Asia Policy Events, Monday September 21, 2026

Today is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for the Jewish people. Many places in the US are closed. Congress is not in session. The House left last week and will not return until after the mid-terms. The Senate is expected to go on recess on October 2.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE HORMUZ ENERGY CRISIS ON SOUTH ASIA. 9/21, 8:30-9:30am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Anish De, Global Head for Energy Natural Resources & Chemicals (ENRC), KPMG International; Vibhuti Garg, Director, South Asia, IEEFA; Amit Jain, Senior Energy Specialist, World Bank; Jane Nakano, Senior Fellow, Energy Security and Climate Change Program CSIS.

ENERGY OPPORTUNITY FORUM 2026: BUILDING ABUNDANT ENERGY IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH. 9/21, 8:45-10:45am (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Energy Opportunity Lab, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Speakers Include: Rania Al-Mashat, Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, United Nations; Ashish Khanna, Director General, International Solar Alliance; Luisa Palacios, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy.

NEW STRATEGIC PRIORITIES: HOW CHINA IS RESPONDING TO RUSSIA–NORTH KOREA MILITARY COOPERATION. 9/21, 9:00-10:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Asia Society Policy Institute. Speakers: Sungmin Cho, Nonresident Fellow on Chinese Politics, Foreign Policy, and National Security, Asia Society Policy Institute; Emma Chanlett-Avery, Deputy Director, Asia Society Policy Institute; Moderator: Lyle Morris, Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security, Asia Society Policy Institute.

THE GERMAN STATE ELECTIONS AND THE RISE Of AfD. 9/21, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Quincy. Speakers: Reinhard Krumm, head of the US & Canada office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Washington DC; Thomas Fasbender, German journalist; and Molly O’Neal, non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute.

HER POWER 2026: SUSTAINING ACTION FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS. 9/21, 3:30-6:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Foreign Policy. Speakers: H.E. Dr. Rania Al-Mashat, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; Hon. Dr. Velislava Petrova-Chamova, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Bulgaria; Roberta Metsola, President, European Parliament; Hon. Lori Urso (D-RI), Senator; Abigail Erikson, Chief, UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and Girls; and more.

BOOK TALK: INSIDE CHINA'S SECRET PRISONS: AN UNDERCOVER EXPOSÉ AND ITS LASTING LEGACY. 9/21, 4:30-6:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsors: Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University; China and the World Program, Columbia University. Speaker: author, Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society; Moderator: Andrew J. Nathan, Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science, Columbia University. PURCHASE BOOK 

Asia Policy Events, Monday June 22, 2026

SHADOW OF CATASTROPHE AND THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE. 6/22, Noon-1:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Speakers: Colin Kahl, Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford; Janice Stein, Founding Director, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy; Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, Chief, Norwegian Intelligence School. Moderator: Ulrich Kuehn, Head of Arms Control and Emerging Technologies, University of Hamburg.

PHILIPPINES ASEAN CHAIRSHIP 2026: ADVANCING REGIONAL RESILIENCE AND U.S.-ASEAN COLLABORATION. 6/22, 3:00-5:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsors: US-ASEAN Center; Embassy of the Philippines; US-Philippines Society. Speakers include: Jose Manuel G. Romualdez, Ambassador of the Philippines to the United States; Hunt VanderToll, Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Hans Siriban, Economic Minister and Consul, Philippine Embassy to the U.S.; Heather Variava, Senior Advisor, Bureau of Economic & Business Affairs, U.S. Department of State.

STABILITY MULTIPLIERS: FOOD AND CLIMATE SECURITY IN A FRACTURED WORLD. 6/22, 6:00-8:30pm (BST), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsors: Center for Climate and Security, Council on Strategic Risks; Strategic Climate Risks Initiative; Ditchley Foundation; Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University. Speakers: TBA; Moderator: Erin Sikorsky, Director, Center for Climate and Security, Council on Strategic Risks.

WOMEN ARTISTS IN ACTION: VISUALIZING THE 1970S WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENTS. 6/22, 6:00pm (JST), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Modern Japan History Workshop. Speaker: Kanako Tajima, PhD Candidate, Columbia University. 

TAIWAN’S STRATEGIC OUTLOOK AND THE FUTURE OF US-TAIWAN RELATIONS. 6/22, 6:30-8:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). Speakers: Tom Chih-Chiang Lee, Director-General, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office; Shihoko Goto, Vice President of Programs and Director, Asia Program, FPRI; Chris Estep is a Non-Resident Fellow, Asia Program, FPRI; Rupert Hammond-Chambers, President, US-Taiwan Business Council; Aaron Stein, President, FPRI; Vincent Wei-Cheng Wang, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Asia Program, FPRI.

Imperial Succession

Diet Discussion on the Imperial Family Resumes

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
April 20, 2026

Both chambers of the Diet, including all the parties, resumed on April 16 their discussion of a stable process for succession to the imperial throne. The Speaker of House of Representatives, Eisuke Mori, hopes to wrap up the discussion and approve a revised Imperial House Law by the end of current session of the Diet, which is scheduled to close on July 15^th. However, opinions of the parties are so different that they are unlikely to reach a consensus soon.
 
It was the first meeting with all the parties since April 2025 when two former prime ministers, Taro Aso with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Yoshihiko Noda with the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDPJ) of Japan, hit an impasse on the details of revision of the law. The structure of both chambers has changed significantly since then after the elections of the Upper House in 2025 and the Lower House in 2026.
 
It is recognized that keeping members of the Imperial Family would contribute stable succession to the throne. With a decrease in the number of male members in the Imperial Family who can succeed to the imperial throne, it is urgent that Japan find a way to put a workable succession process in place. The current Imperial House Law limits succession to male offspring in the male line. The Emperor Abdication Special Law, enacted in 2017, which allowed Emperor Akihito to abdicate, compels the Diet to reach a consensus on imperial succession as the will of the legislative branch.
 
A governmental conference of experts proposed to the Diet in 2021 two options for keeping members of the Imperial Family. They were 1) allowing female members to stay in the Imperial Family after marriage and 2) reinstating male members of the former Imperial Family along the male line through adoption. While the LDP, with its coalition partner the Japan Innovation Party (JIP), considers the latter the top priority, the CDPJ focuses on the former.
 
The CDPJ argues for the first option that the spouse and children of female members in the Imperial Family should also be given the status of members of the Imperial Family. The LDP is adamantly opposed, fearing that it would pave the way for an emperor in the female line. The CDPJ is skeptical about the second option because a former member of the Imperial Family may prefer not to be reinstated in the Imperial Family. These conceptual gaps have not narrowed in the discussions among the parties.

The Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) in the Lower House, which resulted from the merger of the CDPJ and Komeito in January 2026, does not have internal agreement on this issue. Mori has asked the CRA to reach a consensus within a month and before the next meeting. The Democratic Party for the People, Komeito, and Sanseito all agree with both options.
 
The conservative parties, including the LDP, JIP and Sanseito, strongly advocate for exclusively patrilinear succession and oppose an emperor in the female line. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi asserted in her speech to the LDP national convention on April 12^th that the history of succession through the male line is the source of the throne’s authority and legitimacy.
 
It is a controversial argument. The Constitution of Japan does not include her conception of the emperor’s status. Article 1 states that the emperor’s position derives from “the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power.” The emperor’s “authority and legitimacy” thus stems from the people – who therefore may call for changes. Takaichi and the conservative powers’ insistence on succession along the male line may undermine the legal basis of the emperor as stated in the Constitution.
 
Currently, there are 16 members alive in the Imperial Family, all of whom are descendants of Emperor Yoshihito of Taisho. Five are males, and 11 females. The order of succession to Emperor Naruhito is topped by Crown Prince Akishino, Naruhito’s younger brother, followed by Akishino’s son Prince Hisahito, and Prince Hitachi, a younger brother of Emperor Emeritus Akihito. Under the patrilinear descent concept, Hisahito is the only possible successor in the next generation of Naruhito. Akihito is not included in the order of possible successors.
 
Female members of the Family include Princess Masako, her daughter Princess Aiko and Akihito’s wife Michiko. In the branches, the Akishino family has two females, Kiko and Kako, and other branches have six who have not married. A female member who marries a commoner must leave the Imperial Family.
 
In 1947, just before the Imperial Household Law took effect, there were 51 members of the Imperial Family. Eleven families left the Imperial Family later that year, partly because the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces shrank the budget for the privileges of the Imperial Family. The departing families were branches of male lines of former Emperors.
 
Those 11 former Imperial Families included the Fushimi, Kan-in, Yamashina, Kitashirakawa, Nashimoto, Kuni, Kaya, Higashifushimi, Asaka, Takeda, and Higashikuni branches. Now, only four of them, Kuni, Kaya, Takeda and Higasikuni, have male members in the male lines. Other families are expected to be eliminated as former Imperial Families, since they have no male successor.
 
Among the 11 families, the Takedas may be the best known. Tsunekazu Takeda is former president of Japan Olympic Committee. He is the third son of Tsuneyosi, a grandson of the Meiji Emperor. Tsunekazu, as the chairman of the bid committee, was involved in lobbying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games (actually held in 2021), was targeted by French prosecutors in an Olympics corruption probe. Tsunekazu’s son, Tsuneyasu Takeda, is well known as an ultra-conservative TV commentator. Tsunekazu and Tsuneyasu, however, have never been members of the Imperial Family because they were born after the Takeda family had left the royal household.
 
The second option in the 2021 experts’ report proposed that patrilinear members of the imperial family could adopt male members of the eleven families who had left in 1947.  However, the CRA and the CDPJ argue that such adoptions may violate Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan. Article 14 prohibits discrimination based on family origin. Forcing a man in one of the 11 families into the Imperial Family but who does not want to go may constitute discrimination. Debate over the stability of the Imperial Family is hard to keep politically neutral.

Asia Policy Events, Monday November 17, 2025

JAPAN’S ROLE IN NAVIGATING GLOBAL AND REGIONAL UNCERTAINTY. 11/17, 2:00-6:00pm (JST), Midnight-4:00am (EST), HYBRID. Sponsor: Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA). Speakers: Kenichiro Sasae, President, JIIA; Naoko Eto, Senior Fellow, Institute of Geoeconomics; Jacob Happymon, Director, Council on Strategic and Defense Studies, India; Kenneth R. Weinstein, Japan Chair, Hudson Institute; Nguyen Minh Vu, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vietnam; Naoko Shimazu, Professor, University of Tokyo, and more.

5TH INDO-PACIFIC STRATEGY FORUM. 11/17-18, IN PERSON ONLY, Ottawa, Canada. Sponsor: Institute for Peace & Diplomacy (IPD). Speakers: RSVP for speaker list.

TRUMP AND MBS: WHAT’S IN STORE FOR U.S.-SAUDI RELATIONS? 11/17, 10:00-10:45am (EST), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Carnegie. Speakers: Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow, American Statecraft Program, Carnegie; Michael Ratney, Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia; Bernard Haykel, Professor of Near Eastern History of the Gulf Cooperation Countries, Princeton University.

THE GOOD NEWS ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS GLOBALLY. 11/17, Noon (EST), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Foreign Policy Live. Speakers: Lyric Thompson, Founder and CEO, Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative; Ravi Agrawal, Editor in Chief, Foreign Policy.

SUPPORTING SURVIVORS OF CONFLICT-RELATED SEXUAL VIOLENCE. 11/17, Noon-1:15pm (EST), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Institute of Global Politics, Columbia University. Speakers: Grace Achan, Board Member, Global Survivors Fund, Co-founder, Women’s Advocacy Network; Esther Dingemans, Executive Director, Global Survivors Fund; Ajna Jusić, President, Forgotten Children of War; Khrystyna Kit, Head of JurFem Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association. Moderator: Rachel Vogelstein, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, Director, IGP Women’s Initiative, Director of Human Rights, Gender, and Equity Concentration, Columbia SIPA.

THE US AND CHINA: COMPETITION, COEXISTENCE, OR COLLISION? 11/17, 5:30-6:30pm (CST), 6:30-7:30pm (EST), HYBRID. Sponsor: Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Speakers: John Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago; Rana Mitter, S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy School; Leslie Vinjamuri, President & CEO, Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

SHIFTING SECURITY LANDSCAPE: U.S.-JAPAN DEFENSE RELATIONS. 11/17, 6:30pm (EST), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Japan Society, New York. Speakers: Ken Jimbo, Professor, International Relations, Keio University, Managing Director of Programs, International House of Japan; Sheila A. Smith, John E. Merow Senior Fellow, Asia-Pacific Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

FORMER PRIME MINISTERS IN JAPANESE POLITICS: POWER, INFLUENCE AND THE ROLE OF INFORMAL POLITICS. 11/17, 6:45pm (GMT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Japan Society, London. Speakers: Hugo Dobson, Professor of Japan’s International Relations, School of Languages, Arts and Societies, University of Sheffield; Karin Narita, Research Associate in Japanese Politics and International Relations, School of Languages, Arts and Societies, University of Sheffield; Caroline Rose, Emeritus Professor of Sino-Japanese Relations, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds.

Japan’s First Woman Prime Minister

 Ms. Sanae Takaichi 

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow,  Asia Policy Point

Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
October 21, 2025

Japan’s Diet elected Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president Ms. Sanae Takaichi the country’s 104th prime minister. Although her success was due to the establishment of a new coalition between the LDP and the conservative nationalist Japan Innovation Party (JIP, 日本維新 の会, Nippon Ishin no Kai; Japan Restoration Association), JIP decided not to send a minister to Takaichi’s Cabinet. JIP will exert its influence indirectly to ensure hawkish policies in the new administration.

Takaichi’s election was not certain after the LDP’s long-time partner Komeito left the leading coalition. The next coalition possibility, the Democratic Party for the People (DPP), refrained from forming a coalition with the LDP because even together they could not achieve a simple majority in the Diet. Takaichi then reached out to JIP to form a new coalition. On October 20, after five days of negotiation, the LDP and JIP reached a twelve-point agreement for their coalition.

Komeito’s departure made it easier for the LDP to approach JIP because both parties have closely aligned conservative platforms. Although JIP has previously sought to cooperate formally with the LDP, notably during the Shinzo Abe administration, Komeito blocked JIP from the coalition because of political differences. Komeito kept a liberal position in the coalition. With Komeito’s departure, the LDP was unleashed from Komeito’s rein.

The LDP’s rightward move is embedded in the coalition agreement. Both parties decided to revise the three security documents, approved by the Fumio Kishida administration in 2022, to further increase the defense budget. They plan to allow greater exports of defense equipment by easing export controls in five categories– rescue, transport, warning, surveillance, and sea minesweeping. Takaichi expects to explain the impact of these policies to the U.S. President Donald Trump during his visit to Tokyo later this month.

The LDP and JIP are firm advocates for several constitutional amendments. Both parties plan to submit to the Diet by the end of FY2026 a draft amendment that would add an emergency clause to maintain the legislative branch in a contingency. The parties also will discuss amending the pacifism principle in Article 9. They agreed as well to revise the Imperial House Law to encourage imperial succession only by males in the male line.

During the two parties’ policy talks, JIP abruptly shifted its focus from social security reform and the sub-capital initiative to the reduction of Diet seats. The LDP accepted the idea of a 10 percent reduction in Lower House seats in the current session of the Diet. The opposition parties oppose it, arguing that a reduction in Diet seats must have comprehensive approval of parties with representatives in the Lower House.

As for the sub-capital initiative, which would establish an alternative to Tokyo in case the capital suffers from a major disaster, the LDP and JIP aim to enact it in the ordinary session of the Diet in 2026. There is no time limit on discussions between the two parties on elimination of the consumption tax on food for two years. JIP had earlier demanded that this be part of the Diet’s urgent agenda.

JIP’s most controversial decision was to give the LDP a two-year delay on the enactment of a prohibition on contributions from companies and organizations. The two parties’ agreement states that the Diet will affect the ban only by the end of Takaichi’s term as LDP president in September 2027. It is notable that the coalition agreement between the LDP, the Liberal Party and Komeito in 1999 included a commitment to enact the prohibition in the Diet session of that year. In the event, the LDP did not act on it for 26 years. In fact, any provision in the LDP-JIP agreements is nothing more than a target subject to future discussion.

With these policy agreements in place, the two parties were able to elect Takaichi as prime minister. Takaichi won in the Lower House with 237 votes out of 465, or 51% -- enough to avoid a run-off. The leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Yoshihiko Noda, came a distant second with 149 votes. The opposition parties could not unite for an alternative candidate. Takaichi also defeated Noda by 125 votes to 46 in a run-off in the Upper House. These votes made Takaichi the first female prime minister of Japan.

Takaichi started her political career as an independent lawmaker of the House of Representatives in 1993. She participated in establishment of the New Frontier Party in 1994, and joined the LDP in 1996. Affiliation with the Seiwa Policy Group, one of the factions in the LDP, determined her course in politics, which was conservative.

She supported two leaders of Seiwa group who were her mentors: former prime ministers Yoshiro Mori and Shinzo Abe. She supported unpopular prime minister Mori as a “volunteer advisor” in 2000. When Abe ran for LDP president in 2012 against Nobutaka Machimura, who was the head of Seiwa group, Takaichi left the faction to support Abe. Her relationship with Mori and Abe helped her advance politically.

Takaichi is known to have a rivalry with another woman LDP lawmaker, Seiko Noda, whose is relatively liberal. Both won the Lower House election for the first time in 1993. Noda’s first appointment to cabinet minister and first marriage were earlier than Takaichi’s. Abe simultaneously picked Takaichi for LDP policy chief and Noda for chairwoman of LDP General Council to let them compete each other in his second administration starting in 2012. Takaichi appears to have won the competititon.

However, the Japanese people are not very enthusiastic about her premiership. It is true that the main reason behind expectations about Takaichi is that she is a woman – rather than that she has particular political views one way or another. But she was less popular among women than among men in LDP presidential election. She opposes the possibility of a female emperor as well as a separate surname system. She is identified not merely as conservative, but as rightwing.

Her cabinet reflects her political obligations and biases. She appointed Minoru Kihara as Chief Cabinet Secretary, Toshimitsu Motegi as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Shinjiro Koizumi as Minister of Defense. Yoshimasa Hayashi will be Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications. Takaichi thus included in her cabinet or on the LDP board all the other four candidates in the LDP presidential election.

For Minister of Finance, Takaichi picked Satsuki Katayama as one of the female cabinet members. Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s top negotiator in tariff negotiations with the U.S. and a close ally of former premier Shigeru Ishiba, remains Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry; he is expected to continue managing trade negotiations with the U.S. These appointments seem to be an attempt to reintegrate the LDP. But appointment of female ministers was limited to two people instead of the expected five.

While it agreed to a firm coalition with the LDP, JIP did not join the Takaichi Cabinet. It is an unusual decision. A junior partner in a leading coalition typically will have at least one member in the cabinet. In its coalition with the LDP, Komeito sent a minister to the cabinet every year since 1999, except during DPJ government between 2009 and 2012. There is one precedent for JIP’s decision: in 1996, the Social Democratic Party and New Party Sakigake left LDP’s Ryutaro Hashimoto Cabinet but maintained a cooperative relationship with the LDP.

The leader of JIP, Hirofumi Yoshimura, indicated that his party did not have enough experience to join the cabinet. But it is likely that the party has reserved a choice to leave the coalition if the LDP fails to live up to the coalition agreement.

Cooperation outside the cabinet is a weaker form of a coalition government than a traditional one. The cabinet attains its policy goals through cabinet decisions. Each decision is made with the unanimous approval of all the ministers. If a minister refuses to sign onto a cabinet decision, the prime minister can force him or her to leave the cabinet.

JIP’s decision to distance itself from the Takaichi cabinet has two aspects. First, JIP will not be responsible for each decision of the Takaichi Cabinet. Second, without a representative in the cabinet, JIP cannot directly use the cabinet decision-making process to turn its policies into law. JIP is not without influence, though; the LDP will be constantly concerned by policy differences that would cause JIP to leave the coalition.

The coalition agreement does not refer to cooperation in elections. The LDP lawmakers from the Osaka area, where JIP has a stronghold, are worried about cooperation with JIP. How the two parties can cooperate in elections in each district may determine the fortune of their coalition.

Monday Asia Policy Events, July 28, 2025

JAPAN’S ROLE IN AN EVOLVING WORLD ECONOMY: FINANCE, SECURITY, AND MARKETS. 7/28, 1:15-5:15pm (JST), IN PERSON ONLY-Tokyo. Sponsor: Columbia Business School. Speakers Include: KATO Katsunobu, Minister of Finance, Minister of State for Financial Services, Japan; ARIIZUMI Shigeru, Vice Minister for International Affairs, Financial Services Agency, Japan; IMAGAWA Takuo, Vice-Minister for International Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan; Yuval Rooz, Co-Founder, CEO, Digital Asset; YAMAJI Hiromi, Group CEO, Japan Exchange Group, Inc. 

“DISMANTLING MOTHERHOOD” (2024) & “SINGING TOGETHER IN A MUSEUM” (2025): A DOUBLE FEATURE FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION WITH THE PROJECT ORGANIZERS. 7/28, 3:00-4:30pm (JST), 2:00-3:30am (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Gender, Sexuality & Identity Research Group, Tokyo College. Speakers: Natsumi Sakamoto, Film Director; Ritsuko Saito, PhD Student, Research Associate, Waseda University. 

COLLATERAL DAMAGE? CENTRAL ASIA AND THE SOUTH CAUCASUS IN THE ISRAEL-IRAN CONFLICT. 7/28, 10:00-11:15am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Center for the National Interest. Speakers: James Durso, Managing Director, Corsair LLC; Roger Kangas, Academic Dean and Professor of Central Asian Studies, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University; Alouddin Komilov, Head, International Political Development Project, Center for Progressive Reforms; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Webster University (Tashkent, Uzbekistan); Damjan Krnjević Mišković, Professor of Practice and Director of Policy Research, Analysis, and Publications, Institute for Development and Diplomacy, ADA University (Baku, Azerbaijan); Moderator: Andrew Kuchins, Senior Fellow, Center for the National Interest. 

DAVID PETRAEUS ON WHAT TAIWAN CAN LEARN FROM UKRAINE’S BATTLEFIELD EXPERIENCE. 7/28, 4:30-5:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers: Kenneth R. Weinstein, Japan Chair, Hudson Institute; General David H. Petraeus (US Army, Ret.), Chairman, KKR Global Institute; Moderator: Jason Hsu, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute. 

IDEAS UNCORKED: REIMAGINING STRATEGIC DEPTH. 7/28, 5:00-6:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY, free booze. Sponsor: Hoover Institution. Speaker: Nadia Schadlow, National Security Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution. 

INTRODUCTION TO THE BEAUTY OF JAPANESE SWORDS: ANCIENT TRADITION, LIVING CULTURE, MODERN ART. 7/29, 10:00am (JST), 7/28, 9:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Yokosuka Council on Asia Pacific Studies. Speaker: Paul Martin, Trustee and Researcher, Society for the Promotion of Japanese Sword Culture (NBSK). 

Monday Asia Policy Events, June 16, 2025

ASSESSING IRANIAN, U.S., AND GULF REACTIONS AND OPTIONS FOLLOWING ISRAEL’S UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK ON IRAN. 6/16, 9:00-10:30am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Arab Gulf States Institute (AGSI). Speakers: Ali Alfoneh, Senior Fellow, AGSI; Kristin Smith Diwan, Senior Resident Scholar, AGSI; Robin Mills, Non-Resident Fellow, AGSI. 

A CLOSER LOOK: RECENT SHIFTS IN THE U.S. SANCTIONS LANDSCAPE. 6/16, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Washington Foreign Law Society. Speakers: David Tannenbaum, Director, Blackstone Compliance Services; Manny Levitt, Associate, Holland & Knight; Moderator: Andrew McAllister, Partner, Holland & Knight. 

KOREA-JAPAN RELATIONS: WHAT TO EXPECT? 6/16, 9:30-10:15am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Christopher B. Johnstone, Partner & Chair of the Defense & National Security Practice, The Asia Group; Yuki Tatsumi, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the Japan Program, Stimson Center; Victor Cha, President, Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair, CSIS; Mark Lippert, Senior Adviser (Non-resident), Korea Chair, CSIS. 

A REDRAWN MIDDLE EAST? 6/16, 10:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsors: Foreign Policy LIVE. Speakers: Vali Nasr, Professor, Johns Hopkins University; Ravi Agrawal, Editor in Chief, Foreign Policy. 

THE VIEW FROM INDONESIA. 6/16, 11:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL Sponsor: Foreign Policy LIVE. Speaker: Dino Patti Djalal, Former vice minister for foreign affairs, Indonesia. 

BOOK TALK: THE GREAT TRADE HACK: HOW TRUMP’S TRADE WAR FAILS AND THE WORLD MOVES ON. 6/16, 11:00-11:45am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Peterson Institute (PIIE). Speaker: author Richard Baldwin, Nonresident Senior Fellow, PIIE, Professor, International Economics, IMD Business School, Founder, Editor-in-Chief, VoxEU.  PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/4mHk5JT

BOOK TALK: CHILD WELFARE AND PROBLEMS OF WELL-BEING IN JAPAN. 6/16, 6:30pm (JST) 5:30am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies (ICAS) at Temple University, Japan Campus; Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies (YCAPS). Speaker: Kathryn Goldfarb, Associate Professor, University of Colorado Boulder.  PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/3ZmKT8s

INAUGURAL LAURENCE H. SILBERMAN LECTURE ON LAW AND NATIONAL SECURITY WITH ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR. 6/16, 4:00-5:15pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: American Enterprise Institute. Speaker: William Barr, former US Attorney General; Moderator: Adam J. White, Laurence H. Silberman Chair, Constitutional Governance, American Enterprise Institute. 

RUSSIA'S INFORMATION CONFRONTATION DOCTRINE IN PRACTICE – INTENT, EVOLUTION AND IMPLICATIONS. 6/16, 9:30-11:00am (BST), 4:30–6:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Speaker: Julia Voo, Senior Fellow for Cyber Power and Future Conflict, IISS. 

Ms - Named

Discussion over Separate Surnames Begins

By Takuya Nishimura, APP Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
June 2, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

Discussion over bills that would allow married couples to use separate surnames has begun in the Committee on Judicial Affairs of Japan’s House of Representatives. Three opposition parties have proposed their own respective bills, none of which has attracted majority support in the House because the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) opposes them. Despite domestic and international requirements for separate surnames, the Diet has failed to give married couples this flexibility.

Amid growing demands and international movements for gender equality, the Legislative Council of the Ministry of Justice released a draft in 1996 of a revised Civil Code to permit separate surnames. “When a married couple use each of their surnames before marriage, they need to decide at their marriage which name their children would use,” according to the draft. The couple themselves would be able to continue to use their unmarried names.

The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued concluding observations in 2024, in which it recommended that Japan “amend legislation regarding the choice of surnames of married couples in order to enable women to retain their maiden surnames after marriage.” The convention had issued the same recommendation in 2003, 2009 and 2016.

The Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), one of the most influential supporters of the LDP, requested in 2024 that the government of Japan create a selective separate surnames system for women. Women in Japan may and do use their maiden names for business abroad, but legal inconveniences arise in foreign countries since their maiden names have no legal basis and are not described in their passports.

Nevertheless, conservative lawmakers in the LDP have blocked the amendment of the Civil Code, which currently requires a married couple to use one of their surnames, reflecting a concern that separate surnames would destroy the traditional shape of the family. They have not explained, however, how separate surnames will cause a family to collapse. Although some LDP lawmakers understand the necessity of separate surnames, the majority in the party has yet to do so.

With the decline of LDP power in the Diet after the October 2024 Lower House election, the opposition parties have tried to sustain momentum for amendment of the Civil Code. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) submitted a bill in April, which included the suggestions of the Legislative Council in 1996. The Democratic Party for the People (DPP) proposed their own bill that would require a couple, as soon as they married, to register the surname that would be used for their children but that would allow the wife to use her unmarried surname.

The Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin-no Kai) takes more conservative stance. Ishin’s bill would not allow separate surnames but would have a couple create a “common name” in family registration. The LDP decided against submitting their own bill in the current session of the Diet after long internal discussion.

Some conservative lawmakers, including Ms. Sanae Takaichi, argue that using a common name can be an alternative to separate surnames. Komeito favors a system for separate surnames, but thinks it is too early to resolve the issue.

It is not unusual for a Diet member to use their maiden name for their activities. For example, “real” name of Rui Matsukawa (LDP) is Rui Arai. While she discusses policies in the Diet as Rui Matsukawa, she needs to be Rui Arai in family registration or in foreign travel as a Diet member. Giving maiden name a legal status may be a good first step for lawmakers to make their political activities easier.

With no prospect that any one of the three bills from CDPJ, DPP, and Ishin could pass, the Chairwoman of the Committee on Judicial Affairs, Chinami Nishimura (CDPJ), has begun discussions in the committee on the surname issue. Of the 35 seats in the committee, the opposition parties hold 19. Two of the 19 oppose separate surnames. With these two members in dissent, the opposition parties cannot muster a majority to pass a bill.

If the Diet does not pass a bill by the end of the current session, the committee may discard some or all the bills or hold them over the next session. Chairwoman Nishimura reportedly aims to hold votes on the bills to draw a clear contrast between the ayes and the nays. The opposition continues to hold out remote hope that it can persuade enough LDP lawmakers to vote against the policy of their party.

In a May poll by Kyodo News, 71 percent of respondents supported a legal process for selective separate surnames, dwarfing the 27 percent who oppose the idea. Even if no bill passes the Diet, it will be good enough for the opposition: they can show, before the Upper House election in July, that the LDP was unable to deliver legislation favored by the majority of Japan’s citizens.

Women are the forgotten victims of war

 — it’s time that changed

Our chief foreign correspondent has reported for decades on frontline sexual violence. What does the first leading museum to tackle the subject reveal —
and hide?

Christina Lamb, Chief Foreign Correspondent
Sunday May 18 2025, The Sunday Times

Pass the massive naval guns in front of the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and enter its spectacular atrium and you will be confronted by a Soviet tank and German V2 rocket while a Harrier jump jet and a Spitfire from the Battle of Britain dangle from the ceiling — the ultimate boys with toys fantasy.

No surprise perhaps for a country that has fought more wars (about 120 in the last 300 years) than almost any other. But something is happening — upstairs a colourful North Korean propaganda poster advertises a new exhibition, Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Yes, it’s tucked away behind the lifts on the third floor and comes with a trigger warning, but it’s the first time any big western museum has tackled this subject, the dark side of what happens to (mostly) women in war.

Representations of rape in war have been in many of our leading galleries and museums for years, but are not described as such. As a foreign correspondent who has been reporting on this for years — often feeling like I’m whistling in the wind as it keeps on happening — I find it incredible to finally see it the focus of an exhibition.

“We wanted to do it because it’s a side of war we don’t talk about or see represented enough,” says the curator Helen Upcraft. The exhibition has been seven years in the making, partly because of delays caused by Covid, but that has made it more timely. In the meantime we’ve had Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the October 7 attacks in Israel and subsequent escalation of conflict with Palestine — all of which have produced widespread allegations of sexual violence, not to mention horrific reports from the Sudanese civil war with even 12-month-old babies being raped.

Giving the museum’s annual lecture last month, Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynaecologist and the founder of Panzi Hospital, which has treated 87,000 rape victims, asked: “Where is the outrage? People should be out on the streets.”

As Upcraft says, sexual violence does not happen in a vacuum, and the exhibition offers a sobering look at underlying factors — from gender stereotypes to the objectification of women exemplified by “nose art” such as a naked reclining blonde on an RAF jet in the Gulf War proclaiming “Hello Kuwait”.

Rape in war is of course nothing new. The exhibition’s first example is the German invasion of Belgium in 1914 and testimony from Belgian civilians, collected in the so-called Bryce report by the British Parliamentary Committee on German Outrages.

The next is of state-sanctioned sexual violence and sexual slavery — tens of thousands of young women and girls snatched across southeast Asia in the Second World War to be so-called “comfort women”, repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers. A collaboration with the Museum of War and Women’s Human Rights in South Korea has provided items such as a soldier’s comfort station pass and the brave testimony of Kim Bok-dong, in 1991 the first to tell her story publicly. Photos and placards from the Wednesday demos outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul remind us that the women are still waiting for an apology from the Japanese government.

Then we see how rape can be used as a tool of genocide, hearing from two Yazidi women among thousands abducted by Islamic State fighters who swept through their villages in northern Iraq in 2014 and took them as sex slaves. More than a decade later, thousands are still in miserable conditions in displacement camps and many are still missing.

How to illustrate such an exhibition is, as Upcraft says, “a real challenge — people want to see 3D objects in glass cases”. Instead they have testimonies, documents, photos and talking heads (I am one of them).

It might have been an opportunity to exhibit the Scottish artist Peter Howson’s Croatian and Muslim, a confrontational painting of a woman with her legs spread apart by one man as another pushes her head into a lavatory. This was painted for the IWM, for whom Howson was the official war artist in the Bosnian War, but their male-dominated Acquisitions Committee refused to buy it, arguing, somewhat strangely, that he could not have witnessed the scene. David Bowie ended up buying it.

Instead they have opted for one of Albert Adams’ 2004 paintings of abuse of male Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib as a reminder that this doesn’t only happen to women (although overwhelmingly it does). Upcraft says they looked at exhibiting the Howson, but at 2.13m x 1.52m it was “too big and we wouldn’t be able to put anything else in the room as people would have to step back”. Although the Adams is not small at 1.5m x 1.5m.

Surely an exhibition on such a shocking subject needs to shock people? “It’s difficult graphic content and we don’t want to overwhelm people,” she says. “It’s a balance. If we went down the road of shock and horror people would turn off and what we want is for them to engage.

“We know it’s just a fraction of all the sexual violence happening round the world,” she adds. “What I hope is it’s a start on treating this complex subject and being better at incorporating it within our collections.”

And this is me quibbling because Unsilenced is truly groundbreaking and, one hopes, will be a wake-up call. The Justice and Reconciliation room, which importantly looks at who gets to have their day in court and who gets believed, reminds us that neither Tokyo nor the Nuremberg Tribunals prosecuted anyone for sexual violence despite horrendous evidence. Accountability continues to be the exception, not the rule.

Such is the exhibition’s power, there is a quiet room at the end. I hope people will reflect on what kind of society we live in where it’s the victim who bears the life sentence, not the perpetrator.

The updated edition of Christina Lamb's
Our Bodies, Their Battlefield: What War Does to Women by is out now in paperback

Imperial War Museums to open UK’s first major exhibition on sexual violence in conflict.
By Mark Westall, FAD Magazine, 8 March 2025

The Okinawa Problem

The Governor of Okinawa Denny Tamaki will be in the U.S. the week of September 8th. He will be speaking publicly at in Washington, DC at the Hudson Institute on the 9th and George Washington University's Sigur Center on the 11th and in New York City at Columbia University on the 12th.

Okinawans must not be overlooked in new US–Japan counter-crime forum 

By Alexis Dudden, Professor of History at the University of Connecticut, Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore, and APP Member.

First Published in the East Asian Forum, 6 September 2024.

On 22 July 2024, US Forces Japan Commander Lieutenant General Ricky Rupp announced the creation of a new joint US–Japan forum to address the endemic issue of crimes committed off base by US military personnel stationed in Okinawa — particularly sex crimes.

How Rupp’s forum will differ from the Cooperative Working Team established in October 2000 to address similar concerns is not clear. The Cooperative Working Team met 27 times until petering out in April 2017. It brought together representatives from the US military and government, Japanese foreign and defence ministries, the Okinawan prefectural government and police, as well as members of the prefecture’s chambers of commerce and bar association. Since its dissolution, active-duty US servicemen in Okinawa have committed several well-documented rapes, abductions and assaults — including against children.

The task force must acknowledge Okinawan elected officials’ right to immediate and accurate information about crimes US soldiers commit. This fundamental step does not require changing existing protocols. Instead, it requires that the US government, US military and the Japanese central government adhere to procedures established in the 1997 US–Japan Joint Committee Agreement. This document augmented Okinawans’ rights with regard to Article XVII of the Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Japan, which concerns jurisdiction over crimes committed on Japanese territory.

Notably indiscernible on the Japanese Foreign Ministry website, the Okinawan Prefectural Government wants more publicity for the Agreement’s ‘Notification Channel Details for Okinawa-related Issues’. According to protocol, in the aftermath of a crime committed by a US service member or civilian attached to the US military, the commander responsible must notify the duty officer at command headquarters and the Naha Defence Facilities Administration Bureau.

The US side then moves up through military and diplomatic chains of command to the US Embassy in Tokyo, while the Japanese side moves from the Naha-based agency — Okinawa’s capital city — and simultaneously notifies the Okinawan prefectural government, Defence Administration Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Okinawa Office, who then convey information to the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo.

This did not happen during the first half of 2024, leading Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki to emphasise during his press conference on 7 August at Tokyo’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan that he cannot be sure how many crimes he and previous Okinawan prefectural officials have never even learned about.

Tamaki accused the Japanese central government of ignoring his right to information about these crimes as Okinawa’s highest elected official. Referencing the 24 December 2023 abduction and rape of an Okinawan minor as well as the 26 May 2024 sexual assault of an Okinawan woman, Tamaki gave a full explanation of the 1997 Notification Channel Details and the Japanese government’s wilful failure to abide by them.

The repetitious nature of the crimes against Okinawan women and girls, and the US and Japanese government’s botched response to them — specifically the failure to notify the Okinawan prefectural government about crimes against their citizens — highlights the need for Commander Rupp’s forum to do something different from the prior Working Team. Reforms are urgent, with a third instance of sexual assault reported on 6 September 2024.

Speculation continues concerning Tokyo’s rationale for withholding information from the Governor. The central government may have feared that Okinawans would protest against the dominant presence of the US military, as they did in 1995 following three US servicemen’s abduction and gang rape of an elementary schoolgirl.

Such protests could have adversely affected the Okinawa elections held on 16 June 2024. Tokyo’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party wanted victory for the Governor’s opponents in order to resume construction on the unpopular new US base at Henoko, that Tamaki and his supporters blocked. Tamaki’s opponents won the election, and Tokyo ordered construction of the base to recommence despite ongoing local protests.

During the press conference Tamaki also underscored the challenge of overcoming the central government’s perennial disdain for Okinawans’ place in structural matters involving the US–Japan Alliance, despite the centrality of the territory and its people to this calculus. Taking umbrage with Tokyo’s use of ‘privacy’ as justification for not sharing information, Tamaki reiterated his 10 July 2024 Letter of Protest to Japanese Prime Minister Kishida and requested ‘that all crimes, incidents, and accidents involving US military service members and related personnel be reported, without fail, to the prefectural government’.

In September, Governor Tamaki will visit Washington to drive home his concerns to members of the US Congress and related bureaucracies. The governor will explain the disproportionate burden he and his constituents bear vis a vis US bases in Japan under the United States’ broader ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’. Noticeably, this policy emphasises a ‘rules-based order’. For these words to have any meaning at all, the Japanese government and the United States government and military must include Okinawans as equals.

No Conclusion on Stable Imperial Succession

Empress Suiko (推古天皇) (554 – 15 April 628)

Still skittish on female succession

 
By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Former Editorial Writer for The Hokkaido Shimbun
The views expressed by the author are his own and are not associated with The Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
July 15, 2024. Special to Asia Policy Point

The Diet failed to act on stable imperial succession by the end of the ordinary session of this year. Although the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the House of Councillors looked for a way to increase the members of the Imperial House, the parties could not reach an agreement.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was late in wrapping up their internal opinions, due to the slush fund scandal and its consequences. Looking at the opinions submitted by the parties, it is not easy to find a consensus between the conservatives and the other sectors of the Diet.

The Imperial House of Japan has 17 members, 12 of whom are female. They share official duties such as attending public events or visiting foreign countries. According to the Imperial House Law, only male members may succeed to the throne. Female members leave the House when they marry. Currently, Prince Hisahito of Akishino, a son of Crown Price Fumihito, is the youngest in the line of succession.

A supplementary resolution in the Special Law for Imperial Abdication in 2017 required the Diet to achieve “a full consensus of the legislative branch” for measures to stabilize imperial succession. The resolution also directed the government of Japan to consider allowing for a female-headed Imperial family.

In March 2021, former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga assembled an expert panel to examine succession issues. That December, the panel submitted the Prime Minister, now Fumio Kishida, a report that proposed two options to deal with the declining number of members in the Imperial House. Neither, however, addressed female succession.

One was to allow female members of the imperial household to retain their royal status regardless of marriage. Members of the Imperial House take on various obligations of the Imperial family such as attending cultural, academic, or sporting events, visiting areas devastated by natural disasters, and visiting foreign countries. As female members leave the House, those obligations are taken by fewer members. If female members stay in the house, the House would be sustainable.

A second was to allow males from former branches of the imperial family to regain their imperial status through adoption. Two years after the end of World War II, fifty-one people from eleven houses left the Imperial House. The second option would return their male descendants to the Imperial House.

Kishida submitted the report to both Houses of the Diet for further discussion in January 2022.

Each party first reviewed the report internally. Komeito approved both options as reasonable. The Japan Innovation Party, leaning conservative, also approved both options as realistic. Both parties are comfortable that the options do not include female succession. The conservatives hope to maintain the rule of paternal succession.

The Constitutional Democratic Party asked for further discussion of the first option because the report excluded the husband and children of female House members from royal status. The CDP also requested information on who among the male members of the former branches would consider rejoining the Imperial House through adoption.

The Japan Communist Party (JCP) would allow a female emperor, or an emperor descended matrilineally from the Imperial Family. While the JCP hopes to pave the way to a female emperor, conservative lawmakers oppose that idea.

The last party that submitted its opinion was the Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP approved both options in mid-April.

Concerning the requirement of “a full consensus of the legislative branch” in the Special Law for Imperial Abdication, both Houses sought an overall agreement at several meetings in May. At the first meeting, with the speaker and president of the Houses and representatives of parties in attendance, each party expressed its own opinion. The LDP added that a son of an adopted male member should be qualified as a successor. No consensus emerged.

In late May, both chairs of the Houses and each party held separate meetings with each party. There was no plenary meeting. The LDP is committed to exclusively male succession. The CDP and the JCP are willing to expand the line of succession to female members of the Imperial House and to male members in matrilineal lines.

Back in 2005, the Junichiro Koizumi administration convened an expert panel that submitted a report recommended that the possibility of a female or matrilineal emperor be easily understood by the people, be based on traditional values and ensure a stable succession system. However, after Prince Hisahito was born in 2006, the LDP turned against the idea of a female or matrilineal emperor.

A Kyodo News poll last April revealed that 90 percent of those polled supported the idea of a reigning empress. However, the current experts’ panel recommended that, considering the age and marital status of Prince Hisahito, the discussion over the imperial succession take place in the future. In short, the LDP and current experts oppose the concept of a female emperor, while the CDP and former experts for Koizumi administration embrace it.

To the extent that the Diet is now dealing with the Imperial Family, it is focused on how to reduce the family’s official duties. But once lawmakers begin to discuss who should share the duties of the Imperial Family, the question of succession is unavoidable.

Monday Asia Events July 8, 2024

NATIONAL CONSERVATISM CONFERENCE, WASHINGTON, DC. 7/8-9, HYBRID. Sponsor: Edmund Burke Foundation. Speakers Include: Rt Hon Suella Braverman, KC MP, Secretary of State, Home Department and Member of Parliament for Fareham; Elbridge Colby, Co-founder, Principal, The Marathon Initiative; Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), Senior United States Senator, Missouri; Ram Madhav, President of the India Foundation (IF); David P. Goldman, Deputy Editor, Asia Times. 

DAY ONE FOR THE NEW UK GOVERNMENT. 7/8, 1:00-2:15pm (BST), 8:00-9:15am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Chatham House. Speakers: Lord Simon McDonald, former Permanent Under Secretary, Head of Diplomatic Service, Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Creon Butler, Director, Global Economy and Finance Programme; Dr Tim Benton, Director, Environment and Society Centre; Sunder Katwala, Director, British Future; Olivia O’Sullivan, Director, UK in the World Programme. 

REVISITING THE LEGACY OF SHINZO ABE. 7/8, 9:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Stimson. Speakers: Kunihiko Miyake, Senior Advisor, Canon Institute for Global Studies; Tobias Harris, Founder, Principal, Japan Foresight LLC; Yuki Tatsumi, Co-Director, East Asia Program, Stimson Center. 

CRIMEA: WHERE RUSSIA'S WAR BEGAN AND WHERE UKRAINE WILL WIN. 7/8, 10:00-11:15am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Jamestown Foundation. Speakers: Peter Mattis, President, Jamestown Foundation; Dr. Taras Kuzio, professor, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy, associate research fellow, Henry Jackson Society; Amb. Daniel Fried, Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council, director, National Endowment for Democracy, Visiting Professor, Warsaw University. 

PIVOTAL STATES: IS A DEEPER ALLIANCE WITH SAUDI ARABIA WORTH IT? 7/8, 10:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Carnegie. Speakers: Kim Ghattas, Contributing Editor, Financial Times, author, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East; Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Ambassador Dennis Ross, Counselor, William Davidson Distinguished Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

MARITIME SECURITY AND NEXT-GENERATION TECHNOLOGIES: A PLATFORM FOR COOPERATION BETWEEN NATO AND ITS ASIA-PACIFIC PARTNERS. 7/8, 10:00-11:30am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Hudson. Speakers: Benedetta Berti, Head of Policy Planning, Office of the Secretary-General, NATO; Tsuneo Watanabe, Senior Research Fellow, Sasakawa Peace Foundation; Peter Rough, Senior Fellow and Director, Center on Europe and Eurasia; Kenneth R. Weinstein, Japan Chair, Hudson. 

BOOK TALK: ACCIDENTAL DIPLOMATS AMERICAN MISSIONARIES AND THE COLD WAR. 7/8, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Berkeley Center, Georgetown University. Speakers: Judd Birdsall, assistant professor, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Georgetown University; author Philip Dow, head, Black Forest Academy, Kandern, Germany. PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/3WcdQ5z 

POLICY BRIEF LAUNCH EVENT: SECURING LEBANON TO PREVENT A LARGER HEZBOLLAH-ISRAEL WAR AND WIDER ESCALATION. 7/8, Noon-1:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Middle East Institute (MEI). Speakers: Paul Salem, Vice President for International Engagement, MEI; Amb. Ed Gabriel, President and CEO, American Task Force on Lebanon, Former US Ambassador to Morocco; Patricia Karam, Senior Advisor, American Task Force on Lebanon; Fadi Nicholas Nassar, US-Lebanon Fellow, MEI; Amb. David Hale, Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center, Former US Ambassador to Lebanon.

IS IT ME OR THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM? CHANGING CHINESE ATTITUDES TOWARD INEQUALITY: A BIG DATA CHINA EVENT. 7/8, 10:00-11:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Scott Rozelle, Co-Director, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions; Martin Whyte, John Zwaanstra Professor, International Studies and Sociology, Emeritus, Harvard University; Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser, Trustee Chair, Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS; Ilaria Mazzocco, Senior Fellow, Trustee Chair, Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS; Elizabeth Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University; Jessica C. Teets, Professor of Political Science, Middlebury College; Qin Gao, Professor of Social Policy and Social Work, Director, China Center for Social Policy, Columbia University. 

THE MORNING AFTER: ANALYSING THE RESULTS OF THE FRENCH ELECTION. 7/8, 2:30-3:30am (EDT), 8:30-9:30am (CEST), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Speakers: Célia Belin, Head, ECFR Paris; Ulrike Franke, Senior Policy Fellow, ECFR; Camille Lons, Deputy Head, ECFR Paris. 

LAUNCH OF WOMEN LEAD: WOMEN LEADING EFFECTIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE DEMOCRACY IN THE DIGITAL AGE. 7/8, 2:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Carnegie. Speakers: Jennifer Klein, Assistant to the President, Director, White House Gender Policy Council; Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta, Ambassador-at-large, Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, Department of State. 

Monday Asia Events May 20, 2024

CAPTURING THE POWER OF PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH TECH INVESTMENT. 5/20, 10:30am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: McKinsey Global Institute. Speakers: Olivia White, Senior Partner, Director, McKinsey Global Institute; Rodney Zemmel, Senior Partner, Global Leader, McKinsey Digital.

SOUTHERN ASIA’S SECURITY LANDSCAPE: VIEWS FROM RISING ANALYSTS. 5/23, 10:30-11:45am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Stimson. Speakers: Anuttama Banerji, Researcher at the National Maritime Foundation; Haleema Saadia, Lecturer at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Research Fellow at the ROADS Initiative; Dr. Muhammad Shareh Qazi, Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab Lahore; Ladhu R. Choudhary, Assistant Professor (Senior Scale) of Political Science at the Department of Political Science, University of Rajasthan.

INDIA’S PATH TO PROSPERITY: BOOK TALK WITH RAGHURAM RAJAN ON ‘BREAKING THE MOLD’. 5/20, 10:30am-Noon (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Brookings Institute. Speakers: Coauthor Raghuram Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, University of Chicago; Eswar Prasad, Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development.

STRATEGIC SYNERGIES: INDIA-US TECHNOLOGY COOPERATION. 5/20, 11:00am-12:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers: Rudra Chaudhuri, Director, Carnegie India; Konark Bhandari, Fellow, Carnegie India; Daniel Markey, Senior Advisor, South Asia Programs, United States Institute of Peace; Vikram Singh, United States India Strategic Partnership Forum; Lisa Curtis, Senior Fellow, Center for New American Security.

SOUTH KOREA’S INDO-PACIFIC STRATEGY - A DIPLOMATIC LAME DUCK? 5/20, 6:00pm (JST), 5:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Yokosuka Council on Asia Pacific Studies (YCAPS). Speaker: Dr. Jeffrey Robertson, Associate Professor of Diplomatic Studies, Yonsei University, Non-Resident Fellow, Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI).

US POLICY ON IRAN: EXAMINING THE OPPORTUNITIES TO BUILD A NEW BIPARTISAN STRATEGY. 5/20, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Middle East Institute. Speakers: Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy, Middle East Institute; Goli Ameri, Vice Chair, Freedom House Board of Trustees; Alex Vatanka, Director of Iran Program, Middle East Institute.

UNRWA’S ROLE IN GAZA AND THE MIDDLE EAST. 5/20, Noon-1:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Stimson. Speakers: William R. Deere, Director, Washington Office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees; Merissa Khurma, Director, Middle East Program, Wilson Center; Andrew Hyde, Director, Senior Fellow Multilateral Financial Diplomacy, Powering Peace, Stimson Center.

POWERING UP: LOCALLY-LED APPROACHES FOR ADVANCING WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP AND GENDER EQUALITY IN ASIA. 5/20, 1:30-2:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Asia Foundation. Speakers: Inthana Bouphasavanh, Director, Association of Development of Women and Legal Education, Laos; Udeni Thewarapperuma, Program Manager, Women’s Voice and Leadership, The Asia Foundation Sri Lanka; Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra, Director of Environmental Governance, The Asia Foundation Indonesia; Sumina Karki, Inclusive Governance Lead, The Asia Foundation Nepal.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ASSESSING THE RISKS AND IDENTIFYING MITIGATION STRATEGIES. 5/20, 2:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Rand Corporation. Speakers: Andrew Lauland, Senior International Defense Researcher; Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School; Michelle E. Miro, Information Scientist, Professor of Policy Analysis, Pardee RAND Graduate School; Susan A. Resetar, Senior Operations Researcher; Rahim Ali, Senior Technical Analyst.

TO RUN THE WORLD: THE KREMLIN'S COLD WAR BID FOR GLOBAL POWER. 5/20, 4:00-5:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Wilson Center. Speakers: author Sergey Radchenko, Fellow, Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Svetlana Savranskaya, Member, History and Public Policy Program Advisory Board, Director of Russia Programs, National Security Archive; William Taubman, Former Fellow; Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Amherst College.

OUTCOMES AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE 2024 SOLOMON ISLANDS ELECTION. 5/20, 4:00-5:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Kathryn Paik, Senior Fellow, Australia Chair; Alan Tidwell, Professor of Practice and Director of the Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies, Georgetown University; Anouk Ride, Research Fellow, Australian National University; Anna Powles, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Defense and Security Studies, University of New Zealand; Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, Associate Professor, Department of Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.