Dear SSJ-Forum members:

I wanted to alert you to an upcoming lecture at Waseda, sponsored by the Waseda Institute for Asia-Pacific Studies. 

Saori Katada, Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California, will be speaking on "The Indo-Pacific as Japan's 21st-Century Grand Strategy." As many of you are aware, Professor Katada is one of the world's leading authorities on Japan's political economy and foreign policy, a prolific author whose most recent monograph is the excellent "Japan's New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific" (Columbia University Press, 2020). She is uniquely positioned to consider the Indo-Pacific conception within a larger analysis of grand strategy. The talk should be of interest to anyone working on international relations, strategy or security in the region.

The talk, which Professor Katada will deliver in English, will be at 1:15 p.m. in Room 711 (NOTE: this is an update to the previously announced room number) in Waseda University Building 19 on Wednesday, June 7. It will be in person only.

Abstract:

The rise of Japan's Indo-Pacific strategy in the late 2010s crystalizes the configuration of Japan's 21st century grand strategy. This grand strategy utilizes Japan's liminal power between the East and the West, and its interchangeable use of economic and security foreign policy instruments with the aim of maintaining rules and standards in regional and global governance. With the evident decline of the US presence in the Asia-Pacific, and China's rising dominance as a global power, Japan now sits in a critical position: able to engage China constructively. At the same time, Japan aims to constrain Chinese revisionist behavior by enforcing liberal rules constructed under the US hegemony. I will discuss Japan's Indo-Pacific grand strategy with the emphasis on how it utilizes the Free and Open Indo-Pacific framework to flexibility create "like-minded" coalitions and advance Tokyo's interest through rule-setting strategy that can shape the regional order.

Please contact me (dleheny@waseda.jp) if you have any questions.

Best wishes and I hope to see you there -

DL