On January 24, 2020, CJSBC President Don Campbell moderated a breakfast-time discussion panel with guests; Saori Katada, University of Southern California; Mireya Solis, The Brookings Institution; and Masahiro Kawai, University of Tokyo. The discussion topic was Japan’s recent and growing assertion of leadership on the international stage and this led to a lively and stimulating discussion. Katada-san provided background on Japan’s evolution from “side-kick to leader” and some commentary on the internal and external drivers for its leadership role; Ms. Solis spoke of some enabling factors including domestic political reforms, the evolution of the Prime Minister’s role from “faction manager” to “executive decision-making’, and Japan’s leadership in CPTPP and RCEP trade agreements; Kawai-san provided his take on previous comments and added his own thoughts on regional economic cooperation and integration.
Speaker biographies can be found here : https://canadajapansociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/200124-Bios-for-CJSBC-panel-event.pdf
REINVENTING THE TRADING NATION: Japan, the United States, and the future of Asia-Pacific trade
This piece was originally written as an epilogue to the Japanese translation of the Mireya Solis’ 2017 book Dilemmas of a Trading Nation: Japan and the United States in the Evolving Asia-Pacific Order, published in Tokyo by Nikkei Publishing in October 2019. The author’s purpose in writing this epilogue was to assess the trade policy developments in the Asia-Pacific of the past two years, a time when Japan and the United States have sharply reoriented their paths as trading nations.
This piece can be found here : https://canadajapansociety.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/191112-FP@Brookings_trading_nation.pdf