 Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. My name is Jim Schof. I'm a senior fellow in the Asia program, and I run our Japan program. And it's a pleasure to welcome you here today. I'm also a trustee at the Japan America Society of Washington, DC. So we have a couple of people wearing two hats here today. This is our fifth time now hosting the Japan this year event that the Japan America Society created about six years ago. And the Japan America Society is now beginning their 61st year, coming off of their big anniversary last year. I always look forward to this time of the year. Our partnership with the Japan America Society is a great way to kind of stimulate us at the very beginning of the year when everything is new to work with a lot of terrific people across journalism, think tank scholars, the government. And it's a great way to reconnect with this group of people each year. And lately, I've been spending so much time on North Korea. It's a pleasure to be able to focus on Japan again and get caught up. So I'm looking forward to getting caught up this year. As always, Carnegie is hosting today's event, but this is really a Japan America Society creation. And they did a lot of the work to put together to recruit the speakers. It's just one of the many contributions that the society makes to this town and to our relationship. And we'll hear a little bit more about that in just a minute. For today's event, I would like to take a moment and thank the executive director of Japan America Society of Washington, DC, Mark Kitzig, who's here and board chairman Matt Goodman, who will be moderating the post-lunch keynote speech session. I would like to thank the staff of both of our organizations and to Alex Taylor here at Carnegie for a lot of the legwork as well. The Keisai Coho Center this year has provided critical support for this program. And it's given us a chance to really showcase the private sector dimension of the economic relationship between the United States and Japan. And we're also received some support and help from the National Association of Japan America Societies, Peter Kelly, the president of that association is here today, and he'll be moderating our first panel. I would also like to just say a quick word of thanks to Ambassador John Malott, the former president of the Japan America Society of Washington, DC. This was kind of he was the brainchild of this event and has put it on the map in this town. So I just wanted to thank him for that as well. So I'll have a chance to talk a little bit more as the moderator of our international panel in the afternoon. But for now, I wanted to welcome you all here to Carnegie and express our enthusiasm for being a part of this event today. This is kind of our light-hearted, serious policy event of the year. As a quick outline of today's event, we're very honored to be joined by the chief operating officer of Mitsui's largest energy unit, Mr. Kiroyuki Tsurugi, who flew all the way over here yesterday to be a part of this event here today. And he will be giving a keynote speech right after our lunch today on the energy's role in the US-Japan relationship. We'll also feature three panels today, our usual domestic and international panel. But we'll also do a special kind of post keynote speech session on the energy question and US-Japan economic relationship. A quick note on timing of today, there's a couple of different outlines of today's event floating around. We will probably end the first session a little bit before noon so that we have a chance to start the lunch on time, because we're going to try to start the keynote lunch speech by Tsurugi-san at 12.30. That will give us a little bit more time for that second panel discussion. But for now, let me turn it over to Abigail Friedman. She is the CEO of the Wisteria Group Consulting Firm here in Washington, a veteran of the State Department for several years, and most importantly today, the Japan-America Society Treasurer. And on behalf of the society, I'd like to give her a chance to say a few words. Thank you. Thank you very much. And welcome, everyone. This is a great way to start the new year. I, too, would like to thank the KZI Coho Center, the National Association of Japan-America Societies Mitsui Inc. company, my own organization, and the staff that have been so helpful, the Japan-America Society of Washington DC, and above all, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This is the sixth year that the Japan-America Society of Washington has been running this Japan in, now it's 2018, and the fifth year that we're doing it with Carnegie. And I think this partnership has really been wonderful for both of us, if I may say. I just look at the crowd in this room, and I know a lot of people are watching this online as well. So this is an opportunity for us to think about the future, to make a prognosis about the future. We promise that we won't look at the end of the year to what everyone said was going to happen this year. So as Jim Shoff said, we should be having a little bit of fun. I actually, as I stand here, I'm recalling last year's remarks when we were also talking about North Korea. We were also talking about energy, talking about Japanese politics, US politics. So let's all have a good time. One important thing is, since I have the opportunity to speak to you all, I wanted to mention a few things that the Japan America Society of Washington, DC hosts. In addition to these kinds of policy, for we run the largest street Japanese, Japan Street Festival in the United States. This year it will be April 14. I believe I have the date right, the Sakura Matsuri. So please come bring your family to that. We also have a film festival, the Sine Matsuri, that will be mid-March. And one other thing that, among the many things we do, that many people are unaware of, which is the language program that we run. I actually think that's probably the largest one in Washington, DC as well. We have Japanese language classes for really all different interests. And I was just speaking to our executive director, Mark, and confirming that we can do tailor-made programs, individual programs. So any of you planning to go to the Olympics in Japan in 2020 now is the time to start learning Japanese, give us a call or look for the Japan America Society of Washington, DC online, and we will fix you up with a program that meets your needs. Anyways, I think that's enough for me. I'm looking forward, as we all are, to the panelists. So thank you and welcome. Good morning. I'm Peter Kelly of the National Association of Japan America Societies, and welcome. I want to re-emphasize a point that in the kind opening remarks that both Jim and Abigail did, they called attention to John Malott and Mark Hitzig. This program really is the brainchild of John and Mark and the Japan-American side of Washington, DC as part of their effort every year to provide at the beginning of the year an update on the US-Japan situation. And it's a pleasure to be here on the domestic panel for the sixth year of this program. I was tempted to, I have my list of things that you all predicted last year, and I was going to pull it out. Abigail has said that we can't do that, so you're off the hook. Our panel is entitled Domestic, Political, Economic, and Societal Prospects. And before we go to our panelists, let me give some short framing remarks. If you think about the beginning of 2018, on those three fronts, the domestic, political, and societal fronts, Japan is a pretty stable place. The prime minister is the only leader of a major democracy who has been able to hold an election in the last two years and win it. And he's in a strong political position, so much so that the term opposition parties in Japan almost requires quotation marks to be taken seriously. He's also managed what few other leaders, Democratic or otherwise, have done in establishing a somewhat predictable relationship with President Trump. On the economic front, Japan has established a pattern of stable, if low, economic growth with almost two years of steady economic growth. This has resulted in very low unemployment, but it hasn't yet resulted in either wage increases or given Japan the flexibility to alter the stimulus plans that it has had in place or to reduce the large national debt. The actual action, I think, in Japan is coming from without in 2018. Seen it in the form of missiles being fired from North Korea into Japanese territory or over Japan. Ongoing tensions with South Korea and a continued level of strategic pressure from China. Our experts will cover all of these three topics. There will be some overlap, but Sheila will concentrate on the domestic politics. Samamura-san will talk about the economy and societal issues in Japan. And Jim will address the domestic views on the alliance and on defense. Our speakers, I don't think need any introduction to this audience. Sheila is a senior fellow at the Center for the Council on Foreign Relations. Samamura-san is the bureau chief of the Asahi Shinbun arrived here last year. And Jim is the chief executive officer of the Sasaka Peace Foundation, USA. We'll take it in the order of Sheila, Samamura-san, and Jim. Don't hit buttons at CFRs. There you go. I'm trained, apparently. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you. I'm much relieved. I won't make a mistake. But anyway, thank you to both the organizers for having me. I'm delighted to be here. And I'm a little off the hook, because unfortunately I wasn't able to join you guys last year, so I have no predictions to fall back on to be right or wrong. But I am delighted to be here. And I'm delighted to see such a large crowd and some many friends in the audience. So my assignment is to talk a little bit about domestic politics. It seems odd in this audience that I'll be talking about Japanese domestic politics, as I see many of you are already up to date and well informed on this. But I have three basic points I thought I would make. And the first is, I may be the only one in the room, but I think the snap election that Mr. Abe called in 2017 was a surprise. I think it was not what I expected him to do at all. I think we all understood that he was coming off of a summer of pretty severe setbacks in terms of his approval rating, first from the scandals, the breaking of the scandals, and then second from the LDP's pretty considerable loss in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government elections. So I think it was not their time we thought the Prime Minister should go to the polls. But there he did. He and his advisors in the party thought the timing was right. And of course, he had to make that calculation based on the fact that he would have had to have called an election by the end of 2018, by the end of this year. So smart, risky, but smart. If we look at it in hindsight, 2020 hindsight is always great. He and his party, the LDP and the coalition partner, the Colmeto, carried off what I think many people at the beginning thought was going to be impossible, which was to reaffirm the supermajority in the lower house, to give his party a very firm foundation from which to govern. In terms of elections, I'll just say briefly here, this is the third lower house election, of course, that Abe has won. 2012, when he came back to power, the LDP came overwhelmingly back into power after three years of the DPJ. He called a snap election in 2014, which was not so enthusiastic. Voter turnout was far lower. It was a kind of marginal victory in some ways. Because there wasn't an opposition, there wasn't a choice. And voters seemed to begrudgingly go to the polls. But nonetheless, he came back. And he and his ruling coalition got done what he needed to get done, which was to allow them to back off of the consumption tax, to move forward with the agenda that they had set for themselves, which was largely an economic agenda at that point. The 2017 election, for me, was different. And I've just gotten finished drafting a chapter for a volume on the election that, for the first time, asked me or somebody to write about foreign policy. And I thought it was interesting, because when the prime minister called the election, A, the opposition was similarly in disarray. They were unable, really, to compete. But I'll talk about that in a second. But he clearly identified two issues. One was North Korea, as Peter said. The accelerated missile testing by Pyongyang clearly had put the prime minister in the hot seat in terms of how Japan was going to respond to this. He had two ways of responding to it. One was to strengthen defense. And the second was to advocate strongly around the world, not only with President Trump, but with others in Europe and other settings in Asia that this is the time to up the pressure. This is the time to take a tough stance on putting pressure on Pyongyang to get them back to the table. So he himself defined this election as a referendum on his strategy, a coercion of a hard line posture towards North Korea, not so much on the defense side, which was interesting. He defined it largely in terms of his diplomatic support for his diplomatic agenda. So that's unusual. It's unusual in Japanese elections. It's not unusual that the ruling party defines foreign policy as an important piece of the puzzle, but it's interesting to call a kind of referendum on leadership in the foreign policy area like that. The other obvious thing that happened in this election, and we all know it, it was the end of the Democratic Party as we know it, the former DPJ, now then merged into the Democratic Party. That was the defining topic, I think, for most people who analyzed this election, is that Japan's opposition fragmented once more. It's not the first time they've been fragmented, of course, but since the DPJ formed and built a fairly considerable single party and won the election in 2009, this is going back, I think, to where we typically have seen the Japanese opposition parties in the post-war period. Kibo Nontou, we know, the Party of Hope, led by Koike Yudiko after her summer victory and her previous gubernatorial election victory to hear before that, seemed like the winner, or the potential winner in the early weeks of the campaign, but interestingly enough, fizzled halfway through the campaign when A, she decided she wasn't going to run and B, it was very unclear really what they were running on. The platform looked so much like the LDP in some ways. I wrote a piece in the early part of the election calling them the Compassionate Conservatives because she was clearly trying to talk about social welfare issues, work-life balance, implicitly the gender issue, but they just couldn't hold it together through the campaign and that was interesting. The hype at the beginning was so high, but within weeks they had lost really the Japanese public, I think. The other party that emerged, people didn't think it was going to be much of an actor and that's the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan led by Edano Yukio. I don't know about you guys, I'll be happy to hear your thoughts, but Edano-san has always been, he has been a very compassionate face in Japanese politics. I have never met anybody in Japan who does not like Edano Yukio, whatever their politics, conservative, liberal, whatever, but led by Edano in a very active and forceful campaign by him on the stump, getting hundreds and sometimes thousands of people to come out and listen to him. He launched the very new, but very traditional Progressive Left Party in support of the defense of the current Constitution of Japan. So the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan is all about opposing what is becoming a fairly significant shift, I think, towards a growing consensus that the time has come to deliberate and debate on constitutional revision in Japan. So Edano put a stake on the ground and said, we are not for it. And interestingly enough, his party today is the second largest party in the lower house. So that says to me that the Japanese people are still drawn to a party that is not interested in revision. Whether or not that will catapult him into his party into a larger position in Japanese politics, I think remains to be seen. Interesting definition, though. Let me just very quickly, because I want to be brief here two other points. One is, so what does this fragmented opposition mean? Are we really going back to the future? Are we really back to single party dominance by the LDP? I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure. What I think is interesting about the opposition map, partly yes, the fragmentation, as Peter said, but it is a interesting new set of political parties that are more to the center. It is not the polarization of the old early Cold War era, right? We have a lot of centrist parties. And in that center, you have more conservative parties. And by conservative here, I'm talking about basically social values, fiscal policy. And in some regards, I'm using the Constitution as a sort of barometer of conservatism, but it's probably inaccurate to do that. And by that, I simply mean they're more willing to think about changes in military policy and defense policy. So you've got more parties. You've got Ishing, right? You've got the Kibo no Toho, if it manages to make anything of itself, we'll have to wait and see. But you've got parties that are now defining themselves as conservatives as opposed to liberal left. The interesting thing, even Edano, with his conservative new progressive party on the campaign trail and on Twitter, said I am a traditional Japanese conservative. He used that word to define himself, even though his party in the spectrum of things is clearly not, that's not where they are. But by traditional conservative, he meant and he explained, I support traditional Japanese cultural values. So even though he has a particular point of view on the Constitution and his party has a particular view on Japanese constitutionalism and democracy, he is still thinking it's important to talk today about Japanese values as a defining element of Japanese politics. So anyway, just some markers there that I thought were very, very interesting. On the left then, you've got his party, Edano's party, and the JCP, the stalwart Vito party. And so what's interesting to me is for a while there, it looked like the Japan Communist Party was going to be the Vito party, the party that can say no, right? The Japanese voters were seeing them that way. But now others have taken up that mantle and so the JCP has lost a little bit. It has never been a Communist Party in ideological terms in my view. It was early on in its existence, but I don't think we see it that way today. It really is in Japanese politics, excuse me, the party that can say no. Others may take up some of that. So the last piece I'll say is what does this say about Japanese society? Does this election or does this sort of proliferation of more centrist, conservative parties? Does it mean Japan is turning to the right? Or should we expect nationalism? I've been running this discussion dialogue project at the council now for a couple of years and if you have time to listen, we have put some of those conversations on podcasts and CFR, some of it's about foreign policy, some of it's about what's happening inside Japan. And it's interesting to me, my answer is no to that question, by the way. Japan is not becoming a more nationalist society in any means and we can talk more about that if you'd like. It's not the nationalism or the word we like to use now, the populism of Europe or even the United States. It's interesting to me in Japan, we don't see any signs of that kind of political activity or ferment. There is no anti-globalist party. The JCP might, if you really twist it a little bit, it might be construed that way, but the interesting thing is that all of Japan's political parties embrace globalism. They embrace the current global liberal order. They embrace Japan's place in it. They may have different remedies for how Japan should play its role in the global liberal order, but they don't deny the benefits to Japan of an interdependent global economy or of a continued status quo set of institutions in the world that where Japan can play a role. Japanese elections, if we take 2017, are still all about competency and reform. Who can get the job done? Who can address Japan's problems? And I'm sure other speakers will talk to what those problems are, but it is still a competency election in Japan and I think whatever Mr. Abe's setbacks were last summer, the majority of Japanese still believe that the liberal democratic party is best place to address Japan's many problems. And so for the opposition, what this means is they have to up their game in terms of competency. They have to up their game in terms of specific recommendations for reform. And if you take a look at the party platforms, there was a considerable effort, I think, to be more pragmatic, whether you're in Mr. Edano's party, Hoike's party, or still Ishii, right? But whether or not they can persuade the Japanese voter to take a risk on an untested party, I think that the legacy of the DPJ time in office is probably that that's gonna be a high barrier for just about any future constellation of political parties going forward. So that's my piece there. Thank you, Sheila. An election about competence. Interesting concept. The, we will come back to the, to, in the question and answer session, to thoughts about what will happen during to the constitutional revision question during 2018. But let us shift now to Sawamura-san, bureau chief of the Asahi Shimbun. And Hiemi, okay. Oh, thank you very much. Today is a very good honor to be called today to join the gathering of the leading Japanese expert. Here, I think the only advantage I have is being, just being Japanese. And as we read the first anniversary of the Trump administration this week, and I was wondering about what kind of article I have to write tomorrow. So I've been thinking only about President Trump these days, and as many of you may know, thinking about Trump every day is quite tough job, and there's a lot of stress. So therefore, being able to think about my home country of Japan from distance, I think has been great for my mental health. But one thing I noted as I prepared for today's word that why the prime minister of Japan and the president Trump have a good personal relationship, the condition in the United States and in Japan as well as the political approach of both the Abe and the Trump administrations. For example, in both country, the stock market has certainly reached record high. The unemployment rate is also very low. On the other hand, the actual wage of principle working class has no reason, and inequality is going. In terms of the political approach, both may have a strong inclination to stress nationalism. Their leadership style is also quite strong. So people around them often act on what they think he would want, highlighting the Japanese expression, so-called Senson Taku. Both leaders also shared a belief that a strong economy makes strong countries. So therefore, I came to thinking about the Trump administration and you can see why my head began to hurt. Okay, so however, today I'd like to speak a little bit about the what's the challenge and the risk in 2018. As President Trump always blaming the media like fake news or they are always bad things about the country. So excuse, can I excuse that? I might be a little bit negative on that and pessimistic view on that, but this is our nature, our journalist characters. As Peter has mentioned that Japan today looks okay, the unemployment rate is surprisingly low two percent. Although it's been 10 years, I previously visited Spain as a correspondent in Europe to conduct research for the article and the use of employment rate exceeded 50 percent. So that there's a source difference between developed countries is itself a threat. Politics are also stable now in Japan. As you know, last fall, as Shira-san said that Prime Minister won the snap election and contributed to his power bases. And although there was an LDP leadership election in this hall, at this point, there are no other big political events so far. The procedure for the application of the Heisei Empire have been also arranged. And last year, the number of holding visitors of Japan hit a record of a high almost 29 million people contributing to the economy as well. This year looks to exceed that. However, there are risks as well. We cannot fail to mention the security environment. Probably discussed later today. Japan faced not only the direct threat of nuclear missile from North Korea, but would also be negatively impacted if war erupted between the U.S. and East China or North Korea. Japan-China relationship seems getting better, but tensions were raised the other day when the Chinese submarine entered the water of the Senkaku Islands. According to survey by General N.P. of Japan's think tank, the image of Japan in China has slightly getting better. So, at least sometimes I was asked by my European friend that why is there no xenophobic nationalism in Japan? So certainly there is no political party in Japan that resembles the French National Front or the German alternative for Germany. But it could be said that before there are so few immigrants in Japan, it would be difficult for xenophobic via to allies. But I do have also the friends in the French National Front in France. He was the former number two of the party and actually some of them may know that he is a specialist of Japanese politics actually. And then when I met him, every time I met him, he is very much angry about the coverage of the Japanese media. I wish Japanese newspaper would stop writing that the National Front is on the extreme right. It's because if you were talking about the foreigners' problems, the National Front is more left than the LDP or even the DPJ. For this past new year, the story that agitated that Japanese media were the violent incident is a Mongolian born small wrestler and the tragedy of was company that lent Kimono to young people going to coming of age ceremony, Seijinshiki. But it suddenly sees the operation and despite many people, many new adult paying high fees, they are unable to wear Kimono to ceremony that they should memorize. So that's the, those news are dominated in Japan. So this was truly the biggest news in Japan is that World's Third largest economy, it really shows something. But for me, I think this is the biggest risk to Japan because of this at first glance, things looks better, are okay, and on the surface, stability is sinking, with sensitivities becoming down, the sense of an urgency is disappearing and putting off the issue that we should make an effort to find the solution now. First of all, we talked a little bit about politics and then the big drama from last year and continuing into this year is the division or fragmentation of the opposition party as Shirazan detailed right now. Maybe it's better to say the self-distruction probably, but even if there hadn't been such a confusion over the opposition party, I think Prime Minister Abe would have been in an advantageous position. This is because until now, Prime Minister Abe has gone ahead and pushed the liberal policies advocated by the opposition party erasing their meaning of existence. Being a liberal is a focus on distribution. This is unlike the small government direction of the American Republican Party, Prime Minister Abe himself has said he is a liberal. On the political front, the conflicting trajectory of ruling and the opposition party is difficult to see. Also, more attention is being paid to the political style of Mr. Abe. Once he would be in Prime Minister for five years, even if there is no reason, of course among the people, momentum for a demanding change comes out. In such a time, he presents the plan to lower the amount of time in the diet for the opposition to question the LDP by linking it to the number of seeds they had. Even in the opening of his Prime Minister question time, he had a backwards pace of response. So certainly the making of the question time relate to the number of the seeds he had is relational. It's just a timing of this change in custom. With this satisfaction regarding a long administration has started coming out, the present situation seems to reach out on the image of arrogance. The risk is also shared with the Moritomo and Kekake scandals as well. No one can clearly conclude there of illegal activities, but making denial by saying it didn't do anything bad with action declining to make public disclosures an image of the virtual from the know it came to be held by the cities. Until now, even though there was a problem identified with the policies, Mr. Abe could rebut it by saying, well, what did the DPJ do? But the days of the DPJ administration is an old story from five years ago. So now you can even see the shadow of what used to be the DPJ. The tactics of pushing responsibility onto the DPJ doesn't work anymore, it seems. And also here, Ms. Koike's success in the talk of the election last year showed how easy it is for the winds demanding change can blow. In other words, it showed that in reality that politics of Japan has the potential to be volatile. As I said earlier, the economy of Japan looks good if you only look at the numbers, but many Japanese people are not satisfied. There are needs over the future it's getting bigger. Although Prime Minister Abe has spoken of his enthusiasm for constitutional reform in the new year, it is a question that it is appropriate to spend political energy into an issue that would split the citizens into two. Perhaps the atmosphere in such that it would be more appropriate with the issue that are closely related to the real daily life. According to the opinion poll conducted by the Kyoto news agency, on January 13th to 14th, 55% of respondents opposed the controversial division by Prime Minister Abe with 33% supporting it. One reason for this is particularly the cabinet decision to reinterpret the constitution to allow collective self-defense to update security regulations. Even if we are revising the constitution, the space for the self-defense forces to cooperate with the United States has grown considerably. Next, in regard to economic issues, I will make no mistake that escaping deflation is a challenge. The Bank of Japan has already put off reaching its target of two-person annual deflation many times. Although the tight labor market is becoming serious, the result of real ways not growing has been swaggered consumer spending. Of course, I am not economist, I want to go further on this issue, but still, even the future concerning to the Japanese economy have continued to come to light. In the Japanese business model, although the benefit to share holders is slim and also the salary to executive is low, one special quality has been the benefit to employees and the quality of merchandise is the most important virtue. The event I want to mention that I think might show a deterioration of the foundation with these ethical features even in the manufacturing field once the pride of Japan incident of systematic fatigue are coming up in the low-material industries and assembly units of famous Japanese manufacturers and the force-firing material quality data have been discovered. Many of them were exposed cost reduction competition, resulting in drop in the quality of the necessary quality inspections the reality of the fragility of Japanese quality control system which until now was a secret success were exposed in front of worldwide competition. If you look at this with the picture, there is a possibility it will cause Japanese people to lose their self-confidence or suddenly I will speak a little bit about on social risks. So in his first public remarks after the election of last war, Prime Minister Abe said that next to North Korea one of the greatest threat to Japan was the declining birth rate and increasing the age cooperation of elderly people, aging societies in December Prime Minister Abe advocated his human resource development as part of the third of Abenomics, which is structural reform. Specifically, this includes making early childhood education and higher education fee for low income families and enrichment of adult education. In other words, this is already regarding human resource development. I have had a talk with the Prime Minister Abe about how the Japanese will completely annihilate before the birth rate. So I feel a lot of sympathy for the last Japanese person because he or she will probably have to carry massive government debt. So as the current rate it is said that the population of Japan in the beginning of the 22nd century will be about a third of the current population and the aging society through increasing the cost of protecting society will be the biggest factor in putting pressure on public finances. The cost of protecting society has continually increased over the last six years. I've heard people say that because elderly in Japan have a lot of money in the savings account, it will contribute to a stimulus that will also have been a spread of new business due to innovation in the care giving and housekeeping industries. It could be that with the spread of aging population in the developed world as an issue this will be a model for economic development. Certainly I think that temporarily that is a good point. But with the cost of aging set increasing on the one hand because of the expanding situation of the national pension system there's a possibility that temporary things might be the end of it all. So the diversification diversification in the share of regular employment particularly the disparity in pay between full-time and part-time employed people is becoming a breeding ground for the development of a new cause of poverty. The structure of families is trying with a number of single parents increasing. As a result of this, the problem of children being included by their parents into poverty is also quite serious. The risk associated with the declining birth rate can be seen in hard labor areas which are seeing a tight labor market. In Japan there are still taboo over the world immigrants because there have been no plans to accept immigrants despite labor shortage in industry ranging from farming, fisheries manufacturing to service industry like retail, tourism and hotels. Japanese competitiveness has suffered. Because this goes to the root of Japanese identities there is no easy way to limit this. While watching, unfortunately competition in human resource in Asia have intensified the exception of the Philippines and Myanmar. China and the states of South Asia are all facing declining birth rates. Singapore even Shanghai have been trying to recruit the people from with premise of a higher salaries in Japan. It could be that when Japan finally opened the door there will be no one there to come. It's not that all of these problems begins in 2018 but they have partially began this year. What I fear the most is that things like the loss of confidence by Japanese people and east toward the future are intolerant nationalism. So far as I believe that there is no nationalism in Japan but intolerant nationalism and cause minus would take root and spread in Japanese society in the near future. Already in bookstore one can see books lined up full of prejudice towards China and South Korea or saying like isn't Japan great or are Japanese being respected, being sold. Something else I'm afraid of is that emergency of a tendency to attack one who is weaker than you, like falling in Japan or perhaps the bashing of the welfare recipient and disabled who gets assistance from the government. So I also worrying about lies of bashing against Okinawa from the other part of Japan as well. But to conclude I think we have to learn the lesson of Europe and also the United States. While we are stable, while we are okay we have to start tackling the real issues. Otherwise a couple years later Japan society will be divided or real Zerophobic populist party will be appeared. And also nowadays all risk is coming from outside the risk of war, risk of the massive terrorist attack or even nowadays some Japanese people worrying about their unpolitical resident in the States. Or even those risk will not happen but it once happened the consequence is catastrophic. So now I think we have to tackle the real issue in 2018. Thank you very much. Thank you Amarasan for a very thoughtful and view of Japan. So Amarasan speaks of stability in the numbers but also a sense of unease. And that's it's useful to hear that. Let's shift now to Jim Zumwalt who will talk about the shift more towards the security in the US relationship and also the work of the US. Thank you very much to Carnegie to the Japan America society and to Najas and others for sponsoring this event and inviting me. I feel a bit Jim like you've given us an impossible task. You said you want us to predict the future in a light-hearted Okay, I'm afraid of pushing buttons. I might set off some alarm or something. Thank you very much. So I'm going to talk about Japanese domestic politics and how those domestic politics and public attitudes in turn might affect Japanese foreign policy a little bit foreshadowing the discussion this afternoon but we'll focus on domestic politics. I want to make four main points. The first is about Japanese attitudes toward the United States and how that might affect our relationship. The second is Japanese domestic politics surrounding the debate about acquiring a strike capability preponderance of US basing on the islands in Okinawa. The third Japanese attitudes toward China and Korea and how that might affect their policies and finally a little bit of a shift to some of the points that Murasang was making about economic policy and the domestic politics there. But first getting back to how Japan sees it's really a good news story. Japanese respect the United States Americans respect Japan. Recent polling shows some decline in that I think because of our own rhetoric surrounding our presidential campaign but I personally don't see that's a fatal problem. I think we can recover certainly from that. The other things that are of interest is how many Japanese attitudes are in parallel with the United States. Neither country trusts China. Both are concerned about North Korea where there is divergence I think it's often about precisely what roles should Japan play in regional peace and security and there there's room for discussions and some of the debates that are coming up highlight some of those differences. I'm very impressed by the strong Japanese appreciation for Prime Minister Abe's management of his relationship with the United States president and I think it reflects that most Japanese people they get along with the U.S. leader. They don't have a choice. They don't choose who the leader is but our leader must get along and it really is a bit of a contrast to the last era when we had this strong relationship which was President Bush with Prime Minister Koizumi. I was in Japan then and while many Japanese appreciated the close relationship there was a lot of criticism including from places like the Asahi about Koizumi being the lap dog of the president actually asked Japanese friends and they've assured me that that is not the case today and I think the main reason for that is what the United States is asking of Japan today is different than what the United States was asking during the Bush year. In the Bush year we said do more in Iraq and the Japanese were wondering why should we do that and what's their interest there. Now we're saying we have to work together on North Korea and that's something that's in Japan's own interest so I don't think what we're asking of Japan is what we should be doing and so as a consequence there's tremendous support in Japan for their Prime Minister continuing to nurture this relationship to advance Japan's own interest. I think and I think the main reason as I mentioned was the North Korean threat which is paramount in Japanese minds. I think also another reason for this is growing concerns in Japan compared to ten years ago about Chinese pressure. This is both economic and political pressure certainly the few years ago the Chinese use of a tool of blocking exports of rare metals to a key component for Japanese industry has not forgotten the Japanese are seeing the pressure that China is putting on Korea and particularly on Lotte as a company for the Korean government's decision to accept the U.S. request to deploy the Thad. So I think many Japanese recognize that this could be us again in the future and they're very concerned about Chinese economic pressure but also of course concerns about territorial disputes in the east China sea is another area where Japanese are quite concerned. So all these factors about Japanese public opinion point to a strong U.S.-Japan relationship that continues and that's my very daring prediction for the future. However I do think there's an underlying current of anxiety. This has always been the case. Sheila knows this as much as anyone who will never get to a stage where the Japanese are 100% confident that the U.S. will do the right thing and we don't need to be assured anymore. It's very good news for Japan hence because we're going to be employed for the rest of our lives in providing those reassurances. However that anxiety I think is heightened now because if you're an ally having an unpredictable partner is not a good thing. You want a predictable partner and so I think some of the policies of our government have heightened Japanese anxiety and so that's something that the U.S. government's going to have to work on in providing the reassurance. Second area that I want to mention is the key security issues like the nuclear strike capacity. I think it's important for us to acknowledge that there's a growing understanding in Japan of the need for a strong security relationship with the United States and that provides more room for alliance managers to move forward. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be dramatic politically difficult steps like constitutional reform but I do think under the surface there's going to be a lot going on and one area where I can predict with confidence that progress is both sides on the alliance, the U.S. and Japan are going to be exploring what new opportunities are available to enhance alliance collaboration because of steps the Oba government has already taken in terms of reinterpreting Japan's role. There's a lot of room there you don't need dramatic new political steps and so I think both sides will be very eager to explore what does it mean, what can Japan do in various contingencies and so they'll be very active agenda on the part of our alliance managers and trying to explore and maximize the new opportunities that Prime Minister Abe has already provided. However, I always have a however here, the challenge for the alliance I think will continue to be Okinawa and because of historical accidents maybe about half of our forces in Japan are based in Okinawa we do have a plan to reduce the impact of U.S. presence in Okinawa but for a variety of reasons mostly domestic on the Japanese side but also some in addition in Congress to the funding required. Our plans have been delayed. I think it's important if this is not new to many of you because many people here are experts on Japan but I do want to make two points about Okinawan attitudes. One is that Okinawans are not anti-American and they're not hostile and a lot of people reading the American press don't really get that. Just one brief illustration when I was visiting our consulate general and I was we were leaving the car was being driven by our political military officer and in front of the consulate at the gate there was a demonstration of about 50 people holding signs U.S. bases out of Okinawa and so forth and all of our State Department training is when you get to a demonstration like that you lock your doors you roll up your windows you get away as soon as you can and the driver of the car kind of pulls over stops rolls down her window and starts chatting with these two old ladies in this demonstration so when we finally left it was hello how are you doing how's your husband when we finally left I asked her like what are you doing this is a demonstration she goes oh these are friends from church and that really showed me that while these demonstrators are protesting U.S. military presence they're not anti-American so that's something that really is important to keep in mind and on the but the flipside is in Okinawa there's a strong sense of victimization that outsiders and outsiders might be defined as the Japanese army it might be defined as the Japanese government it might be defined as the American military but outsiders are making decisions about our community and we don't have a say and we're unhappy about that and that's the real challenge and so from Okinawa's perspective what they would love to do is to talk directly to the United States about basing arrangements and of course that's not in our interest because our bases are there for Japan's national security not because of Okinawa so but there is this inherent challenge that we face it's not hostility toward America but it's inherent challenge there and just one anecdote again to illustrate that story on my first trip to Okinawa I came down to learn about the situation there on our consulate general hosted a very nice dinner for eight for me and eight Okinawan politicians a vice governor two mayors two elected diet members who actually came down from Tokyo for the dinner a couple of local officials and he suddenly asked me why don't you give a toast and so I started with my standard toast about US Japan relations and how important they were and one of the mayors interrupted me in the middle of my toast and said no let's toast now a US relations and the point he was making is don't you idiots in Tokyo get it we're not we're a separate entity we want to talk to you directly and have direct ties and don't ignore our opinions because we're different than the government in Tokyo and so it's true for American policy makers we can't ignore that and I do predict of the other reason I'm concerned about this even more going forward is with the situation in North Korea the US forces based in Japan are under stress there's a lot more more missions more activities they're stretched and that means the chances of some kind of an accident are higher than they were two years ago and it's not so much anyone's thought but they're being asked to do a lot be perfect never have an accident but do a lot more activities and that's a recipe for our heightened heightened chances of some kind of an accident and that would be very challenging for our relationship the third one I'll be brief here is on China North Korea I think Japanese attitudes are very much going to facilitate their government taking steps that are very much congruent with our own so I'm not so concerned about that but the one thing I would mention is right now Japanese public is in lock step with what our policy is as well we want to see a denuclearized North Korea as a long-term goal and our short-term tactics are heightened pressure everyone agrees with that the challenge will be at one moment in time if either government either or the United States decides to shift gears and begin an engagement approach that could create tensions and I recall when Prime Minister Koizumi contacted us the U.S. Government and basically 24 hours in advance said I'm going to Pyongyang tomorrow to talk about abductees and that almost created a crisis in U.S.-Japan relations and the only saving grace really was Prime Minister Koizumi's relationship with the U.S. President that kind of calmed the water and made Japan unhappy with Japan appearing to break with our solidarity and so I don't think we can rule out that one country or the other for whatever reason might decide to take a step that creates some tensions in our relationship so I don't want to be completely sanguine but basically I'm pretty optimistic about our North Korea and China policies. Finally on U.S. economic policy and I know I'm running out of time so I'll be brief I am quite concerned this coming year that there will be heightened tensions in Japan economic relations. I grew up as an economic officer in the State Department in the 1980s a veteran of Super 301 talks of SII of all of these very contentious talks and I do not want to go back to that year it was not a happy time in our relationship I don't think it benefited either country but to be honest the problem is on the U.S. side here and if the U.S. Government continues to insist on using the bilateral deficit in goods as the measure of the health economic relationship we're going to be in trouble. I do think the one saving grace I think is that there's limited bandwidth on the U.S. side that can't take on every single trade issue that they've identified and there are perhaps higher priorities on the U.S. side NAFTA the China and the chorus trade agreement probably are higher priority so it's possible that Japan can sort of stay below the surface and we won't have contentious talks. I do think the U.S. Government will take on some of these issues and that will lead I think to some tensions in our economic relationship. Thanks Jim. Interesting perspectives on the Japanese support domestic support for the for the alliance and also worthwhile caution for 2018 around the economic and trade agreement. I want you all to be thinking of your questions we're going to open it up in a few minutes but let me start with a couple of questions that are 2018 related for all of the panelists. The first one is constitutional revision has come up in the discussion a couple of times and I'm interested to hear what each of you think will actually take place in the constitutional revision during 2018. I think Sheila mentioned as a result of the elections in 2017 there's probably a smaller group that's opposed to constitutional revision on principle in the diet than there ever has been so there's political room to do something but what do you think will happen? First of all, I'm Rosanne. So we've been tracking this a little bit at CFR and have had a series of essays that we curated by politicians and by advocates and others in Japan and outside observers as well. So my general view is we will see constitutional revision debate whether it's sooner or later I think we're looking at a referendum in the next couple of years I think. So two things for me is what is going to be revised. I don't think today if you watch the trend lines and they're not something to be scared about they're not abrupt. I mean again remember that constitutional revision has been on the diet agenda of discussion between parties since the late 1990s we've got a voluminous 900 page report that came out of the diet at the end of the 1990s. So this is something that the Japanese political leaders have been thinking not just this job they have been thinking about now for over a decade. So this is a referendum law that was drafted granted under Mr. Abe's leadership but it was drafted in the mid-2000s and was revised again. You've seen the voting age of young Japanese go down to 18 in large part because the national referendum is defined to be open to 18. So national elections now are all open to 18-year-olds and we've watched that in the last couple of elections in Japan. So this is a process and procedures that would be that would accompany revision. So if you've got two-thirds majorities in the lower house and the upper house that are maybe not pro-revision but open to discussion deliberation then you've got the seeds of putting together what it is that they would come together on what where's that sweet spot of consensus. And I would have told you honestly before 2017 that it would be policy rights, it'll be environmental protections, it'll be some 21st century issue. I've changed my mind. And it's interesting to watch. So Abe Prime Minister Abe and his State of the Union or not State of the Union, that's not the right country the New Year's speech right in 2017 or shortly thereafter gave that very famous speech that was videotaped in front of a very pro-revision audience which said let's tweak Article 9 let's add a sentence that says the self-defense forces are constitutional, right? And I thought that's the silliest thing I've ever heard of. I mean that's opening up in Article 9 that's a can of worms, that's going to get all kinds of pushback, that's just not very smart what's he thinking? Guess what? In the 2017 election polling excuse me because I knew you were coming I knew you were coming so I thought we would just balance it a little bit on the other side. The polling on the constitutional issue I think for Yomiuri is really quite complete and quite good and you would think the Yomiuri respondents were pro-revision they're not but there was an interesting question that was asked in 2017 during the election and I thought just to share it with you before Abe called the election so this is mid-September people who agreed with his idea of adding that third sentence to Article 9 in other words keeping the first paragraph keeping the language of the second paragraph intact and just adding some kind of sentence or paragraph that says the Giedai, the self-defense force, exist and they exist or they're constitutional. It's 50% 50% of respondents said you thought that was a good idea. Now again maybe I'm just a really bad predictor of Japanese politics so take that with a grain of salt it's entirely possible but I wouldn't have thought that possible frankly in the middle of the year that he would have gotten that many people to buy into the idea that yeah maybe the constitution, maybe Article 9 needs that extra statement. It dipped a little bit during the election with a couple of percentage points and then by the time you get out once the election was over another poll was taken and sure enough about 50% of the Japanese that the Yomiuri poll said yeah I agree with that. I think you're looking at a con this is just speculation on my part you're looking at a context of intensified pressure and this goes back to the external risk that we've all been talking about and I think the Japanese people maybe a little bit more not necessarily willing to change the nature of their military or to abandon Article 9 which is what everybody outside the country worries about but they may be ready to set aside that internal debate left and right that legacy of the early period of the post-war period where left didn't think the military was constitutional at all and the conservative said it's okay for self-defense so that debate has largely characterized the domestic debate in Japan and maybe the Japanese people are agreeing with Ape it's time to set that internal conversation aside so that the existing self-defense forces don't have any doubt that they are constitutional therefore when we make decisions about our national defense it'll be about national defense now I'm putting a lot of words in Mr. Abe's mouth but it's interesting to me that the debate over constitutional revision even Article 9 revision used to be very focused on that second paragraph right yes we're allowed to have a military yes and the LDP draft calls it a national defense military they change the name they don't really change it substantively but they change the name that's all gone and now you've got one of the more conservative LDP I'd like to call him a hawk but political leaders suggesting let's just get rid of this conversation and the Japanese people I think are moving along on that now does that mean that we're going to have constitutional revision 2018 I'm going to put my money on yes and if you invite me back next year you can say ha ha ha ha so by like to give me a little qualifying wiggle room I think you're going to have at least a negotiation between the political parties that put some language on the page and I think I would not have never said this six months ago or a year ago I think it's going to be that third sentence of Article 9 and it's going to be in the context of North Korea so I'm just unhappy over here I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing we're not making a normative statement but it's easy there seems to be a kind of getting used to it feel in the political and it may be that you now have a constellation of political parties not only because LDP and Komeito bought into it they basically said okay although Komeito's not so comfortable with the okay but I think they would do it Hoyuke's party sure they'd do it but people in that party who are the former people who've been in government and would be DJ you've got all kinds of people who would say yes to that right I think the only people who would say no would be the Japan Communist Party Constitutional Democratic Party we've got the two-thirds majority right if that's what happens so I'm saying it's going to be teed up it would take further time we'll be in 2019 before we get to any possibility of a national referendum in Japan but I'm a little bit more inclined to put a little bit more of my own my own kind of little crystal ball is I think we're going to have a little bit of it 2018 I wrote down the yes but I didn't write down the qualification so I'm rushing on what do you think okay yeah actually our newspaper is sometimes criticized that we are opposing anything about constitutional reform but I was editorial board before I came to Washington and then why don't we discuss about the constitution nowadays the current generation of the writers have a consensus that constitutional reform shouldn't be a taboo we have to debate or we have to start a debate now because there are a lot of issues article 9 issues it is debated discussed for a long time but now once there's a discussion there's an open door of the discussion now there's another point like the emergency situation how to tackle the emergency situation or what about educational issues so the discussion is not so well we have to discuss debate further on various issues on that so actually my main point is we have to start a debate a more real debate right now on what we how we reform the constitution secondly I would like to point out also we have to debate on what the referendum is after the referendum in Britain leading to Brexit and also the presidential election last year the shocking impression that once you have the referendum it would polarize the countries so before the referendum we have to prepare the short discussion and sort of debate on that and then finally if the Japanese population has reached a consensus okay shall we proceed to referendum that's okay but otherwise we have to be careful of that well far be it from me to disagree with Sheila's prediction so instead of predicting yes or no I'm going to more talk about the normative aspect of this and I think as I mentioned if the Japanese government decides to proceed with some kind of a vote and then referendum that's a high risk strategy because what if you lose the vote what does that mean and even if it's only a 20 or 30% chance that's a pretty significant blow I think so I just would point out that it's a high risk strategy and secondly there's a lot of room already for the alliance to move forward and so rather than pursuing some dramatic political step doesn't it make more sense to start implementing the various aspects of our alliance that are already made possible and then the third point is if the Japanese government does move forward with this debate I think that will temper our ability to move forward in areas where we can because the Japanese side will be reluctant to take a daring step that might influence the referendum so I think in the short term the impact on the alliance would actually be negative even though a positive vote obviously opens up things down the road so I'm not going to say yes or no but I'm going to point out the consequences of such a decision I agree actually it would be a very high risk please don't misunderstand me I'm not a proponent of this I'm just making things light so that Abigail and Jim will be happy light and serious I know people will come back next year and go you're wrong but here's the thing that I think is kind of interesting Jim and I think that goes back to the risk idea is if someone wants to point it out you can go to the Asahi polls and I don't think you have pulled on that question to my knowledge anyway on the do you support Mr. Abe's idea of the third paragraph I couldn't find it anyway but if you go on constitutional revision per se it reflects what Salomon Hasan said is that you've got increasing numbers and Asahi readers tend to be more liberal and tend to be a little bit more cautious on the constitutional issues but you get similar numbers it's not like Yomi numbers are very different from Asahi numbers on this question of revision should we talk about it but on the point of risk Abe's election strategy with the high risk strategy too in September he has publicly stepped back from what he said earlier last year which is revision by 2020 so he's taken a step back on that which doesn't mean he's not going to do it I think it just means he's not gotten as complete he's not as forward leaning perhaps on time scales but on the defense stuff just to put something out there by the end of 2018 we will have overcome the hurdles mentioned the conventional strike the strengthening of missile defense systems by the end of 2018 Japan's next five year defense program procurement program will be set in stone it'll be decided probably around sometime in September but it'll be set in stone by a cabinet decision by then so I think there is a way to do link it politically but I'm not sure today and again I would have agreed with you a few months ago but I'm thinking now we're seeing this constitutional issue being actually separated out and I could be wrong on that but that's why I'm a little bit more strategy here one final little point and I think it's interesting we tend to think about elections producing coalition government but what I see now that the fragmentation of the opposition has happened what I see is the LDP is very well placed to be able to have policy coalition this is the one place where they have some room to barter so whether it's Yixing with some of the socioeconomic Abenomics issues where Yixing will say sure, along with you maybe there's a little bargaining room that Aben may have as he tries to do some of the other parties are vested in, just a thought something to look for great and now it's your turn we have about a half hour for questions from the audience Ben thank you very much panel, wonderful event thank you to Jim and Carnegie for hosting again I think Jim's I'm all teased us a little bit by mentioning conventional strike capability but then not actually discussing it at all and I want to tease out what you think Japan will be acquiring in 2018 and will this push the envelope in terms of so-called exclusively defensive defense policy, Sen Shuboe we've already categorically heard that aircraft carriers and ICBMs are outside that but then we're also seeing discussion about using the Isumo class helicopter destroyer as an aircraft carrier with the F-35 on it that's been floated publicly so where are we with transcending Sen Shuboe relative to constitutional revision and how much of that can happen in 2018 I want to hear your comment on that as well thanks for asking that question because I didn't cover that point because I was running out of time so you gave me a few more minutes so thanks very much I think when these discussions came up between the United States and Japan as we were talking the US side had some questions the US government never said no we oppose or we don't agree it's Japan's decision but there were questions and one of the questions was would such a capability be integrated into the alliance or something separate and that their vision for whatever they decide to do would be integrated into the alliance capabilities second question which has not yet been answered is what is the opportunity cost if you spend a lot of money buying this thing whatever it is since your defense budget is limited and you're unlikely to expand what are you not going to be procuring instead and is that thing you're not procuring actually more important to the alliance than the strike capability so that's a question I think the Japanese still will have to answer defense dollars are really short in Japan or defense yen are really short in Japan and then the third area and this is one where I think the bulk of the US Japan alliance discussion will be is it's fine to have a tip of a spear but if you have no spear the tip does you know good so having for example a cruise missile without any ISR to know where you should fire that missile it does you know good and there's a lot of room in places where Japan needs to make more investments to have a more robust capability to understand the situation and to be able to then deploy any kind of a strike capability so I think you'll see a lot of discussion trying to help it's easy for politicians to talk about a strike capability but you need a whole spear not just a tip and there I think there's a lot of room and that again costs a lot of money so I think there'll be some serious discussion so in a way debating what kind of platform or what kind of strike that's an important question but an even more important question is how do you integrate this capability in the alliance in a way where it would be actually something useful and contributing to Japan's defense actually I'm not the expert on that issues but I would like to mention about you know as Jim mentioned that our military budget is very much limited even though the budget is increasing so we have to use wisely and then right now there are some concerns that among the Japanese people that they are they are there are Trump's remarks on American First asking the foreign country to buy their American military equipment is that okay we really need that kind of equipment but now the American President is pushing so hard on the trade issues so we have to figure out what we really need and what we really are being demanded so and also there is also some concern among the Japanese industry that we have to also need investment to the manufacturing industry of Japan Japanese Japanese industry regarding the new technologies or new investment and so on so I'm sorry I don't answer your question but what I would like to say that we have to be be also do think carefully about what we really need and yeah Just briefly Ben to your specific question about Senshu Boy their position began to be developed that this was consistent with Senshu Boy when Ishiba-san was the head of the defense agency and it took some time to develop the language and there's a published paper that Takashi Sugio wrote but I'm writing about this because I'm just finishing up a book on some of the transformations and thinking about the use of force and the Senshu Boy argument has been met that missiles would be a defensive capability the question is the situation in which they're used so within which context would conventional strike be still consistent with Senshu Boy was the focal point of that paper that was developed excuse me by Ishiba-san's group I think Jim's point about how this is going to get integrated into the alliance is really the critical point it's not what capabilities that are bought it's really and I have two pieces one is as Jim pointed out is the hardware piece which is what capabilities are needed for a strong alliance defense and if necessary an alliance war fighting strategy as we all know we don't have that way of talking about the U.S. Japan alliance we don't talk about it in terms of contingency plans and war fighting because we have a little separation between that because of the way we've organized our militaries but there are new platforms coming on the F-35s what they're going to be equipped with for example could give us some conventional strike depending on how they're equipped and it looks like they will be equipped with air to surface missiles which will give them a little bit of a bang for your buck as Jim already pointed out the ISR capability the age-as-a-shore system is very complex it's going to help us with some of that integration I believe so we'll see a little bit more of this later on this year I think when things get a little bit more out in the open but for me also the piece of the integration into the alliance is also about how does the alliance use force together until now because of article 9 we have separated forces in that conception of using force right Japanese have restricted their military to certain operations we do right offensive they do defensive to be consistent with the intent of the constitution if we were going to act like NATO or the US ROK alliance we would have to have a very serious discussion about how do you operationalize article 5 and we are there in terms of need we need to do it I'm not sure we're there in terms of the politics forward because we would go into some territory that ishivasan has already and mayhara for that matter some people have talked about openly which is you know do we have a joint command what kind of structure will we need and what kind of political decision making do we need to put in place so that the United States also has some control over when Japan uses force and Japan has some expectation about when the United States is going to use force right now as far as I know we don't have those understandings clear right it's a case by case scenarios by scenario work it through kind of process is what we've got but it's a huge it's a huge alliance question thank you Russ thank you for a very interesting discussion I've got to ask you sort of the step up level it seems to me that there is a potential growing divergence between the US and Japan sort of world views in terms of the US backing away from the benefits of globalization from the perceived benefits of globalization I should say from international alliances international institutions and Japan is still very much invested there and also with respect to the appropriate US role it's not just a Trump administration thing but if you look at the 2016 campaign on both the left and the right are pulling back in the US from our responsibility as a global leader for enterprises for global benefits and Japan is still deeply invested in Pax Americana in the US playing leadership role so are we headed for this sort of fundamental divergence of however American invested politics let's let each of our panelists have a go at that Jim do you want to start and Sheila and so on big question thanks Russ you raise a very good question and luckily the parameters for which we have to predict the future will be one year so I think I will say in the coming year there will not be a divergence between the US and Japan mainly to be honest because of what the Japanese are doing which is humoring the United States for a time we pulled out of TPP so they're going to continue trying to set up a TPP like organization where the US could later join we pull out of Paris climate change accord they're proceeding so for a while and I think at least I can safely say for the next 12 months I think you do raise a good question longer term is there a potential for divergence and I hesitate to make predictions longer term but I think it's a risk that you point out I'm trying to find the answer it's a quite big question but actually I think of course the TPP issues the United States is pulling out the TPP is quite sadness it's just not only the trade issues but also how to think about our global order facing the emergence of the big China and then probably it could be also the I was very much worried that what happened at the time of the APEC President Trump mentioned about he's always saying like the American first although he is pushing the idea like in the Pacific strategy I don't think it is bad but still when I talked with our colleagues who were there in Vietnam the feeling at the APEC meeting was quite the the how can I say it's the wind is blowing for the China not the United States so I think the still many Japanese people are believing that U.S. should be a guarantor guarantor or protector of the open and the rebel order and then many people still believe that coming back to that basis I think Japan is playing the role that still pursuing between international community in the United States that's why I think the relationship between Mr. APEC and Mr. Trump is good things sometimes we also there are many people criticizing those kind of criticism but as a real chief of the newspaper I don't want to write the negative things about the things I'm not so burdened let me try so I don't know if there is a fundamental divergence because I don't know how to think about 2016 so that's where I'll start so if you think that the 2016 election which I think is where your question started it was a fundamental departure point for the United States then yeah I think we are on a track we could be imagining ourselves on a track whether we'll be fundamental not just with Japan but with our allies in Europe with other countries who have been so committed to partnership with us and in support of the liberal economic order at least my own view just to put it on the table is I don't know yet we've had moments in the past clearly where the United States has reorganized itself you've got the Nixon doctrine and Vietnam you've got Jimmy Carter coming in saying we're pulling our troops out of South Korea that was amended later on so we've had moments where the American people have elected people who are recalibrating America's engagement especially its military commitments but also on trade when Americans were suffering from inflation our economy was a mess because of the war and our global role we had the Smithsonian Agreement we backed away a little bit from our leadership of global economy and we renegotiated the dollar the exchange, the basis of exchange we renegotiated with Japan in the Plaza Accord when that got uncomfortable in the 1980s so we haven't walked away from the system in the way that at least the rhetoric of last year sounded like to many of us so I'm not sure we're walking away I think we may be recalibrating for a domestic audience and then I think what the president wants to do is renegotiate the terms I don't know we'll have to watch it unfold the American people could very well come back and think that this is an experiment that they don't like the outcome of I think the president has to succeed and demonstrate success to the American people of many of his initiatives and so we still have years to go we can see whether that is going to happen or not what I think is interesting about Prime Minister Abe and Japan though is it's the it's the leadership of TPP 11 clearly our allies and partners Japan included are adjusting that adjustment is not going to stop if we change our mind and I'm not sure that adjustment is a bad thing to put that out there maybe it's a good idea to have Angela Merkel and the UK and Japan assume more leadership in the global economic institutions maybe they can form different kinds of coalitions to counterbalance some of the influences from China that may be uncomfortable maybe it's not all about us right in which case we've got stronger global institutions maybe we have to I think we have to keep an open mind about that but I think Japan under Prime Minister Abe has had a very constructive response both embracing but also not shutting down on the fact that he's got Japanese interest to pursue so I think there's some kudos there that go to the leadership that Mr. Abe has demonstrated abroad but here's the thing and this is where we're all implicitly talking about external pressures that could a US-China trade war disastrous for Japan disastrous for the global economy we could have external shocks if you're a historian you can go back to the early 20th century and find lots of them 1930s Japan embraced globalism joined the gold standard knocked off at the exact point when the system failed so again I don't want to end our panel with a catastrophic prediction but it depends on okay we're not going back to the 30s but a lot of what we're talking about here is this unpredictability not just for us and Japan and Europe of these external changes that are going on I think that's the anxiety that we're feeling not just in Japan but in the United States as well so I think we're at this in this moment I don't want to call it geostrategic change and not be clear about it collective management of some of the instability and unpredictability is what's called for here and a kudos to Mr. Abe I'd give a minus a few minus points to our president on that score but we're going to have to figure out how we're going to navigate this moment so that we can avoid these kinds of traumatic then I think all bets are off and maybe a less positive not 2018 but maybe 2020 or 2025 down the road it could be a little bit more hectic we have time for a couple more questions right back there on the aisle oh here you are okay sorry go ahead okay thank you hi I'm Sae Roo May from Sasekawa USA and thank you so much for the great discussion and I had a specific question for Sheila Smith and I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on why we shouldn't expect nationalism now and also what are some new characteristics of Japanese nationalism current Japanese nationalism thank you I don't want to take too much time up here but let me let me just quickly say thank you for the questions Sae Roo when I say I don't expect nationalism it's really the organic kind of nationalism I think what's been interesting to me to watch and again your example of Le Pen in France the referendum in the UK they've been driven by slightly different things than I think we have going on in our politics here in Washington and certainly what's kind of absent in Japanese case and so again we've got family in Scotland and immigration immigration and immigration it's the exodus of people from North Africa and the Middle East battling rattling in the UK and you don't have to be somebody who's actually affected you've lost your job because of it but there are people who feel that they have but it's a process that began even before the Syrian crisis it's a process that began with the expansion of the EU people from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe who came in and took jobs and so there is a deep sense that immigration is no longer in Britain's interest and Britain's attachment to the EU is what the reaction is about right so for me it's an interesting you know if you look at France a little bit when you're watching the elections in Austria and Germany there's two pieces of the puzzle one is the large movement of people and this question of cultural identity is huge in many countries of Europe who are we we need to go back to being who we were and the other piece is economic and that EU in and of itself is not functioning to protect Europe and I think it's an interesting statement because it's a very different conversation than what we're having here we may say immigration in the United States immigration in Europe but the fundamental piece of the conversation is different what we're talking about is the fact of people moving across borders but it's hitting our own cultural identity in different ways in my sense of that Japan doesn't have the immigration issue and so the reactiveness and that kind of organic who are we and how do we defend ourselves against the other who is encroaching on our society and territory is really not as much part of the Japanese debate even though I think Sao Morisan was alluding that it could be right but I think the Japanese nationalism when we think about nationalism in Japan it tends to be more a revisionist historical nationalism we didn't do so bad things in 1930s we go back to rewriting the terms of the post-war both the terms of the peace but also the identity of Japan that came afterwards that was embedded in the Constitution that's Mr Abe's nationalism and I'm not saying that to say it's a good or bad thing it's just a very distinct thing that's different but what you can hear little drips about again in Europe is you go back to hearing some of the right wing parties in Europe are also doing the same out world war two so whether you're in Austria or whether you're in Germany reopening this question or understanding of who we are and who we ought to be and so it is attached to war memory it is attached to the legacy of the post-war and I think so there could be a connecting more similarities but at least in terms of today the politics that brought these parties to power seats in the parliament is a little bit more about immigration about the EU, does it function or not, does it deliver or not who bears the burdens in EU and a little bit less about the revisionist history but I wouldn't say that's where I think on the Japanese side if you had an economic shock or crisis it would stimulate a very similar kind of conversation I think but I don't see the seeds of it as organic I don't see it coming from within and something that challenges the elites of Japan, a very different vision of who Japan is I guess I hope that wasn't too long yeah at the beginning when I I mentioned about what can news dominate Japan's New Year randomly the issue of assault by Mongolian small wrestlers but big news but also I am just concerning that the unhealthy opinion is coming out especially among the internet that deal because a few years ago many people played Mongolian small wrestlers they saved the Japanese traditional sports sort of things but nowadays there are some opinions like they are destroying the Japanese traditional sports and those kind of how can I say the reaction overreaction is a sign of this and also like I said in Japan if I compare the European states and the United States the number of immigrant is very small but actually more and more the residents from holding born residents living in Japan and then even though there is no strategic immigration policies actually actually there are many people working if you go to Tokyo if you go to convenience stores most of the people working there is Chinese or Korean Mongolian or Vietnamese if so we have to be prepared about those kind of demographic change before it getting serious so otherwise if I can stop this trend of the foreign people is coming including the workers or tourists students that's okay but if it is an inevitable scenario we have to be careful of the reaction of the people from the outside time for one more one more question thank you for the great panel I'm Satoshi Nishihata from the Liberty and Happy Science group I attend conference call every month at council on foreign relations by the way as Shira and Sawamura-san pointed out there have been actually no nationalistic political parties in Japan for more than 70 years and the constitutional discussion has been taboo for more than 70 years and I think this is a very extremely unique considering the other countries after World War II and my question is what do you think is the fundamental reason for this uniqueness and what could happen in the future considering the imminent situation like the threat of North Korea or the Chinese pressure thank you it is unusual that a country that is a constitutional democracy has not attempted to change its constitution at all one of the answers could be a technical one which is the hurdle is high Article 96 is two-thirds majority in the lower house and two-thirds majority in the upper house and one of the differences that you put forward to the Japanese people in the form of a national referendum that is a pretty high hurdle I don't know though that there has been an overwhelming demand for change you have always had the LDP the party that says we should revise the constitution but even the LDP for much of those 70 years didn't push hard on the idea of constitutional revision in the face of essays for CFR.org we went back into the 1950s to look at polling and interestingly enough polling back then was consistent polling on this issue was largely done by the government the Japanese government was really trying to figure out whether the Japanese people resented this constitution posed by a foreign power so a lot of the questions are slightly phrased differently than contemporary public opinion they're kind of wondering if the Japanese public is angry about the constitution whether it's theirs or resists it in some way and it was really fascinating to me that in the 1950s the Japanese people there was a little bit more questioning about should we change it maybe we should it wasn't such a taboo but it was not an impelling or compelling yes we must change it because it's foreign let's get rid of it there wasn't that kind of reaction in the polling data so the constitution I think has been an irritant to the conservatives on the right like Mr Abe and his grandfather who see that as an imposition on Japanese national identity he said in the diet a year or two ago, two years ago now it was done by foreigners shiroto people with no experience and in a course of a week slightly mischaracterization of what happened actually but it's clearly the origins of that constitution and bothersome more than the document itself but I think you have a lot of hesitancy about following that idea even today and I think it will be interesting to watch if I am right that we are getting ourselves closer to this debate and a real consensus or compromise on what gets revised you'll hear why people will talk about why and I think it's going to be a more pragmatic as I said earlier let's just stop fighting about the constitutionality issue we need the self defense force for Japan's defenses it's going to be a fairly straightforward not a nationalistic kind of reaction on the larger question of why is there no nationalism in Japan, I would simply say there's always been nationalism it's not like today nationalism was discovered in Europe in the United States or Japan it's just the manifestation of nationalism maybe somewhat different there's always been a cultural nationalism the Japanese are this way and the Japanese are that way it's about who they are as a culture and as a people there's been what some have called a civic nationalism but I don't think it's manifested itself completely in flag waving and militarism and boost stepping that kind of thing which is what we think about in our imagination again I don't think it's going to be something that is organic that comes out of something that is missing all alone it's going to be some exogenous pressure that pushes this conversation a bit further the closest issue I think we've got is the historical revisionism or slash war legacy issues and even then in 2015 on the 70th anniversary we saw a prime minister try to push that down revise, revamp rephrase and not excite light up otherwise be more reactive and push that conversation forward I don't see the Japanese people have an appetite for it it's quite simple well thank you for that if you're interested nationalism has come up here if you're interested in more there's a further discussion of it in some very nice podcasts that Sheila has on the Council of Foreign Relations website the election USA has had a continuing series of articles on constitutional revisions so I'm sure that during 2018 that topic will be addressed and I'm sure that the Asahi Shimbun will continue to address it during the year we've had a covered a lot of ground here but I leave you with two thoughts the first time we did this was in 2013 after the election Prime Minister Abe and all of the experts confidently predicted that there was no chance that Prime Minister Abe would tackle TPP before the upper house election so we did have everybody coming back the next year having forgotten that they had made that prediction but the panelists agree that something is going to happen around constitutional revision in Japan in 2018 and the other thought is that all of the discussions that we've had here particularly around the security issues one of the points that I think each of the panelists have made is that the issues that are likely to come up have had a lot of serious discussion over the years and the thing that could change that the issue that might come up in 2018 which hasn't had the security hasn't had the careful deliberation are issues related to trade and that's a caution that Jim gave and that Sheila Anso-Armaroson mentioned and that's something to watch over for 2018 are there issues that come up with that relation to trade that haven't been sort of washed through a lot of the experts and careful political process with that let me thank all of our free panelists for their thoughtful discussion and our announcements we're okay I listening to this first panel you guys did a great job getting us started truly thoughtful, serious and yet still light hearted and it reminds me to say a special word of appreciation that without the panelists and speakers that we have here today really contributing their time and the preparation we wouldn't have the program that we have so I just want to say a real thank you to you and in advance to our other panelists for those contributions so please thank me join me in thanking our panel