In partnership with Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, on October 8th the Hamilton Lugar School’s 21st Century Japan Politics & Society Initiative* (21JPSI) hosted an in-person mini-conference on the “The US-Japan Alliance as a Global Partnership.” Held just days after the launch of Japan’s new Cabinet under newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, this event convened leading experts from Japan and the United States for a series of discussions on the alliance’s future and political and social challenges for Japan’s new leadership.
As a testament to the degree of interest in Japan and U.S.-Japan relations at Indiana University (IU), more than 100 students, faculty, staff, and community members turned out on a Tuesday afternoon to listen to and participate in this important discussion. Following welcome remarks from Hamilton Lugar School Dean John Ciorciari, 21JPSI Founding Director and Associate Professor Adam Liff, and Sasakawa USA’s Chairman and President Dr. Satohiro Akimoto, Prof. Liff chaired and moderated two panels. A concise summary of the 2+-hour event appears below.
The opening remarks kicked off with Dean Ciorciari, who welcomed the Sasakawa USA delegation and audience to Hamilton Lugar. He reflected on his personal and professional connections to Japan, which began with an opportunity to visit Japan as a high school student—an experience which kindled his interest in both Japan and East Asia more generally. Next, Professor Liff introduced 21JPSI, Sasakawa USA, and Dr. Akimoto. Dr. Akimoto’s brief remarks highlighted the importance of the U.S. and Japan as “natural allies” who share core values and key interests. He also called for the alliance to evolve to keep pace with a rapidly changing international environment in East Asia and around the world.
The conference’s first panel (“The Future of the U.S.-Japan Alliance and the ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’”) kicked off with remarks from Admiral (Ret.) Tomohisa Takei, former Chief of Staff of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces. Admiral Takei highlighted the rapid changes taking place in “the global structure,” which he argued have accelerated in the wake of the war in Ukraine and the “indiscriminate terrorism of Hamas.” The former in particular has reverberated in East Asia, including contributing to North Korea and Russia’s deepening military cooperation and rendering the “strategic environment in East Asia… more complicated and unstable than in Europe.” Next, he highlighted ways for the Japan-US alliance to “expand the free and open international order based on the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific,” emphasizing the importance of expanding a “lattice work strategic framework in which Japan and the United States are the cornerstones facing the Russia-China-North Korea authoritarian alliance.”
The next speaker was Lieutenant General (Ret.) Larry Nicholson, former Commanding General, III Marine Expeditionary Force in Japan (U.S.). Lt. Gen. Nicholson reflected on his time in Japan both as a young Marine and as the Commanding General of U.S. Marines in Japan over three decades later. He highlighted how his experiences differed starkly, not only because of his vastly different assignments and rank, but also the extent to which both Japan’s defense policy and the U.S.-Japan alliance had changed in the interim. As he put it, whereas on his first assignment he considered the possibility of “fighting from Japan,” upon his return several decades later he was often thinking about “fighting [alongside] Japan.” Nicholson highlighted the importance of treaty allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, which lacks a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-like framework for collective defense. He also noted the challenges presented by China’s growing power and influence, arguing that Beijing’s strategy focuses on establishing connections with other states as “clients” rather than “partners.” He also emphasized the importance of the U.S. and Japan sharing technologies and intelligence, especially given the rapid emergence of space and cyber as war-fighting domains.
Following the military/hard security-focused remarks of Admiral Takei and Lt. General Nicholson, Hamilton Lugar School Associate Professor Sarah Bauerle-Danzman discussed economic security challenges, prospects for greater U.S.-Japan cooperation in the economic space, and highlighted Japan’s significant investment in and economic ties with Indiana -- including over 300 Japanese firms that employ tens of thousands of Hoosiers and contribute to Indiana and the U.S. economy. Professor Bauerle-Danzman discussed critical supply chains in the context of a discussion about the various ways in which the economic realm provides important opportunities for further cooperation—for both economic and strategic ends. In this regard, she highlighted the significance of FOIP and efforts to construct an international framework where “pursuit of economic exchange is possible without threat of coercion.”
After the panelists’ opening remarks, Professor Liff moderated a Q&A. The panelists took questions on a wide array of issues, including with regard to Prime Minister Ishiba’s idea for an “Asian NATO,” the Nippon Steel effort to purchase U.S. Steel, and what lessons can be learned for the Indo-Pacific theater from the role of drones in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The second panel (“Political and Social Challenges for Japan’s New Prime Minister”) kicked off with Dr. Akimoto’s analysis of the political developments resulting in Ishiba’s election as Japan’s new prime minister, as well as the manifold challenges he seems likely to face in the coming weeks and months. He emphasized three points: First, the (LDP) party presidential election that took place at the end of September was an “unusual election” with “a stunning result” owing in significant part to the collapse of intra-LDP factions and the fact that an unprecedented nine candidates competed. Second, Dr. Akimoto highlighted what he sees as the lack of a “honeymoon phase” for the new PM . Third, he argued that Ishiba’s policy positions on a number of key issues appear vague. In short, a rocky first week suggested that the Ishiba Cabinet will face several political hurdles in the weeks and months ahead.
Following Dr. Akimoto’s politics-centered remarks, 21JPSI Faculty Affiliate and Hamilton Lugar School Assistant Professor Hilary Holbrow discussed several domestic social challenges and the implication of the election for the Japanese government’s efforts to effectively tackle them. After highlighting that Japan has wrestled with a declining birth rate for nearly half-a-century, Prof. Holbrow noted one concrete implication: based on some estimates, by the year 2070 Japan’s population will decrease by nearly 1/3: i.e., by roughly 40 million people. The implications not only for Japanese society but also its economy (e.g., labor shortages) are potentially severe. She introduced four main ways that Japan has considered addressing the labor shortage: automation (robots & AI); bringing people into the labor market who did not work previously; increasing birthrates over the long-term; and increasing immigration. She also highlighted the extent to which improving “gender equality” has been a major focus of recent policy discussions, even attracting the attention of the “socially conservative” former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Holbrow noted that the results of a series of Japanese leaders so far have been mixed: automation has not kept pace with the loss of workers, whereas women’s workforce participation has increased to the extent that it now exceeds that of the USA. Efforts to increase birthrates, or perhaps more accurately, slow the decline of birth rates, has also yielded mixed results, as has immigration policy. She closed by highlighting that immigration is “without question, the space in which the government has the most potential to mitigate labor shortages in the near/medium term.”
The final Q&A session saw questions regarding the prospects for the opposition parties in the upcoming general election, what the new administration could learn from other countries when it comes to efforts to improve birthrates, and several other political and social challenges.
The number of hands still in the air when Prof. Liff had to close the event due to time constraints was a clear testament to the extent of interest on campus and beyond in learning more about Japanese politics, society, and the U.S.-Japan relationship.
21JPSI is currently in need of external financial support to ensure the continuation of its mission. If you are an interested potential funder, please contact the Hamilton Lugar School’s Senior Director of Development.
For more information about 21JPSI, please see https://jpsi.indiana.edu/. To learn about 21JPSI’s future public events, please sign up for our event announcement mailing list and follow us on Twitter. For the foreseeable future, most events will be 100% in-person.
*The 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative (21JPSI) was launched at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies in 2018. Under the leadership of Founding Director and HLS faculty member Adam Liff, 21JPSI aims to invigorate and expand research, teaching, and programming on contemporary Japanese politics, society, and international (esp. U.S.-Japan) relations, and to educate, raise awareness, and debate policy responses to the various political, social, and foreign policy challenges that Japan faces in this extremely dynamic era of 21st-century change. Seeded by a generous grant from the Japan Foundation, in its first five years 21JPSI enabled a new tenure-track faculty line in contemporary Japanese politics and society; facilitated the creation of four new courses on contemporary Japan; launched a new multidisciplinary speaker series on Japanese Politics and Society, national conferences and webinars on U.S.-Japan relations, and academic manuscript workshops; and funded graduate fellowships and faculty travel grants to support field research in Japan.