Temple University Japan. (6 July 2018. 12:00-13:20)

Mita Hall 5th Floor Room 504 (NOT main building, see address/maps) 4-1-27

Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0073 https://www.tuj.ac.jp/maps/tokyo.html

(東京都港区三田4-1-2) RSVP dujarric@tuj.temple.edu). Open to the public.



Brownbag lunch 6 July 2018 (12:00-13:20) Maria Shagina:

Japan's sanctions on Russia, implications for US/EU sanctions solidarity.



Showing solidarity with G7 countries, Japan imposed sanctions on Russia, albeit reluctantly. The Ukraine crisis occurred amid Japan's efforts to reinvigorate Japan-Russia relations in the hope of solving the longstanding territorial dispute and to respond to China's rising power in the region. Maintaining Japan's balance between G7 countries and Russia became one of the main challenges for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. While Japan felt obliged to support the international community and to impose sanctions, the geopolitical dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region forced it to take a conciliatory approach to Russia. This delicate balance resulted in Japan's symbolic sanctions and in different narratives promoted at home and in the West. As international pressure against Russia rises, Japan will find it more difficult to maintain its delicate balance between the G7, Russia, and Ukraine.



Looking beyond the effectiveness of sanctions, the presentation will analyse Japan's sanctions in a context of G7/G20 countries. The talk will address the questions: What are the loopholes between Japan's and other G20 countries' sanctions regimes such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand? What are the signaling messages of Japan's sanctions? What is Ukraine's reaction towards Japan's measures? Finally, the talk will examine the implications for US' and EU´s sanctions solidarity.



Speaker: Maria Shagina is a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at Ritsumeikan University, where she focuses on sanctions and energy relations in post-Soviet countries. She is also political risk analyst at London-based Global Risk Insights and member of the Geneva International Sanctions Network. She previously was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, University of Birmingham. She holds a PhD degree from the University of Lucerne and University of Zurich. She will be speaking in her private capacity, not on behalf of the organisations she is affiliated with.

----