Japan’s Foreign Policy in the Aftermath of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
April 18, 5:00 p.m - 6:30 p.m. PT / April 19, 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. JT
Russia’s invasion in Ukraine has transformed the landscape of international security in a multitude of ways and reshaped foreign policy in many countries. How did it impact Japan’s foreign policy? From nuclear sharing to the Northern Territories, it sparked new debates in Japan about how to cope with Putin’s Russia and the revised international order. With NATO reenergized and the United States having to recommit some resources in Europe, how should Japan counter an expansionist China, an emboldened North Korea, and a potentially hamstrung Russia to realize its vision of Free and Open Indo-Pacific? What might be the endgame in Ukraine and how would it impact the clash of liberal and authoritarian forces in the Indo-Pacific region? Featuring two leading experts on world politics and Japan’s foreign policy, this panel tackles these questions and charts a way forward for Japan.
Yoko Iwama is Professor of National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). She is also the director of Security and Strategy Program and Maritime Safety and Security Program at GRIPS.
She graduated from Kyoto University in 1986 and earned her PhD in Law. Having served as Research Assistant of Kyoto University (1994–97), Special Assistant of the Japanese Embassy in Germany (1998–2000), and Associate Professor at GRIPS (2000), she was appointed Professor at GRIPS in 2009. She was a student at the Free University of Berlin between 1989-1991, where she witnessed the end the reunification of the two Germanies.
Her specialty is international security and European diplomatic history centering on NATO, Germany, and nuclear strategy.
Her publications include John Baylis and Yoko Iwama (ed.) Joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty: Deterrence, Non-Proliferation and the American Alliance, (Routledge 2018); “Unified Germany and NATO,” (in Keiichi Hirose/ Tomonori Yoshizaki (eds.) International Relation of NATO, Minerva Shobo, 2012).
Her newest book The 1968 Global Nuclear Order and West Germany appeared in August 2021 in Japanese. She is working on a co-authored book on the origins and evolution of the nuclear-sharing in NATO and a co-authored book on the Neutrals, the Non-aligned countries and the NPT.
Hiroyuki Akita is a Commentator of Nikkei. He regularly writes commentaries, columns, and analysis focusing on foreign and international security affairs. He joined Nikkei in 1987 and worked at the Political News Department from 1998 to 2002 where he covered Japanese foreign policy, security policy, and domestic politics. Akita served as Senior & Editorial Staff Writer from 2009 to 2017, and also worked at the “Leader Writing Team ” of the Financial Times in London in late 2017.
Akita graduated from Jiyu Gakuen College in 1987 and Boston University (M.A.). From 2006 to 2007, he was an associate of the US-Japan Program at Harvard University, where he conducted research on US-China-Japan relations. In March 2019, he won the Vaughn-Ueda International Journalist Award, a prize for outstanding reporting of international affairs. He is an author of two books in Japanese: “Anryu (Power Game of US-China-Japan)”(2008), and “Ranryu (Strategic Competition of US-Japan and China)”(2016).
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. He is the author of Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan (Oxford University Press, 2018), co-editor of Corporate Responsibility in a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2016) and co-editor of The Courteous Power: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Indo-Pacific Era (University of Michigan Press, 2021).
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