This is an English translation of an article originally published by The Asahi Shimbun. 

Stanford University Professor of Sociology Kiyoteru Tsutsui is a recipient of the Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences and the Ishibashi Tanzan Prize for his book Human Rights and the State (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022). Although he has published many works in English, this was his first publication in Japanese. After earning a master's degree at Kyoto University, he moved to the United States. Before Stanford, he served as a professor at the University of Michigan. “I wanted to make a difference in the United States first,” he says. “I had not thought about publishing in Japanese.”

However, since he joined Stanford in 2020 and has undertaken the role of director of the Japan Program at the University's Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Tsutsui has become increasingly aware of the importance of Japanese studies and publishing in Japanese. He recognizes the decline of Japanese studies and the necessity of revitalizing the field and connecting Japan and the United States. Tsutsui is currently the only professor of Japanese studies at APARC. In the 1990s, there were three or four faculty experts in Japanese studies at the center.

With the popularity of Japanese anime, manga, video games, and other forms of Japanese culture, the number of Japanese-language students in the United States is not decreasing," notes Tsutsui. However, “the departure from Japan in the social sciences is severe.” The reason for this, according to Tsutsui, is that area studies are declining, and there is an increasing emphasis on theories and models. “But Chinese studies are growing, and the subjects of German, French, and other area studies maintain interest.” In 2019, a session titled "The Death of Japanese Studies" was held at the North American Association for Asian Studies, attracting much attention.

Tsutsui worries that the declining interest in Japanese studies could negatively impact public opinion and policymaking toward Japan in the United States. For example, during the Japan-U.S. trade friction of the 1980s, the Japan-U.S. relationship was hardly a focus of Japanese studies scholars in the United States.

Tsutsui works to advance U.S.-Japan dialogue, promote Japanese studies research, and clear up misunderstandings about Japanese affairs. Last year, he launched the Stanford Japan Barometer (SJB), a periodic public opinion survey on political, economic, and social issues concerning contemporary Japan — a project he started in hopes of fostering young researchers’ interest in Japan.

“We have already researched gender and policy and the Taiwan contingency and security,” he says. “In the future, we will continue to cover a wide range of topics in Japanese politics, economy, and society, including techno-media, artificial intelligence, Japan’s declining birthrate, and its Constitution.” Unlike a typical public opinion survey, SJB focuses on types of questions that move people’s opinions. Therefore, SJB asks questions on different issues with different assumptions, comparing people’s responses.

In the case of the questions on same-sex marriage, the respondents randomly received one of eight explanations, such as “In Japanese society, it is a tradition to see marriage as a heterosexual relationship” and “In Japanese society, there is a tradition of toleration towards same-sex relationships stemming back from the Sengoku Period.” The study examined the difference between respondents who received no explanation and those provided with arguments supportive of same-sex marriages. “Our results showed that respondents tend to become more supportive of same-sex marriage when presented with an argument that not allowing same-sex marriage is unfair from the point of view of human rights and gender equality,” Tsutsui explains.

“I hope that many young scholars will eventually participate in the project and that it will provide an opportunity for the next generation of outstanding researchers to enter Japanese studies and increase their opportunities to work abroad.”
 

As the AI boom fuels an unprecedented surge in demand for chips and computing power, the global semiconductor supply chain has become critical in everything from smartphones and medical devices to cars and fighter jets. At the heart of this industry stands Taiwan, a leader in chip-making infrastructure, encompassing fabrication to cutting-edge research and development. With the People's Republic of China’s threat to Taiwan’s prosperity and stability becoming more acute, it is time for the United States and Taiwan to deepen their partnership in the semiconductor industry, argue Hoover Institution Research Fellow Kharis Templeman and FSI Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro.

In a chapter that is part of a new report, titled “The Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Supply,” Templeman and Mastro show what the United States might learn from Taiwan’s successful experience in building a leading global role in the semiconductor supply chain and offer concrete opportunities for deeper collaboration given the two nations’ shared interests in chips.  The report is a product of the Working Group on Semiconductors and the Security of the United States and Taiwan, a joint project of the Hoover Institution and the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations.

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Templeman and Mastro’s chapter, “Deepening US-Taiwan Cooperation through Semiconductors,” outlines the history of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry, accounts for its meteoric rise to prominence, and proposes that the United States and Taiwan should seek to use the semiconductor industry to “promote Taiwan’s prosperity and stability by creating an environment that fosters deeper business-to-business, research, academic, individual, and civil ties with Taiwan and other global partners in the semiconductor arena.”

To do so, the authors argue, the United States should actively promote Taiwan semiconductor firm activities, including manufacturing, design, and joint research and development in the United States; income tax abatement for cross-border workers; two-way semiconductor internship programs and academic exchange; semiconductor supply chain information sharing and resiliency planning; and defense industry co-production in Taiwan.

Deterring Invasion

According to Templeman and Mastro, further investment in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry would strengthen long-term U.S. interests there and represent an opportunity for the two nations to broaden their shared civil and business ties that will help to “deepen U.S. commitments to Taiwan’s democracy—and [deter] efforts to end it.”

The authors consider the PRC’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric of reunification and suggest that “leaders in the United States and Taiwan should be realistic about the real threat that the island faces, and their response to that should be to build the capabilities and the confidence of their people to weather coercion and deter attack.” As such, semiconductors represent a natural opportunity for the two nations to “grow substantive people-to-people, business, and even appropriate government ties at the working level […] we can use this momentum to break through long-standing bureaucratic frictions and improve interoperability in our economic and security relationships.”

The PRC threat to Taiwan’s autonomy will continue to grow as the island is increasingly isolated from the broader international community, the authors write. Reversing this trend, they say, “requires both symbolic and substantive assistance on the part of the United States and other countries.”

Deepening collaboration in the semiconductor industry represents a path for the United States to demonstrate its commitment to Taiwan, independent of the rhetorical debate over strategic clarity or ambiguity. The momentum gained through this collaboration would aid Taiwan’s resilience and incentivize other governments and opinion leaders in the region to deepen their commitments to the island, further enhancing cross-strait deterrence.

During the first three years of the Vietnam War, the United States made over 2000 attempts to open negotiations with the North Vietnamese. North Vietnam ignored or denied all of these overtures to open talks. By April 1968, following repeated rebuffs, Hanoi changed its position after President Johnson announced that the U.S. would halt bombing above the 20th parallel. What explains Hanoi’s initial firm position against talks and the sudden policy change in 1968? What are the drivers behind a state’s willingness to talk with the enemy while fighting, what considerations do leaders account for when deciding when and how peace talks can begin, and why do some states reject or ignore overtures to come to the negotiating table?

In a new Journal of Theoretical Politics article, FSI Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro and Duke University’s political scientist David Siegel advance a new theory of wartime diplomacy to answer these questions. Using a formal model, they find that states are inclined to initiate negotiations when two conditions are met: firstly, when their adversaries perceive escalation as excessively costly, and secondly, when there is an indication of exceptional resilience that only those possessing high resilience value. To shed light on the dynamics of the second condition, Mastro and Siegel present an in-depth case study examining the evolving negotiation approach of North Vietnam throughout the Vietnam War.

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The second condition arises when the opponent does not view escalation as overly costly and when the likelihood of successful escalation is hard to assess, but there is a signal of high resilience that helps identify resilient entities. “States will choose typically open stances, potentially inviting escalation, only when they have demonstrated enough resilience to mitigate the escalation risk,” write Mastro and Siegel. This dynamics explains why North Vietnam’s diplomatic posture changed during the second phase of the Vietnam War.

Early on in the war, both the United States and North Vietnam believed that a willingness to talk would convey weakness. North Vietnam needed to sense hesitancy in U.S. confidence in the effectiveness of escalation before opening to negotiations. In 1968, the Tet Offensive allowed North Vietnam to demonstrate its resilience and constrain U.S. strategic capacity by inflicting casualties and steadily depleting its resources.

Even though North Vietnam was materially weaker and Tet failed by all operational measures, it represented a psychological shock to U.S. leadership and “finally convinced the U.S. of Hanoi’s resilience, reducing the likelihood that an open diplomatic posture would be interpreted as weakness.” North Vietnam had been reluctant to negotiate before it could adequately signal its resilience, maintaining a closed diplomatic posture for three years. But after Tet, having communicated its resilience to Washington, Hanoi “no longer viewed an open diplomatic posture as a liability in the war effort.”

The authors’ findings suggest that states are concerned about the negative material consequences that their diplomatic approach might have on the enemy. Thus, face-saving measures from the adversary are limited because the enemy would still perceive an open stance as a sign of weakness, potentially leading to further escalation. These findings are significant, as they demonstrate how counterproductive attempts to coerce opponents to negotiate can be.

At the same time, the study highlights new opportunities for external mediators “who can provide guarantees in ways that lessen the strategic costs of conversation,” Mastro and Siegel argue.

This essay was first published by Foreign Affairs magazine.

Nuclear deterrence has been a cornerstone of U.S. defense since the end of World War II, but now the United States finds itself grappling with the prospect of managing a three-way nuclear rivalry that is disrupting the deterrence strategies that have successfully prevented nuclear conflict. The confluence of China's military modernization and buildup of its strategic nuclear forces, on the one hand, and Russia's deployment of new armaments and threats to use battlefield nuclear weapons against Ukraine, on the other hand, are forcing policymakers to confront unprecedented challenges in maintaining global stability. Is arms control still possible?

This and other related questions were the focus of a recent discussion about the uncertain future of nuclear deterrence. Hosted by the Commonwealth Club of California, the conversation featured Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research Director Brad Roberts.

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Fingar highlighted the eroded mutual understanding between Russia, China, and the United States since the fall of the Soviet Union as a major challenge to the effectiveness of current deterrence efforts. He stressed the imperative of grasping the nuanced motivations and intentions of these nations, asserting that such comprehension should be an integral component of any successful deterrence strategy. "For deterrence to be effective, it has to be based on a correct understanding of those we seek to deter," Fingar noted.

Regarding Russia, Fingar pointed out the shift in the longstanding assumption, previously accepted by both Washington and Moscow, that the danger of escalation to a nuclear conflict was a check on willingness to engage in a conventional war. “Putin's invasion of Ukraine has erased any confidence in that assumption,” said Fingar. Another significant shift has been the transition from Russian conventional superiority to U.S. dominance in conventional forces, which has compelled Russia to increase its reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence in its security calculus compared with the Cold War period. Fingar warned that this heightened dependence on nuclear capacity necessitates a refined understanding of Russia's willingness to employ these weapons.

In the case of China, Fingar noted Beijing’s perception of the U.S. as a threat that drives China’s modernization efforts. "They perceive that more is needed to deter the United States militarily, politically, and economically than before."

According to Fingar, missile defense systems and advanced conventional capabilities emerged as shared concerns for both Russia and China. These systems raise uncertainties about the stability of second-strike capabilities and command-and-control structures. Disruption of these structures could challenge China's longstanding commitment to a No-First-Use policy. Furthermore, concluded Fingar, China's refusal to participate in arms control negotiations until the United States and Russia reduce their arsenals to China's unannounced level is “the biggest impediment” to bringing nuclear expansion and modernization under control for all three countries, for U.S. allies, and for all other countries affected by their competition.

Amid escalating tensions between the United States and China and as the U.S. government is exploring how to further limit China's access to U.S. technology, discussions about the possibility of decoupling between the two countries have intensified. As businesses operating in China grapple with the potential consequences of decoupling, APARC’s China Program hosted a panel of executives across industries from tech, retail, and finance currently engaged in reshaping their China businesses to provide a view from the ground and consider the future of decoupling with China.

The event was the second installment in a special series celebrating APARC’s 40th anniversary. Titled Asia in 2030, APARC@40, the series highlights core areas of the center’s expertise, examines Asia’s transformation over the past four decades, and considers the drivers and shapers of the region’s future.

The panel featured Dan Brody, the managing director of Tencent Investments, who is responsible for the company’s overseas investments; Frits Van Paasschen, a change management expert, former CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and former president of EMEA at Nike; and Stuart Schonberger, a founding partner of CDH Investments, one of the leading China-focused alternative asset managers. China Program Director Jean Oi chaired the panel.

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Risks and Opportunities

Van Paasschen described his extensive experience developing strategies for expanding licensing and retail in China, which involved navigating the country's infrastructure and legal framework and, as CEO of Starwood Hotels, overseeing the construction of over 100 hotels. He ascribed his success in the country to his recognition of China’s strengths and weaknesses and his finding ways to interact positively with Chinese stakeholders.

The term decoupling is an oversimplification of the relationship between the complex Chinese and U.S. economies, said Van Paasschen. He noted that retailers in many cases are looking to sources from alternative markets to China, but that he believes there are still opportunities for investment in and co-development with China that remain unaffected by current frictions. He highlighted in this context the interplay between the U.S. and Chinese travel and tourism industries before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schonberger, who also challenged the notion of decoupling as a misleading shorthand, emphasized the need for cognitive empathy between the world’s two great powers and understanding the motivation behind China's actions. He noted that the challenges facing China today are complex, including debt problems, real estate slowdown, and productivity stagnation, but said these are "known knowns" that the Chinese government is actively working to correct.

Schonberger sees two distinct issues facing institutional equity investors worried about China: government policies that negatively affect growth and corporate prospects, and longer-term risks arising from China's geopolitical position. For private investors who are focused on total return and can tolerate overt political pressures, China remains investable, as Chinese stocks have been some of the best performers on the public markets recently, said Schonberger. The challenges are greater, however, for public entities and bond investors who are more affected by political risk in their decisions. While the risks are higher, Schonberger's firm continues to invest in Chinese companies in multiple sectors.

Changes Underway

Brody said that China remains a key player in the global economy. As a personal anecdote, he noted that, while he makes fewer trips to the United States, he is traveling more frequently to Europe, India, Japan, and Southeast Asia. According to Brody, the extent to which the Chinese economy would be affected by international fluctuations is unclear, but he expects the country to continue its economic growth and attract foreign investors. He stated that a huge amount of value in the tech sector is still being created in America, so economically driven foreign investors in the tech sector still pay close attention to developments in Silicon Valley.

Van Paasschen, by contrast, pointed out that by decoupling with China, the United States would miss out on a generational opportunity for development and could potentially lose out to other countries. China still presents an enormous opportunity for businesses, he said, particularly in the hotel industry, given the country’s rate of urbanization. He reminded the audience that every country and region presents its own set of challenges and risks for investors. The imperative is to ensure Beijing and Washington maintain a dialogue and businesses are willing to take risks to invest in China.

Van Paasschen went on to describe how the U.S.-China political tensions are affecting business operations in various sectors. For instance, in the biotechnology sector, companies might consider protecting intellectual property and ensuring sustainability in their supply chain. In the apparel business, there is a growing concern about human rights and the opacity of the cotton supply chain. Overall, Van Paasschen sees a transition underway from a bilateral and straightforward approach to trade to a much more nuanced and complicated approach.

When asked if political tensions would affect some sectors more than others, Van Paasschen responded affirmatively. He gave the example of a sovereign wealth fund that refused to support investments in Chinese hotels because of the uncertainty zero-COVID policies had created. He also said that further uncertainty could arise from countries' reactions to China’s foreign policy stance, such as China's support of Russia in Ukraine.

What advice would the three business experts give Washington?

Van Paasschen expressed his hope the United States finds ways to avoid being reactive. Schonberger, urging policymakers to keep working towards peaceful coexistence, emphasized it would be counter-productive to frame China as an enemy. He also highlighted the importance of redundancy and efficiency in trade relationships and cautioned against overlooking the cost of decoupling, reminding the audience that engagement with China has boosted global trade, lifted millions out of poverty, and created a vibrant society.

From Brody’s perspective, predictability is crucial for business, regardless of the country one is conducting business in. He also stressed that, from a personal perspective and regardless of one’s political stance on China, the reduction in people-to-people ties between China and the United States due to recent travel restrictions is unfortunate. Ultimately, these ties have always been a net positive, and it is important to recognize their value even in the midst of tensions between the two nations. While political leaders may grapple with complex geopolitical issues, the connections between ordinary citizens remain a vital foundation for maintaining a constructive relationship. By fostering personal exchanges, the United States and China can build bridges and promote mutual understanding, even in the face of challenging circumstances.

On April 26, 2023, in recognition of the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-Korea alliance, President Joe Biden will host President Yoon Suk Yeol for a State Visit to the United States. According to Ambassador Jung-Seung Shin, the fact that Yoon received the second such invitation of the Biden administration is a testimony to the centrality of the Korea-U.S. alliance to the peace and stability of the East Asian regions, especially at a time when the frayed U.S.-China relationship continues to degrade into a new Cold War, with a potential Taiwan contingency looming on the horizon. 

Shin, former South Korea's ambassador to China and former director general of the Asia Pacific Affairs Bureau at the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is the Winter 2023 Payne Distinguished Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a visiting scholar at APARC. He headlined this quarter’s Payne Lecture, speaking to an audience that gathered on March 1 for a timely discussion titled Sino-U.S. Relations and South Korea, co-hosted by APARC and FSI.

The Payne Lectureship at FSI, named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, aims to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community and advance international cooperation. The lectureship brings to Stanford internationally esteemed leaders from academia and the policy world who combine visionary thinking and a broad, practical grasp of their fields with the capacity to provide insights into pressing challenges of global concern. Throughout the 2022-23 academic year, the Payne Lectureship hosts experts from Asia who examine crucial questions in U.S.-China relations.

Ambassador Shin is uniquely qualified to offer insight into South Korea's response to the pressures created by the U.S.-China rivalry, said APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin, who chaired the event that included a discussion with Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro, an expert on Chinese military and Asia security.

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China’s Dreams

Painting a picture of Chinese ambitions, Ambassador Shin enumerated China’s goals and the steps it has taken to achieve them. “The Chinese dream,” he said, “is to regain the colonial behavior of the Qing Dynasty, when China was a great power with about one-third of the global GDP.” To achieve this dream, China's leaders have pushed for its continued economic development while arousing patriotism and nationalism domestically. Through its military modernization campaign, China has rapidly shown its ambition to become the top-rated global military power by 2049, the centennial of the establishment of the People's Republic of China, he noted.

Ambassador Shin indicated that China has prepared for a long-term competition with the U.S. in the economic arena, as Xi Jinping introduced the dual circulation economic policy, which aims to reorient the country's economy by prioritizing domestic consumption while remaining open to international trade and investment. This policy, Shin argues, “is designed, in part, to make the [Chinese] economy less affected by external factors including the supply chain reset of the U.S.” As such, China has stressed the importance of innovation and has made massive investments in science and technology to reduce its reliance on Western economies. Moreover, China has promoted the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to expand its political and economic influence.

“China became the second largest economic power and began to show assertiveness in its foreign policy, particularly by emphasizing the safeguarding of Chinese interests, namely, sovereignty and territorial integrity, state security and development interest,” stated Shin. To achieve these goals, “Chinese diplomats have voiced their arguments in an abrasive style, ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’ as it is called by Westerners.” This form of proactive engagement with the rest of the world has resulted in an intensifying strategic competition between the U.S. and China, which has made it increasingly difficult for South Korea to maintain simultaneous ties with both great powers.

No Longer on the Fence

Shin noted that “The strategic distrust and intensifying rivalry between the U.S. and China have put substantial pressure on South Korea…and South Korea's long-term policy to make a Korea-U.S. alliance compatible with its partnership with China is becoming more difficult.” In recent years, South Korea has moved even closer to the U.S.

The joint communique issued when President Moon Jae-in visited Washington two years ago, already showed South Korea’s tilt toward the U.S. At the time, heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula by the North Korean nuclear and missile provocation necessitated the alliance. Now, an ascendant China, “together with the lessons of Ukraine, have made South Korean people pay close attention to the importance of the Korea-U.S. alliance,” stated Shin, noting that both nations openly stress the importance of freedom, democracy, and rule-based order. South Korea has become enthusiastic about tripartite cooperation among South Korea, the U.S., and Japan, in tune with American policies. 

On the other hand, China warned South Korea to respect China's core interests while expressing its concerns on several strategic issues. Shin stated that “China began to demand the Yoon government to continue the three policy positions of the previous government, namely, no more deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), no participation in the American missile defense system, and no military alliance among Korea, Japan, and the U.S.” However, the current Foreign Minister Park Jin made it clear to the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang that the policy positions of the previous government do not bind the new government, Shin indicated.
 

The Taiwan Contingency

Shin indicated the precarious nature of the contingency, stating, “South Korea has no intention of challenging the One China claim. However, the peace and stability of Taiwan Strait are also very important for South Korea, as the security situation of the Taiwan Strait is connected to the Korean peninsula.” Indeed, a military collision in the Taiwan Strait would be impossible to contain locally. “The U.S. and Japan are supposed to immediately help Taiwan to repel China’s military attack, and American bases are located in South Korea and Japan, including Okinawa,” he said.

Therefore, military conflict in the Taiwan Strait is likely to escalate to Northeast Asia, and a certain portion of American forces in South Korea could move to the Taiwan Strait in the contingency according to the strategic flexibility of forces, “which might induce North Korea's misjudgment to invade South Korea,” Shin predicted.
 

Looking to National Identity

The Cost of Deterrence

Preventing Overextension

Overextension represents one of the largest limits on U.S. power projection. According to Mastro, one of the primary reasons that the Biden administration has not been talking about North Korea significantly, is the fact that the U.S. cannot fight a war on the Korean Peninsula and compete effectively with China.

Thus, Mastro proposes that the South Koreans play a greater role in their defense, a topic that comes up with NATO partners and allies in Europe as well. More specifically, Mastro suggests that the U.S. transfer operational command to South Korean forces, and that the South Korean military should allow the U.S. to practice greater strategic flexibility, to use its forces on the Korean Peninsula for operations or contingencies that are off the peninsula. Up until this point, that permission has been denied, but Mastro contends that it would be useful and could enhance deterrence. 

“If the South Koreans, along with their statements about wanting a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, also explicitly allowed for that strategic flexibility to take place to say that they understand that the role of U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula is primarily to deter and defend South Korea against North Korea, that could also play a potential role in wider contingencies,” she said.

Furthermore, Mastro believes that South Korea must play a greater role in the production and provision of certain types of munitions. “This is an area where the U.S. has struggled with its own manufacturing base that is considering licensing production and potentially doing it elsewhere. So the question is whether the U.S. could count on South Korea for some critical supplies during a conflict that could reduce the U.S. logistical burden,” she speculated.

South Korea is a small country, and it has limited resources, but it also has the second-largest reserve force and paramilitary force in the world, and the eighth-largest active duty force in the world. According to Mastro, “The South Korean military is technically 20 times larger than that of Japan's…it has punched above its own weight, like the Australian military has.”

It remains to be seen whether the U.S.-South Korea alliance will need to be tested in the coming years, but tensions with China will likely continue to define the two nation’s foreign policies. A potential Taiwan contingency remains one of the largest looming threats to the status quo and the most probable pathway to regional escalation, which, in Shin’s view, could draw North Korea and its nuclear arsenal into the fold.

The Payne Lectureship will return in the spring quarter, continuing with the theme of Asian perspectives on the U.S.-China relationship. We will be joined by Kokubun Ryosei, professor emeritus at Keio University and adjunct adviser at the Fujitsu Future Studies Center.

Although Japan’s approach to economic diplomacy under the Fukuda Doctrine initially was subject to criticism because of its stance on non-interference in domestic affairs, now some are in retrospect lauding the approach, according to Kiyoteru Tsutsui, deputy director at Shorenstein APARC and director of the Japan Program, and co-editor of the recent book The Courteous Power: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Indo-Pacific Era. This reevaluation comes after consideration of relatively unsuccessful attempts by the United States to “push” democracy onto Southeast Asian countries. 

The better approach is to focus on advancing the rule of law, which the Japanese have done by investing resources in establishing legal infrastructure in the region, Tsutsui tells Shorenstein APARC Visiting Scholar Gita Wirjawan, host of the popular Endgame video podcast. “Liberal democracy in the sense of the rule of law is a good sort of marketing ploy to sell to Southeast Asian countries because that leads to economic benefits, which is critical to making liberal democracy attractive,” he says.

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Tsutsui joined Wirjawan for an Endgame conversation about Japan’s approaches to foreign direct investment (FDI) in Southeast Asia and other topics. One issue that both scholars agreed upon is the difficulty in getting Americans to focus on Southeast Asia, which has been long recognized as a critical region by the Japanese. Part of the problem is proximity, of course, but the region also tends to be overshadowed in American eyes by East Asian countries. 

The conversation also turned to the demographic issue Japan and other Asian countries are facing as populations age and economic growth stagnates. Tsutsui pointed out that, before 1945, the Japanese Empire saw itself as multi-ethnic; it was only after WWII that the nation was perceived as homogenous, a viewpoint bolstered by Japan’s great economic success in the 1960s and 70s. Now, however, Tsutsui says there is no choice: “Japan has to become more heterogenous,” and even conservative voices acknowledge that women need a larger role in the labor force and that immigrant labor will be essential to combat the demographic crisis.

This discussion with Tsutsui is part of an "Endgame" interview series Wirjawan is recording with Stanford experts during his residency at APARC.