Asia Program Hosts Conference on Japan's Vision for East Asia

Ahead of President Obama’s visit to Asia in late April, the Asia Program held an invitation-only meeting from March 5th to 6th  to discuss the ongoing tensions and economic as well as security challenges facing the region.

The event featured speakers James Zumwalt, deputy assistant U.S. secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Yoichiro Sato, professor of the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University’s College of Asia Pacific Studies;  Fumiaki Kubo, professor of American government and history at the University of Tokyo’s graduate school for law and politics; Leonard Schoppa, associate dean for the social sciences and professor at the University of Virginia’s department of politics; and Kent Calder, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. 

Along with remarks by the five speakers, the meeting included a discussion between participants on how the changing political and economic landscape in Japan is impacting business as well as security relations with China and South Korea in particular, and what those shifts may mean for stability in the Asia-Pacific at large.