Japan’s Once and Future Foreign Policy

US-Japan Short Takes Series

Wednesday, January 26, 2022
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time)

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About the Event

Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe (2012-2020), developed a multifaceted strategy to counter Chinese ambitions for regional hegemony. Under Abe’s leadership, Japan pursued closer security cooperation with the US and other democracies, built a more centralized national defense system, and promoted an open regional order in the Indo-Pacific – all while simultaneously managing its economic relationship with China. In his forthcoming book Line of Advantage: Japan’s Grand Strategy in the Era of Abe Shinzo, Dr. Michael Green argues that no other country has devised a grand strategy for managing China’s rising economic and military power as deliberately or successfully as Japan. Green will explain how this strategy took shape, drawing on two decades of access to Abe and other Japanese political, military, and business leaders. He will explain the historical, geopolitical and ideological roots of Japan’s new approach to foreign policy and security, and explore ways the US can leverage cooperation with Japan and other allies in the intensifying strategic competition with China. 

About the speaker

Dr. Michael J. Green is senior vice president and holds the Japan Chair and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also director of Asian studies and chair in modern and contemporary Japanese politics and foreign policy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has served at senior levels of the National Security Council from 2001 through 2005, first as director for Asian affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, and then as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asia, with responsibility for East Asia and South Asia. He worked in Japan on the staff of a member of the National Diet. Dr. Green is a trustee at The Asia Foundation, senior adviser at the Asia Group, and associate of the U.S. Intelligence Community. He has authored numerous books and articles on East Asian security, including the forthcoming Line of Advantage: Japan’s Grand Strategy in the Era of Abe Shinzo (Columbia University Press, March 2022).

About the moderator

José E. Alvarez is the Herbert and Rose Rubin professor of international law at the New York University School of Law and faculty director of USALI. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institut de Droit International, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He also is a former president of the American Society of International Law and previous co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law. He teaches courses on international law, foreign investment, and international organizations. His more than 140 articles and book chapters and six books have made substantial scholarly contributions to a wide range of subjects within international law, including the law-generating rules of international organizations, the challenges facing international criminal tribunals, the boundaries between “public” and private,” and the legitimacy issues surrounding the international investment regime. His most recent books include The Impact of International Organizations on International Law (2017) (originating from his General Course offered at the Xiamen Academy of International Law), International Investment Law (2017), and The Boundaries of Investment Arbitration (2018).