 Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the third and final session of this year's ANU Japan Update. My name is Lauren Richardson and I'm a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at ANU. As we commence tonight, I would like to acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians from whose traditional lands this webinar is being streamed and pay our respect to the elders present and past and present. So tonight's event is being recorded. As you know, for those who've joined us from the original session, we first looked at Japan's response to the coronavirus from a domestic perspective. We then moved on to look at the economic impact of the coronavirus on Japan. And in tonight's session, we'll be looking at how the pandemic has shaped Japan's foreign and security policy. I think that when the pandemic first started and we saw the lockdown in Wuhan, China, I think none of us could have predicted how extensive the spread of the virus would be. And also that we couldn't have imagined how much it would shape the regional order and also the global order. We've seen a lot of intensification of diplomatic friction in the region. And because Japan has been playing such a big role in the region, a major role under the Abe administration, there are very significant implications for Japan. So as with the previous night's panels, we've assembled a stellar panel of experts to help us unpack the dynamics of the pandemic and how they've shaped Japan's foreign and security policy. And it's not just the pandemic, of course. We've also had the bombshell announcement of Prime Minister Abe's resignation, which is very much the end of an era for Japanese politics. So we'll of course be reflecting on that tonight. So our panelists have joined us from Kaio University, Murdoch University and the National Institute for Defence Studies in Japan. I'll be introducing them all in order that they speak. The format for tonight's session will be slightly different than previous sessions. Our panelists will not be using PowerPoint. Their presentations will be slightly shorter than previous nights. And we're really hoping that audience questions will drive our analysis and our discussion. So I strongly encourage you all to start sending through your questions as soon as they arise in your minds, and we'll get through as many of them as we can. Our session tonight is one and a half hours. We will be finishing on time. So very excited to dive into the topics. Our first speaker tonight perhaps needs no introduction. We have Yashihide Soya, who is Professor Emeritus at Kaio University. So after retiring as a professor from Kaio last March in 2020, well he's up until that point had a really stellar career as an academic. His expertise includes the politics and security environment of East Asia and Japanese diplomacy in its external relations. He holds a PhD from University of Michigan. And he served as the director of the Institute of East Asia Studies at Kaio University for six years and director of its Center for Contemporary Korean Studies for five years. So Professor Soya will be looking at Japan's current strategic setting in North East Asia. And we'll also reflect on other as a politician and policymaker. And we'll also look at the Indo-Pacific. So thank you, Professor Soya, for joining us tonight. Thank you, Lauren, for all your kind introduction. And I would like to thank the organizer for inviting me to this annual Japan Update conference. Of course, I wish I could have gone to Canberra for the meeting. But because of, yeah, the well-known problem, I'm speaking from my residence. Incidentally, background is not my residence. Those who are familiar with Mita campus, this is one of the buildings on Mita campus called Enzetsukan, where Fukuzawa started the practice of speech after opening up with the country. I like this picture. That's why I use it as a background. Well, in my short presentation, let me talk about basically three things. One is the current strategic environment, which is not any news to, I think, the audience and everybody. But secondly, a little bit of reflection upon our base policies and how I see them. And I will end with the usual topic on the Indo-Pacific, the importance of this kind of regional concept. And maybe I don't have to spend much time in talking about US-China rivalry. But one thing which I want to stress is the kind of nature of Chinese increasing assertiveness, which cannot be accounted for necessarily by kind of traditional West Western-centered international theories. And recent behaviors of China seem to signal its strong determination to so-called so-and-so recover its traditional sphere of influence commensurate to its power in Asia and maybe beyond. And the enactment of the Hong Kong National Security Law on June 30th would virtually mean, very unfortunately, an end to Hong Kong political autonomy and maybe democracy. But many would also worry its tacit but intrinsic linkage with Beijing's Taiwan policy over the very long run, which is compounded by the steady build-up of Chinese anti-access, anti-denial capabilities against the possible US military intervention. And the United States sees a Chinese assertiveness as a challenge to the US primacy in the Indo-Pacific, as well as a danger to democratic institutions and values domestically and externally. And the United States, well, many, many observers point out that a pandemic caused by the COVID-19 simply adds to the complication of the bilateral relationship and accelerates its rivalry. If left unattended, the impact of deteriorating US-China relations on the future of a regional order in the Indo-Pacific will be two-fold. First, to the extent that US-China confrontation keeps getting intensified, the space for independent action of countries in the region will continue to shrink. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused many countries to tighten their border control and opt for national actions to cope with the spread of the virus, discouraging them from thinking and acting regionally and globally. And as a result, regional countries are being pressed into the situation of having to choose sides between the United States and China. And in order to avoid this loss of autonomy on our part, the revitalization of multilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific is in dire need. And I'll come back to this point later, but before that, a little bit on Prime Minister Abe who announced resignation in late August. Well, people ask a question whether Prime Minister Abe is an ideologue or a realist. And in fact, I think he is both. And Mr. Abe has had strong preoccupation with some of the ideological core agenda for him, including the revision of post-war constitution in general, and that of the war renouncing Article 9 in particular, and educational reforms and the role and place of the memories of history in the post-war Japanese society and the politics, as well as among Japanese neighbors. And Prime Minister Abe dug these core genders as a departure from the post-war regime, whose ultimate goal is, according to his own words, recover true independence by creating the core structure of the state from scratch by the hands of the Japanese people. And some of the foreign policy agenda of Prime Minister Abe reflected some aspects of these rather ideological beliefs, which have naturally caused friction mostly with Japan's immediate neighbors, such as China and South Korea. Other policies, however, that do not have much discord with these core agenda have been advanced more or less within the post-war parameters of Japanese diplomacy, where many observers characterize Mr. Abe as being realistic. And I think both of these were true in his policy performances. But still, the third, a bit more complex and difficult type of Abe's diplomacy comes from a mixture of these two categories and whose origin could be rather ideological, but the outcome is realistic in the sense that it falls within the framework of Japanese diplomacy. And in my observation analysis, value-based diplomacy of the first Abe administration and the 2015 security legislation under the second administration and free and open Indo-Pacific strategy are three typical cases belonging to this third category. And of course, for the lack of time, I will skip the first agenda and come to FIOP. Well, it is widely believed that FIOP advocated by Japanese Prime Minister Abe is indeed a counter strategy against Belt and Road Initiative of China. In mid-2018, however, the Abe administration stopped calling this initiative strategy and instead labeled it a vision. And this decision coincided with Abe's official visit to China in October 2018, which was the first one by the Japanese Prime Minister in the previous seven years. Abe met with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Kuchang and confirming that the bilateral relationship was now back to a normal track. Since then, Xi Jinping's state visit to Japan became an important agenda and it was once agreed that she would visit Japan in the spring of this year, which is now being postponed due to COVID-19 turmoil. And as a result, Japanese vision of FIOP was now reverted to a virtual rebranding of the long-held Japan's regional policies since the end of the Cold War, including the reaffirmation of the merits of ASEAN-centered processes and the institutions. And in June 2019, ASEAN itself adopted the ASEAN outlook on Indo-Pacific and virtually declared that the ASEAN way is still effective in managing cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. A central element of the ASEAN way is the inclusiveness of the membership of the ASEAN-centered institutions. In my view, this, however, now could work as a double-edged sword under the intensifying US-China rivalry. Inclusiveness is an important precondition for cooperative security but could become a venue for big powers to control other smaller members. In fact, differing attitudes of ASEAN member states toward China and perhaps to the US too have already weakened ASEAN solidarity. And against these backgrounds, I have been emphasizing in recently the importance of cooperation among other states being in a way sandwiched between China and the United States, other than ASEAN, and most notably Japan, Australia, and India. And there has been series of bilateral agreements between these two countries. But one important phenomena that I'd like to leave you with is a new development which is an inception of an official Japan-Australia-India dialogue by vice ministers of foreign affairs of these three countries. And in 2015, there were four rounds of trilateral vice minister meetings among Japan, India, and Australia. And I was just recently told by an official of ASEAN and embassy in Tokyo that just recently there was exactly the same trilateral setting imposed among officials of economic ministries of these three countries. And they were talking about strengthening and reforming supply chains in the Pacific among the three countries. And so I think there is a foundation upon which these core members of the Indo-Pacific countries, aside from ASEAN, can work together and build cooperation. And one significant phenomena of the outcome of these dialogues among the three members is the reaffirmation of ASEAN centrality. And so which might I think suggest that eventually ASEAN's experiences along tested merits of regional cooperation could be reinforced by newly emerging cooperation among these other members of the Indo-Pacific. So I will stop here and look forward to questions and discussions. Thank you very much, Professor Sawyer. It was wonderful to get that broad overview of the region and what's going on. And I should also mention to the audience that Professor Sawyer has a great new opinion article on this topic where he lays a framework for cooperation between Australia, India, South Korea, and Japan in the latest edition of the East Asia Forum quarterly. So it's good to see some questions coming through already. And I should also mention that we're happy to receive comments as well. I know there's a lot of people who have views on this debate about whether Prime Minister Abe is more of a pragmatist or an ideologue. So feel free to send through your comments as well. So our next speaker this evening is, I'm delighted to introduce is Professor Ricky Kirsten, who's an emeritus professor at Murdoch University. She previously held the position of Executive Director of the Asia Research Institute at Murdoch. And prior to this served as Interim Pro Vice Chancellor of the College of the Arts at Murdoch and as Dean of Arts from 2014 to 2019. Professor Kirsten also held teaching and research positions at the University of Sydney, Layton, Keio, Tokyo, and the ANU where she was also Dean of the College of the Asia and the Pacific. Professor Kirsten is also a former Australian diplomat to Japan. And her research interests focus on Japanese history, politics, security policy, and foreign policy. So tonight we're delighted that Professor Kirsten is going to talk about how COVID is going to affect Japan's security thinking in the post-Abbe era. Thanks very much, Ricky. Thank you very much, Lauren, for that generous introduction. And I'd like to start by bouncing off Professor Sawyer's presentation. This fascinating dichotomy within Prime Minister Abe's policy orientation that you referred to, the ideological versus the practical, the realistic, or the pragmatic. I wondered if, when we're done with the presentations, whether you could explain why it is that the ideological elements in Prime Minister Abe's policy orientation can actually end up damaging Japan's national interest without it appearing to him to violate the practical, realist, or pragmatic aspects of his thought. How can this be rationalised by Prime Minister Abe? And I'm particularly thinking of Japan ROK relations in that respect. So I'd be very keen to hear Professor Sawyer's thoughts on that. But as Lauren just indicated, I'd like to just consider how COVID has affected Japan, but particularly how it might impact a post-Abbe security policy environment. The first point I'd like to make is, I think it's very important that we don't confuse Prime Minister Abe's ideological and policy ambition with actual achievements. However, at the same time, we shouldn't assume that the failure to achieve major policy ambitions on his part means that significant change did not occur in the security or foreign policy realms, because I believe such change has occurred. The questions that I'd like to address are whether Abe did achieve a significant normative shift regarding security and foreign policy in Japan or indeed elsewhere. And consider how COVID has impacted the security environment during the transition to the post-Abbe administration, which is where we are currently at. The COVID impact, I think, just to deal with this quite quickly. I think it's being analysed around the world in a quite similar way. And Professor Sawyer also referred to this. First of all, there's an evident inwards focus where political competence of leaders are judged according to their domestic COVID management. This has consequential impacts on the trust that is evident between civil society and the political leadership of countries. And this is very much the case in Japan. And the inwards focus is also evident in more attention being paid on a sovereign manufacturing autonomy as a priority in strategic thinking. A second impact of COVID is that it's a massive distraction. It's distracting regional powers and it provides room, I think, for opportunistic disruption by malign entities. I think as a result of this, there's an increased need for collaborative surveillance, monitoring and information sharing at a time when national resources are stretched. So we should be looking for an awareness and a commitment that the strategic requirements that I've just outlined are really quite important despite the pandemic being currently the dominant political concern. I think another impact of COVID is that it provides opportunity particularly to demonstrate the utility and social good of military collaboration at home and abroad by engaging in COVID relief diplomacy. And we've seen this happening in a kind of competitive way, including between Japan and China in their international pandemic aid initiatives. As Professor Sawyer has already outlined, another impact of COVID in terms of strategic impact is the intensification of US-China strategic competition is now occurring with a strong rhetorical element, for example, the Wuhan virus. And this is making quite clear to all of US allies and security partners, as Professor Sawyer said, that the prospect of being forced to choose sides is becoming just that much closer. And so if we consider this COVID impact in this environment, I think we've seen Prime Minister Abe redouble his efforts to strengthen regional security relations right up until the announcement of his retirement or resignation. And this is particularly important when we consider the attention that Prime Minister Abe has personally paid and the initiatives he has led with respect to bilateral Japan-India security relations. And I think from looking at this through a COVID lens, we could see that this may have the potential to mitigate this absolute choice conundrum that is emerging as a result of US-China strategic competition. If I turn to Abe's normative legacy, I think the first thing that comes to mind is that Prime Minister Abe has convincingly established Japan's place as a country that wants to and does see itself as the guardian of liberal internationalism. Now there's a lot of things we can say about that, providing a contrast with or implying a contrast with China being one of the things, but there is ballast here. Abe's initiative salvaging the TPP, the free and open Indo-Pacific initiative, defence aid and capacity building in ASEAN, the quality infrastructure initiative in the G20. All of these things give real heft to a claim that Japan is acting as a guardian of liberal internationalism at the very least in the Indo-Pacific and Asia-Pacific region. If we continue to consider a normative legacy, it's also true if we look at the Pew survey results that Japan is more trusted than strategic competitors in its region, particularly Southeast Asian nations trust Japan more than they trust, for example, China. And this credibility that Japan has is considerably enhanced by the creation of a solid security policy-making bureaucracy in the form of the National Security Council, the whole of government coordination that it achieves, and the fact that this will be a legacy of Prime Minister Abe's. In other words, he has institutionalised a strengthened security policy-making capability in contemporary Japan. Another legacy we can refer to is that I think Prime Minister Abe has enabled the establishment or the creation of international security networks to be better accepted in Japan as a force for stability in the world and in the region. Yes, it's about counterbalancing China in the main. It's also about spreading the risk of a less engaged U.S., but it certainly isn't about hedging against U.S. withdrawal from the region. And I think that's an important point to make. Continuing to look at the normative legacy, we are today witnessing a discussion in Japan about whether and how Japan should engage in force projection under very specific conditions and constraints, especially since the cancellation of the Aegis assure commitment. But it's unavoidable that we also observe that part of Abe's normative legacy is that any evolution in Japan's security posture must be framed in terms that appropriate or reflect the still dominant pacifist sentiment in Japanese public opinion. So what I think Abe has achieved is that he has identified a pathway between residual pacifist norms and security imperatives. In other words, he has helped to articulate the norms of a constrained pacifist power. In terms of post Abe, these are the opportunities and threats that I think emerge in a post Abe policy security policy environment in Japan. Clearly, there's an opportunity to reset problem areas that strategically weaken Japan and the efficacy of the alliance with the U.S. And again, I'm thinking of Japan, our ROK relations here, but Japan-China relations are also significant. Another opportunity, and Professor Sawyer alluded to this, is the opportunity to consolidate the strategic momentum that Prime Minister Abe established particularly in engaging India in the security arrangements in the Indo-Pacific region. The development of networks, security networks in the Indo-Pacific that are concurrent with renewed efforts to keep the U.S. engaged in Asia, that strategic momentum needs to be continued. And the question is, can his successor do this? Another opportunity or threat that we can identify is the opportunity to sustain some level of multilateral cooperation despite the distractions of COVID-19. To continue the trust building, the habits of cooperation and enhancing operational effectiveness both inside and outside of Japan, in other words, what Prime Minister Abe has called proactive pacifism, this is again an opportunity that sits before any successor. Threats include the danger of destabilization of regional states internally, particularly the economic aftermath of COVID has to be included now in strategic planning. And we can see that partly due to COVID, Japan will issue a new national security strategy, but not only that, a new national defence program guideline and a new midterm defence program that will include security planning for future pandemics. Now the significant thing here is all of this is going to happen in an incredibly compressed timeframe because by the end of September, budget bids have to be in if the normal budget process is going to take place. So to conclude, I know I'm talking a bit too long here, sorry Lauren, I think the legacy of Prime Minister Abe in security terms partly comprises the creation of a template for incremental change to Japan's evolution as a constrained but engaged regional power, particularly in defence diplomacy and security network building in the Indo-Pacific. COVID has offered Japan an opportunity to consolidate the normative standing of the self-defence forces at home, particularly in its pandemic humanitarian assistance disaster relief roles in 30 out of the 47 prefectures in Japan, which is what has been happening at the moment. And I think finally, as I just mentioned, COVID has justified the issuing of a new national security strategy, which will reveal how Japan's assessment of security challenges in a post-COVID world will shape Japanese security policy, including on force projection, navigating US-China attention and responding to China's presence in the South China Sea. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ricky. It was wonderful to get that really nuanced analysis of Abe's legacy. And yeah, I think what's really coming through is that there is a strong need for some multilateral cooperation and we're getting a lot of questions through about that, which we'll come back to. So our next speaker this evening and our final speaker is Tomohiko Satake, who is a senior research fellow at the National Institute for Defence Studies in Tokyo. He was formerly a visiting fellow at the Australia-Japan Research Center between 2015 and 16, and he also holds a PhD from the ANU and a master's from Keio University. His research focuses on alliance politics, Japanese security, and Japan security cooperation with Australia. We're delighted that he's going to be presenting tonight. He'll talk more about the US-China tensions and how that's impacting on Japan. Thanks, Dr. Satake. All right, thanks, Roland. And I'd like to thank AJRC for inviting me to this Japan update. I'm especially honored to join this panel with a distinguished guest, including my mentor, Professor Soya at Keio University. Now, I'd like to discuss how Japan has been searching for greater autonomy amid the intensifying US-Sino rivalry, especially in this post-pandemic world. So simply put, I think Japan's security environment has been getting worse and worse, especially because of this pandemic. I've been saying that Japan's security environment became bad over the past decade, but this time surely it accelerated this trend, because during the pandemic, for example, the US military temporarily terminated the overseas deployment, including some major military exercises with original allies and partners. And the United States suffered from the largest number of deaths because of these infection diseases. And that not only impacted on US soldiers in the homeland, but also US soldiers stationed in Japan. Meanwhile, China continued to expand its maritime and air presence in the region surrounding Japan. And just for example, between January and March of this year, Chinese coastal ships navigated in waters contiguous to the Senkaku Islands 289 times. And that was a 57% increase from the same period last year. And I don't think the US extended the terms of severely damaged because of this pandemic. I think US military maintained a sufficient level of readiness even during the pandemic, but nonetheless, I think this pandemic created some both psychological and physical gaps in US extended deterrence, which also provided some greater maneuverability for the Chinese military to step up their activities in the region. At the same time, Japan's economy is hugely affected by this pandemic. Disruptions, supply chains, one thing, and the Japanese automobile industry, for example, was hot. They have many factories in Newfoundland and the lockdown of Newfoundland China. Also Japan's tourism industry, especially the wine in Hokkaido, for example, has been severely damaged by the sudden decline of Chinese business. China's so-called economic coercion, including the control over trade, supply chain, and tourist visits from China to some countries also increased some risks of over-dependence on China in terms of economy. I think Japanese people are closely watching the recent trade spot between China and Australia after Australia's call for independent inquiry of COVID-19 in April this year. I think facing this reality, Japan has been searching for a greater autonomy if not independent in terms of both security and economic policies. Let me take just one example. Japanese policymakers have recently discussed the so-called introduction of the enemy-based strike capabilities, which is called the Tekikichi Koyaki Inori. This striking enemy's basis is not necessarily a preemptive attack or preventive attack against adversaries. Instead, it's like a counter-strike capabilities. Just in case the adversaries try to attack Japan or already attack Japan. This is nothing new. We've been discussing this issue for many years since the end of the Cold War, but every time we discuss this enemy-based strike capability, we reach to the same conclusion. It doesn't make so much sense for Japan to have this kind of capabilities. As long as we can rely on the U.S. counter-strike capabilities. But this time the story is a bit different, partly because North Korea has developed some missile modernization, including the development of ICBM that can reach to the U.S. homeland, and partly because U.S. strategic primacy in the region has been increasingly challenged by Chinese military. In order to fill the gap of these U.S. extended deterrence, Japan has tried to adapt to more robust and more self-reliant defense posture. That will also strengthen the U.S. Japan alliance, not weaken, strengthen the U.S. alliance. That's a common debate in Japanese security community these days. I think Japan has also tried to reduce its economic dependence on China by diversifying its supply chains. And based on the decision in April, the many you know, the mystery of economy and trade industry has already approved 87 projects by Japanese firms to financially support for their diversification of supply chain from China to Southeast Asia and to Japan. So diversification and autonomy, these are kind of key phrases to typify Japan's response to COVID-19. Now, I think these are kind of natural responses by Japan to this crisis. But having said that, I think there are many problems there. And simply put, Japan's quest for autonomy is a kind of long year project. It takes time. And even if Japan can gain long range missiles, for example, Japan continues to rely on the U.S. in terms of the, you know, searching, capturing and destroying those targets. So without U.S. help, we can't, you know, attack military bases of enemy and so on. Japan doesn't have any capability to destroy the aerial defense network of enemies. And Japan also continued to rely on the missile defense system that requires a close cooperation with U.S. military. And then the same can be said to the economic diversification or economic autonomy. You know, it's true that the government tried to finance some Japanese firms to diversify their supply chain overseas. But, you know, these firms will not only be considered as a financial cost, but also calculate various costs and benefits of diversification, such as market size, the quality of infrastructure, and the labor costs and so on. So I'm not quite sure if these Japanese companies can quickly find some alternative place to China for their commercial activities. Meanwhile, the U.S. Sino library has intensified rapidly. And I think that's been growing risks of the conflict escalation between these two regional giants. And I don't think Japan maintains neutrality when conflicts occur between the U.S. and China. Japan and the U.S. allies so we definitely support the U.S. military. But at the same time, you know, that's the kind of nightmare the U.S. Sino conflict is a nightmare for all Japanese precinct makers, and perhaps even more a nightmare than the U.S. Sino's approach. And if that's the case, I think Japan should continue to encourage some dialogue between the United States and China by taking advantage of a good relationship with both countries. You know, the emergence of the so-called new Cold War might be inevitable, but, you know, at least we have to avoid the emergence of hot war between two countries. I think Japan also should enhance cooperation with a regional and maybe extra regional countries or middle powers, you know, to create the so-called third peer neither China nor the United States. And I think with these middle powers, you know, Japan can reform and revitalize some multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, WHO, and WTO and so on. And quite obviously, you know, Australia is the most reliable partner for Japan to take that kind of initiative. I think there are, you know, plenty of things Japan also can cooperate, not only, you know, in the security area, but also in global healthcare, for example. And it's especially important to strengthen healthcare in some vulnerable regions and countries such as Southeast Asia or South Pacific. And I think both countries have a good quality of skills, know-how, and even the military, you know, in this medical quality. So I think, you know, there are many things Japan can cooperate in this area. And also, we have to work hard to involve other regional and extra regional players, such as India, South Korea, Afghanistan, the UK and France, and maybe Germany as well, into these middle power, you know, networks. So I hope this COVID-19 would be a good wake-up call for all regional middle powers to step up their activities. Maybe I stop here and try to respond to some comment or question. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sataka-san. That was a wonderful presentation. And yeah, I really like the idea of this middle power cooperation emerging from the unfortunate context of the pandemic. As I said, we've heard a lot of questions about multilateral cooperation, especially middle power cooperation and the Quad, which we'll come back to. So this brings us now to our Q&A session. I've received a lot of fantastic questions. So I'll invite all our panelists to come back and join in. I think I'll first ask Professor Sawyer if you'd like to respond to Ricky's question about how the ideological aspects of Prime Minister Abe's policy may have affected his relations with neighboring countries or Japan's relations with neighboring countries, especially South Korea. And I'll also add to that one of the questions from Peter Lee, my colleague at ANU, Department of Strategic and Defense Studies, who's asked that, given your expertise about Japan-South Korea relations, what do you think are the prospects for their reconciliation or cooperation under President Moon and the next Japanese PM? Will we have to wait till 2022 to see any real improvement? And I'll come back to his next question. That's all for now. Thank you. Maybe that's enough. Well, I think Ricky's question and Professor Lee's questions are very much connected. And well, there are various ways of addressing this question, but I'm still thinking how best to. As far as ideological aspect of Prime Minister Abe, at least in his public statement, he has not expressed anything like sort of beautifying past history or kind of revising the post-war stories. And he ended up endorsing virtually the Murayama statement and the Kono statement. And what he really believes in could be different. Yes, of course. But as a kind of leader of Japan, as it turned out, he couldn't express all those things and base his policies on those, what he really believes in. But one thing which he has not considered, so beautifying history and so forth, has never been part of his performance. And but one thing which has not which he has not given in is the point that this game of criticism and apologies should end and should not be passed over to the next generation. You know, this phrase is in his 17th year, you know, speech on history. And this point is very strong. So putting an end to this game, I think he has a very strong point on this. And Japanese public in general, if he had expressed, you know, some some typical kind of revisionist views about history, I mean, that would have split the Japanese society as well. But he hasn't done that. But this point about, you know, putting an end to this, you know, resonates many Japanese feelings of so called, you know, history fatigue and so forth. So I think this this kind of, you know, this was well communicated into the public sentiments. But the thing is that on the part of Korea, South Korea, their baseline is totally the opposite. You know, there is no such thing as an end, you know, to do this. And why Mr. Lee agreed to the 2013, you know, comfort women, you know, agreement. I think this point is most critical, because in that agreement, there was there was an item which says this would be closed, you know, completely and irreversibly. And, you know, this this is this is very important. And this is very important for me. I think that's why he kind of agreed to this. But this was a kind of this this was a very courageous thing on the part of President Park Gune to do. And as it turned out, you know, this United, you know, huge oppositions in Korea, and which led to eventually President Moon's line of sort of not accepting this agreement. And and that's how the kind of new rounds of, you know, kind of exchanges of words as well as policies, you know, started between Abe administration and the Moon administration. And so I think basically this structure of how history is being seen in Japan and in Korea, almost 180 degrees opposite. I think this is the structural sort of aspect of the relationship between Japan and South Korea and the President Moon and the Prime Minister Abe. And the question as to how things would emerge and the next Prime Minister Khan, not sorry, Asuga. And he has not been chosen yet, but it is almost for sure that everybody takes it for granted. And myself included, of course. And nobody knows as long as following his words, he is saying he will follow the footsteps of Prime Minister Abe. And particularly in terms of foreign policy. Mr. Asuga is not a foreign policy person. And I don't think he has any, you know, clear kind of framework or ideology or concept as to, you know, what Japanese foreign policy ought to be. So my safe bet is he will, you know, try to work, walk, you know, on somewhat tight rope and without damaging basic legacies. But not necessarily, you know, building on the same sort of ideological, you know, beliefs. And so depending on how things evolve, and particularly how Korean side would also react, there are small chances, I think, of improvement. But if things continue, business as usual, maybe the same situation will continue for the time being. And for the time being being perhaps until the next presidential election of LDP is held one year later. And one of the questions asked whether Mr. Abe will remain influential in the course of this, you know, evolution in the 12 months. And again, he will not do that openly, perhaps. But there will be tacit sort of, you know, agreement between Suga and Abe that Mr. Asuga is not going to contradict Mr. Abe. I don't know whether that's going to be called influence or not. But I think that will be that's up to what I can say now. Thank you for the questions. Thank you very much, Professor Sawyer. That was great. So I'm now going to move on. I'll try to combine a couple of questions again, this time for Satake-san, I think, a couple of questions about Japan-Australia relations. So one of the questions was that, obviously, Prime Minister Morrison regarded Abe as a quote friend and mentor. And they clearly had a very strong interpersonal bond. And that benefited the relationship quite a lot. So in the post-Abet era, do you think Australia, Australian diplomacy will lose some of its momentum and confidence without having a similarly strong friend and mentor in Japan? And one other question from Alicia O'Reilly, the Japan Foundation. So you might have heard that, well, as you said, we need stronger middle-power cooperation, especially between, you know, maybe Japan and Australia. But there's been some recent budget cuts to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and trade resulting in even a scaled down Australian presence in Tokyo. And, you know, so how will this maybe affect their ability to cooperate? And also we're spending more on defence, but less on diplomacy. So how do you think that will maybe shape the relationship, those dynamics, between Japan and Australia? Okay, thanks, Roland. I totally agree that Prime Minister Abe contributed to the strong security cooperation between Japan and Australia. He's the one who upgraded this relationship to what is called special strategic partnerships. And I know he was personally committed to strong Japan-Australian relations, you know. But I don't like the idea to attribute everything to, you know, this Prime Minister Abe or his personal factors. You know, when it comes to Japan-Australian cooperation, for example, actually, you know, this relationship has developed since the early 2000s or, you know, even from the 1990s. And for this, you know, another example, but the, you know, this is actually, you know, this belongs to Prime Minister Abe, of course. He actually announced this concept in August 2016. But even before Abe, you know, Japan tried to encourage cooperation to India, Australia, and also, you know, infrastructure development, capacity building, and, you know, development so on. So these are nothing actually new. So what Prime Minister Abe did is, I think maybe frame in one package under the name of FOIP, which are not necessarily new in terms of Japanese diplomacy. I think it's kind of gradually evolved, you know, over the past maybe a decade. And if that is the case, I think FOIP will most likely continue, even under the new administration. I'm not sure if the new Prime Minister would use the term FOIP, but something like FOIP would definitely continue as a natural response to this changing geographical reality, you know, surrounding Japan. And when it comes to budget issues, I read that, you know, this is a very severe situation. I heard that the Japan's fiscal deficit this year rose to 66.1 trillion yen, you know, 66.1 trillion yen, which is very huge. And Japan has a plan to achieve a primary balance surplus by 2025, but it seems to be unrealistic to achieve this target now, you know. But I think, you know, what I'd like to emphasize is it's not only Japan, but also all other countries suffer from this, you know, budget difficulties. And if that is the case, maybe we can probably cooperate more in order to cope with these financial difficulties. I think we can recall some international cooperation after the Asian financial crisis, you know, for example, or maybe even Bretton's system after World War II, for example. But some kind of, you know, multilateral framework of cooperation is necessary for the budgetary recovery, I think. So that's my answer. Thank you very much. Tom, that was great. So I'd just like to now turn to Ricky with a couple of questions. First, I have a comment from Dr. Andrew Loviti, who's affiliated with Cambridge University. Good friend of mine. His comment was, I would like to delve a bit deeper into Ricky's framing of Abish Japan as a defender of the liberal international order, while Japan might embrace technological, economic, cultural, and political interconnectedness. There seems always to have been a tension in Tokyo's engagement and embrace of the US-led liberal order. Liberal order. Maybe it is in the tensions of Japan's engagement with the US-led international order that might provide insights into how conservative politicians in Tokyo might navigate the realignments of international order in the years ahead. So you may want to comment on that or not. But I also have a question for Ricky. I know you've talked a lot about this in the media and given some great responses. How should Abish's term be remembered? There seems to be a tension between how Japanese see his policies. They tend to be focusing on the failures of the COVID response. There's quite a negative domestic legacy. But the international response to his resignation seems to be reflecting in a really overwhelmingly positive way. So would you like to comment on that kind of difference or those tensions? Gee, there's a lot there. Andrew, I think we could have a lot of conversations over several bottles of wine about this one. Talking about the liberal international order tensions that you refer to regarding the US-led international order. I think what's very interesting about what Prime Minister Abe's administrations have done in this regard is to step in to the places in international liberalism and particularly its institutions with trade. As I mentioned, the TPP, the principle of multi-lateralism as something that is to the benefit of all nations rather than exclusive arrangements. These are the things that strike me about Prime Minister Abe's deliberate positioning of Japan as the guardian of the liberal international order. TPP and the free and open Indo-Pacific initiative are two very clear examples of this. But if we look at Prime Minister Abe's diplomatic activism over his seven years and eight months in office, I think we see a commitment to the creation of sub-alliance and additional security partnerships and networks that are not entirely dependent upon the US and the perception that the US is withdrawing from multi-lateral institutions. And we've seen this is the case. There are many examples of this, including in the realm of climate change, for example, in addition to trade. Japan has stepped in to those areas. And in those respects, I think guardian of the liberal international order is provocative language that I've used to describe what I think is a very deliberate strategy on the part of successive Abe administrations. And that is to firmly align Japan with free trade, rule of law, multi-lateralism, for lots of reasons, partly because it's clearly in Japan's national interest, partly because it represents such a lovely contrast with, by implication, China, for example, or we might even argue Russia. I could go on and on about this, but I think that would be hogging the airwaves. So in terms of how should Prime Minister Abe be remembered and the discrepancy between domestic and international valuations, I answered a question from Donna Wicks through the chat about this. I think it's perfectly understandable that evaluations differ. Prime Minister Abe was very present in the foreign policy sphere in diplomacy, often leading from the front, lending his personal weight to initiatives such as FOIP. It would be a thankless task, indeed, to be a foreign minister in Prime Minister Abe's administrations because somebody else is occupying that space. At home, there are other considerations, notably the scandals that continued to bedevil haunt Prime Minister Abe, including in recent months, coming back and coming back again. Scandals that we can't necessarily distance Mr. Suga from. And for that reason alone, I think foreign observers of Japanese politics need to be aware of the domestic climate surrounding any potential successor. And no one was closer to Prime Minister Abe during the seven years, eight months, than the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Mr. Suga. So if we have a whiff of scandal accompanying Prime Minister Abe on his way out, that same whiff is going to re-enter the room with Mr. Suga. Thank you very much, Rikki. That was great. Okay, my next question will go to Professor Sawyer. I think, and this is a question from my good colleague Ben Ashion at the Crawford School at ANU. And his question is, what is the future of the constitutional revision project after the resignation of Prime Minister Abe? Will a Suga administration pursue it and frame it in ideological terms like Abe? And there was also one other question, which I think is connected. I'm not sure if you touched on this already. Please tell me if you did, that even though Prime Minister Abe is resigning as Prime Minister, he'll still be involved in politics. To what extent do you think he'll be exerting influence over Japanese politics, especially foreign policy? Lauren, I think I touched on the second point, maybe indirectly. I'm not straightforward, but the honest answer is I don't know. Anyway, there will be indirect influence for sure. But how strong and how indirect, maybe not, but how do you account for that? I still don't know. Well, constitutional revision, safe bet would be, even Prime Minister Abe couldn't do it, so nobody else would be able to do it. So it's not going to happen any time soon. But one possible alternative way of development is the way Prime Minister Abe tried to achieve this was to sort of entongonize pro-constitution liberals and make enemy out of them and increase, you know, supporters for his position. And that didn't work. And I think ultimately elections continue to be important for him because of this ultimate objective, rather ideological objective of Prime Minister Abe. And it didn't work. And I don't believe Mr. Suga would follow the same format, maybe not. But one alternative possible way is to form a consensus, try to form a consensus across different political, you know, sectors in Japan, find a balancing point. And in a way, so far I have not used the term middle power. It's amazing. But I have been advocating Japan's middle power diplomacy. And in the little book that I published already 15 years ago, I argued for the revision of constitution, article nine, but on the basis of the strategy, middle power strategy. And I thought this would be the sort of balancing point, you know, as far as Japan goes. You know, we're following the footsteps of Australia, where Australia likes it or not, I don't know. But, you know, so my argument has long been, you know, I'm for the revision. But how you do it is to find a somewhat comfortable consensus, you know, try to build a consensus over the years. It's not easy. But Prime Minister Abe hasn't done that almost at all. And I cannot see any other alternative politicians who would, you know, try to do this. So my conclusion would be, it's not going to happen, you know, anytime soon. But politicians will continue to argue for this. And so I wanted to respond to some other points, but maybe later. Yeah, if time allows. Okay, great. Yeah, we'll come back. Thank you very much. I think our next direct question to Satakesan, a couple of questions. There was a question from Celine Pajon at the French Institute of International Relations. Great to have you in the audience. And her question was regarding FOIP, the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy. How will this FOIP strategy be affected by the COVID crisis? And yeah, basically, what is the future of it post-Ava? Do you think it will be continued? And there was also a question about Australia-Japan cooperation with India. How do you think this sort of cooperation could help to normalize the US-China tensions to the benefit of the region? Yeah, I think that sums up the question. Okay, thank you for great questions from Pajon-san. I think the COVID-19 made FOIP even more important for Japanese foreign security policy in the world. Because as I said, Japan's security environment has been getting one more worse. And just to be frank, I don't think Japan can cooperate with China in terms of the number of coastal ships, for example, near Senkaku. And if that's the case, maybe we need to broaden our scope from this narrow East Asia to broader Asia Pacific and in the Pacific, so that we can maintain some balance between original powers with other rank-minded countries such as Australia and India. So this is a basic idea of FOIP, I think. And then that's why I think it's getting more important. But budget is one issue. But I agree, Japan has been suffering from these difficulties. But there are many things we can do, not in hardware, but in software, by taking advantage of our skills, technologies and innovations. And also, collective self-defense, for example, is still not a full-fledged one. But maybe we can exercise the full-spect collective self-defense in the future. Constitutional amendment is another good example. So there are plenty of things I think Japan can do without increasing the project. And I think regarding the Australia-Japan-India cooperation, yes, I think it's definitely important not only to support U.S. continuous engagement in the region, but also, as I said, to encourage some middle-power cooperation, create some south pier that can take a balance between the U.S. and China. I think what is really important is to enhance some resiliency of regional countries to cooperate with some future strategic shocks caused by the U.S. sign-off, a very future increasingly likely. So in that respect, I think we have to continue to encourage this trilateral cooperation, not only in the supply chain thing, but also in many aspects, including trade and security. Great. Thank you very much. Because we're moving toward the end of the seminar, there's still quite a lot of questions. I will ask all the panellists if there's any particular questions they want to touch on that they've seen in the chat. Ricky, did you have anything you wanted to pick up? I've been madly typing answers. There is an anonymous attendee question that's caught my eye. PM Morrison called PM Abe a friend and a mentor. Australia and Japan have successfully formed a strong bond in the post-Uber era. Will Australian diplomacy lessen its dynamic and confidence without a strong friend and a mentor, which is usually expected for the next Japanese Prime Minister having its back? Well, national interest, I think, and logic dictates that in this particular geo-strategic environment that we share with Japan, both in Asia and in the Indo-Pacific, it continues to make excellent sense for Japan and Australia to cooperate. And this is in no way conditional on which particular individual sits in the Prime Ministerial chairs in each country. It did matter in 2007 when the security relationship took the major step forward with the joint declaration. It mattered that those two individuals made the effort, but it now makes such good strategic sense that it really doesn't matter who is occupying those offices. Great, thank you very much, Riki. So, Professor Soya, did you have any questions that you'd like to pick up? Yes, thank you, maybe two. One is about the apparent paradox in Japan's China approach. On the day of Prime Minister's announcement to resign, Chinese Deputy Spokesman of Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying, in recent years, China-Japan relations has returned to a normal track and achieved a new development. We appraise important endeavors by Prime Minister Abe and wish early recovery of health. And so Chinese attitude toward Japan are also soft. And maybe two things out of this. One is continuing to face China in an adversarial environment is a really tough thing for maybe any country and for Japan as well. And the more you emphasize, so-called China threat, the more you become dependent on the U.S. because Japan doesn't have any, doesn't have the luxury of coping with or standing up against Chinese geopolitical challenge alone, which is obvious. And the kind of autonomy which Mr. Satake talked about is being sought on this premise. And the second thing is when Chinese approach to Japan is relatively conciliatory, I cannot think of any single case where Japan rejected this Chinese overtures to Japan. And so partly this is because of Chinese move. And China has its own reasons, of course. And maybe thirdly, related point is China challenges a long, long-term thing. I don't think China is getting trying to get back Senkaku Islands anytime soon, but they will never give up. It's going to be a very, very long-term game. And in the course of this long-term relationship, there are ups and downs. And I think these things are happening now. And the second point has to do with question, point reminding me of the point raised by Ricky, which is how current kind of a big phenomena has the historical background in the course of reorientation of Japanese conservative politics in the 1990s and decade after. I think this is a very good point. And I wanted to mention this partly because this is my next book project. And I'm saying this to give pressure on me. But the bad news is I'm not going to do anytime soon, maybe five, six years later. But my focal research point now is the 1990s. And many things began to change. And exactly this point about, you know, conservatism, rise of conservatism. And there are several dimensions. One which is pertinent in the context of today's discussions is as a result of Japan's rather reconciliatory policies regarding the so-called history problem with South Korea and China. Starting from Miyazawa cabinet, you know, Kono statement, and the Hosokawa cabinet, and succeeding. And with South Korea ended with Obuchi Kim Dejun reconciliation in 1998. So in the course of this development in the 1990s, particularly with so-called history problems, in my view, as a Japanese, I think Japanese government has done a reasonably good job. But as a result of this, there are domestic repercussions from the conservatives who didn't like this reconciliatory approach. And Mr. Abe was already one of the central figures in the 1990s on that side. And in South Korea, the reverse thing happened. Liberals, South Korean liberals were saying Japan is not sincere, and it's not enough. Right? So in a way, as a result of centrist compromise between Seoul and Tokyo, which happened in the 1990s, domestic repercussions came from totally different ideological directions in Japan and in South Korea. I think structurally speaking, we are now seeing the sort of one kind of, you know, peak of this very unfortunate evolution, which started since the 1990s. And the constitutional debate is another issue. After the so-called Gulf War shock, you know, constitutional revision argument has become more or less acceptable in the Japanese society. And initial arguments have been dominantly internationalist in nature. That is, because of Article 9, Japan cannot be part of, you know, kind of international multilateral efforts to deal with post-Cold War, you know, turmoil. So origin of constitutional debate, serious constitutional debate about Article 9 was internationalist in my view, which started in the early 1990s. But eventually turned to somewhat nationalistic in the way this is being posed and raised. And this transformation also started to begin in the 1990s. So there are some other issues. But, you know, so reflecting upon the 1990s is very important, intellectually very important in thinking about how we are here now. And so I think, Ricky, this is a very, very intellectually and otherwise a very, very important point. I agree. Thank you very much. Wonderful. So I think it sounds like Professor Sawyer is going to have a very active retirement. And we're all looking forward to that next book. And just lastly, to finish up, I will just pass over to Satake-san in see if he has any final questions he'd like to respond to. Yeah, just briefly following up Professor Sawyer's point about the Japan-China relations. I don't see any paradox between our relations, between Japan-China relations, because, you know, it's true that, you know, we are getting more and more competitive in terms of the security and economic aspects. But at the same time here, we are neighbor and the economy is hugely interdependent, deeply interdependent. So we have to coexist with China anyway. And in order to get along with China, we have to maintain the strong use of alliance and we have to have good relationship with the regional powers to maintain some kind of stable power relations so that we can continue good constructive engagement policy to China. So I don't think Japanese try to contain China, but you can simply try to constrain, you know, Chinese behavior. Thank you. Thank you very much Satake-san. So that brings us to the end of tonight's seminar and also to the Japan update, sadly. It's been wonderful having our first online Japan update and there's many people who were behind this initiative and that I'd like to thank. First, I'd like to obviously thank the wonderful panelists from tonight. Your answers were just wonderful, as were your presentations and I think we all have a much more nuanced understanding now of Prime Minister Abe's legacy and what we can expect in Japanese foreign and security policy moving forward. I think we'll all be tracking those developments very closely. So thank you for joining us tonight. I'd also like to thank my co-organizers Shiro Armstrong and Ipe Fijuara who've done a great job in putting this update together and I'd especially like to thank the behind-the-scenes helpers we've had Naomi Oxenham and Mari Armstrong who really carried huge administrative burden of putting this event on and also special thanks to Tess Harwood at ANU. There have been obviously some silver linings to this pandemic. One has been that by having more online events we can reach a much bigger audience and I think it's been particularly wonderful having had such a big audience and you can probably sense from the questions we received it's a real expert audience we have and it's also given us the idea that perhaps even when we return to the face-to-face Japan update where we can bring our panelists to Canberra we're going to think very seriously about whether we can continue broadcasting internationally via Zoom the update and also to receive questions from the international audience. I think that would be something really great we could take from this. So thank you all you've been a great audience and it's been wonderful to see that we've had a consistently strong audience over three days. It may seem like a strange format but we did it because we were worried that a lot of government officials can't use Zoom during the day at work because of security reasons so we thought it's better to make it in the evening and of course we can't do it all evening so we've broken it up over a few days which I think worked really well. So thank you all very much for joining us and look forward to seeing you all at the Japan update next year. Thank you.