 Good afternoon, everyone. I'm very pleased to welcome you to this IIEA webinar. And I would like to extend our thanks to the Embassy of Japan in Ireland for assisting us in arranging today's event. We're delighted to be joined today by Professor Yuichi Hosoya, who has been generous enough to take time out of his busy schedule to speak to us. Professor Hosoya will deliver an address for about 20 minutes, where he will discuss the implications of the war in Ukraine for the Indo-Pacific region. After Professor Hosoya has concluded his presentation, we will proceed to a Q&A with our audience. You will be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screens. Please feel free to send in your questions throughout the session as they occur to you. And please be sure to include your name and affiliation with your question. You can also join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA, and a reminder that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record. Now let me formally introduce Professor Hosoya before handing over to him. Dr. Hosoya is Professor of International Politics at Keio University in Tokyo. He is currently visiting fellow at Downing College University of Cambridge and Research Director at the Asia-Pacific Initiative. Professor Hosoya was a member of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe's advisory panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security. His research interests include British diplomatic history, Japanese foreign and security policy, and contemporary East Asian international politics. So we're very pleased to welcome him here today, and we're looking forward very much to hearing his presentation. So without further ado, I will give you the floor, Professor Hosoya. Thank you very much, Indi. Thank you very much, Ambassador Niyadi, for your very kind introduction. And also, thank you. I'm really grateful for IIEA for hosting me at your prestigious and influential institutions. And I'm particularly very, very glad that today I am focusing on perhaps the most important issue, the Ukrainian war and the current crisis in the Ukraine and the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. And it's particularly impact upon East Asian or Indo-Pacific international relations because many people, experts and policy makers are now wondering further the crisis will result in Chinese invasion upon Taiwan or the Chinese military efforts to unify the country. So now we are in a very difficult situation in international affairs. And maybe we are now living in a turning point in world history. So the result of the current Ukrainian crisis will undoubtedly affect the future course of history. So we are naturally very much curious and really interested in the direction about the current situation. So I will try to link the two issues one on one hand. I will focus on the importance of the Ukrainian war and its impact upon Indo-Pacific international relations. And first I'd like to use my PowerPoint slide to explain my talk. I will share my PowerPoint slide with you. Can you see my PowerPoint slide? Oh, that's great. Thank you very much. So the title is impact of the war in the Ukraine and its impact upon Indo-Pacific region. And the subtitle is Japan, the EU under free and open Indo-Pacific. Previously, I actually prepared PowerPoint slide which simply focused on Japanese foreign policy and Japanese policy strategy of the free and open Indo-Pacific. So I felt relaxed because I finished completing, I finished making that PowerPoint slide. But in the middle of February last month, the crisis became war and on the 24th of February last month, Russia began a massive military attack upon Ukraine. So I suddenly changed my mind to include that because we cannot expect a quite peaceful, stable international order under the current situation because of the degree of the impact of the war in the Ukraine. I felt that I really needed to modify my original plan of talk by including that in my talk. But still, there are so many unknowns. Of course, I cannot predict the future. But still, I can see some of the impact or the relationship between the two events on one hand. There is a war and the crisis in Ukraine. On the other hand, we know that China is becoming the most important player in the world, along with the United States. And the US-China confrontation is undoubtedly influencing the future course of international relations. So we are naturally curious, perhaps, about how the two things are interrelated. So of course, naturally, my talk will be focusing on the issue. And first of all, some of the points must be introduced. First, under the Joe Biden administration, the US has shifted from previous strategy of meeting challenges in the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Europe to a new one, which singularly points out China as the only competitor to the United States. So previously, the United States was preparing for a war in more than two theaters. Of course, it was difficult. But still, there are many challenges, like North Korea, Iran, Iran, and Russia as well. So that's why it was necessary for the United States to try to meet these challenges. But recently, in the last one or two years, United States has shifted from that previous strategy to a new one by pointing out China as the only competitor to the United States. So this means that Russia was most excluded from the most important competitor to the United States. So in the sense, I think that the United States began to think that it was no more necessary for the United States to deeply engage in security affairs in Europe or your Atlantic area. And I think that this naturally reminded President Putin that it was a good timing for Russia to invade Ukraine because it was more likely that the United States government under Joe Biden, President Biden, was unlikely to engage in the conflict. So more or less, it would be natural for President Putin to assume that Russia had a free hand in controlling the area. And the second point is also important, that two moves by the Biden administration might have encouraged President Putin to invade Ukraine with its military force. Number one, United States retreated from Kabul in August last year. So this also reminded President Putin that it is quite a new trend that the United States was beginning to retreat from the world. And of course, the retreat from the Kabul could be regarded as an important signal or the symbol that the United States was no more while policemen. So in the sense, I felt that this could send a very bad signal to President Putin or President Xi Jinping of China. Number two, US, as I mentioned before, US strategic shift from the world to the Indo-Pacific region also reminded President Putin that United States was much less interested in security strategic affairs particularly in Ukraine. So this became a wrong signal to President Putin and the Russian government by showing that the United States had seemingly had much less interest in European affairs by focusing on much on the Pacific international relations. And then this trend was clearly written in American security strategy document. In a report entitled, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, published in March 2021, it was written that, quote, China in particular has rapidly become more assertive. It is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and the technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system, unquote. So this report, I mean, published by US government White House signified, as mentioned before, the new trend in US security policy, which meant that United States lost its strategic interest in European theater. Wrongly, this could be, I think, failed by both Xi Jinping and President Putin as well. So then, well, this quite United States seemingly showed its interest in focusing much more international relations in the Pacific. It is also important to remind that both Japan and the EU have promoted a new strategy entitled connective strategy, connectivity strategy. Japan and the EU have promoted the respective connective strategy, which strengthened the link between Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Besides, the EU published its own EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific in September 16, 2021, and said that the EU and the Indo-Pacific are highly interconnected. So this is a new trend as well. So this means that Japan or Asia and the EU or Europe are much more interconnected with both Japanese and the EU's strategies. And basically, the concept, regional concept in the Pacific is basically Japanese creation or Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's creation. He created and promoted the world in the Pacific region. And also the Quad, the world concept, the concept of the Quad, Quad Rateral Corporation among United States, Japan, India, and Australia. This was also Shinzo Abe's creation. So he actually introduced, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a new strategy to focus on the importance of Indo-Pacific. And I think that the United States government and the EU, together with other leading powers, are following this course of focusing on the Indo-Pacific. While importance of Indo-Pacific is now widely known or recognized, but at the same time, Japan and the EU and some other countries are becoming to connect to connect the two regions. Previously, in the Pacific or Asia, was we got it as a kind of a far away region from Europe. Of course, it takes more than 10 hours to get to East Asia or Northeast Asia. So many people thought that Asia is a far right place, far right region for many European people. But nowadays, these kind of claims are much less hard. Many European people now think that Asia or Indo-Pacific region is much nearer than before, much nearer because we always talk about cyber space. When we think about cyber space, it is natural to assume that Europe is quite neighbor to Indo-Pacific region. So in the sense, I think that EU is much more aware about the importance of Indo-Pacific region because European member, EU member states, European countries are much more under attack, cyber attack of China. European countries are much more strongly aware of the fact that they are the targets of Chinese cyber attacks. So in the sense, even though geographically, Asia is far away or Indo-Pacific region is far away, but at the same time, the importance of cyber space actually makes European people to think that we really have to combine two region into a single package, I mean, the European region and Indo-Pacific region. And at the same time, another factor reminds us of the importance of connecting two regions. This is the increasing cooperation between Russia and China. Russia is more isolated in Europe. You know, China is more isolated in Asia or in the Pacific region as well. That's why I think that the two power to authority and powers now think that they really need to help each other because both Russia and China are parliament member of United Nations Security Council. If they can collaborate, they are two powers among the five permanent members of UN Security Council. So they can get two victims. So they can occupy the discussion within the United Nations Security Council. So whenever they like to invade neighboring countries, United Nations Security Council actually cannot stop it because the two power, if they can collaborate with each other, it means that they can control, more or less, United Nations Security Council because they have veto powers. That's why they can stop any resolution which can condemn their behaviors, their invasions and so on. So in the sense, the combination and the collaboration between the two authoritarian powers, Russia and China actually create a single space of Eurasian region. And based upon that cooperation, China has been expanding its own project, regional project of Belt and Road Initiative. In the sense, because of the increasing expanding influence of China, particularly in Eastern and Central Europe, we now think about Eurasian continent as a single entity in which Russia and China play a very important role. And much more than that, we need to think that they are establishing their own spheres of influence in Europe and East Asia respectively. So they're creating their own space to create and expand its sphere of influence. They need buffer zone and they need to reject the expanding influence of the United States. So on one hand, they feel that the United States, the power of the United States is declining. But at the same time, they feel that they need to refuse and reject expanding American military presence there. So in Asia, the two powers are trying to reject and deny American military bases, particularly in Japan, South Korea and so. And in Europe at the same time, the two powers, particularly Russia, trying to deny and reject the expansion of NATO's influence around there, NATO's influence in Georgia, in Belarus and Ukraine as well. So Russia has been feeding that NATO's influence has been expanding. That's why, because as I mentioned before, Russia might have felt that now power of the United States is shrinking. It would be a nice timing to radically change the situation in Ukraine. So this is a new trend because five years before, 10 years before, when I visited European countries, many people there single-mindedly said and feel that China is a future of Europe, China will occupy and dominate international relations. That's why it is important to create a better relationship, much more friendly relationship with China. While rejecting and denying or ignoring other powers, I think that many European powers felt that it was extremely important for the European Union to create a better relationship. With China. So this actually, this trend became an important cause that in the East Asia, that the China has been expanding its territories, its field of influence, because major powers actually accepted and actually agreed with so it's kind of Chinese invasion, but the trends is not reversed. So very talented, very very nice Asian experts at the German Marshall Fund, think tank and the Marshall mentioned in his commentary that I quote it, quote, Europe is in the nascent stages of a new debate about China. Last year, of course it was 2019. Last year, the European Union published a strategic outlook paper in which it leveled China as a systemic rival, reflecting a sharp change in its balance of assumptions about sign of European relationship. The pandemic is tilting that balance further unquote. So this is a new trend. In the last one or two years, European Union and many member states of the EU have changed its H2s towards China. Particularly the UK is the most typical example because seven years before 2015, President Xi Jinping visited London at the time Prime Minister was David Cameron. David Cameron, Prime Minister Cameron said that the golden decade of UK-China relation has begun. So naturally at the time, many UK political leaders thought that China was becoming the most important partner to the UK. So this was a trend, but the trend was now reversed. And more and more European member states, EU member states are thinking that China and Russia are different parts and they have different ideology. So that's why there is a clear limits in the cooperation with these two authoritarian powers. And I think that the current crisis in Ukraine radically accelerated this trend furthermore. So let me move to the second and the next slide. The next question will be, will the war in Ukraine result in the war in Taiwan? And the title is Putin and Xi and a broken partner. On the 4th February, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympic game and issued a call for NATO to house the expansion. So at this moment, nearly a month before, it was regarded that it was perceived that President Xi of China was supporting basically Russian President Putin's stance on Ukraine or the expansion of NATO. So we expected that the two powers had been collaborating very deeply on these kinds of issues. But actually it was not the case. And then I will speak about it later. But before that, I would also like to mention that 81% of Japanese people respond that they have concern that Russian invasion to Ukraine will link to China's challenge to China's change to the status quo in Taiwan and in the Sengkang Islands. Nowadays, many people in Japan are thinking that a Chinese attack or invasion upon Taiwan is now much more likely than before because of the current trend. And I will examine whether this is true or not. Then, however, at the same time, we can see some gaps and difficulties in the approaches to the war in Ukraine. A China expert wrote, Craig Singleton, wrote in his commentary for in Policy Magazine that quote, I quote, Chinese President Xi Jinping's worst nightmare is playing out in Ukraine. Regardless of whether he possessed detailed or advanced knowledge of Russia's invasion plans, two things are almost certain. Xi expected Russia's battle hard on military to quickly root the Ukraine's and the international community's response would be muted. Neither came to pass, unquote. So it is quite likely that the Xi Jinping didn't know the exact plan about the invasion because President Putin is extremely secretive. That's why it is likely that President Putin didn't talk at all about detailed plan about the invasion. That's why when I read People's Daily, or Global Times of China are almost official papers, it was clear that they were totally confused. Repeatedly, they wrote in the editorial that war is extremely unlikely. And only the United States is towing with the idea of the invasion. And Russia has no interest in invading Ukraine or something like this. So there are many contradictions between what they wrote at the time and what now they wrote. So it means that they are frustrated and they are more as betrayed Chinese newspapers and the leaders are betrayed. But because soon after the invasion began, it was also likely that President Putin communicated, informed to Chinese government that the war will be ended within a few days. So then, or Chinese government kept silent while supporting or at least abandoning the boat to deny under criticism Russian behavior. So in the initial phase, China showed its wait and see attitude. But soon after it became quite unlikely that Russia could end the war within such a short period of time, Chinese frustration is becoming more and more quite clear. So in the sense, we can see some of the frustrations at the side of Chinese government. And one of the important point is that Japan is placed at the center of US-China strategic confrontation. In the 21st century, in the Pacific region it's the most dynamic and the most economically powerful region. Japan is placed at the front line of the structure confrontation between the United States and China in this region. So in this sense, for Japan now can play a key role in framing the future strategic relation in the region because for Japan, both United States and China are important partners. United States is Japan's only alliance partner while China is Japan's biggest trading partner. That's why it is natural for Japan to think about how we can best benefit from the future structural strategic relations between United States and China. While maintaining the strength of your Japan alliance, we also need to maintain our very close strong business economic relationship with China. So in the result, I think that the Japanese government launched a new diplomatic doctrine, perhaps the most important diplomatic doctrine which Japanese government launched in the last 150 years, this is free and open Indo-Pacific vision. We call it free and open Indo-Pacific. This is similar to EU's Indo-Pacific strategy in its emphasis on connectivity and the concepts of inclusiveness and the multilateralism. Just before EU launched its own Indo-Pacific strategy and also its own EU's connectivity strategy, I talked with some of the policymakers within the European Union and they naturally responded to me that they read the carefully about Japanese strategic documents such as free and open Indo-Pacific. And they learned a lot of things from Japanese regional strategy or free and open Indo-Pacific. So it's natural to assume that there are many common things, commonalities between Japanese regional strategy and EU's regional strategy, not just the large. We have many things in common. We focus on the importance of both inclusiveness and multilateralism. And both United States and China actually focus on the other things rather than this inclusiveness and multilateralism. So we have to come by to think on one hand, we are now seeing the war in Ukraine which can drastically change international order of the 21st century. But at the same time, we have to also look at the direction of US-China strategic confrontation because China can play a significant role in creating an armistice between Russian and the Ukraine. So some kind of Chinese irritation and frustration and doubts upon Russian invasion can create a space for China to play an important role, to mitigate the confrontation between the two sides. This is exactly what China did in the North Korean crisis. In the North Korean crisis because China had a very strong tie with North Korea and China can pressure North Korean policy on nuclear armaments. That's why nuclear development, that's why trying to bridge a gap between the United States government and North Korean government, China started the six-party talk and China played a very important role in trying to persuade North Korea to abandon nuclear programs. It didn't work very well and the six-party talk ended already. But still, I think that it would be natural to assume that China is not thinking that China can play some role in the current war in Ukraine because China also has a very strong tie with Ukraine as well. Chinese military expansion of the last two decades could be possible because of Ukrainian technologies. Ukrainian, Ukraine actually has supported Chinese military development, technological advance in many ways and the economic relationship is also very strong between China and then Ukraine. So that's why we can naturally assume that China has a great interest in trying to stop the war between the two very important China's partners. So China is becoming more and more important player in global politics and I think that China is replacing previous Russian role in global politics. So we will see much more important US-China strategic confrontation and we do not know whether the US-China strategic confrontation will be mitigated or will be expanded. It depends on how China will think about its own role in trying to stop the war between Russia and Ukraine and I'll stop here and I'd like to listen to question and comments afterwards. So I stop here. Thank you very much for your careful attention. Thank you very much indeed.