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December 24, 2025
Japan Zoominar @ UC San Diego: "Japan's New (Economic) Security Agenda and Emerging Regional Leadership" with Michael Beeman, Patricia Maclachlan, and Sheila A. Smith
From: Takashi Kiyoizumi (JFIT) <tkiyoizumi@ucsd.edu>
Date: 2025/11/27
Japan Zoominar @ UC San Diego: "Japan's New (Economic) Security Agenda and Emerging Regional Leadership" with Michael Beeman, Patricia Maclachlan, and Sheila A. Smith
Wed, December 17, 2025, 9:00-10:30 am JST (Tue, Dec 16, 2025 4:00-5:30 pm Pacific) This is a special session with 3 guest speakers and 90 minutes long.
In the new world of geopolitics and geo-economics, Japan has developed its own security policy. Japan is redefining "security" in more comprehensive and integrative ways than other countries, from the 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act -- which was the first of its kind in the world -- and a revised National Security Strategy that commits Japan to a stronger collaborative regional defense posture, to a new "Japan Inside" business strategy, novel initiatives in food security and trade agreements galore. We will look at how all of this is coming together as a new global strategy. As most of Asia is caught in a growing feud between America and China, Japan is balancing resource needs with indispensability. Is a new era of Japanese regional leadership emerging?
Michael Beeman served as a senior trade official at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative for over 16 years, most recently as the assistant U.S. trade representative for Japan, Korea and APEC from 2017 to 2023, during which he led the negotiation for the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement and the renegotiation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. From 2023 to 2024, he was a visiting scholar and lecturer at Stanford University. He received his D.Phil. in politics from the University of Oxford in 1998 and is the author of "Walking Out: America's New Trade Policy in the Asia-Pacific and Beyond" (2024) and "Public Policy and Economic Competition in Japan" (2002).
Patricia L. Maclachlan specializes in comparative politics, with an emphasis on political-economic change in Japan. Her research interests include Japanese postal privatization, agricultural reform, and the politics and strategies of food security. She is the coauthor of "Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japanese Agriculture" (Cornell University Press, 2022).
Sheila A. Smith is John E. Merow senior fellow for Asia-Pacific studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, she is the author of "Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power, Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China" (released in Japanese as 日中 親愛なる宿敵: 変容する日本政治と対中政策) and "Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance." She is also the author of the CFR interactive guide Constitutional Change in Japan. Smith is a regular contributor to the CFR blog Asia Unbound and a frequent contributor to major media outlets in the United States and Asia.
Ulrike Schaede is Professor of Japanese Business at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) and the director of the Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology (JFIT). Her research focuses on Japanese business strategies and management; employment practices and corporate culture; financial markets; manufacturing; and innovation. Her 2020 book, "The Business Reinvention of Japan: How to Make Sense of the New Japan" (Stanford University Press), won the 2021 Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize and has been translated into Japanese as 再興 THE KAISHA: 日本のビジ ネス・リインベンション (
Register here: https://bit.ly/3K8aHAM
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