 Good afternoon. I want to welcome all of you to CSIS. Very glad that you could come out today to have a discussion about Dr. Sheila Smith's recent book, and we feel very privileged to be having this event for really what is such an important topic. I'm Bonnie Glazer, and I'm a senior advisor for Asia at CSIS and the Freeman Chair for China Studies, and Sheila and I have collaborated in many ways on issues pertaining to China and Japan, and I was so looking forward to reading her book, and now I have, and so I have lots of questions, and I know that many of you do as well. After our event, we will have a reception, and we will also be selling some books outside, and I have to tell you this is such a hot commodity that the remaining editions of intimate rivals are sitting out there on the table. That's all there are, so unless they try to do a second printing, which I hope they will, but probably not tomorrow, but anyway soon. But if you do want the book, then of course you should all buy it today. So, just very briefly introduce Sheila Smith, who as you know is an expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy. She's a senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council for Foreign Relations, and in addition to this wonderful book, she's recently published a study entitled Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance at the Council. So, I think we'll start maybe our discussion just talking about why you decided to pick this topic to write about. Thank you. Well, first Bonnie, let me thank you for inviting me. As Bonnie says, we have collaborated over the years since I've come to Washington. In particular, that collaboration has been one of the great delights for being here in D.C. and being part of the think tank world as we have colleagues in other institutions like Bonnie who intellectually tried to grapple with the same kinds of problems and I've learned a lot from Bonnie over the years. Thank you for having me. So, Intermitt rivals, I get a lot of questions about the book. Today nobody really asks me why would you want to write a book on this topic because it is the topic of the moment and to be honest with you in the final stages of the manuscript, I kept having to rewrite and update and rewrite and update. So, it is very much on the minds of not only Japanese and Chinese policymakers, it's clearly on the minds of American policymakers as well. But when I started the book, I was really, for those of you who know me, I've done most of my research in the past. I started my PhD dissertation writing about the U.S.-Japan relationship and Japanese security planning and the domestic politics of Japanese strategic choices. And so, having spent a lot of time thinking about that, it was becoming increasingly clear to me in the early 2000s that there were bubbles and currents in the Japan-China relationship that deserved a little bit more attention. But also, for those of you who know Japan, the other side of Japan's alliance with us has always been a very large and very important relationship with its neighbor, with Beijing. So, I didn't start out this book in the midst of tensions between Tokyo and Beijing, although you could sense changes. Some important changes were going on. Prime Minister Koizumi was Prime Minister at the time. Of course, the Eskini-Shrine issue became a bigger and bigger component of that bilateral relationship. But so, too, were trade disputes. So, too, were other kinds of rippling across, you'll forgive the pun, ripplings across the East China Sea. And this was long before the island dispute really came to the fore of the bilateral relationship. So, my Japanese colleagues all say to me, why Mr. Koizumi on the cover? Why not Mr. Abe? You'll sell more books if you have Mr. Abe on the cover. And I should have thought about that a little harder. But the story really does begin in the early 2000s. It really does look at a longer stretch of time, like a decade and a half or so of the Japan-China relationship. And I highlight a little bit on the contentious problems, the problems not just the island dispute, but things like frozen gyoza and food safety, the maritime boundary. And, of course, the Yasukuni Shrine issue. So, in the book, you talk about how Japan's policy towards China is sometimes seen as a confrontational policy. But then, in fact, it was one of accommodation. And that that policy of accommodation essentially didn't work and then started to change. Now, later in the book, you write that Japan's policy towards China is better understood as one of adaptation. So, can you talk more about that? Sure. I think we're very myopically focused on this rising China. We are maybe not myopically, it's a big subject and we pay a lot of attention to it. But we treat the shorthand of a rising China as if we know it. Japan's relationship with, post-war relationship with China began in the 1970s when normalization talks began. The peace treaty was 1978. It wasn't that long ago, right? And it was halfway through the Cold War. And I think the Japanese government's perspective in that negotiation was, of course, to defend Japanese interests, to articulate Japan's interest and advocate for Japan's interest in the relationship. But it wanted to accommodate this new and very anticipatory relationship it was going to have with the People's Republic of China. It didn't mean that Japan accommodated all of Chinese interests, but it did mean that Japan, I think, to use this phrase in the book, began the interaction with China in a spirit of reconciliation, but it saw reconciliation as being accomplished through economic interdependence. So economic interdependence in some ways was a strategy. It was not just the outcome of the relationship, but it was a strategy for reconciliation with this neighbor that it had been at war with in World War II. So that's where I start the story. And I think you have to understand the approach to the post-war Japanese relationship with China and the evolution of it now. So the rising China piece of the story is where I get to the adjustment or the adaptation part at the end of the book. And again, I wanted to sort of look over time at the way in which Japan had to adjust to a changing China. And I spent a lot of time, especially as I was drafting, as you write books, you write and you edit and you rewrite and you get responses and feedback. And I got a lot of feedback with, don't, you know, rising China, we don't know where China's going. So I had to sort of step back and change my language a little bit to a changing China, a transforming China. I wanted to chronicle the process by which Japan had to adapt. And so that's why that adaptation and adjustment is the phrasing I use at the end. You do not find in Japan a wholesale consensus on how to move forward with China. You certainly don't find a consensus about confronting China in Japan. So it's not as if, you know, we talk inside the Beltway a little bit in shorthand, you accommodate, you confront, right? But this is a little bit trying to get underneath that language to talk a little bit about the evolution of policy and what the learning has been over time. And I think it's a little bit more gentle than that. That's not to say it shouldn't be worrisome at times, but it's not necessarily that there's a consensus in Japan about confronting this China, even on the island issue. If we look at public opinion polls, clearly there's been a radical shift, a negative direction of Japanese opinion, the public opinion towards China. And you also describe, of course, the shift that has taken place in terms of Japanese policy towards China under this pressure from the people over these sets of issues that you talk about. So I wonder whether this is these opinions and the policies that have followed, whether they are irreversible. Is this now a trend where we are going to really see continued, very tough times in signer Japanese relations? Is it the shift in the balance of power that is fundamentally, I think, in China's favor that will drive this? Or is it possible that if we see an adjustment in China's policy, and I'm a little hesitant to say that we have already begun to see this because it's very fragile and tentative, even though Prime Minister Abe did meet with Xi Jinping in Indonesia today. But if there is a change in China's policy, if they have recognized they need to have a better relationship with Japan, how much of the attitudes and the policies that have taken place are really irreversible. So the good news is there's now two handshakes we can look at, right? And the bandung. I didn't see what the faces looked like. Is there a photograph? I tweeted it this morning. There's a Nikkei photograph that I tweeted this morning where Mr. Xi sort of looks like he's smiling. The photograph is sort of taken over his shoulder. So Mr. Abe is definitely smiling. And she looks a little bit more like he might be actually having a little grin. But at least he's not going like this, which is what we got at AIPAC, right? So the visuals, the optics matter clearly. And this one looked, even regardless of substance, this one looked a little bit more comfortable for both of them, frankly. But you situated the argument really well, Bonnie, and that is that clearly Japanese policymakers in the 1990s had understood that they were running up against a slightly different set of Chinese interests. So whether it's security or economic interests, there was clearly a shifting appreciation in the Japanese government, economic, strategic assessment, that, yeah, this is going to be a more difficult, challenging relationship for the policymaking community in Japan. But the public didn't come along to that conclusion, I think, until the decade later. And the cases that I look at in the book, there are four cases. They're all contentious cases. And I start out with what I call the Japanese imperial veterans. I talk about the veteran issue in Japanese domestic politics and how China was responding and why and how that evolved, the domestic politics of that, evolved from one that was really constituency-driven, in my view. So you have Bereave Veterans Association, very important to the conservative political party in Japan, right? You've got veterans constituencies and every democracy are powerful constituencies, right? Japan is no different in that respect, right? Where they were different, obviously, was in how to honor those veterans. And that was a divisive issue inside Japan itself. Once China began to get into the criticism, right, of the conservative leadership and it began with Prime Minister Nakasone, right? It came back again with Prime Minister Koizumi and you see it again with Prime Minister Abe. The Chinese criticism of that then began to create a slightly different public mood around that issue. Largely, this is not an issue for foreigners to criticize us about. So people who had strong beliefs about Yasukuni got stronger beliefs. Some people who didn't have any beliefs and they were mostly younger Japanese, began to adopt beliefs. But they were beliefs really based on the criticism, not on the original constituency-driven interest in their grandparents or whatever. So I think that's an important piece of the puzzle is how Chinese criticism, how Chinese behavior then factors in to what are already domestically pretty powerful issues. So that's one case study. The others are the maritime boundary dispute, the West domestic interest group activism on that. You have some very particular interests and I talk about them in that chapter. But the interesting thing about the maritime boundary dispute is it really doesn't have to do with intention or mishap on the part of the policy makers on either side. It's really about the dynamics that were set up by UNCLOS. Once both countries ratified the UN law of the sea in the 1990s, they had prepared for it. I think China perhaps prepared more diligently for that than maybe Japan did. I think Japan's response in some ways was really delayed. It didn't really appreciate all of the aspects that this would bring up in their relationship with China. But the competition then over where to place the boundary, how to define your difference of opinion with Beijing also began to drive in some way the Japanese-Chinese reaction to the maritime boundary dispute. To get back to your question, though the policy making community versus the public, the public trajectory and Genron MPO and the China Daily have done a very good job of polling over time in both countries. So if you're looking for data on public opinion polling, Genron MPO is a great place to look. And you look at the questions, not just how do you think about each other's country, but they get into the specific incidents. They get a little lower down into why do you think this way. But that data is a... It's a... What's the right mathematical term? How's your math? It's a steep angle. It goes up, it doesn't go like this. It goes just straight up across the decade. So you've got the policy making community kind of understanding the more complex dynamics, the policy side. You've got the public growing antipathy in Japan towards China. And largely some of these cases of contention are why. These issues happen. They don't get resolved. The Japanese public was continuously asking for resolution and evidence of resolution. And this gets to the final point of your question, are we stuck here? China's rising, Japan is not. Are we stuck with this dynamic? And I don't think so. I think there's a lot of potential here for shifting the way the Japanese public see their relationship with China. Policy making community may take a little bit more persuasion. More dedicated persuasion. And I think that's what Mr. Xi and Mr. Abe have begun to work on. But I think the Japanese public at Beijing's intentions, they're really looking at their own government's capacity to manage some of these more complex challenges. So if you get a little bit of traction at the diplomatic level, if you get a little bit more evidence that China's long-term game is not antithetical to Japanese interests, if you get some demonstrated over time a sense of we can work these problems through together in a mutually beneficial kind of way. The win-win formula. If it gets actually demonstrated to the Japanese public, then I think you don't have a foregone conclusion. And I think the responsibility is clearly on both sides. It's not just China's behavior, but also Japan has to work at finding that middle ground. It's going to be a lot of hard work. It's just like the U.S. policy challenge with the rising China. It will be a lot of hard work. But we've got to make the effort to demonstrate that we can navigate this complicated moment together. Xi Jinping was, in fact, quoted today as making, I would say, a relatively positive comment about the fact that both sides are working to try to improve the relationship. A more positive comment than I think he was quoted when he was met with Prime Minister Abe at APEC. So I wonder if what Xi Jinping is trying to do is to try and give Prime Minister Abe a little bit more incentive to deal with the upcoming anniversary of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in a way that will help him to further stabilize and build this relationship going forward. Now, obviously, China is not the only country who has some concerns about how Japan is going to deal with this anniversary. Korea has its own set of issues as well, and there's overlap with China. But I think the Chinese are really watching this very, very closely. They want to know whether the Prime Minister is going to reiterate his apology, and if he's not going to reiterate what new language is he going to say? So how do you think that the Prime Minister is going to approach this issue as it pertains to the anniversary itself, but also its implications for relations with China? I think you're right. I think I heard... I saw that language at the meeting, what got publicized on both sides. I saw clearly that there was a heads-up for the rest of the year, which as you know is the 70th anniversary, and Xi Jinping himself is going to have an anniversary in early September of the end of World War II and for the Chinese, of course. This is the day of Japan's defeat, right? So, it is incredibly important... I am not a diplomat, but when you listen to the diplomat speak, it's incredibly important to look at one meeting versus the other, and I thought the body language was different, but the spoken language was clearly different. When they sat down to talk, and this was on NHK this morning, Xi Jinping said, I understand that it's incredibly significant that we met last year, so he was acknowledging last November's meeting. And he also said, and this was a great occasion at Bandung, for me to meet again with Mr. Abe to hear his views, right? So, that's exactly how I interpreted, so I'm glad that you're confirming that that was the right interpretation. Mr. Abe, on the other hand, was much more effusive, I thought, in a sense that this is the important relationship for Japan. He talked about the strategic, he didn't use the word strategic, but he used the language of the 2008 Hufukura Summit, mutually beneficial strategic relationship. He used all the right language to say, we are in it for the long haul, and I thought that was the signaling that he was intending to give there as well. So, the 70th anniversary is going to be a very tricky time, I think, for Mr. Abe. He himself has already announced that he wants to have his statement, the Japanese leadership every 10 years, seem to want to make a statement about history. The definitive statement in terms of public policy, of course, is Mr. Murayama's statement of 1995 that continues to be the statement that Mr. Abe endorses as national policy. But Mr. Koizumi made a statement after that in the decade after for the 60th, and I think Mr. Abe also wants to make his own statement. I think most of us in this room know individuals who are on a committee advising him about that statement, and many of those people understand and work abroad, work in China, have extensive foreign policy expertise, so I think he will get good guidance from that committee on not only the internal need for what that statement needs to say, but also for the external impact. I think Stoka sensei has already said in public that Mr. Abe ought to say, note Japan's remorse for the past. So I think we're not in the dark at all about the kind of advice he's getting. I suspect he will also be very judicious in the way that he approaches the subject of history and the 70th anniversary when he speaks to the joint session of the United States Congress. There will be a global audience for that speech, not just an American audience, but I think it's important that the Prime Minister speak to Congress first and foremost because they invited him to speak there. There are a number of issues on our agenda that Congress cares deeply about. One is U.S.-Japan defense cooperation. The other, of course, is TPP and a future of our trade relationship. I don't want to hear about the agenda, what U.S. and Japan are doing together, but they will be alert to the fact that the podium that Mr. Abe stands at is the podium that President Roosevelt stood at many years ago, right? And I suspect the Prime Minister Abe will as well. I don't think my personal view, and this goes beyond the book, I don't think that we should make this visit by the Prime Minister of Japan next week an occasion to participate in the competition over interpretation of war memory. I don't think that's constructive. We have, as a fundamental basis of our relationship, reconciliation, historical, we have a history and we shouldn't be afraid to talk about that history, but also we should celebrate the 70 years of effort that it took to transform this relationship. And I think we should be sustaining in our support of the effort to transform the relationships in the region as well. Great. Another question that goes a little bit beyond the book, or at least extends from some of the things you talked about in the book. You note that the incidents surrounding the Senkakus in 2010 and 2012 became tests of the U.S.-Japan alliance. So how did the Japanese view the U.S. handling of China in these incidents? And how did they view the U.S. handling of China's rise overall? Do they see the alliance as up to the task? Great question. I will go to Japan and do a poll. So when I write in the book, I do write about 2010 and I write again about 2012. And so I think what amazed me about 2010 is that very quickly you had when Mr. Myhara became Foreign Minister, you had consultations with the United States. For those of you who don't remember 2010, it was in September, it was a couple of weeks. It was very intense and very quickly escalated outside the normal bilateral channels of Japan-China. And I think that's the defining characteristic of what these crises have done for the Japan-China relationship is it's almost as if they can't solve it together and so both parties had to go outside. And for Japan, that meant coming to the United States as an ally. You know that our State Department has a position that we don't take a position on the sovereignty of the islands. We do, however, have a position on the extension of Article 5 protections for territories administered by Japan. So basically that needed to be reiterated. Secretary Clinton reiterated it very straightforwardly. When the Japanese press asked our Joint Chief of Staff at the time what would happen if and very quickly said without hesitation the United States will stand by will fulfill its treaty obligations. So there needed to be a restatement to reassure in Japan. The 2012 one went a little further though because as you know the Chinese then began to send this wasn't a question of activists or fishermen all of a sudden it was Chinese government vessels that began to traverse the maritime boundary in and around the territorial waters in and around the Senkaku Islands. And then that called for a rather different U.S. response. And we responded quietly without any statements by reorganizing our military forces to make sure there was no miscalculation of our intentions should something happen. But I think it also at that point became the step at which not only did we reassure Japan of our protections we began to talk to the Japanese about their ability to manage an escalatory dynamic which we saw some September into January February 2013 we began to talk seriously about this new aspect of alliance cooperation in our militaries and our civilians at the highest level of government but we also began to feel very clearly the mantle of our need to communicate to Beijing that this had begun now not to be a political series of tensions this had now become a serious concern to the United States in terms of the potential for actual conflict. So I think the role of the alliance has been multifaceted across time it's not that it wasn't the same in 2010 as it became in 2012 when you got from insertion into the island near the Senkaku to that escalatory process that in the end had a Chinese ship lock its radar firing radar onto a Japanese ship. So that role of the alliance that role of our government and alongside Tokyo in trying to deal with risk reduction to try and talk more forcefully with the Chinese about the costs of really miscalculating US intent or the alliance's preparedness to respond that became much more serious. So we've evolved I think we've learned I remember and you probably remember too in the fall of 2012 there were many many many gatherings of oh my god what's happening kind of gatherings what do we know how do we respond, how do we respond well and our China expert community was engaged our Japan expert community was engaged our governments were talking to each other very closely so it was an important moment for the alliance to adjust to use my initial language to adjust to this new reality and I think we've come through it actually rather well I think you'll see when Mr. Abe comes to Washington next week we also have a two plus two meeting between our defense and State Department leaders and there'll be the announcement of the guidelines and that guidelines will reflect not completely that contingency but it will reflect the learning that has gone on in the last several years over this tension but just to push you a little bit more on this there are two and a half years after the September 2012 I think that Japan is very confident about the U.S. commitment because we have said at the highest levels of our government President Obama state and quite publicly that the security treaty covers these islands but yet there seems to be a desire for the U.S. position on sovereignty to shift so I continue to hear from visiting Japanese is it possible if anything can we do to get the United States to change its position that it's neutral on sovereignty so does that represent this sense that once again the U.S. is really not signing up to Japan's claim and it should be and then does that have negative consequences for the alliance or is that not the case? So I hear the same conversation so we all are feeling those questions. I think it goes before those crises even happened and I do write about this in the book there is a perspective especially among the diplomatic community in Japan that the United States changed its position and it changed its position in the 1970s when we were beginning to think about normalizing our relationship with the PRC now the secret behind the scenes documents between Mr. Kissinger and others they're not open yet we know people who were at the table but I don't think we actually know I think there's a little worry at the table between Beijing and the United States these islands factored prominently they may have they may not to tell you the truth the opening to China was such a huge geostrategic conversation they were on the table I suspect they were not the primary focal point of conversation in what was a really significant strategic opening with Beijing all that being said we all know here in this room that the history comes from at the point at which the Okinawa reversion was being negotiated the islands were Okinawa islands the Bonin and Dukyu islands were given back to Japan up until that point we had talked the United States government had talked in terms of local sovereignty so we had used the word sovereignty and so the kind of diplomatic conversation then comes back down to but those islands were part of Okinawa and you recognized our sovereignty before so why did you adopt this new position of neutrality I'm not a State Department lawyer and I will not try to defend our position but I do think that understand that perception that we actually changed our position first of all that it actually makes many in Japan quite uneasy and so I think that we should recognize it so it's been there all the way through not to put too fine a point on it but it has been really in the diplomatic circles because that's where we talked about these things we didn't talk about them in a public way the way we do now because the island dispute has so emerged as the focal point not only of the Japan-China but the alliance as well I don't know that today if the United States stood up and said we changed our mind we found a document deep in the archives and absolutely those islands belong to Japan I'm not sure that some people in Tokyo would be quite happy but I'm not sure that would change the underlying fact is that the PRC thinks that those islands belong to them Japan thinks they belong to them and let's not forget that Taiwan also has a claim on those islands also it is subordinated under the Chinese claim but the country that first became worried about our reversion of Okinawa of course was the Republic of China at the time it was really that's when the United States and the Republic of China had a deep conversation about those islands and they disagreed with the Okinawan reversion agreement history aside would it fix the problem I don't think it would the underlying problem is the underlying issue is that Beijing and Tokyo need to think about how to come to some accommodation or understanding or agreement to disagree I don't mind whatever the diplomatic framework is but they managed this problem very nicely frankly with the exception of a few activists Japanese Taiwanese Hong Kong based activists and then in the 2000s Chinese activists right PRC activists they managed it quite effectively which gets us right back to the can this relationship get better I thought it was very adroitly done before that abe she meeting in November the four point statement that some people read in Chinese and some people read in English and I read in Japanese and English I can't read Chinese but one of those points the way they reached agreement was not to talk about sovereignty at all was to simply say although we differ over the causes of tensions in the East China Sea we agree that they carry risk and we agree to work on reducing that risk for me that was the breakthrough that we needed because then we needed the two leaders to meet and we needed them to address risk reduction in the East China Sea sovereignty only ends up with them not talking to each other so let's talk about the other problems in the East China Sea let's talk about other kinds of frameworks joint energy development perhaps which is what Mr. Hu and Mr. Fuku agreed on in 2008 let's go back to the places where Japan and China can agree to disagree but can still cooperate and you know they negotiated fisheries treaties around those islands for decades right because they decided that they would not fight over those islands and so political leaders have a choice now the one piece of the puzzle that I do talk about in the book is the domestic politics side and they will have to advocate at home much harder I think than they did in the 1980s and 1990s that that doesn't matter right that they should put the dispute aside in the interests of the bigger relationship it will be a harder sell in Japan today than it was then but it wasn't necessarily a completely easy sell even in the 70s will there be specific constituencies in Japan that will be willing to be the supporters vocally for a stronger relationship with China traditional supporters in Japan as you know have been the business community right there's $345 billion of annual trade between Japan and China it is a huge asset to both countries economies right so but the business leaders in China in Japan have had a few setbacks in terms of they have been targeted when they got in the middle of for example the political debate over Yaskini shrine visits we know a number of them Kobayashi Yotaro right got Molotov cocktails outside his house so there is a there is a marginal group in Japan that does not want to see the Japan-China relationship improved they have at times either implicitly or explicitly threatened violence and so I think we ought to be aware of the fact that just like in China you have violence against Japanese companies and individuals Toyotas products right we shouldn't underestimate the power of those who really don't want to see an improvement of the Japan-China relationship they are a marginal part of the Japanese political world though but I think mainstream politicians especially on the conservative side today would find it very hard pressed to say okay we can compromise on these islands in the interests of the Japan-China relationship in fact I would think you would be very hard pressed to find any Japanese politician current politician right who would we willing to advocate that position because popular sensitivities in Japan have changed so you have to work on the public side of demonstrating the benefit of this relationship again and you before you can really get to a much different political understanding of the East China Sea and the islands themselves one last question and then we will open it up to the audience for their questions in the conclusion of the book you talk about American interests and you say that competition between China and Japan for influence in Asia is harmful to US interests I agree with that but maybe you can sort of elaborate as to why you think that's the case because I think that there has there's long been some sentiment in Asia and particularly in China that the United States just really doesn't want China and Japan to have a close relationship that that wouldn't be an American interest and so somehow the United States favors this competition and indeed that we are even trying to cause it and so maybe you can talk about that I've spoken to some of those Chinese of that opinion but I have spent some time with you alongside you in many instances in the track 2 track 1.5 conversations with our Chinese colleagues foreign policy experts and others in China who think about China's Asia policy and more often than not you got this why are you intruding why are you shaking this up and why are you causing problems where problems don't exist I think it kind of lies along the same lines that's my mic I don't want to undo my mic but my neck is strangling me so forgive me I don't have a strangled guest I do think this goes along the line of the Cold War legacies kind of the interpretation of U.S. allies you know I'm not sure everybody's completely wedded to this point of view when they ask us those questions I think there's a little teaser poking a little bit at us but I do think there's two pieces of the puzzle there is why don't you back off and let us deal with this by ourselves which for many Chinese they would feel would be a much more advantageous position for China we all know that the tensions between Japan and China particularly over the islands caused a great deal of concern in other parts of Asia I remember at one point when the ADIZ was announced in November of 2013 we did a media call at CFR and the Vietnamese media were on the call the Filipino media were on the call all the way throughout Southeast Asia so Japan's behavior I mean China's behavior with Japan presaged I think what we're seeing today in the South China Sea which is a broader concern about how is China going to deal with problems on its periphery how committed is China to having a peaceful dispute resolution mechanism in the ASEAN how committed is China to really acknowledging that it needs to change the way it interacts with its military in maritime regions that are disputed by others so I think you've got a lot of questions US interests of course are very obvious I think first and foremost they're economic and I you know it's okay that we can say we have an alliance we have obligations but I think if you were an American ally you'd be much much you'd feel much much better if we advocated our own interests in this situation more than just our treaty obligations but the Asia Pacific is the center it is the core of the global economy the United States' future is deeply attached to a peaceful and prosperous Asia with all of the peace and prosperity that the Chinese have as well it's not antithetical to the China's rise to see the region that way and in fact the United States has a deep interest in working through with other partners in Asia how do we accommodate this new geostrategic reality we do have treaties we have obligations but I think even more than that we have a deep commitment to the relationship with Japan it's not because it's written on a piece of paper that we can refer to text it's because our country has a 70 year history of building a partnership with Japan that is deeply in the interest of the United States it's in our interest economically it's in our interest strategically but it's in the interest also of this broader sense of values and prosperity that we think about I can't imagine an American foreign policy without Japan by our side I just can't and it's not because I'm the senior fellow for Japan studies it is simply because it is a critical partnership for the United States so there's economic interest there's our interest in the relationship with Japan and other partners across Asia Pacific but we need to see this region evolve and it has to be an evolution that accommodates China's changing interests absolutely but we have to work together to figure out how do we adapt and adjust and how do we make sure our publics feel reassured that we are effectively adapting and adjusting not that we're backed into a corner or not that we're being pulled in directions we don't want to go we have the same kind of problems that I found being articulated in Japan they may not be as acute when we debate them here in the United States we don't live right next door and we haven't had as in-depth experience yet with a changing power dynamic in our relationship we may never have the same dynamic and there are some things about the Japan-China relationship that clearly are about the history of Japan-China not the last 100 years but thousands of years of history between Japan and China those are not the kind of history that's not the kind of history we enjoy with China or with Japan but we have to craft our path forward and we have to learn from the way in which the Japanese have experienced this and we have to find ways I think with our partners in the region to cope great, well a terrific discussion and we're now going to invite everybody to participate but I'll please ask you to wait for the microphone to clarify yourself and please do ask a question so up here in the front, yes your hand went up before yes, very quick thank you very much for your great conversations my name is Takahiro Moteda I'm a visiting fellow of Japan Chair and CSIS you mentioned Japan's adoption to China's rise when it comes to China's rise I first think of AIIB so I'd like to ask you this kind of question and it says from this point of view adoption to China's rise how do you assess the Japan's decision not to become a founding member of AIIB, thank you very much thank you, so there's all different kinds of ways in which Japan is having to adapt and the United States is having to adapt as well to this new dynamic China and the AIIB conversation has certainly drawn our attention in the last couple of months we've been talking to Tokyo and we've been talking to other allies for some time now about the Chinese proposition and the Chinese initiative the media coverage of it has it really fairly critical that the United States tried to persuade others not to join I think that's overstating the policy of the Obama administration frankly but my own personal view is that we should absolutely welcome moments when China wants to take the initiative infrastructure building in Asia a huge demand for it I think the fact that China is attempting to multilateralize its decision making on this because we all know China has been building infrastructure not only in Asia but in Africa and other places around the globe as well that it wants to put a lot of money but bring it forward in a multilateral context should be welcomed the challenge is the norms and the standards and the governance of this new entity and of course especially for Japan and the United States and other countries we will ask our taxpayers to put money into the bank and as you know our Congress would have to approve that so our administration ought to be very cautious and full in getting all the details about governance and because our Congress will demand it if we want to participate so that's the US I have been reading of late and I don't know that this is actually true but it sounds that to be fairly solid that the Chinese want the largest share of participation both governance and money to come from Asian partners if that's the case then I think Japan's participation takes on a new and more important meaning in my eyes I think Japan should be just as careful in looking to the norms standards and governance debates to making sure it feels comfortable in the way in which the Chinese are evolving and the way in which other partners are evolving Australia, South Korea our European partners but to tell you the truth I wrote this a couple weeks ago in a New York Times debate we in Washington should be happy that it is those countries that are participating they are the ones that help develop the norms standards of our contemporary development debate they have not only commercial expertise but they have intellectual capital to bring to bear and they have been strong partners in global institutions as well as in the ADB so I'm not as worried about our partners participating but certainly you want to make sure you being Japan that it is full participation in a way that makes you and your tax payer as comfortable another question yes Priscilla wait for the microphone please right here thank you I'm Priscilla Klopp I'm a retired diplomat but I work with the Asia Society and USIP does the between Japan and Russia over the Northern Territories have any parallels or bearing on the Senkaku dispute for example if Japan and Russia were to reach some kind of an accommodation on the Northern Territories would there be precedence for the Senkakus thank you Priscilla I would also like to hear just to build on that question what you see is the prospects for a Russian-Japanese agreement on the Northern Territories okay so I want to give a shout out to Priscilla because I read your writing on much of Japanese foreign policymaking when I was a grad student so thank you and you're more knowledgeable on the Japan-Russia relationship than I am but I will try so I will start with your question then get to your question but the prospects I think I have watched and I think Prime Minister Abe until we headed into the annexation of Crimea and the Russian intervention in Ukraine I think we had some interesting momentum building but I think it has stopped for obvious reasons Japan has joined in with the G7 sanctions based on the Russian behavior in the Ukraine so for now it's on pause and it's a pretty significant pause that doesn't mean that Mr. Putin doesn't want it to not be on pause and I understand he is fairly energetically trying to if not persuade Mr. Abe to change the position at least indicating his interest in the benefits of a better relationship with Russia I thought the most important thing of the Putin-Abe diplomacy was actually the 2 plus 2 that was the first time that the two of them decided to have a strategic conversation and as you know the scrambles in and around Japan we were very focused on China and Chinese military behavior Russia right now has continued its level Cold War levels by the way of scrambles it has also begun to introduce some interesting missile defense systems into its northern regions I wouldn't take my eye off the Russian pressure on Japan and the north because it is significant so the 2 plus 2 for me thought I thought that was an interesting moment for the Japanese and Russians to explore why first of all and second to get some stabilization of the peace of their relationship the territorial dispute as you know has gone through several iterations excuse me several episodes of negotiation I don't know that Japan I don't know that Russia's position has changed all that much to tell you the truth and I suspect Mr. Putin would not be all that amenable to giving all islands back the four islands for those of you who don't follow the negotiations I think the 1950s iteration was really a little bit closer to the mark so that's the two smaller islands to Japan and the two larger ones would stay with Russia I think the politics in Japan today are maybe more accommodating to that formula I am not 100% sure though that there was a lot of momentum into resolving the territorial dispute but that the open discussion on the territorial reopening that discussion I thought was an important signal that's where I think the East China Sea Senkaku dispute perhaps could have benefited by opening that discussion it opened up the avenue of a peaceful conversation I don't know to be honest with you that there are parallels there in terms of how the Japanese feel about the islands and I think in many ways the Senkaku today are the Japanese position on the Senkaku islands is firmer than it was even a couple of decades ago I don't think the Japanese position has ever been not firm frankly but the Japanese have chosen not to exhibit or demonstrate effective control over those islands but Japan does control those islands and so it has felt that it has the strong position in terms of the legal the legalities so beyond that kind of they're both disputed islands they have different histories there's both a kind of World War II piece of the history but there really isn't a position there isn't a way that diplomacy is linked to each other if that was the important of your question for Japan though the Northern Territories are an important geostrategic topic and I think they would like to see not just Mr Abe but previous Prime Ministers would like to see some more full understanding and a peace treaty with Russia it would be good for Japan to accomplish that at this particular time okay more questions thank you Beth Smith's PhD candidate Johns Hopkins says last month we saw the Korea Japan China meetings that we hadn't seen for the last three years so I was wondering if you might comment on how that triangular relationship is affecting your prospects great question and I think it's important that we pay attention to that because one of the we think a lot about the alliance in Japan China but one of the other collateral pieces of damage of this island dispute between Japan and China has been the trilateral the Northeast Asian trilateral and the Chinese decided that they would no longer participate and South Korea wanted to so there was forward leaning in Seoul and the Chinese opted out so without the China at the table you can't have a trilateral conversation I think Seoul has been very adroit in reopening that conversation so as you mentioned last month the foreign ministers of all three countries could meet I think that was very positive if that venue as you know began in 2008 so it's a relatively new trilateral conversation but a very very important one especially now but it was originally seen as a kind of economic transactions let's talk about the things that we all have common interest in let's leave the hard stuff aside but very quickly after that December 2008 first meeting the next meeting they were sharing their perspectives on North Korea so there is a lot of potential I think for that trilateral to really accomplish some of the risk reduction confidence building that we are anticipating will happen bilaterally and I hope that that foreign ministers meeting presages the summit between the three I think now that we've got the Bandung meeting between Prime Minister Abe and Mr. Shi I think the next piece of the puzzle is clearly the summit between Prime Minister Abe and President Park and so I think once you have that bilateral I suspect the additive momentum will be built hopefully for a trilateral summit maybe in the fall okay, another question here thank you so much my name is Satsushi Okudera from Massachinbun let me just follow up 70th anniversary statements from Prime Minister Abe and from the anniversary to Dr. Smith as you know Prime Minister Abe has just mentioned on BS Fuji a couple of days ago he would not repeatedly to use this kind of language such as invasion or colonial rule or apology it seems like he would like some kind of speech like you know he was last year in Brisbane Australia and Congress or today in Indonesia so my question is how do you think, what do you think about these kind of Prime Minister Abe's attitude or decision do you or United States government concern or do you think he doesn't have to use this kind of language so what is your opinion and Tupani do you think you know Chinese government and President Xi would accept this kind of speech which doesn't include these languages I'll go first I think we should not judge Mr. Abe until Mr. Abe makes his speech and I'm not blaming the media so please don't misunderstand me but I have been asked I can't tell you how many times I've been asked what I want Mr. Abe to say or what he should say I think we all understand that the speech in the US Congress is an important moment for the Prime Minister it's a critical moment for him it's very important for our relationship of course the United States and Japan have a strong relationship that is both acknowledging the last 70 years and also talking about today and looking forward I can't really speak too much to what's going to happen on August 15 he has repeatedly said he would like to make a statement as I said in the opening remarks though I'm encouraged by the people he's asked for advice and again we all know some of them personally he's asked some very savvy, smart people to help him in thinking about that statement here's a larger point though and that is something to think about for Japan every 10 years when you talk to Americans here about the 70th anniversary and I don't know if others in the room feel the same way but I was bringing this up in-house at some point saying it's the 70th anniversary it's an important time we should have programming and people kind of scratched their heads and said 70, why is 70 important so I think there's a certain level at which people outside of Asia have the significance of this but every 10 years now it has become expected of your political leader that there will be some statement about the past and from what I understand I haven't had this conversation with your Prime Minister but what I can extrapolate from his public statements is he doesn't want to have those statements about the past or he would like to focus on the future but I think it's important to understand that around the region the past is still a part of people's memory either living memory or the way historically that people remember their country's past and that's true here it's true in Australia it's true in not only South Korea and China it's true across the region I think the more important piece of the puzzles what do you say about that past and again we can take apart the Murayama statement or we can put little pieces of the Koizumi statement which is semantics and I don't think that's really very constructive but I think what does need to be fully recognized is the spirit in which your country wants to move forward and that still needs to speak to the very painful memory of the 20th century now do all the Japanese of today understand fully the history of the 20th century I don't think so do all Americans understand the history of the 20th century I can tell you on a large level and not my current students so who are in the room not talking about you but in the past when I was teaching people don't remember the Vietnam war and when you're 20 years old and you don't know your history so it is incumbent I think upon all of us educators political leaders to continue to converse with the past because we have a future generation that does need to be educated but past is and not all the stories of the past are bad they're not always positive but we have to have that conversation with our past and we have to learn from it so this is the 70th anniversary for example in the United States it's the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki yes we should continue to have that conversation and we do and we will so I think it's incumbent on all of the countries of the Asia Pacific and we don't necessarily have to just talk about Japanese behavior but I think it's important that we talk for the future and how we educate our children not in terms of their national pride but in terms of how we want to build the region what kind of region we want for the future so if I had a little bug in Mr. Abe's ear I would say tell me what kind who is Japan today what do you want your young people to know about the kind of Japan you want to build in the future and tell us about how important your position in the Asia Pacific is to Japan's future the relationship with us but also the relationship with your neighbors that sounds easy it's not easy and so I think all of us will be listening hard for that sense of what Mr. Abe's understanding of Japan's future is so just a very briefly answer where the Chinese are on this issue I think the Chinese look back at the last couple of years in their relationship with Japan I think they've made some gains but they've also paid a price the gains are for example the Chinese believe that they have effectively challenged Japan's administrative control over the islands not taken it away but that they have challenged it and that they now share this administrative control even though that's not the way the US sees it or the way Japan sees it but they do see that they have pushed Japan towards recognizing that a dispute exists but they haven't gotten there yet so they haven't given up but they've paid a price in terms of President Obama's statement which I referred to earlier which was not new American position but haven't been said by the president previously and maybe even more importantly new Japanese investment in China which has really really fallen and so I think there's an economic price that is very important to China as the Chinese economy slows down so I think the Chinese really do not want to see a further downturn in this relationship and that's again what my interpretation is of some of the comments Xi Jinping made to Prime Minister Abe when they met in Bandung but the Chinese need some reassurance there will be very negative domestic political backlash if Xi Jinping agrees to go forward with substantial improvements in this bilateral relationship and then there are steps that Prime Minister Abe takes such as another visit to the Yasukuni shrine so I think that the Chinese are looking for reassurance I don't think the Chinese are setting the bar deliberately so high that Prime Minister Abe can't need it but they do want some promises and remember the Chinese will think historically you know in 2007 Prime Minister Abe was willing to give some reassurances and so they believe that ultimately this is a potential that they could achieve yep yes here in front oh I'm sorry thanks oh well first of all I'm under Joe and I'm the partner and director for Vietnam Southeast Asia and Washington D.C. for a company in Michigan that has designed a high-speed maglev but anyway great great presentation thanks so much my question is this I first of all agree with you so much about the Prime Minister's coming address to Congress think forward where we want to go and on that the Trans-Pacific Partnership looms large and so my question is do you believe that the Prime Minister will or should you know emphasize that in his address to Congress hopefully to help President Obama get the bipartisan cooperation he needs for this and in that if you could include how far he may move on reducing Japanese protectionist policies on agriculture and that's it thank you I saw Matt Goodman was in the back of the room so he has he has adroitly left so I can't call on Matt because he is our TPP guru and he would be the best but let me try to address the question that you ask first of all please bring maglev to the northeast every time I go to New York where is maglev so I appreciate your work in the United States two pieces of the puzzle I think I think the Prime Minister and the President will have something to say ultimately however this is going to be a conversation that Congress has to resolve on TPA and as you can see there is some fast and furious writing and rewriting and discussion going on on the hill and I can read Japanese politics so much better than I can read our congressional politics not even venture to hazard a guess but I do think that there has been a little bit of activity clearly in anticipation of the Prime Minister's visit I am rather confident that our negotiators Japanese and American despite some of the headlines and Japanese newspapers that they have had a couple of tough issues and still have a couple of tough issues including rice protections and tariff rates and the share of the exclusion right from those tariff rates so they are talking about what was a WTO mechanism being imported into TPP and that is really where the focal point is so this is the mechanics we are in the final mechanics of this trade deal which I think if you think back on it it is incredible how far the United States and Japan have come for those of us who remember the 80s vaguely somewhere in the back we had trade talks with Japan made people just cringe and they lasted forever, they were very hard somebody in the room probably worked on them but we have made a lot of progress since then people have negotiated but I think so the bilateral piece of this I am actually quite confident if we as in the United States can get our politics around it around supporting it I think we are going to be fine I think Japan and the United States have led largely very similar interests we may have some very particular differences on market access issues we have no differences on the norm standards and objectives of the Trans-Pacific Partnership so we are a good team I think the negotiators deserve medals frankly for how many miles and how much hours and energy they put into this I think the president has clearly come out finally to say what needs to be said I am a fan of the president I don't mean that to be critically but he has now come out so I think all the political pieces of the puzzle are moving in a direction that will be very successful so fingers crossed and eyes closed and candles lit we are headed but I think we shouldn't be aware of the fact that there are 12 countries in TPP so we are very focused on the U.S. Japan piece at the moment but remember Vietnam and Malaysia there are some very complex domestic politics in those countries as well and so this is only the first step I am hoping that this year is going to be a particularly good one great gentlemen over here Steve Winters Washington based researcher looking at the community of China experts in the U.S. that you mentioned there seems to have been in the last 12 months or so quite a change in tone in the way they have been reacting to developments in China particularly under the new regime under Xi Jinping to the point that we are all aware of what I am talking about the question is the Japanese obviously must be watching these same developments how are they reacting to it and how does that enter into their calculations going forward for dealing with China just to be very clear here we are talking about Chinese building airstrips in the South China Sea is that what we are talking about I haven't read Mr. Pills' article the Wall Street Journal yes I have seen the book I apologize but there is a very new Asian Maritime Initiative at CSIS that we should give a shout out to Miran where are you so it has done some excellent work I think we are allowing first of all we have more information than we had in the past and I think again largely due to some efforts here to make sure that that information is flowing appropriately I am going to let you answer about the China experts but I will talk about the Japanese watching us and I think you will see in almost every talk at every think tank in Washington where we discuss Asian Maritime issues you will find lots of Japanese visiting fellows and journalists and others who are very interested in the topic I will say though and this is something for the United States and Japan to continue to work at a little bit in those same track two or broader conversations along the region about what is going on in the maritime domain or what is going on with China or how to analyze China I think the United States and Japan don't always see the country the same way and I have noticed that in many conversations that I have had with lots of our China experts and Japanese China experts often the analytical gaze is directed in different ways so I think there is still a lot of it is not just that there is work to be done I think we ought to have a deeper appreciation for the fact that we may be concerned about the same policy challenges but we don't always read China the same way and so it is very very important in government and out that we continue to talk about how we are analyzing not just China but the region at large it is very easy and I forgive me for saying this because we are inside the Beltway but it is very easy inside the Beltway to get very focused on specific policy challenges but sometimes we need to step back and really talk to each other about what is the basis of your analysis of this problem where do you see both across not just the South China Sea issues and maritime issues but where do you see the economic future of China where do you see the political future of China to continue to have that broader conversation so we can understand the different ways in which we look and understand China because none of this is very obvious this is a tremendous society that we are all trying to get our hands around in some way I think you can talk to Chinese experts and they are also trying to figure out the beast themselves it is not that obvious and so I don't think we should underestimate how complex and sophisticated transition we are seeing in the Asia Pacific and we should be very careful to be thoughtful and analytical about it you want to talk about the China experts part well I would say I don't think this year has really been a watershed I think that we have seen evolution in Chinese policy in recent years and certainly under Xi Jinping more activism in Chinese foreign policy you could point to some examples where it has been positive recent Chinese effort to rescue nationals from 10 countries including Japan from Yemen would be one example but much of what is going on in the Asia Pacific region is of concern in these maritime spaces and of course we could talk about cyber as being another area where there is a great concern in some of the trade policies that really favor Chinese companies so there are more issues in recent years but Sheila really highlighted something that I would agree with and that is that even when US and Japanese experts analyze the consequences of China's policies the same way they sometimes disagree over the motivations for those policies and I have found it to be a useful conversation with Japanese experts to try and really dig into that question many Japanese will explain China's policies based on national politics based on China's need to have an external threat or enemy to forge national unity and that Japan is always that easy whipping boy and there is I think in the United States although people who are experts on China don't at all dismiss the domestic drivers there is also another set of drivers that is seen as important it's the desire to build the Chinese dream the fact that China is now stronger and for many years has talked about righting the wrongs of the past but only really now has the capability to actually start doing it so but it is important I think to have these conversations so that we can really have a more common understanding and hopefully more consensus about what explains Chinese policies the reason of course being that we both want to influence them we would like to see China be a proactive but positive contributor to Asia Pacific global security problems etc and in order to influence those policies you have to correctly understand really what's motivating them can I add another point to that Bonnie to the work that you do in trying to understand you know the crisis response and how we think about the future in the region and crisis management one of the reasons I wrote this book really was also to get under the skin if you will of the policy in Japan you know right now we everything gets collapsed in the Japan-China relationship into this island dispute and in fact there's a whole array of differences between the Chinese and Japanese governments that have evolved and have emerged so we don't quite appreciate sometimes they overlap, sometimes they're quite distinct but I think one of the reasons that I did write the book and I did take on these very disparate kinds of case studies of policy interaction is to say that there's more contention in the relationship but there's also a struggle on both sides you don't have to assume hostility on one side or the other but sometimes with the island dispute you get into that kind of interpretation of what's going on you don't have to assume that China is trying to do something to Japan or vice versa Japanese are trying to do something but in fact the problems are more complex the policy solutions in some ways tend to be somewhat more intrusive the interdependence is deep and it's real it's positive in the macro for both societies but not always in the micro there's not always and I found this in the food safety fascinating case study was the regulatory framework was inadequate to the task of ensuring food safety and this is a country for many who know Japan this is a country that takes pride in food safety and has a deep regulatory system but as the relationship changed as more and more Japanese companies were going to China to have joint ventures to produce food the regulatory system hadn't caught up with that reality so in each of the case studies you don't end up with an anti-China right wing nationalist you end up in some ways with some very different diagnostics of the policy problem but the two governments are struggling with those I only did one side of the puzzle I'm sure somebody did the Chinese side of the puzzle you would come up with similar but different kinds of conclusions about these policy issues but that's what we mean when we talk or what I say when I talk about adjusting to a rising China it's not just military military it is a much more complex task of reassuring your domestic interests that their interests are going to be protected and that's a government that's a governance challenge and I think for the Japanese government that is a huge challenge across a variety of issue areas and similarly may end up that way for us as well so geostrategic change doesn't happen over there over the horizon on the other side of the Pacific it's actually deeply embedded in our own societies and we're going to have to adapt and adjust to okay more questions over here Justin Denocliffe I work for the Department of Defense my colleagues and I are interested in where Japan is going with military normalization and personally I'd like to know how that goes forward in relation to public opinion because over the decades it's just never it's never taken hold and it doesn't seem to have really changed so far so I'd like to know what you think about that thank you that's my current book my next book it's never ending over at CFR we are writing away I'm actually writing a little short piece on this question of where the public stands and I went back and looked over the decades the Japanese cabinet secretary has taken polls on Japanese attitudes specifically towards the self defense forces and it's it may not be fascinating to read polling data but it is kind of fascinating to look at what the questions were back in the 1960s when this started which is do you know what the self defense forces is would you allow your children to join those kinds of questions which is really where Japan was in the first decade or two after the war ended and the occupation ended the Japanese public did not want to have a lot to do with the national military and you look at the sweep now and again we're many many decades after that the Cold War has ended we've had in 2011 a total outburst of popular support and confidence in the self defense forces after the triple disasters there was a poll taken and I can't remember where I'm not quoting it in my article but I tried to find it again but it was astounding to me in late 2011 said who do you trust the most and of course the prime minister was very low on that list diet members were equally low and the self defense force was at the top so you now have a public more comfortable with their national military all that being said you have a public it's also much more nervous about its situation in its neighborhood so whether it's North Korean missile proliferation or nuclear proliferation whether it's this maritime challenge of China and the island dispute you have a public that's more acutely aware of the need for defense and the strong security overwhelmingly when you see the more recent polling data they ask do you want a stronger defense yes what are the instruments you want to use the US Japan alliance comes up so it doesn't translate into therefore we must have more autonomy we must have stronger militaries we must have offensive weapons none of that you get none of that you get a very firm conviction that we ought to pay more attention to our national security that the alliance with the United States is the best means maybe we ought to strengthen our defenses a little bit so I think it's a natural evolution it's a slow process and you can look at Mr. Abe's announcement last summer on the reinterpretation of the right of collective self defense and his approval rating dipped precipitously the only other time it's dipped is when the national secrecy law was passed it dipped precipitously the polling data and the national security law said we need more time to talk about this I don't know what you're doing so you want to look at the opinion polling data a little bit skeptically because I'm not sure it gives us a strong statement but it gives us some hints and those hints are on issues such as allowing too much state control over private life Japanese people are quite sensitive as would we be we are as well and on the question of the constitution you get a very ambivalent public response and I think you can see in the parliamentary debate today that again I think if Mr. Abe had had his way he would have probably wanted that reinterpretation to be much more forward leaning certainly Mr. Kitaoka's report was much more forward leaning but he took a he backed off a little bit took a very mission specific orientation and I think in the parliament you're going to see a very mission specific outcome so I think the democracy is alive and well in Japan Japanese people are quite skeptical of anything that has to do with messing with that constitution but all that being said there's a quite lively debate in Japan today about well maybe we should have a conversation about amending our constitution but I wouldn't judge that to mean that the Japanese are running to change Article 9 I think that may be least likely to occur anytime soon one last question and then we'll move to our reception okay over here our visiting fellow thank you for your talk I very much enjoyed it I'm a visiting fellow from Taiwan my question is very simple among the circumstances we just talked about do you think from your point of view what kind of role Taiwan is able to play for instance like especially from the perspective of long term when China has been rising all the time and from the short term especially for Taiwanese election is going to taking place next year so from your point of view do you think what kind of role Taiwan can play in that kind of circumstances thank you that both Tokyo and Beijing and Washington for that matter we're quite fortunate to have Mind Joe as president in Taipei when the crises were coming up Taiwan as I mentioned earlier of course has a stake in the outcome of those islands but has long had fisheries interests and I thought that his ability to reach out to Mr. Abe and to offer the opportunity for Japan to conclude that fisheries treaty was very astute and as you know your president also is a deep expert on the territorial dispute and on the East China Sea and he has some very constructive ideas I think about building confidence and peace around the East China Sea so on the dispute itself I think as an outsider watching from this side of the Pacific your election or your people approach that election I wonder what that election means for the peaceful management of the island dispute we just finally got Mr. Shia Mr. Abe to begin the conversation on risk reduction Taiwan's role clearly will be very critical to making sure that that moves in a positive way I would hate to see that become fodder for political campaigns and things like that but political campaigns tend to go off in directions that are not always in the best foreign policy interest in this country at least I don't know about your country but I think it's important to understand what Taiwan has already done and your president has already done to facilitate what we see today so I hope that Taiwan will continue to play a positive role in however that risk reduction effort takes place but I think the larger question is really the cross-strait relations and how that is managed we have had the benefit of having a very stable and steady relationship between Taipei and Beijing granted I understand there are some citizens in your country who don't always appreciate all of the aspects of that cross-strait relationship but as a stabilizing factor in the region it has had a tremendous influence so your domestic choices choices you make and the election and the choices that your political leaders consider as they think about this relationship with Beijing have immense consequences for Northeast Asia I'll make just very three quick suggestions of things that I think Taiwan can do though I have a much longer list but I'll limit it to three further liberalized trade make Taiwan a more attractive trading partner to ensure that TPP is completed that Taiwan will be considered to be a possible participant in the next tranche of those parties that are going to join I think that there is a lot more that needs to be done in that regard right now Taiwan is not included in the regional economic integration process that is not seen as good for Japan or good for the United States I think both Japan and the US want Taiwan to be economically prosperous that means not just a good economic relationship with the mainland but a good economic relationship with the region secondly to take steps to strengthen Taiwan's defense if Taiwan is seen as vulnerable to coercion from the mainland whether it be military or economic that's a problem for Japan it's a problem for the United States Taiwan's defense spending as you know has not kept pace with the promises of the previous president so I think going forward there's more that Taiwan can do for its own defense and then lastly I think that Taiwan could have a potentially important role to play on the issue of the South China Sea is it after all in fact the Republic of China's original 11-line claim in the South China Sea so I think it could be very valuable if the government in Taiwan would explain to the world what that original 11-line meant why was it created was it intended to be a verification of national boundary or not and then to go perhaps one step further and declare what Taiwan's claim is today in other words to bring it into line with the UN convention on the law of the sea and so there is there is no other claimant that can help in that regard than the way that Taiwan could so I think that those three small suggestions so there you go you probably got more than you asked for that's right you ask a question you get a detailed answer but this has really been a terrific session I'm so glad that you agreed to do it I want to thank you all for coming there are books outside as well as wine and food that I hope you will enjoy thank you thank you