The Election, the Riot, and the New President: Japanese Views on the Transition from Trump to Biden

Tuesday, May 25, 2021
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
(Pacific)

This event is being held virtually via Zoom. Please register for the webinar via the following link: https://bit.ly/3sfxcVs

Speaker: 
  • Keiko Iizuka,
  • Toshihiro Nakayama

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's spring webinar series "The United States in the Biden Era: Views from Asia."

American politics, especially presidential elections, have always drawn significant attention from Japanese policy makers and the public, because of their enormous impact on Japanese politics. The recent developments in the U.S. – from the Trump presidency to the contested election and the unconventional transition of power that included a riot at the Capitol – have engendered an elevated level of curiosity and concern about the state of American politics in Japan. This webinar will examine how Japanese leaders and citizens have processed what unfolded in the U.S. and how it may have shaped their current views on US-Japan relations, featuring two leading experts on the topic, Keiko Iizuka (Yomiuri Shimbun) and Toshihiro Nakayama (Keio University). Moderated by Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Director of the Japan Program at APARC, the webinar will have a Q&A session, and the participants are welcome to submit their questions in advance using the registration form and at the event using the Q&A function of Zoom.

SPEAKERS

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Keiko Iizuka
Keiko Iizuka is Senior Political Writer/Editorial Writer at The Yomiuri Shimbun and lead commentator for the nightly news program “News in Depth (Shinso News)” on the BS4 channel. Her expertise is international relations specially focusing on Indo-Pacific, Japan-U.S. relations, and European affairs. Her U.S. experience includes working at the Brookings Institution as a visiting fellow (2008-2009) and a role of Washington Bureau Chief with Yomiuri (2013-2015). She has held several other positions at the paper including chief editor for international news department (2015-2017) and chief political correspondent at the Prime Minister’s office of Japan (2006-2007). She was posted twice in London as correspondent (2003-2006, 2017-2019).

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Toshihiro Nakayama
Toshihiro Nakayama, Ph.D, is a Professor of American Politics and Foreign Policy at the Faculty of Policy Management at Keio University. He is also a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). He was a Special Correspondent for the Washington Post at the Far Eastern Bureau (1993-94), Special Assistant at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations in New York (1996-98), Senior Research Fellow at The Japan Institute of International Affairs (2004-06), Associate Professor at Tsuda College (2006-10), and Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University (2010-14). He was also a CNAPS Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution (2005-06), Sir Howard Kippenberger Chair Visiting Professor at the Center for Strategic Studies, Victoria University in Wellington (2017) , Japan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center (2018-2019), and an Advisor to the Ministry of Defense (2019-2020). He received his M.A.(1993) and Ph.D.(2001) from Aoyama Gakuin University. He has written two books and numerous articles on American politics, foreign policy and international relations. Recipient of Nakasone Yasuhiro Award (Incentive Award) in 2014.

MODERATOR 

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Kiyoteru Tsutsui
Kiyoteru Tsutsui is Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he is also Director of the Japan Program, a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor of Sociology. 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, forthcoming 2021).