In Japan's increasingly complex security environment, the Japan-U.S. Alliance is indispensable not only to the security of Japan, but also to the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region.  The Honorable Satoshi Morimoto, former Defense Minister of Japan, will talk about Japan’s security policy and the importance of the Japan-U.S. Alliance under the Trump Administration.

This seminar will be moderated by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Director, U.S.-Asia Security Initiative

Image

This event is co-sponsored by the Japan Program, U.S.-Asia Security Initiative and the Consulate-General of Japan, San Francisco

The U.S.-Japan relationship has grown from strength to strength, benefitting both countries in terms of diplomacy, security and trade. Now, at a time when China is moving forward with its policy of expansionism in the East and South China Seas, and North Korea continues to threaten both the U and Japanese mainland, how can the two countries best work together to ensure regional stability? At this seminar, up-and-coming scholars from Japan and the United States will explore the potential opportunities and challenges for the U.S.-Japan relationship under the new Trump administration.

Panelists:

Phillip Lipscy
The Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. His fields of research include international and comparative political economy, international security, and the politics of East Asia, particularly Japan.

Satoru Mori
Professor, Hosei University.  Former official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Dr. Mori holds a PhD in Law from the University of Tokyo. His research interests include contemporary American diplomacy, especially with Asian countries.  Previously he was a visiting researcher at Princeton University and George Washington University. He has delivered remarks at the U.S. Department of State, CSIS, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and other symposiums in the U.S.

Shino Watanabe
Associate Professor, Sophia University.  Dr. Watanabe obtained her PhD in International Relations from the University of Virginia, followed by a Master’s degree from Tufts University. She also studied at School of International Studies, Peking University in China.  Her main research interests are Chinese foreign policy and international relations of East Asia. She published a number of articles on China’s foreign economic policy and foreign relations.

Moderated by Daniel Sneider, Associate Director, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

*Refreshments will be served*

Since assuming the presidency of the Philippines in June 2016 Rodrigo Duterte has been the focus of considerable international attention because of his brusque personality and two dramatically new policies: 1) a take-no-prisoners war on illegal drugs that has resulted in the deaths of over 6,000 alleged drug pushers and users; and 2) an abrupt distancing of relations with the United States coupled with an enthusiastic embrace of China. But considerably less attention is being paid to the Duterte government’s other policies or to the underlying political dynamics that will determine the efficacy of his government and, perhaps, the future of liberal democracy in the Philippines. The speaker will situate the Duterte government in the context of Philippine’s democratic experience, identify the political dynamics that are likely to determine its future, and assess the multiple threats to liberal democracy in the Philippines.

Image

Long a laggard on human rights, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is being pressed from within to reconsider its indifference. In 2009 an ASEAN Human Rights Commission (AICHR) was created and tasked with promoting (not protecting) human rights in Southeast Asia. In 2012 its members agreed to issue a first-ever ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. Most observers dismissed these moves as symbolic—an effort mainly to assuage foreign critics and  gain international legitimacy. Prof. Jetschke differs.  She will argue that the AICHR’s formation was prompted in part by the swelling flows of refugees across borders inside Southeast Asia, especially from Myanmar, and the problems thereby created for the region’s states and societies. She will also explore the extent to which these factors have eroded one of ASEAN’s strongest regional norms—the taboo on interfering in members’ domestic affairs. That erosion could strengthen ASEAN as something more than the sum of its sovereign members.

Image

WE HAVE REACHED VENUE CAPACITY AND ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING RSVPS

PLEASE NOTE VENUE CHANGE TO ENCINA HALL,

BECHTEL CONFERENCE CENTER, 1ST FLOOR

The election of Donald Trump has introduced a big question mark into America’s relations with China. Will the new president start a trade war with the world’s second biggest economy? Will Trump attempt to refashion America’s relations with Taiwan and thus infuriate Beijing? Will Trump’s vow to build more U.S. naval vessels place the United States and China on a path to conflict in the South China Sea? How will Trump handle the prospects of a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons and an intercontinental ballistic missile with which to deliver them? As for China, how will it react to this new administration, which espouses a decidedly different view of China than the one that predominated in Washington over the past several decades? Will China adopt the role of “responsible [global] stakeholder” in contrast to Trump’s “America first” ideology? Or will China join the United States in a race to the bottom, precipitating further ideological, economic and geostrategic competition that pulls the world down with it?

A book signing will follow. Copies of Mr. John Pomfret’s book will be available for purchase 

Image

This event is co-sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies

Trade has been a key instrument behind China’s rapid economic growth. Taking advantage of rapidly increasing global and regional production networks, China has become the major trading partner of virtually every other country within East Asia. Equally important, China’s trade strategy has married China’s combination of high savings levels plus low cost exports with America’s low savings rates and high consumption levels. As well, China has been a major funder of U.S. debt levels. To date the result has been a win-win for both countries. The election of Donald Trump threatens to upend China’s trade strategy, most fundamentally by branding China a currency manipulator and by threatening to impose massive tariffs on U.S. imports from China. Trump has also pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) despite six years of complex negotiations and in defiance of the wishes of its other eleven member states. All are convinced of the importance of TPP as a bridge linking the Asia-Pacific and as a counterbalance to Chinese economic influence in East Asia.  Professor Pempel will examine these complex interrelations with particular attention to the broad role hitherto played by economic cooperation in reducing security tensions within East Asia and across the Asia-Pacific.

Image

T.J. Pempel (Ph.D., Columbia) is Jack M. Forcey Professor of Political Science in U.C. Berkeley's Department of Political Science which he joined in July 2001. Just prior to coming to Berkeley, he was at the University of Washington in Seattle where he was the Boeing Professor of International Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies and an adjunct professor in Political Science. Professor Pempel's research and teaching focus on comparative politics, political economy, contemporary Japan, and Asian regional ties. His recent books include Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region; Regime Shift: Comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy (both by Cornell University Press); Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia and The Economic-Security Nexus in Northeast Asia (both by Routledge). In 2015, he co-edited a book entitled Two Crises; Different Outcomes (Cornell University Press) which analyzes the negative Asian experience in the 1997-98 crisis and the positive outcome in 2008-09. In addition, he has published over one hundred twenty scholarly articles and chapters in books. Professor Pempel is on the editorial boards of a dozen professional journals, and serves on various committees of the American Political Science Association, the Association for Asian Studies, and the International Studies Association Council. He is a presidentially-appointed Commissioner on the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and is active in the Northeast Asian Cooperation Dialogue. His current research involves Asian adjustments to the rise in global finance and the decline in security bipolarity.

This event is co-sponsored by the Shorenstein APARC's China Program and The Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford (FACES).

Multimedia for this event.

This event is part of the winter colloquia series entitled "China: Going Global" sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program.

[[{"fid":"224946","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"Economist.com","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"Economist.com","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"width":"870","style":"margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 15px; padding: 5px; float: left; width: 350px; height: 194px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"1"}}]]China: Going Global

Beijing’s new Silk Road initiative links old trade corridors from Asia to Africa and Europe. Many perceive that President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative as well as China’s many other trade, investment and finance projects transcend their economic calculus and reflect Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions to reposition China’s standing on the global stage. The China Program brings leading experts to explore the drivers and motivators of China’s international initiatives, their reach and scope as well as the implications of China’s increasing activism on the world stage.

http://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/research/china-going-global

This event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program and the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC).

A constitution is commonly seen as the definitive expression of the sovereign will of ‘We the People.’ But, who are those sovereign people, and how does one identify them? Can we equate the Korean or Japanese ethnic nation with the sovereign people of those countries? Further, when the constitution is drafted under overbearing foreign influence, as was the case in postwar Japan and postcolonial Korea, can we really say that the people are sovereign? And if the new constitution fails to categorically reject the evils of the past, as is often claimed to be the case in Korea and Japan, is the project of constitutional founding somehow compromised? Using the historical experience of these two countries, Prof. Hahm will engage in a reflection on the soundness of the theoretical framework that informs our thinking about the relationship between popular sovereignty and constitution making.

Image