Monday, October 27, 2025

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.

Sunday, October 26, 2025

The Devil Wears Bitcoin

The Devil Takes Bitcoin:
 Cryptocurrency Crimes and the Japan Connection 

by Jake Adelstein
author of Tokyo Vice and The Last Yazuza

Released October 14, 2025

Even in hell, Bitcoin talks. This modern take on an old Japanese saying still holds true. Cryptocurrency was supposed to do for money what the internet did for information, but it didn’t work out that way. Its virtual existence unleashed real-world chaos — especially in the homeland of its mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Tokyo was the centre of the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, until that company collapsed with nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of bitcoin gone missing. It might be the greatest heist in history. If it was a heist.

So what really happened? Here’s the true story of the humble-to-hot commodity, from the former geek website that launched the boom to an inside world of absent-minded CEOs, hucksters, hackers, cybercrooks, drug dealers, corrupt federal agents, evangelical libertarians, and clueless techies. You’ll discover Bitcoin’s connection to the infamous Silk Road, learn why hell has nothing on Japan’s criminal justice system, and get the lowdown on the high cost of betting with the Devil’s dollars. All of this for less than the price of a single bitcoin.

BOOK TOUR UPCOMING 2025

Los Angeles, CA

November 4: Book Soup, 7 pm

Palo Alto, CA

November 6: Northern California Japan Society (Palo Alto), 3 pm

Boston, MA

November 8: Japan Society and Boston University with BU’s Center for the Study of Asia 3 pm


Asia Policy Events, Monday October 27, 2025

GOING GLOBAL: JAPANESE ENTREPRENEURS BREAKING NEW GROUND. 10/27, 6:00-8:00pm (JST), 5:00-7:00am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Asia Society Japan. Speakers: Shun Matsuzaka, Asia 21 Class of 2024 Fellow; Co-Founder, TOY EIGHT; Shozo Kamiya, Founder and CEO, I'mbesideyou Inc.

CARIBBEAN BUILDUP: A RENEWED FOCUS ON COUNTERNARCOTICS AND HEMISPHERIC SECURITY? 10/27, 10:00-11:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Americas Program, CSIS. Speakers: Ryan C. Berg, Director, Americas Program, CSIS; Juan Cruz, Senior Adviser (Non-resident), Americas Program and Director, Argentina-U.S. Strategic Forum, CSIS; Mark F. Cancian, Senior Adviser, Defense and Security Department, CSIS.

CHINA–ASEAN AT A CROSSROADS: NAVIGATING REGIONAL FUTURES IN AN ERA OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION. 10/27, 10:00-11:00am (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Asia Society Policy Institute. Speakers: Gita Wirjawan, Former Minister of Trade, Indonesia, Visiting Scholar, Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford; Bert Hofman, Non-Resident Honorary Senior Fellow, Center for China Analysis (CCA), Asia Society Policy Institute; Brian Wong, Non-Resident Honorary Fellow, CCA HKU-100 Assistant Professor in Philosophy, University of Hong Kong (HKU); Kevin Zongzhe Li, Affiliated Researcher, CCA.

BARGAINING WITH BEIJING: THE POLITICS OF CHINESE INVESTMENT IN AMERICA. 10/27, 11:30am-12:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Johns Hopkins. Speakers: Jeremy Lee Wallace, Political Scientist, A. Doak Barnett Professor of China Studies, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Kate Logan, Director, China Climate Hub and Climate Diplomacy, Asia Society Policy Institute; Ted Fertik, Vice President, Manufacturing and Industrial Policy, Bluegreen Alliance.

JAPAN’S CORPORATE GOVERNANCE TRANSFORMED? FINANCIALIZATION AND CORPORATE PERFORMANCE IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE. 10/27, Noon-1:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Weatherhead, Program on US-Japan Relations, Harvard University. Speaker: Hideaki Miyajima, Professor, Faculty of Commerce; Executive Vice President, Waseda University; Moderator: Christina Davis, Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, Department of Government; Director, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Harvard University.

JAPAN’S POLITICAL UPHEAVAL AND ITS IMPACT ON FOREIGN POLICY. 10/27, Noon-2:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Georgetown University. Speakers: Takashi Imai, Washington Bureau Chief, Yomiuri Shimbun; Ken Moriyasu, Washington Correspondent, Nikkei Asia; Sheila A. Smith, John E. Merow Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR ROLLERCOASTER. 10/27, 1:30-3:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Harvard University. Speaker: Ariel E. Levite, Senior Fellow, Nuclear Policy and Technology and International Affairs, Carnegie.

UNPACKING RECENT SANCTIONS ON RUSSIAN OIL. 10/27, 3:00-4:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University. Speakers: Richard Nephew, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University SIPA; Daniel Sternoff,  Senior Fellow, Head of Corporate Partnership Strategy, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University SIPA; Tatiana Mitrova, Global Fellow, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University SIPA.

SLOW TECH DRAGON: BALANCED ASSESSMENT OF CHINA'S ECONOMIC TRAJECTORY. 10/27, 5:00-7:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business; China and the World Program, Columbia University. Speaker: Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, CSIS; Moderator: Thomas J. Christensen, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations; Director, China and the World Program, Columbia University.

BOOK TALK: BREAKNECK: CHINA'S QUEST TO ENGINEER THE FUTURE. 10/27, 4:00-5:30pm (PDT), 7:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Hoover History Lab. Speaker: author, Dan Wang, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. PURCHASE BOOK: https://amzn.to/3Jw3SbM 


Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Revisionist Japan returns to Asia

Gathering right-wing storm in Tokyo shadows Seoul’s APEC moment

Takaichi April 2015
Takaichi-led Japan will be less inclined to confront historical issues, putting a potential brake on improving relations with S Korea


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 October 17, 2025 on the Peninsula Blog of the Korea Economic Institute.


The upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit was intended to showcase South Korea’s claim to leadership on a range of issues from free trade, digital and artificial intelligence, and democracy. Instead, the Lee Jae Myung administration finds itself beset by shifting geopolitical winds.

A potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, or perhaps a three-way session including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will likely overshadow anything else that occurs at APEC. Elsewhere, the unsteady Gaza armistice and a renewed attempt by Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to forge a Ukraine deal continue to dominate headlines.

There is also the imminent shift in leadership in neighboring Japan. Despite efforts to maintain the momentum of improvement in South Korea-Japan relations, embraced by Lee and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, South Korea faces the prospect of a new Japanese government less inclined to confront historical issues.

Japan’s unstable politics
Japan is experiencing a level of political instability and uncertainty not seen since the early 1990s, when the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered electoral setbacks, splintering defections, and a loss of power.

Following the resignation of Prime Minister Ishiba, the LDP somewhat surprisingly elected hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi to lead the party and form a new government as prime minister.

But Takaichi’s path to power has been anything but smooth. A deep loyalist to the late Shinzo Abe, she is mistrusted within her own party and by most of the opposition. Her victory inspired the Buddhist party Komeito to end its quarter-century coalition with the LDP, citing Takaichi’s apparent alignment with anti-reformers and unrepentant views on Japan’s wartime and colonial history, symbolized by regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine.

The LDP lacks a majority in either house of the legislature, so it had to form an alliance to garner enough seats to form a minority government. Ishiba governed this way for the last several months.

The backlash against Takaichi prompted the main opposition parties – the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Democratic Party For the People and Ishin no Kai, also known as the Japan Innovation Party – to consider forming a government. The three parties combined would have been able to name a prime minister. The Komeito might also have back such a coalition.

That was not to be. Instead, Takaichi and the LDP have lured one of those three, Nippon Ishin no Kai, the most conservative of the opposition parties, into a new coalition. Together, they are just two seats short of a majority in the lower house and five seats short in the upper house.

Takaichi also met separately with Sohei Kamiya, leader of the ultra-right-wing nationalist Sanseito party – which holds a small but significant number of seats – to discuss cooperation. A parliamentary vote is expected to occur on October 21.

A right-wing Japanese government
The prospect of Takaichi as Japan’s next prime minister alarmed observers in South Korea even ahead of the LDP intra-party vote.

“Takaichi is a disaster for Korea,” a former South Korean ambassador to Japan told this writer at that time. Former Ambassador to Japan Shin Kak-soo similarly warned against the “election of a hawkish PM who might derail the restoration process of Korea-Japan relations.”

Some have held out the hope that Takaichi would moderate her views for the sake of pragmatism, emulating the way Abe governed. There have been reports she will name Abe’s foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, to the same post.

She has also been advised to stay away from Yasukuni. Abe was the last sitting prime minister to visit the shrine, twelve years ago.

“I will make a decision on how to pay my respects and pray for peace at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner,” Takaichi told reporters after winning the LDP vote earlier this month.

But in the LDP race last year, Takaichi made it clear she would visit Yasukuni, which she has done regularly as a cabinet minister. “At an appropriate time, I want to visit properly, calmly and as I usually do,” she said.

In a defiant statement at a symposium in 2022 hosted by the shrine authorities, she declared: “Stopping visits midway or acting half-heartedly only emboldens the other side. No matter how much criticism I face, I will continue calmly and matter-of-factly.”

This is only a small window into Takaichi’s view of Japan’s wartime past and cynicism toward pacifism. In a recent book based on a series of dialogues with right-wing commentator Yoshiko Sakurai, she argued that, “If a nation succumbs to aggression and loses sovereignty, it loses its existence as a nation – language, culture, and territory will be all be taken away.” She also warned that, “Other nations will not come to the aid of a country that lacks the will and courage to defend itself.”

In this spirit, Takaichi is a vocal advocate of assertive patriotism, both in defense policy and historical memory. Japan’s problem, she argues, is not what it did in World War II but that it lost.

“If Japan had won the war, Japan probably wouldn’t be blamed by anyone now, and those who started the war would be heroes,” she said. “When victors judge the vanquished, it creates an enduring misery of defeat and hardship for future generations. Yet I believe it is wrong for Japanese people to apologize endlessly simply for being born Japanese.”

The alliance with Ishin no Kai is likely to be amenable to these views. The party is primarily focused on domestic issues – specifically, the interests of the Kansai region, centered on Osaka, where it is based. But to the extent it has dealt with these questions, the party leans revisionist.

More radical is Sanseito, which takes an extreme nationalist stance and frequently discusses Japan’s war period.

Ishiba’s farewell address
Prime Minister Ishiba has long opposed this wing of the LDP.  The triumph of Takaichi and the prospects of a conservative nationalist government clearly concern him. On October 10, Ishiba delivered a lengthy statement on the eightieth anniversary of the end of the war, which contained unmistakable warnings against the shift to the right seen not only in Japan but beyond.

Ishiba wrote that Japan’s defeat had been inevitable. He asked rhetorically, “Why did the leadership of the government and the military plunge headlong into a reckless war that resulted in the loss of so many innocent lives, both at home and abroad, and why were they not able to make decisions to avoid the war?”

The answer, he continued, was a failure of civilians to control the military, erosion of democracy, violent extremism, nationalism and a failure to understand the world outside Japan’s borders.

Ishiba drew lessons from this past for the present, lessons that are clearly aimed at the current shift to the right. “Healthy discourse, including mission-driven journalism is necessary. During the war, the media stirred up public opinion, ultimately leading the nation into a reckless war. We must not fall into excessive commercialism, or tolerate narrow-minded nationalism, discrimination or xenophobia.”

Japan, he cautioned, must learn from history. “What matters most are the courage and integrity to squarely face the past, classical liberalism that values the tolerance of listening humbly to the arguments of others, and a healthy and robust democracy.”

Ishiba’s successor will face a significant challenge in not undermining the progress made in South Korea-Japan relations and in addressing the geopolitical shifts that are unfolding. That same challenge faces President Lee, during and after the APEC gathering.

In the best of circumstances, the South Korean and Japanese leaders will join hands and lean on each other, as their predecessors have done over the last few years, and confront ongoing geopolitical challenges together.

Monday, October 20, 2025

RETHINKING AMERICA’S NORTH KOREA STRATEGY: NEW BOOK

 October 28, 2025 Release
Yale University Press, 560 pages

October 22:. Carnegie Endowment for International  Peace, Washington, DC, 2:00-2:45pm (EDT), HYBRID

October 28: The Henry L. Stimson Center, Co-sponsored by the Institute for Science and International Security and the National Committee for North Korea, Washington, DC, 10:00-11:00am (EDT), HYBRID

October 30
: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School, Harvard University, 
10:00 -11:30am (EDT), HYBRID

November 5: Program on Science and International Security, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, By Invitation 


November 6: National Committee on American Foreign Policy, New York, NY, 6:00-8:00pm (EST), IN PERSON ONLY 

November 7: Center for Korean Research, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 1:00-2:30pm (EST), HYBRID

November 13: Korea-Pacific Program, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS), San Diego, CA, 5:00-6:00pm (PST), VIRTUAL

November 18: Center for International Security and Arms Control
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Stanford University, Stanford,  CA, Noon-1:15pm (PST), HYBRID

November 19: Commonwealth Club/World Affairs Council, San Francisco, CA, 5:30-6:30pm (PST), HYBRID

November 20: Pacific Council for International Policy, Los Angeles, CA, 6:00pm (PST), IN PERSON ONLY
.
December 8: National Bureau of Asian Research, Seattle, WA, TBA.

December 10: Pacific Forum, Honolulu, HI,  TBA
Honolulu International Forum, Honolulu, HI, By Invitation

December 11: East-West Center, Honolulu, HI, TBA

For almost four decades, the United States has tried to stop North Korea’s attempts to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. In Fallout: The Inside Story of America’s Failure to Disarm North Korea Joel S. Wit, a former State Department official, takes readers to the front lines of nuclear negotiations, fierce policy debates and secret diplomatic gambits, recounting how perilously close the United States and North Korea have come, on various occasions, to nuclear confrontation. 

Based on more than 300 interviews with officials in Washington, Beijing, and Seoul, as well as with the author’s contacts in Pyongyang, this book chronicles how decades of pursuing North Korean nuclear disarmament have played out. 

Wit points to Barack Obama and Donald Trump as the two presidents most responsible for the failure to halt North Korea’s march to build a nuclear arsenal, since it was under their successive tenures that Pyongyang acquired the ability to threaten every city in North America. Wit also offers an unparalleled portrait of Kim Jong Un that refutes his caricature as impulsive and illogical. Like his father and his grandfather, Kim is a ruthless despot but also a canny and informed negotiator determined to secure his dictatorship’s future by exploring diplomacy or, failing that, by building a nuclear arsenal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joel S. Wit is a distinguished fellow in Asian Security Studies at the Henry L. Stimson Center and a former U.S. State Department official. He is the coauthor with with Robert Gallucci and Daniel Poneman of Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis, the winner of the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2004 prize for best book. He received his M.I.A. from Columbia University in 1979 and his B.A. from Bucknell University in 1976. He is a member of Asia Policy Point.

Sunday, October 19, 2025

Asia Policy Events, Monday October 20, 2025

JAPAN'S GROWING INTERNATIONAL DEFENSE PARTNERSHIPS. 10/20, 6:30-8:00pm (JST), 5:30-7:00am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: ICAS, Temple University Japan Campus, Tokyo. Speaker: Benoit Hardy-Chartrand, Faculty Lecturer, Department of Political Science and International Affairs, Temple University Japan, Tokyo; Moderator: Kyle Cleveland, ICAS Co-director, Temple University, Japan Campus.

THE FUTURE OF UK AIR POWER. 10/20, 1:00-2:00pm (BST), 8:00-9:00am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI). Speaker: Air Vice-Marshal James Beck, Director Capabilities and Programmes, RAF.

*POSTPONED SUBMARINES IN AN ERA OF RENEWED GREAT POWER COMPETITION. 10/20, 10:00-11:00am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Vice Admiral Robert M. “Rob” Gaucher, Commander, Naval Submarine Forces, Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Commander, Allied Submarine Command; Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spicer, USN (Ret.), Chief Executive Officer/Publisher, U.S. Naval Institute; Seth G. Jones, President, Defense and Security Department; Harold Brown Chair.

TRUMP’S NEW EXPANSIONISM. 10/20, Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Foreign Policy. Speakers: Ravi Agrawal, Editor in chief, Foreign Policy; Greg Grandin, History Professor, Yale University, Author, “America, América: A New History of the New World.”

MEDIATING POWER: HOW HYBRID MEDIA DISRUPTS ELITE MESSAGING IN JAPAN. 10/20, 1:00-2:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Harvard University. Speaker: Colin Moreshead, Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University.

UNPACKING THE SAUDI-PAKISTANI MUTUAL DEFENSE AGREEMENT. 10/20, 1:00-2:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Arab Gulf States Institute (AGSI). Speakers: (Ret.) Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan, Lecturer, Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School; Abdulaziz Al Sager, Founder/Chair, Gulf Research Center.

A "NEW MARSHALL PLAN” - A MODEL FOR POST-CONFLICT UKRAINE? 10/20, 3:30-5:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: School of International Service, American University. Speakers: Olga Khakova, Deputy Director for European Energy Security, Global Energy Center (GEC), Atlantic Council; Benn Steil, Senior Fellow/Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Korea's Most Important Province

CONFERENCE

Gyeonggi Province

The Engine that Leads the U.S.–Korea Partnership

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

9:00am to 4:30pm (EDT)


Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill

400 New Jersey Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20001

Sponsored by

Center for the National InterestGyeonggi Research Institute

Korean Association for Policy Studies Reischauer Center ,Johns Hopkins SAIS

Highlighting the Gyeonggi Province's leadership in the multi-dimensional partnership between the U.S. and South Korea. The Province is the country's hub for advanced technology R&D and manufacturing. U.S. Army Garrison Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. military installation outside the continental United States is also located in the Province.


AGENDA

Four sessions covering Renewable energy ● Tariff policy

Peacebuilding on the Korean Peninsula ● Advanced technology and biotechnology


REGISTER HERE

SPEAKERS INCLUDE

  • Governor Dong Yeon Kim of Gyeonggi Province, former Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister

  • Members of the Korea Caucus on Capitol Hill

  • Paul Saunders, President, Center for the National Interest

  • Seong Cheon Kang, President, Gyeonggi Research Institute

  • Hyung Jun Park, President, Korean Association for Policy Studies

  • Kent Calder, Director, Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies, Johns Hopkins SAIS

  • Rob Atkinson, President of Information, Technology and Innovation Foundation 

  • Taek Goo Kang, Senior Research Fellow, Korea Environment Institute

  • Christian Whiton, Senior Fellow, Center for the National Interest

  • Byung Won Woo, Professor of International Relations, Yonsei University

  • Jill Homan, Deputy Director of Trade & Economy Policy, America First Policy Institute

  • Yun Young Jo, Professor of Political Science, Chung Ang University

  • Sydney Seiler, Senior Adviser, the Center for Strategic and International Studies

  • Sang Kyu Kim, Senior Fellow, Gyeonggi Research Institute 

  • Robert Gallucci, Distinguished Professor in Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service

  • Seok Hwan Lee, Professor of Public Administration, Kookmin University

  • Mark Esser, President of Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology, the University of Virginia and former Vice President of AstraZeneca

  • Joseph Kim, President of Agenta and former CEO and President of Inovio

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Uncertainty in Japanese Politics


Komeito Dissolves the Leading Coalition

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.
October 13, 2025. Special to Asia Policy Point

NOTE: If you look forward to these essays, please subscribe to Asia Policy Point's weekly Asia Policy Calendar. Subscription, only $100/year, includes additional reports on Japanese politics and history.