JAPANESE FOREIGN POLICY: CHALLENGES IN THE POST- ABE ERA | 24TH AUGUST- WEDNESDAY SEMINAR |
The late Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe sought to engage India to build a coalition of maritime democracies. He foresaw that a) the PRC will further its effort to “mainlandise” Taiwan to ultimately annex the island nation; b) no country alone by itself could deter China’s quest for hegemony; c) India will continue to grow both demographically and economically; and d) no attempt to build a coalition of like-minded countries over the Indo Pacific maritime domain will be substantive without fully engaging India. The new geopolitical concept of “Indo-Pacific” thus was born under his resolved leadership, and the QUAD security arrangement also took shape as a result. The speaker will look back at what he sought to achieve for what purposes and argue that now, with Abe having passed, Japan’s diplomacy will likely go in a zigzag, while its foundation is more solid than in the pre-Abe era. Tokyo will soon start the budgeting process for the next fiscal year. By December it will revise some of the defense-related policy doctrines. The speaker will also address those developments.
About the Speaker
Tomohiko Taniguchi is Professor at Keio University Graduate School of System Design and Management where he reads about international political economy and the politico-economic development of Japan. He holds a doctorate in national security from Takushoku University and an LLB from the University of Tokyo. As the late prime minister ABE, Shinzō’s primary foreign policy speech writer, he penned most of Mr. Abe’s important foreign policy speeches -- in Japanese and in English -- including the one he delivered to the Indian parliament in August 2007, under the title “Confluence of the Two Seas”.
About the Discussant
Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA). He is also the Director for Europe-Asia Research Cooperation at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. Dr. Panda’s research focuses primarily on India’s relations with Indo-Pacific powers (China, Japan, Korea, USA); China-India Relations, EU-India Relations; and EU’s infrastructure, connectivity, and maritime initiatives in Indo-Pacific.
About the Chair
Srabani Roy Choudhury is a Professor at the Japanese Studies Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her association with Japan began with the Japan Foundation Fellowship 1996-1997. She has been on a visiting scholar program at Keizai Koho Centre, Ministry of Economics and Industry, Japan, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance, Japan, REIB, Kobe University, GSID, Nagoya University.
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