Please see below. Thanks very much!

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NEMOTO, Kuniaki (Ph.D)
Research Fellow / Assistant Professor
Organization for Japan-US Studies, Waseda University http://sites.google.com/site/knemoto1978/

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Waseda University Organization for Japan-US Studies
(WOJUSS) Policy Seminar (Apr 24, 2014)

Professor Christopher William Hughes
University of Warwick

"Japan's 'Resentful Realism' and China's Rise:
Explaining Shifts from Hedging to Incipient 'Soft' and 'Hard' Balancing."
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Waseda University Organization for Japan-US
Studies(WOJUSS) would like to invite you to a seminar on Apr 24, 2014. Please see the details below. Please RSVP at info-wojuss@list.waseda.jp or visit our event website at http://www.kikou.waseda.ac.jp/wojuss/eng/event/.

[Speaker]
Christopher William Hughes
Professor of International Politics and Japanese Studies Chair of the Faculty of Social Sciences Head of Department, Politics and International Studies University of Warwick

[Title]
"Japan's 'Resentful Realism' and China's Rise:
Explaining Shifts from Hedging to Incipient 'Soft' and 'Hard' Balancing."

[Date/Time]
Thursday, April 24, 2014, 4:30-6:00 PM.

[Place]
Multipurpose Lecture Room, Okuma Memorial Tower (Bldg.#26), Waseda Campus
(MAP) http://www.waseda.jp/eng/campus/map.html

[Abstract]
Japan has been regarded by all mainstream IR theories as a status quo power intent on pursuing an immobilist international strategy towards China characterised by hedging rather than any move to active balancing. This paper challenges these assumptions and asks whether Japan will, or indeed already is, moving towards active balancing. The paper does so by reinterpreting the very assumptions of those theoretical perspectives that predict hedging and by drawing on fresh empirical evidence. It argues that the conditions that are thought to encourage hedging behaviour -- the predictability of other states' intentions, the malleability of intentions through engagement, domestic preferences that obviate balancing, and a favourable offence-defence balance -- are now eroding in the case of Japan's strategy towards China. Japanese policy-makers in the last decade have an accelerating decline in their confidence to read China's intentions and to mould these, to the point that China is now regarded as a predominantly malign actor. Japan's own domestic regime change, paralleling that of China, has released Revisionist forces that favour balancing of China. Very significantly, Japan's eroding faith in its ability to maintain defensive superiority over China, either through its own internal capabilities or the US-Japan alliance. The consequence is that the evidence is now mounting of Japan shifting towards active 'soft'
and 'hard' balancing of China. The consequences of Japan's shifting strategy are yet as unclear. Japan may be moving towards a form of 'Resentful Realism' that does not bring a new equilibrium to regional security but is actually more destabilising and poses risk for China and the US, especially as Japan's own security intentions become more opaque.

[Short Biography]
Christopher W. Hughes (BA Oxford University; MA Rochester University; PhD Sheffield University) is Professor of International Politics and Japanese Studies, Chair of the Department of Politics and International Studies, and Chair of the Faculty of Social Sciences, at the University of Warwick, UK. He was formerly Research Associate, University of Hiroshima; Asahi Shimbun Visiting Professor of Mass Media and Politics, University of Tokyo; and Edwin O.
Reischauer Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies, Department of Government, Harvard University. His most recent book is Japan's Remilitarisation (2009). He is currently President of the British Association of Japanese Studies, and Joint Editor of The Pacific Review.

[Commentator]
Takashi Terada
Professor, Faculty of Law, Doshisha University/ Visiting Professor, WOJUSS

[Moderator]
Kuniaki Nemoto
Assistant Professor, Waseda University

[Language]
English

Please send any inquiries about the event to info-wojuss[at]list.waseda.jp.