Invitation to a lecture at the Embassy of Sweden

"Responding To The Rise of China:
Japan's Policy of Accommodation 1978-2011"

Date: Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Time: 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Introductory remarks by Ambassador Lars Vargö
Lecture (about 45 minutes)
Comment
Q&A
Small reception (drink & snack)

Venue: Embassy of Sweden, Alfred Nobel Auditorium (lecture)
Bergman Exhibition Hall (small reception)
Speaker: Dr. Linus Hagström, Senior Research Fellow, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Japan Foundation Fellow, Kyoto University
Commentator: Dr. Rumi Aoyama, Professor, Waseda University
Language : English
Admission: Free (Invited only)
Participation: Please register to secure your seat.
Contact Kazumi Appleyard by mail, kazumi.appleyard[at]foreign.ministry.se
or TEL 03-5562-5095 no later than Friday May 25

About the lecture:
Increasing Sino-Japanese interdependence in recent years has developed in tandem with bilateral tensions. Many analysts have attempted to explain the latter as a result of Japan trying to balance or contain the burgeoning growth of Chinese capabilities. This lecture serves to question and qualify this widespread understanding of Japan’s response to China’s rise. It will do so by examining how Japan has handled China’s rise between 1978 and 2011. How has Japan dealt with China’s long-term core strategic interests, which are embodied in the post-1978 Chinese “grand strategy” that is believed to have been instrumental to China’s rise? The lecture will argue that to a significant degree Japan has accommodated the rise of China rather than balanced against it.

About the speaker: Mr Linus Hagström
MA in Japanese Studies, Stockholm University, Ph.D. in Political Science, Stockholm University

He is associate professor of political science and senior research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. He is also research fellow at the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities supported by a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. January-July 2012 he is Japan Foundation fellow at Kyoto University. Hagström is the author of Japan’s China Policy: A Relational Power Analysis (London: Routledge) and he has recently published scholarly articles in Australian Journal of International Affairs, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey and Asian Security.

Commentator: Ms. Rumi Aoyama
Ph.D., Keio University

Professor at Waseda University, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences Her field of Specialization is International Relations in East Asia, China's Foreign Policy.
Her recent publication in English includes: “Getting The Triangle Straight: Managing China-Japan-US Relations (11: Changing Japanese Perceptions and China-Japan Relations　pp.247-268) “ (2010) co-authored by Gerald Curtis, Ryosei Kokubun, and Wang Jisi

Kazumi Appleyard

Embassy of Sweden
1-10-3-100 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032