program. Tsutsui’s research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. His most recent publication, Human Rights and the State: The Power of Ideas and the Realities of International Politics (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022), was awarded with the 2022 Ishibashi Tanzan Award and the 44th Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences.

This event is part of the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Lecture Series. 

The Payne Lectureship is named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, brothers who gained an appreciation for global problems through their international business operations. Their descendants endowed the annual lecture series at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation. The Payne Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader, with an emphasis on visionary thinking, a broad, practical grasp of a given field, and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global community and its challenges.