Asia Policy Events, Monday March 30, 2026

THE THREE SEAS INITIATIVE: AMBASSADOR ROMANA VLAHUTIN ON EUROPE’S NEW GEOGRAPHY OF POWER. 3/30, 8:00-9:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers: Zineb Riboua, Research Fellow, Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East; Romana Vlahutin, Government of Croatia Special Envoy, Strategic Connectivity, National Coordinator, Three Seas Initiative. 

TECHNOLOGICAL TRADE PATTERNS: BRICS AND ASEAN. 3/30, 10:00-11:30am (SGT), 3/29, 10:00-11:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS). Speaker: Jennifer Pédussel Wu, Professor of Economics, Berlin School of Economics and Law.

WINNERS AND LOSERS: RUSSIA, CHINA, AND EUROPE RESPOND TO THE IRAN WAR. 3/30, 10:15-11:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Carnegie. Speakers: Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow, American Statecraft Program; Rosa Balfour, Director, Carnegie Europe; Evan A. Feigenbaum, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie; Alexander Gabuev, Director, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. 

BIODIVERSITY IMPLICATIONS OF LAND-INTENSIVE CARBON DIOXIDE REMOVAL. 3/30, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal. Speakers: Ruben Prütz, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK); Moderator: Wil Burns, Co-Director, Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal, American University.

HOW THE HUNGARIAN ELECTION WILL CHANGE EUROPE. 3/30, 5:00-6:00pm (CET), 11:00am-Noon (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Carnegie Europe. Speakers: Rosa Balfour, Director, Carnegie Europe; Peter Hefele, Policy Director, Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies; Zsuzsanna Szelényi, Research Fellow, Central European University Democracy Institute.

CHINA’S ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN: RISKS, REALITIES, AND STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS. 3/30, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers: Miles Yu, Senior Fellow and Director, China Center; Thomas J. Duesterberg, Senior Fellow; Leland Miller, Member, U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Co-Founder and CEO, China Beige Book. 

POWERING ENERGY DOMINANCE THROUGH INNOVATION: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF U.S.-KOREA COOPERATION. 3/30, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Global America Business Institute (GABI). Speakers: Chang-Keun Yi, President of the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER), John Howes, Principal, Redland Ener    gy Group; Jae Yong Lee, Principal Researcher, KIER; Barbara Tyran, Senior Advisor, GABI. 

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SHIFTS THE GLOBAL TRADING SYSTEM: IMPLICATIONS FOR JAPAN AND “MIDDLE POWERS. 3/30, Noon-2:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Association of Women in International Trade (WIIT); Japanese Women in the Professions in Washington DC (J-WIP). Speaker: Barbara Weisel, Nonresident Scholar, Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. FEE. Lunch will be served.

IRAN WAR NEGOTIATIONS: WHAT’S ON THE TABLE? 3/30, 12:30-1:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Middle East Institute. Speakers: Barbara A. Leaf, Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow, Middle East Institute, Senior International Policy Advisor, Arnold & Porter; Alan Eyre, Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow, Middle East Institute, Founder and President of EyreAnalytics LLC; Moderator: Kenneth M. Pollack, Vice President for Policy, Middle East Institute. 

HOW CAN THE US ENGAGE CHINA IN ARMS CONTROL? STRUCTURAL OBSTACLES TO SINO-US NUCLEAR STABILITY. 3/30, 1:30-3:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Harvard Kennedy School. Speaker: Tianjiao Jiang, Assistant Professor, Fudan Development Institute.

REPORT LAUNCH: HOW THE WEST LOST THE POST-COLD WAR ERA. 3/30, 2:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: Daniel Fried, Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council; Brian Whitmore, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council; Moderator: John Herbst, Senior Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council.

HOW THE WEST LOST THE POST-COLD WAR ERA. 3/30, 2:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: Daniel Fried, Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council; Angela Stent, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; Brian Whitmore, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council; Moderator: John Herbst, Senior Director, Eurasia Center, Atlantic Council. 

IRAN AT THE ENDGAME: WAR OR NEGOTIATION? 3/30, 3:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). Speakers: Eric Edelman, JINSA Distinguished Scholar; Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy; Elliott Abrams, JINSA Gaza Futures Task Force Member, Former United States Special Representative for Iran; Stephen Rademaker, JINSA Senior Advisor; Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security & Nonproliferation; Blaise Misztal, JINSA Vice President for Policy. 

EXHIBITING JAPAN IN MID-CENTURY NEW YORK. 3/30, 6:00-8:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Digital Museum of the History of Japanese in NY. Speaker: Dr. Angus Lockyer, Author, Exhibitionist Japan: The Spectacle of Modern Development and Japan: A History in Objects.

A NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE? 3/30, 5:30pm (CDT), 6:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Speakers: Robert Rosner, William E. Wrather Distinguished Service Professor, Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics, University of Chicago; Doug Scott, Chair, Illinois Commerce Commission; Rachel Bronson, Lester Crown Senior Nonresident Fellow, Energy and Geopolitics, Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

DRUMMING UP CHANGE: ELECTIONS IN JAPAN, SHIFTING POLITICS, AND THE IMPACT ON OKINAWA. 3/30, 7:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Okinawa Collection and Sigur Center for Asian Studies, George Washington University (GWU). Speakers:  Dr. Mike Mochizuki, GWU; Dr. Fumiaki Nozoe, Okinawa International University; and Dr. Shawn Harding, Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA. 

Protected by the Constitution

Escaping from Trump’s Request to Dispatch Troops

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow,  Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
March 23, 2026
 
The White House might have turned into a haunted house for Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Luckily, she managed to leave without infuriating the resident, U.S. President Donald Trump. She explained the legal requirements that limit Japan’s ability to send troops to the Strait of Hormuz. This work left no time for Takaichi to rebuild a common strategy with the U.S. and against China. After all was said and done, the summit meeting produced no obvious progress.
 
Pushing the Legal Constraints Forward
The greatest challenge for Takaichi in the meeting with Trump was how to deal with his demand for U.S. allies to help protect ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Trump had previously called on countries, including Japan, to send warships to keep the strait open.
 
Takaichi deliberated with her diplomatic staff on how to respond to Trump at the meeting. Their conclusion was that Japan could not send its Self-Defense Force to the Strait. They considered three options: 1) a determination that events in the Strait present a “survival threatening situation” in which Japan can deploy its armed forces to assist the U.S. forces in the region; 2) a determination that Iran’s activities in the strait were a “significant influence situation,” in which case Japan could provide logistic support; and 3) a determination that activities in the strait warranted “maritime security operations” under Article 82 of the Self-Defense Forces Act, in which Japanese forces  take necessary action to protect life and property.
 
None of these theories work for action in the Strait, however. The situation in Iran does not threaten Japan’s survival, at least not so far. Japan cannot provide logistical support (on the basis of a significant influence situation) in any area where actual battle is ongoing. Maritime security operations extend only to Japanese vessels. Takaichi and her staff realized that, with the limits on their use, she could do little to satisfy Trump.
 
After her meeting with Trump, Takaichi explained to the press that she had told him what Japan “can and cannot do” in the Middle East. What she could do was to join with the U.S. in refusing to tolerate Iran’s nuclear development, blame Iran for its de facto blockade of the Strait, and promote a joint Japan-U.S. project for oil reserves. What she could not do was to send troops to the Strait. Asahi Shimbun reported that she cited Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan as the constraint on dispatching self-defense forces.
 
Two hours before the White House meeting, European leaders together with Takaichi issued a joint statement expressing their willingness to make “appropriate efforts” to ensure safe passage through the Strait. The statement ensured that Takaichi was not seen as acting alone but rather as a member of a group of U.S. allies although their rationales differed. The Europeans take the position that the conflict in the Strait is not their war while legal requirements preclude Japan from participating in the conflict. 
 
Takaichi returned to Japan with homework: how to define “appropriate efforts.” The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Toshimutsu Motegi, suggested sending self-defense forces for mine sweeping in the Strait after a ceasefire. Obviously, Takaichi will need to find a reason to explain to the opposition parties in the Diet why Japan would take on this chore.
 
The China Issue Is Left Behind
For Japan, the summit meeting was originally set to discuss China. Takaichi made a careless comment last November on a “Taiwan contingency,” which exacerbated Japan-China tensions. As Trump scheduled his visit to Beijing in April, Takaichi had to talk with Trump beforehand to encourage him to keep the U.S. engaged in security activities in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan is afraid that Trump would lose interest in Asia if he were to reach a deal with Xi Jinping. In the event, the Trump-Xi meeting was postponed, as Trump continued to grapple with the war.
 
At the White House, Takaichi and Trump reconfirmed that they would closely consult with each other on with issues relating to China, based on the time-honored concept of a “Free and Open Asia-Pacific (FOIP).” Takaichi said that Japan would always be open to China, and Trump replied that he would be “speaking Japan’s praises” when he visits Beijing. But nobody knows when that will be.
 
It is notable that the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community took Takaichi’s Taiwan comment seriously. “Her comments represent a significant shift for a sitting Japanese prime minister,” the document said. Takaichi does not seem to have been successful in impressing on the president that her position on the Taiwan contingency is the same as that of her predecessor prime ministers.
 
Takaichi and Trump did reach three economic agreements. A joint announcement on bilateral investment included a commitment by the Japanese to construct small module reactors in Tennessee and Alabama and natural gas generation facilities in Pennsylvania and Texas. These proposals constituted the second wave of Japan’s promised investments that were part of the Japan-U.S. agreement in July 2025, related to Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on Japanese products.
 
The agreement for certain Japanese investments must have been the biggest souvenir of Takaichi’s trip to the U.S., regardless of whether Trump was satisfied with it or not. Japan announced the first wave of investments in February, which included the manufacture of industrial synthetic diamonds, construction of the U.S. crude oil export infrastructure, and natural gas generation. Takaichi tried to demonstrate Japan’s willingness to implement the July 22 agreement. The two waves represent about 20 percent of the promised $550 billion investment.
 
Charming, Flattering, and Ignoring
Takaichi presented her unique style of her diplomacy during the trip. Video footage of Takaichi’s arrival at the White House entrance was repeatedly broadcast in Japan. She approached Trump, who was standing at the entrance, and hugged him with her arms embracing his shoulder and waist. It was closer to tackling than hugging. Although she might have been trying to charm Trump, a former Japanese diplomat described it as “embarrassing.” One would have to search long and hard to find any evidence of another world leader hugging Trump.
 
At the beginning of summit meeting, Takaichi praised Trump as a distinguished leader. “Donald is the only person who can bring peace and prosperity across the world,” said Takaichi. In view of the U.S. military operations to replace the Venezuelan leader and to launch a surprise attack on Iran, most Japanese recognized her remarks on Trump-as-peacemaker as explicit flattery.
 
Japanese leaders have sometimes used “haragei (腹芸),” a performance dealing with issues not based on words or actions but on guts, in its relations with the U.S. Former prime minister Eisaku Sato was renowned for his haragei, as seen in his negotiations for the return of the U.S.-occupied Okinawa and in the textile deal. But Takaichi has yet to reach his skill level: the audience in Japan could easily perceive that she just did not want to piss Trump off.
 
Asked by the press why the U.S. did not give Japan advance notice of the first attack on Iran, Trump reached back 85 years, five years before he was born. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Trump answered. Takaichi – who understands the English language just fine – waited for the interpreter’s translation and made no verbal reply. She ignored Trump’s irrelevant joke; a surprise attack would not be announced to the target.
 
Takaichi has not had much diplomatic or international negotiation experience over trade deals before becoming prime minister. It is not easy for the leader of a country to conduct negotiations with national interests at stake by acting like a girl in love with a strong man.

Requiescat in Pace

 

Hiroshima, May 27, 2016

It is with profound sadness that I report the death on March 14 of Mr. Shigeaki MORI, 88, of Hiroshima, Japan. As many of you will remember President Barack Obama embraced Mr. Mori who was in the audience for the President's May 27, 2016 remarks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The Japanese government included Mr. Mori as a last minute guest to head off the White House's invitation of an American POW (Army Air Corps' Dan Crowley of Connecticut) to the event. 

Mr. Mori, a child victim of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, spent his adult life successfully identifying the 12 American airmen he witnessed become POWs and who also died in the bombing. See American POWs in Hiroshima. His quest was made into the award-winning documentary, Paper Lanterns. You can watch it for free here. Mr. Mori was a personal friend and we just exchanged New Year's cards.

our last correspondence December 2025

White House Dinner for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi

On March 19, 2026, the White House held a dinner honoring Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The menu was carrot ginger velouté, Maine lobster au gratin with corn puree and asparagus, and strawberry and vanilla cream gateau. 

Only one celebrity attended. This was Japanese golf legend Mr. Hideki Matsuyama, Otherwise attendees were CEOs of major American companies, senior government officials, and two full-time lobbyists who are Trump loyalists. Only three Japanese CEOs of American operations were at the dinner: Mitsubishi, Hitachi, and Toyota. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group CEO and founder, was the only corporate head leading from Japan.

Notably, there was not one State, Defense or Commerce official tasked with or expert in Japan or the Indo-Pacific. There were no American second tier officials to match with their Japanese counterparts who were present at the dinner. 

Scholars, think tankers, and nonprofit executives expert on Japan who "manage" the relationship were also not present. It is very unusual to have such a dinner without attendees familiar with Japanese politics, economy, culture, and history.

Takaichi cleverly used a male interpreter to project power to Trump. He heard a strong male voice in "her" comments. The President had a woman interpreter, whose high-pitched voice subtly diminished him to the Japanese. She was, however, likely to have made Trump more understandable to Takaichi. 

Another notable feature of the dinner, and indeed the visit ,is that Trump never once said the Prime Minister's name. "Takaichi" was just too much to say for the President.

Full guest list for White House dinner for the Japanese prime minister

1 The President of the United States Donald Trump

2 Her Excellency TAKAICHI Sanae, Prime Minister of Japan

3 Mr. Andrew Abboud, Las Vegas Sands Corp. Vice President of Government Affairs

4 Dr. Miriam Adelson, spouse of the late Sheldon Adelson, founder Las Vegas Sands Corp

5 Mr. AKAHORI Takeshi, Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs

6 His Excellency AKAZAWA Ryosei, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry

7 Mr. Jim Allen, chairman of Hard Rock International

8 Mr. Cristiano Amon, CEO and president, Qualcomm

9 Mr. ARAI Masayoshi, Director-General, Trade Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

10 Mr. ARIMA Yutaka, Director-General, Foreign Policy Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

11 The Honorable Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury

12 The Honorable James Blair, White House, Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs

13 The Honorable Pam Bondi, Attorney General

14 Mr. Greg Brockman and Mrs. Anna Brockman, OpenAI co-founder.

15 The Honorable Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior

16 The Honorable Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor

17 The Honorable Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation

18 Mr. Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO;

19 The Honorable George Glass, Ambassador of the United States to Japan and Mrs. Amy Glass

20 Mr. David Goeckeler, Sandisk CEO;

21 The Honorable Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative

22 The Honorable Bill Hagerty, United States Senator from Tennessee and Mrs. Christine Hagerty

23 Mr. HAYASHI Makoto, Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister

24 The Honorable Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War

25 Mr. ICHIKAWA Keiichi, National Security Advisor

26 Mr. IIDA Yuji, Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister

27 Mr. IIJIMA Isao [飯島勲], Special Advisor to the Cabinet, noted Japanese political fixer

28 Mr. Takajiro Ishikawa, President & CEO of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America

29 Mr. KANO Koji, Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs

30 Dr. Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir

31 Mr. Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO

32 Mr. KUMAGAI Naoki, Director General of the North American Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

33 The Honorable Kelly Loeffler, Administrator of the Small Business Administration

34 Mr. Palmer Luckey, founder of Anduril

35 The Honorable Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce

36 Mr. MATANO Motosada, Director-General, Economic Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

37 Mr. Hideki Matsuyama, Japanese golf pro, first Asian to win the Masters

38 The Honorable Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education

39 Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron CEO

40 Mr. Michael Miebach, CEO Mastercard

41 Mr. Jason Miller, lobbyist, SHW Partners, Trump adviser

42 Mr. Jeff Miller, lobbyist, Miller Strategies, former Republican Representative from Florida

43 The Honorable Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security

44 Mr. MIMURA Atsushi, Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, Ministry of Finance

45 His Excellency MOTEGI Toshimitsu, Minister of Foreign Affairs

46 Mr. NAMAZU Hiroyuki, Senior Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan

47 Mr. Michael Needham, 37th Counselor of the U.S. Department of State and Director of Policy Planning.

48 Mr. Tetsuo Ogawa, President and Chief Executive Officer, Toyota Motor North America, Inc.

49 Mr. Kelly Ortberg, Boeing CEO

50 Mr. OZAKI Masanao, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary

51 Mr. Sundar Pichai, Google CEO

52 Mr. Ted Pick, CEO Morgan Stanley

53 The Honorable James Risch, United States Senator from Idaho and Mrs. Vicki Risch

54 Mr. Horacio Rozanski, president and CEO Booz Allen Hamilton

55 The Honorable Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

56 Mr. SAIKI Kozo, Cabinet Secretary for Public Affairs

57 Mr. Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer and executive vice president, Palantir

58 Mr. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group CEO 

59 Mr. James Taiclet, CEO Lockheed Martin

60 Mr. TAKAZAWA Yoshinori, Director, First North America Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

61 Mr. Charlie Takeuchi, Vice President and Executive Officer of Hitachi Ltd., and President & CEO of Hitachi Americas

62 Mr. Hock Tan, Broadcom CEO

63 The Honorable Scott Turner, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

64 The Vice President of the United States, JD Vance

65 The Honorable Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget

66 The Honorable Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy

67 His Excellency YAMADA Shigeo, Ambassador of Japan to the United States of America

68 The Honorable Lee Zeldin, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Asia Policy Events, Monday April 23, 2026

2025 NETWORK READINESS INDEX (NRI). 3/23, 9:00-10:30am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Portulans Institute. Speakers: Chinasa T. Okolo, PhD, Author of AI Governance in a Global Context; Rafael Escalona Reynoso, CEO and Director, Portulans Institute; Shailja Bang Shah, Head of Research, Portulans Institute; Shri Jaipal, Director of the Economic Research Unit (ERU), Department of Telecommunications, Government of India; Bitange Ndemo, Kenya's Ambassador to Belgium and the European Union; Maria Victoria C. Castro, Assistant Secretary for e-Government Department of Information and Communications Technology, The Philippines; Anna Mysyshyn, Founder, Institute of Innovative Governance, Ukraine.

CROSS-STRAIT CROSSROADS: PATHWAYS FOR AMERICA’S TAIWAN POLICY. 3/23, 10:00-11:15am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Jennifer Kavanagh, Senior Fellow and Director of Military Analysis, Defense Priorities; Bonnie S. Glaser, Managing Director of the Indo-Pacific Program, The German Marshall Fund of the United States; David Sacks, Fellow for Asia Studies, Council on Foreign Relations; Matthew Turpin, Senior Advisor, Palantir Technologies, Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution; Moderators: Ryan Hass, Director, John L. Thornton China Center, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Asia Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center, Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies; Jude Blanchette, Distinguished Tang Chair in China Research; Director, RAND China Research Center – RAND.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM TRUMP’S BEIJING VISIT. 3/23, 10:00am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: Kurt M. Campbell, Chairman and Co-Founder, The Asia Group, Former Deputy Secretary, United States Department of State (2024-2025); Moderator: Melanie Hart, Senior Director, Global China Hub, Atlantic Council.

TAIWAN’S SPACE AMBITIONS AND THE FUTURE OF U.S.–TAIWAN COOPERATION. 3/23, 10:30-11:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Jong-Shinn Wu, Director General, Taiwan Space Agency; Chirag Parikh, Senior Adviser (Non-resident), Aerospace Security Project; Kari A. Bingen, Director, Aerospace Security Project and Senior Fellow, Defense and Security Department. 

TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS IN AN ERA OF UPHEAVAL. 3/23, 11:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Atlantic Council. Speakers: Tyson Barker, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Europe Center, Atlantic Council; Frances Burwell, Distinguished Fellow, Europe Center, Atlantic Council; Daniel Fried, Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council; Moderator: Amanda Thorpe, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Europe Center, Atlantic Council. 

WAR AND UNCERTAINTY IN THE MIDDLE EAST: ASSESSING THE NEXT PHASE. 3/23, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Middle East Institute. Speakers: Lieutenant General Sam Mundy, USMC (Ret.), Distinguished Military Fellow, Middle East Institute; Colby Connelly, Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute; Moderator: Kenneth M. Pollack, Vice President for Policy, Middle East Institute. 

BOOK TALK: CARBON HUNTERS: REFLECTIONS AND FORECASTS OF CLIMATE MARKETS IN THE 21ST CENTURY. 3/23, Noon-1:15pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Speaker: author, Richard Sandor, CEO, Environmental Financial Institutes, Aaron Director Lecture in Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School, Moderator: Joseph E. Aldy. PURCHASE BOOK

TAIWAN'S SHIFTING GLOBAL LANDSCAPE: SECURITY, PARTNERSHIPS, AND IMPLICATIONS. 3/23, 1:00-3:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Institute for Indo-Pacific Security (IIPS). Speakers: Ian Easton, Associate Professor, U.S. Naval War College; Rupert Hammond-Chambers, President, U.S.-Taiwan Business Council; Patrick Nevins, Deputy Staff Director, House Armed Services Committee; Gregory Brown, Executive Director, Alliance Futures Initiative; Iku Tsujihiro, Research Associate, Hudson Institute; Japhet Quitzon, CSIS.

GEOPOLITICAL RISKS AND THE FUTURE OF MULTILATERAL ORDER. 3/23, 6:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP). Speakers: Dr. Lukas Haynes, Visiting Scholar, Ralph Bunche Institute at CUNY; Hon. Mallory Stewart, CEO, The Council on Strategic Risks; Amb. Susan Elliott, President and CEO, NCAFP. 

Japan’s Annual Budget Bill Passes the Lower House

Japan’s Annual Budget Bill Passes the Lower House

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow,  Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
March 16, 2026
 
The Lower House passed the FY2026 budget bill and sent it to the Upper House on March 13. To prove that her decision to dissolve the Diet and to hold a Lower House snap election in February did not interfere with work on the national budget, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi needs the Diet to approve the budget by the end of March.  She has pushed the leading parties – the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) – hard to accelerate the budget process. With the LDP’s supermajority, the bill cleared the Lower House with extraordinary speed on March 13. It is still unclear, however, whether the Upper House will act by the end of March, as the prime minister hopes.
 
The Diet’s process for considering the annual budget bill ordinarily takes two months or more. The dissolution of the Diet and the ensuing campaign set back work on the FY2026 budget by a least a month. Takaichi has attempted to accelerate the process and pass the FY2026 budget bill inside of a month. The government should have an approved budget in place before the fiscal year begins on April 1. Hence Takaichi’s self-imposed March 31 deadline. It is a hard deadline even though Takaichi gave a month away last January.   
 
The first step in the annual budget process is for the administration to submit a budget bill to the Lower House, as Article 60 of the Constitution of Japan requires. The Committee on the Budget of the House then begins its review. For the first three days, senior members of each party put questions to the prime minister. After that, rank-and-file members discuss the budget in greater detail; the premier may or may not be present at these sessions. On the theory that the budget is related to every political issue, the questions range widely, extending even to the scandals of the leading parties.
 
This year the Takaichi Cabinet submitted the FY2026 budget bill to the Lower House on February 20. The House’s Committee on the Budget commenced discussions on February 27. The three days for questions from the senior members were February 27, March 2 and 3. The opposition parties agreed on this schedule proposed by the leading parties.
 
However, the rest of the schedule was at the discretion of the chairman of the committee, Tetsushi Sakamoto, an LDP member, including the decision to end debate and bring the bill to a vote. He decided that the committee would hear from each ministry on its policies on the budget bill from March 4 to 6. The committee then had a local public hearing on March 8 and a public hearing in the Diet on March 10.  Sakamoto unilaterally set these dates only with the approval of the leading parties, dismissing requests from opposition parties for further reviews on the budget bill.
 
All parties had agreed to include in the agenda time for discussion of such important issues as Japan’s response to the war in Iran and price inflation for two days, but Sakamoto alone later decided to end the budget discussion on March 13, a decision that the leading parties endorsed. As a result, the committee spent only 59 hours reviewing the bill, the shortest period in the last twenty years. The Lower House budget committee usually spends about 80 hours on the annual budget bill.
 
Behind Sakamoto’s use of his prerogative to limit discussion in the committee was pressure from Takaichi. Before discussion of the bill began, the LDP had set a deadline of March 13 for the vote in the Lower House. Takaichi figured that the LDP’s supermajority would make this timing work.
 
Furthermore, she wanted to minimize her time in front of the committee. She tends to make inappropriate remarks in the Diet. Quite unnecessarily, she said in last fall’s Diet session that the “Taiwan contingency” might trigger Japan’s right to use force. In this year’s session, she said that imperial succession would be limited to male offspring in the male line, misquoting an experts’ report. Sakamoto limited the time for her remarks in the committee and let other ministers answer questions from opposition parties.
 
At the hearing, the Prime Minister did not look healthy. She wore a glove on her right hand reportedly to lessen arthritis and a blanket covered her lap. Takaichi also seemed unable to stand and had cancelled a meeting with Islamic delegation in the evening of March 12.  The prime minister’s official residence explained that she had a cold. It is usual that the staff conceal true information about prime minister’s health. There is no information, so far, of cancelling her upcoming March 19 visit to the U.S. for a summit meeting with President Donald Trump.
 
Upset about the chairman’s inordinately speedy scheduling of the budget process, the opposition parties submitted to the House a no-confidence resolution against Sakamoto. It was easily dismissed with a majority vote of the leading parties. The budget committee with its majority of LDP and JIP members approved the budget bill on March 13, as scheduled, and it passed the House with an overwhelming majority in the Lower House’s Plenary Sittings later in the day.
 
“We protest the speed of the discussion process. It marks an embarrassing history for future generations,” said the leader of Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), Jun-ya Ogawa. The leader of Democratic Party for the People (DPP), Yuichiro Tamaki, criticized the budget bill as insufficient to help households. But they are in opposition and cannot control a vote in the Lower House.
 
The LDP and the JIP do not have a majority in the Upper House. For Takaichi to save face, the budget bill needs to pass the Upper House by the end of March. The bill will automatically be approved on April 12, even if the Upper House votes against it. The leading coalition needs only four additional votes to gain a majority vote in the Upper House.
 
Takaichi is lucky that the opposition parties are not sufficiently united to block the bill. They take different stances on the Takaichi administration. For example, the DPP has decided to join Takaichi’s National Council on Social Security, accepting Takaichi’s invitation, but the CRA still hesitates. Some opposition parties are concerned about public criticism for any delay in passing the annual budget bill, which includes economic stimulus measures. The struggle between the parties in the Upper House will intensify through the end of this month.

Asia Policy Events, Monday March 16, 2026

PRIORITIZING POLITICAL PRISONER ADVOCACY ACROSS CHINA. 3/16, 9:30am-2:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers Include: Grace Jin Drexel, Daughter of Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri; Olivia Enos, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute; Gao Pu, Son of detained Pastor Gao Quanfu and his wife, Pang Yu; Corey Jackson, Founder and President, Luke Alliance; Michael Kovrig, Former Canadian detained in China for his human rights advocacy.

AI AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITATED GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE: ADVANCING JUSTICE FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS. 3/16, 10:30am-Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Athena Initiative, George Washington University. Speakers: Amina Iman; Kate Piersall; Anna Arango; Mahira Ahmed; Moderator: Sarah Ali.

STRATEGIC AMBITIONS: CHINA’S POLICY FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY, RESOURCES AND FINANCE. 3/16, Noon-1:30pm (JST), 3/15, 11:00pm-12:30am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Asia Society Japan – Policy Salon Tokyo. Speaker: Alicia García Herrero, Adjunct Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Senior Fellow, BRUEGEL, Chief Economist for Asia Pacific, NATIXIS.

CAN THE US UNLOCK THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ? 3/16, 11:00am-Noon (EDT). Sponsor: Middle East Institute. Speakers: Alex Vatanka, Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute; Kevin Donegan, Distinguished Military Fellow, Middle East Institute; Moderator: Kenneth M. Pollack,Vice President for Policy, Middle East Institute.

 RISKS, PROSPECTS, AND PATHS FORWARD FOR FREEDOM IN IRAN. 3/16, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Freedom House. Speakers: Nazanin Boniadi, Actress and Human Rights Activist; Ladan Boroumand, Co-founder, Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy, Iran; Holly Dagres, Libitzky Family Senior Fellow, Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy, Washington Institute; Jamie Fly, Chief Executive Officer, Freedom House; Gissou Nia, Director, Strategic Litigation Project, Atlantic Council.

NATO AFTER RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE: THREAT PERCEPTIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES. 3/16, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: American-German Institute. Speakers: Eric Langenbacher, Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program, AGI; Jason Davidson, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Security Initiative, Atlantic Council; Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, University of Mary Washington; Moderator: Jeff Rathke, President and Director of the Foreign & Security Policy Program, AGI.

INDO-PACIFIC LOGISTICS AND SUSTAINMENT PRIORITIES. 3/16, 1:00-2:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: International Stability Operations Association (ISOA). Speakers: Michael Mazza, Institute for Indo-Pacific Security; Michael Siegl, Siegl Innovation LLC; Moderator: John Gastright, Amentum.

A CONVERSATION WITH AMBASSADOR KEVIN RUDD. 3/16, 2:00-3:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Kevin Rudd, Australia's Ambassador to the U.S.; John J. Hamre, CSIS President and CEO, and Langone Chair in American Leadership; Charles Edel, Senior Adviser and Australia Chair.

TURKEY IN A MIDDLE EAST AT WAR. 3/16, 2:00-3:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Brookings. Speakers: Suzanne Maloney, Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy; Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), United States House of Representatives, Chairman, U.S. Helsinki Commission; Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe, Director, The Turkey Project; Philip H. Gordon, Sydney Stein, Jr. Scholar, Foreign Policy, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology; David M. Satterfield, Director, Baker Institute for Public Policy - Rice University, Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey; Moderator: Humeyra Pamuk, White House Correspondent, Reuters.

PUTIN’S WAR AGAINST THE WEST: A CONVERSATION WITH THE FORMER US AMBASSADOR TO THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION. 3/16, 4:30-6:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: MIT Center for International Studies. Speakers: Ambassador John J. Sullivan, Former US Deputy Secretary of State, Former US Ambassador to the Russian Federation; Carol Saivetz, Senior Fellow, MIT Security Studies Program, Center for International Studies (CIS); Elizabeth Wood, Ford International Professor of History, MIT.

RUSSIA AND CHINA: GAINING FROM THE WAR WITH IRAN? | STATE OF PLAY. 3/16, 4:00-4:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Bonny Lin, Director, China Power Project and Senior Adviser; Maria Snegovaya, Senior Fellow, Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program; Will Todman, Chief of Staff, Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department; and Senior Fellow, Middle East Program. 

Takaichi’s Obscure Response to War in Iran

What is the significant situation with the U.S. war in Iran

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
March 9, 2026

Japan received the news of the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran with some surprise even though, back in mid-January, the Foreign Ministry had advised Japanese citizens in Iran to evacuate immediately. Despite the Japanese government’s position that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine violated international law, the Sanae Takaichi administration has declined to assess the legality of the bombing in Iran. Takaichi has taken a limited public role: she watches, waits, and does what is necessary to evacuate Japanese citizens in the region. Meanwhile, markets in Japan have been volatile considering fundamental concerns about the availability of oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) from the Middle East.

Takaichi was in Tokyo when she received the first report of the U.S. attack. It was February 28 and she was scheduled to leave for Kanazawa, Ishikawa, to give a campaign speech supporting Governor Hiroshi Hase in an election on March 8. Although the war’s outbreak gave Takaichi a full agenda of things to do, she made no change to her schedule.

Asked about that decision in discussions at the Committee on Budget in House of Representatives, Takaichi insisted that her decision was not inappropriate, because she was kept informed on developments in Iran and could make a decision regardless of her geographic location. Although she did not say so, her support of Hase was probably a high personal priority: like Takaichi, Hase was a longtime member of Shinzo Abe’s faction and served in the Diet from 1995 to 2022. In any case, despite Takaichi’s support, Hase was not reelected.

The response of the Takaichi administration to the war in Iran has been slow in coming and has not yet fully emerged. After a security conference with the ministers on the evening of February 28, the Chief Cabinet Secretary (CCS), Minoru Kihara, stressed the government’s effort to collect information and to protect Japanese citizens in the region. Asked about a legal basis for the attack by the U.S., Kihara did not answer directly and instead rebuked Iran for its development of nuclear weapons.

By contrast, when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, then prime minister Fumio Kishida accused Russia of a breach of the United Nations Charter that directs all members to refrain from “threat or use of force against the territory integrity of political independence of any state.” Takaichi has refrained from making a similar interpretation of international law even after the leadership in Iran announced the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in a military strike.

In the debate in the Lower House Budget Committee on March 2, the chairwoman of the Japan Communist Party, Tomoko Tamura, asked Takaichi to persuade the U.S. and Israel to stop their attack. Takaichi said that she did not have sufficient information about the war. “Our government refrains from making legal judgments,” Takaichi said, adding that she did not know whether the U.S. and Israel strikes were in self-defense and that Japan had been supporting nuclear talks by the U.S., Iran, and other interested countries.

Rather than focusing on the war, Takaichi is taking this time to implement her conservative agenda. Given the unstable international security environment, her administration is removing restrictions on exporting military weapons. On March 6, the LDP and Japan Innovation Party publicly recommended revisions to the “three principles for transfer of defense equipment” to unleash Japan’s exports of lethal weapons.

In a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Tokyo on March 6, Takaichi emphasized the importance of Canada in promoting a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” They agreed to continue to cooperate to enhance the supply chain for crucial minerals to protect against Chinese restraints. In a telephone conversation with German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on March 5, Takaichi also shared concerns about supply chains with him. Takaichi is more concerned about the Indo-Pacific and China than about the Middle East and Iran although Japan relies heavily on oil production there.

Over a month before the attacks in Iran, on January 16, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs raised the level of warning for travelers in Iran to Level 4, the highest level, which is a recommendation to evacuate immediately. Takaichi’s top priority at the beginning of the war was how to keep the 200 Japanese citizens in Iran safe. This challenge has broadened after strikes by Iran in other Middle Eastern countries where Japanese citizens also live, work, and travel. There have been no reports so far of Japanese victims of the war although two Japanese are in custody in Iran.

Japan’s greatest concern is not political but economic. Japan depends on the Middle East for over 95 percent of its crude oil. Japanese ships loaded with crude oil or LNG must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has warned that Iranian Revolutionary Guards will fire on any ship trying to pass through the strait. The strait is effectively closed since the military attack by the U.S. and Israel started. (Historians may recall the Nissho Maru incident in 1953 when a Japanese tanker was one of the few that breeched the British blockade of the Strait to eventually deliver oil to Japan.)

To avoid a panic, Takaichi has stressed that Japan has sufficient reserves of crude oil. “We have an oil reserve for 254 days,” she said in the discussion in the Lower House budget committee. Crude oil prices have since been extremely volatile. On March 9, the per-barrel price of crude oil opened at $98 and rose to nearly $120. Later in the day, President Trump said that the war, which he described as “a little excursion” was “very complete, pretty much.”

The price fell sharply, and later in the day in the U.S. crude oil was trading in the range of $85 to $90. The Japanese stock market closed on March 9 before Trump’s remarks. Given the then concerns about the negative impact of the continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Nikkei 225 index plunged significantly by about 3,000 points, or just over 5 percent.

The Takaichi administration abolished the temporary gasoline tax at the end of 2025. Since then, the retail price of gasoline in Japan has apparently declined. Oil price hikes caused by the war in Iran are likely to exceed the benefit of that tax cut. In the intensive debate on Iran at Lower House Budget Committee on March 9, Takaichi promised to take additional measures to support price of gasoline, electricity and gas supply without forming any supplemental budget.

Over ten years ago, in 2015, former prime minister Shinzo Abe said that the closing of the Strait of Hormuz might be a “survival threatening situation” in which Japan could exercise its right of collective self-defense and use force. Will Japan attack Iran if Iran blocks the strait? “We do not think that we have reached that situation,” said CCS Kihara, who described the war, at the moment, as not a “survival threatening situation [存立危機事態].”

In the March 9 discussion, Takaichi also declined to recognize the war in Iran as a “significant influence situation [重要影響事態]” in which Japan may have to give logistical support to its American ally. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi explained that Japan had not received any request from the U.S. for that logistical support. Although Japan has various concepts of a “situation,” it is not clear how it pictures current situation in Iran.

Nuclear Latency: Deterrent or Invitation to War?

How the War in Iran Reshapes South Korea and Japan’s Nuclear Strategy

by Daniel Sneider, lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University, non-resident distinguished fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America, and APP Member. 

First Published March 13, 2026 on The Peninsula.

The Iran war has delivered a verdict on nuclear latency, or the strategy of possessing the capability to develop a nuclear weapons program while stopping short of crossing the weaponization threshold. There are significant implications for Northeast Asia, as South Korea and Japan are pursuing such a strategy amid eroding confidence in U.S. extended deterrence. And both may have latent capability close enough to alarm adversaries but insufficient to deter them.

However, if nuclear latency proves to catalyze rather than prevent conflict, the foundational assumptions underpinning nonproliferation strategy require a fundamental reassessment.

The Failure of Nuclear Latency in Iran

Nuclear latency is defined as having the capability to rapidly develop nuclear weapons—having the fissile material to make a bomb, the technology to construct a warhead, and the means to deliver the weapons—without crossing the threshold. In theory, nuclear latency acts effectively as a deterrent against external attack without ever paying the costs, both material and diplomatic, of acquiring nuclear weapons.

“The theory behind the threshold strategy had a certain appeal: maintain latent capability as a deterrent, avoid the diplomatic costs of overt weaponization, preserve the Supreme Leader’s fatwa against nuclear weapons, keep the door open to negotiations, and explore if you might be able to manifest non-weaponized nuclear deterrence effects of some kind,” Stanton Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Ankit Panda wrote of Iran.

But latent deterrence depends on two conditions—making your adversary believe you can rapidly cross the threshold if attacked and offering a diplomatic alternative to war. But Iran constructed what Panda described as the worst possible nuclear posture: proximate enough to a weapon to justify preventive attack, “yet unwilling to cross the threshold that might have actually prevented one.”

Parallel Paths in Seoul and Tokyo

Despite its singular historical experience as the only nation subjected to a nuclear attack, Japan has maintained a deliberate hedging strategy for decades. For example, it has a stockpile of forty-five tons of weapons-grade plutonium (eight tons of it held in Japan), the capability to enrich uranium, ballistic-missile technologies developed under its satellite-launch programs, and advanced fighter aircraft with nuclear delivery potential. A recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency observed that Japan’s latency hedges against regional threats while simultaneously functioning as diplomatic leverage against the United States—an implicit signal that weakening security guarantees could trigger rapid proliferation.

South Korea has long sought capabilities similar to Japan’s but has been thwarted by the 123 Agreement with the United States, a civil nuclear pact that restricts Korea’s ability to produce fissile material and develop potential delivery systems. The Lee Jae Myung administration is negotiating changes to the agreement, specifically regarding uranium enrichment to build nuclear-powered submarines. What was once a predominantly conservative aspiration now spans the political spectrum.

For both South Korea and Japan, the unstated driver for nuclear latency is not only the threat from China, North Korea, and Russia, but increasing doubts about the reliability of the U.S. commitment to provide extended deterrence.

“The U.S. role in the world is changing in fundamental ways as Washington takes deliberate steps away from the rules-based order that it helped build in the years following World War II,” states a joint report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, published in February 2026. “These shifts…have also yielded new questions regarding the enduring nature of the U.S. commitment to the alliance.”

The Erosion of Restraint

Historically, two forces constrained South Korean and Japanese nuclear ambitions: a credible U.S. nuclear umbrella and a U.S. non-proliferation policy that actively opposed any steps in this direction. Both of those restraints are now in question.

Extended deterrence “was never completely credible to the Japanese which is why they keep going back to ask for us to give them more assurance,” Richard Samuels, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has written extensively on this issue, told this writer. “We would be foolish to imagine that the Japanese are not having second thoughts,” Samuels warned, drawing a direct parallel to conversations in Germany and France.

Former Lieutenant General Noboru Yamaguchi, a senior government advisor, went further. “It is impossible to prove extended deterrence is valid,” he explained to this writer. “Deterrence is about how we feel. It was questionable during the Cold War. Now I don’t believe in any kind of deterrence.”

If the Donald Trump administration no longer opposes allied proliferation, as Trump himself has signaled at times, then both South Korea and Japan can move more openly down the road of a robust nuclear latency without triggering the consequence of diplomatic isolation.

“Suppose you don’t get the blowback from the Americans,” former Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory Siegfried Hecker told this writer, “that takes away a lot of the negatives for South Korea, and for Japan.”

The Window of Vulnerability

The critical question is whether adversaries might act as the United States and Israel have done and attempt to destroy South Korea and Japan’s nuclear capability before it crosses the threshold.

“At the end of the day, the people you have to convince are not the Japanese or the Koreans,” comments Professor Samuels. “The people you have to convince are the adversaries—the Chinese and the Russians. We might have been looking in the wrong place.”

Nuclear expert Panda wrote that China and Russia may initially resort to gray-zone tactics. These could include cyberattacks such as those launched against Iran previously. If the United States maintains a limited nuclear umbrella, he told this writer, they might want to stop short of the use of force.

The biggest problem will be what analysts call the “window of vulnerability,” the gap in time between when South Korea and Japan clearly move toward weaponization and when they cross that threshold. That window widens significantly if the goal is tangible deterrence that requires a survivable arsenal with submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Japan holds a substantial advantage. Hecker, a plutonium metallurgist by training with deep knowledge of China, North Korea, and Russia’s nuclear programs, assessed that Japan could direct the assembly of a uranium weapon in six months to a year. A plutonium weapon would likely take up to two years. South Korea faces a longer timeline, according to the former Los Alamos director—two-plus years to produce fissile material alone. But they may be further along in the technical research needed to construct a working weapon, Panda added.

One unconventional scenario includes a South Korea-Japan partnership where South Korea contributes weaponization expertise and Japan supplies fissile material. “It would be a marriage made in heaven,” says Panda.

Conclusion

Nuclear latency may prove to be an accelerant to precisely the conflicts it was designed to prevent. “The North Koreans may pull the Russians in to do something,” suggests Hecker, if South Korea and/or Japan move toward a weapons threshold. “China will be incensed…if there is one thing that gets the Chinese exercised, it’s Japan and a potential nuclear program,” he added.

But the question is whether policymakers in South Korea and Japan will read Iran as a cautionary tale or conclude that, with eroding alliance guarantees and a deteriorating threat environment, they have no better option.

Asia Policy Events, Monday March 9, 2026

ESCALATION, DETERRENCE, AND IRAN’S STRATEGIC CALCULUS. 3/9, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Middle East Institute (MEI). Speakers: Colby Connelly, Senior Fellow, MEI; Alex Vatanka, Senior Fellow, MEI; Lieutenant General Sam Mundy, USMC (Ret.), Distinguished Military Fellow, MEI. Moderator: Dr. Kenneth M. Pollack, Vice President for Policy, MEI.

IS TRUMP'S WAR IN IRAN JUSTIFIED? A DEBATE. 3/9, Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Foreign Policy. Speakers: Matthew Kroenig, Columnist, Foreign Policy, Vice President/Senior Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council, Professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President, Quincy Institute. Moderator: Ravi Agrawal, Editor-in-chief, Foreign Policy.

DEEPLY RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS AND JAPAN. 3/9, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University. Speaker: Geoffrey G. Jones, Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, Harvard Business School. Moderator: Christina L. Davis, Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, Department of Government; Director, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard University.

THE LEGAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PHYSICAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN CHINA. 3/9, 1:00-2:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: India China Institute. Speaker: Angela Huyue Zhang, Professor of Law, USC Gould School of Law.

BOOK TALK: DEPLOYED: A PHYSICIAN ON THE FRONT LINES OF GLOBAL HEALTH. 3/9, 4:00-6:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: author Kevin M. De Cock, Former Director, CDC Kenya, Founding Director, CDC Center for Global Health, Former Director, WHO Department of HIV/AIDS; J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President and Director, Global Health Policy Center. PURCHASE BOOK

Takaichi Getting Down to Business

Takaichi Goes for the Consumption Tax Cut

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
March 2, 2026
 
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has, not surprisingly, interpreted the sweeping victory by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the February 8 Lower House election as a green light from voters to pursue her policy agenda. Most recently, she announced in the Diet debate on February 27 her intention to submit a bill for a two-year moratorium on the consumption tax on food. Certain opposition parties remain skeptical about the process for discussion through a nonpartisan “national council,” even though they are not completely opposed to the idea of a consumption tax cut. Still, the first half of this Diet session is likely to focus on the consumption tax cut.
 
The Diet held three days questioning Takaichi in Plenary Sittings of both chambers between February 24 and 26. Unlike the other opposition parties, the leaders of the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA), Jun-ya Ogawa, and the Democratic Party for the People (DPP), Yuichiro Tamaki, called on Takaichi to discuss the consumption tax cut in the Diet and not in a national council.
 
What exactly is the “national council”? In her policy speech to the Diet in October 2025, Takaichi proposed establishing a national council to discuss comprehensive reform of the social security and taxation systems. The council’s work would include designing a system for “tax credits with benefits.” She hoped the council would be a nonpartisan discussion body. Takaichi had to get approval from the opposition parties for her agenda, because her government was in a minority at the time.
 
On January 26, the day before the official announcement calling for the Lower House election, Takaichi expected the national council to include the consumption tax cut in its agenda. Although she had originally opposed a consumption tax cut, Takaichi suddenly changed her mind when the opposition parties included it in their platforms. After the Lower House election, Takaichi said that the ultimate goal for the council would be tax credits with benefits. A temporary moratorium of the consumption tax on food would be a provisional measure before the council introduced the broader tax-with-benefits framework.
 
The CRA and DPP are basically supportive of the tax credit with benefits. However, the consumption tax cut is more important to these two parties. The CRA included the permanent elimination of the consumption tax on foods in their election platform. The DPP took a slightly different tack and argued in the campaign that the consumption tax rate should be reduced from 10 percent to 5 until the rate of wage hike steadily exceeds the price inflation rate.
 
Given their skepticism about a nonpartisan forum rather than debate directly in the Diet, the CRA and the DPP refused Takaichi’s invitation to the first meeting of the National Council on Social Security that was convened on February 26. They were concerned that Takaichi would attribute a failure to introduce a consumption tax cut on food to the opposition parties if the discussion in the council fell into confusion. The two parties know even some LDP members are negative on a consumption tax cut.
 
The national council thus embarked on its work without the participation of the two major opposition parties. Takaichi did not invite the Japan Communist Party, Reiwa Shinsengumi, and Sanseito because she believed their views were inimical to the idea of tax credits with benefits. As a result, the “national council” is essentially partisan: its members are only the LDP, its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, and one small opposition party, Team Mirai.
 
Takaichi has not, however, abandoned having the opposition parties join in the introduction of a consumption tax cut. Takaichi took one step forward in a discussion in the Committee on Budget of the Lower House on February 27. She said she would submit a bill for a two-year elimination of the consumption tax on food at an extraordinary session of the Diet this coming fall. She also revealed a new idea of a flexible application of the consumption tax in the event of a major natural disaster or the outbreak of an infectious disease.
 
Takaichi shows herself to be careful to listen to the opposition parties on the consumption tax cut, notwithstanding the LDP’s supermajority in the Lower House. Her party does not have a majority in the Upper House. Pushing her agenda in the Lower House could result in protests from the opposition powers in the Upper House – which would waste time in the legislative process.
 
On other issues, Takaichi is acting on her own conservative agenda. In the budget committee discussions, she pushed for limiting imperial succession to male offspring in the male line. She also rejected any role for the Diet in reviewing the export of weapons to foreign countries after abolition of the five-category regulations. Her view is that the export policy decision should be left solely to the prime minister and her administration.
 
In the Diet discussions, the opposition parties also questioned Takaichi’s distribution of 30,000-yen gifts on catalogue to the LDP winners in Lower House election. Although former prime minister Shigeru Ishiba apologized for similar gifts he made to some winners in the 2025 Upper House election, Takaichi refused to do so, arguing that her gifts violated no law. Takaichi does not look vulnerable to a money scandal – so far.