 Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Australian National University. Welcome indeed on behalf of colleagues at the College of Law, but also colleagues at the National Security College, my own college. I want to begin by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and play our respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal people, past and present. My name is Rory Medcalf. I'm the head of the National Security College here at ANU and as I said, I'm really pleased to be collaborating on this event with our colleagues at the College of Law. The catalyst, the excuse for this collaboration is a visit by our distinguished guest for this evening's lecture, Professor Agoa from Japan, and I guess the nature of this presentation is such that we thought it would be a perfect reason to work with the College of Law because although at one level the presentation today, Professor Agoa's remarks will be on strategic issues, security issues, really critical issues of foreign and security policy, at another level there is obviously a legal and constitutional element to what the professor will have to say. Now I won't pre-empt his remarks at all other than to say that the topic at hand, the question about Japan's future as a security player in the Indo-Pacific region is obviously very important for Australia. One of the reasons why it's interesting, all the events that we've done at the National Security College this year touching on Japan and Asian security and maritime security have not only been well attended and have much interest in the media and the diplomatic community, but it's striking that the video recordings of these events are among our most popular, so we must be doing something right. I think it demonstrates that the idea that Japan is not relevant to Australia as a security partner is really quite obsolete and that we have to be quite creative in thinking how do we work with a change in Japan in the challenging security environment that we all face. I think that tonight's remarks to my mind are going to touch on many of these issues and we'll connect what's happening in Japan, the constitutional and historical dimensions of that with I guess different views on security reform, if we can call it that and the tensions around that with the wider security environment and I guess the demands for a more multipolar response to the changing power balance and changing behaviour in Asia, whether it's in the South China Sea, the East China Sea or the wider Indo-Pacific. And this matters to Australia for some very obvious reasons and I'm not sure whether submarines will be mentioned tonight but that could well be one of those reasons. I also wanted to do words about our distinguished visitor before we begin. Professor Naoyuki Aigawa teaches American constitutional law and history as well as the history of Japan-U.S. relations as the professor of the Faculty of Policy Management at KO University in Japan. I think for those of you who know Japan, KO University needs no introduction. He's also served as Dean of the Faculty and as Vice President of the very international university and has so been responsible for building a lot of the very strong relationships that that university has with other prestigious and leading universities internationally including this one. Now Professor Aigawa was also a diplomat at one time. He was Minister for Public Affairs at the Embassy of Japan in Washington between 2002 and 2005, another earlier and interesting phase in U.S.-Japan relations. He's also been a senior council and major international legal firms in Japan in the United States so academia, diplomacy and the law are really, I think, powerful combination of knowledge and practitioner background to bring to tonight's conversation. Professor Aigawa's books are too many for me to mention all by name here but it's interesting that several of them have touched on the maritime dimension of the U.S.-Japan relationship and I think that goes to tonight's presentation which will go to Japan's wider maritime relations in the region as well. So I'm going to end my introduction there and just note that we're very much on the record tonight so when we come to the question and answer session please feel free to ask your questions, please mention who you are so that we have it on the record and the speaker knows who he's talking to and please allow time for others to ask questions as well. With that I'm going to invite Professor Aigawa to take the stage. Thank you. Thank you very much Professor Mika for your very kind introduction. I'm sort of awed by the fact that I'm standing here at the Australian National University because I have heard so much about your university, how prestigious you are and in fact my university, Kevin University, has had a long-term relationship with you and your university and I as vice president in charge of international collaboration I met with many of your colleagues in the past so as you said that I have been doing various things and I'm right now trying to at this late stage in my life try to concentrate on American constitutional history that doesn't have very much to do with Australia-Japan relationship but nevertheless I was asked to come down to Australia when I was offered to come here I was shown whether I wanted to go to London or Australia and without any hesitation I said Australia because I had never been here before and I'm very happy to be here. Today I'm going to talk about Japan's new security policy and I think I would like to particularly talk about this new security legislation that just passed recently but you know and also because I would like to hear you and I would like to receive questions and rather have discussions lively discussions than me talking for a long time it's always the case that I have heard me speak before and it's not that exciting so I would like to ask each one of you to think about what you want to ask me or what you want to discuss and so I will try to make my speech shorter than long and perhaps I will try to speak for 20 minutes or 25 minutes and then the floor will be open but before getting into the subject matter I just wanted to show you some little entertaining series of photos so that you get interested in this thing this has a lot to do with what I'm going to talk about and I just because I have once written a book entitled Friendship on the Sea the Navy to Navy relationship between the United States and Japan after the war and I think that something similar is beginning to happen that in terms of maritime security Australia and Japan are closely more and more closely working together and here's the series of slides that show how closely we are currently working so the title of this series of slides is Japan and Australia Friends on the Seas let me just show you on October 18th we had a thing called Fleet Review this is done every three years in Japan the reason why it's once three years is because on the occasion of the establishment anniversary of the establishment of Japan's self-defense force and I will tell you why we have to call it self-defense force later each service takes turns to do some kind of ceremony and the Navy obviously has the advantage of having lots of nice ships and so this year happened to be that year and to be done by my friends in the Navy oops, I'm not supposed to say that that's in violation of the constitution but nevertheless I will say it's a Japanese Navy and I was invited to be on board one of those ship vessels and it was very, very interesting here's how they do this and in fact, those of you who are familiar with the Navy may know that this, I don't know the English term but this mobile Fleet Review only the Japanese Navy can now is now doing, otherwise a stationary Fleet Review now it's not only the 40 some ships and vessels of the Japan maritime self-defense force that did this wonderful show of discipline and maneuverability and everything else somebody else, by the way I need to show this wonderful submarine that we have, oh yeah I have and this is Soliu Kras submarine and I would like each one of you to write to your congressman or senator and urge the government to buy this thing because it's simply very, very good and I'm not employed by Mitsubishi or anybody but I think it's a fact that this is one of the best non-nuclear submarines ever in the world and I think the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that it's not only the sales and buying and development of this thing but once you decide to use Japanese technology and develop Japan-Australia joint project and I understand that it will last for 40 years or so my experience having written that book Navy to Navy Relationship between Japan and the United States is the fact that the maritime self-defense force on the US Navy works so closely together why? Because they have worked together for so many years I mean obviously those guys who are manning all these Japanese vessels don't speak English too well and they are not used to working with American sailors and officers but over the years they have been working so much together and I'm sure that the new future US-Australia-Japan relationship including the joint development and joint maintenance and joint everything centering around the submarine project will allow us two countries and two navies to accumulate experiences of doing this and doing that so I think in that respect also I would hope that your country will decide to buy this ship I'm not a salesman so stop here one obvious thing about this thing is that in addition to 40 vessels or 40 some vessels there are several navies that participate in this thing and one and the most significantly is the US Navy and this is US's Ronald Reagan which recently arrived at Yokosuka and became part of the Yokosuka fleet and it was not actively engaged in this review process but it was in the background and Prime Minister Abe after presiding over the review fleet review flew on the HALO to US's Ronald Reagan and confirmed how close a Navy to Navy relationship is and in addition to Asia's class one may not have been but the two vessels from the US Navy were actually in the receiving or to be reviewed file and they were there too but long before here is HMAS Stewart and this is your proud Australian Navy vessel and this was also in the line to be reviewed by Prime Minister Abe and we were very happy that one of your Navy vessels came all the way from your country to join this grand fleet review also interestingly there was an Indian vessel I think for the first time the history of fleet review and I was impressed that they have some very dandy ships and this was together with other countries now in addition there was a French frigate and most importantly and very importantly there was a Republic Korea vessel and this shows how closely these countries have been working together in terms of Indo-Pacific, Asia, maritime security issues and this is just an indication how close how we are becoming more closely together and trying to do things this is just a ceremony but you can imagine on the seas increasingly doing many many more things off the coast what was interesting of course is the fact that nobody expects a Chinese vessel to be here in fact there was none but also interesting in my historical sort of sentimentalism is the fact that there was no Royal Navy vessel here so things have changed and that's part of the history that your country has gone through and our country has gone through countries in this area since the early period of the 20th century of experience and that's a factor, an element of that now changing the gear I just want to show you a couple of maps and this is China, Japan and the Far East looked from distance and you can see that China is huge and Japan is on the periphery and this is how we have perceived our position and the location of our islands has had lots of impact upon how we think about ourselves and we have this sort of periphery mentality still China is dominant in this area it was in the old days and it is now increasing so here is Australia, I'm not indicating that the eastern half of New Guinea is still yours but this is showing the area and I think that New Zealand and Australia this gives you an impression I think that Japan and Australia are far away I mean China map shows Australia some fit down there but this shows how far Japan is and on the surface it doesn't seem to be any logical link between the two but here is another map I was attending an international conference among academics and one New Zealander showed this map and said that you guys have been watching incorrect maps for such a long time this is the correct map lo and behold the New Zealand is on top of the world and also in the center of the world which I thought was very interesting by the way my sympathy to you for losing the game against all blacks well next time now this map seems to show a few other things as well one thing that struck about this map is the fact that while we talk a lot about the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean they are one and the same I think that makes a contrast as against the relationship between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean in that case I think two oceans are clearly separate and that's why somebody had to build a Panama Canal the Mediterranean and the the Gulf and the Red Sea are also separated but here except for islands there are some straits but basically it's an open sea everywhere and this is I think the basis of the geopolitical perception and we have not paid very much attention to this fact that this is one vast ocean another thing that I have noticed is the fact that of all the Asian countries that you see at the bottom Japan is the closest to the United States of America anybody who has been interested in Japan has had to come to Asia via Japan of course from the east coast of the United States a lot of people went east to come around the African continent and eventually to reach Japan and Komodo Piri did that the first time he came but since then this is the line between West Coast and Alaska and then on to the Japanese archbishop's role it's the way and if anybody wants to go to China they have to pass by Japan and I think this is very significant if you think about the current relationship strategic relationship between Japan and the United States number three let me show you another map this is the map that I sort of created from the previous map China is in a very interesting situation because to the east there is Japan and to the west is India and on top of that this is a heavy land mass sort of putting a lid on the whole continent Australia and in between there are a lot of smaller countries and Indonesia islands but this triangle not only in terms of theory but in terms of geography if you think about how to tame the dragon so to speak China and territory expansion if any seems to be natural and logical so I just wanted to show you and share this map with you now having said that I think there have been a few pieces of good news recently and let me just quickly list them number one is the subject matter that I'm going to talk about the passage of the new security legislation back on 14 September and I'll tell you more about it the second piece of good news is of course the final TPP agreement among the 12 Pacific Rim countries your country is one of them and Japan is one of them and I know that people had to struggle and work hard and there were disagreements but finally they came to an agreement that should be and that would be implemented hopefully but this is such a tremendous news for the region number three I think I consider this to be a piece of good news and the USS Lassen sailed within 12 nautical miles of artificial islands China claims to be its territory in the South China Sea on 27 October and perhaps I could talk about it later a little more there are mixed views about that and different views on that but I think that the United States of America finally set the tone of this thing and it has a lot of I think international law implications particularly in view of the UN clause Hague arbitration panel going on and taking up the case and number four an enclosed collection with these events is the recently held I think it was first November and second November meeting in Seoul and meetings in Seoul between and among the Chinese premier and Korean president and Japanese prime minister and I thought that it was such a wonderful thing after all I must say the Chinese leaders and the Korean leaders had refused to meet with the Prime Minister Abe for three years or so all together and Chinese had begun to change but this is the first time that President Park agreed to get together in a formal way and I must say that each one of them behaved themselves relatively well and that they were restrained and they talked more about what they can do together than what they disagreed on I do know that they raised some sensitive issues but overall I think that the most important thing is that they agreed to continue to talk and that's very constructive now about the passage of the new legislation for peace and security I know that I'm talking at the Australian National University with such great experts on this after all it's the Centre for Military and Security Law where I'm talking about and to whom I'm talking so I will not go into detail but let me just give you my impression of what this law is all about I think there are three or four very important points this is an effort to make Japan's defence policy and defence system more seamless that is that because of the nature of Japan's security policy and the history of security policy here's this law and here's that law and it's very difficult to see what comes next and what is going to happen if something happens then what level so forth so on so this new legislation I think the more I studied the first time I read it I didn't understand the thing but I'm not sure if I understand it very well now it's very technical but the so-called more seamless measures for peace and security I think that's true from the peace time operation to grey area operation which is not really in the law but also important influence situation and the situation in which the survivor of Japan is at stake and direct attack and that kind of things so this clear clarifies a lot of things that were vague and that were missing in the previous series of laws that's my understanding secondly more than anything else I think this is an effort to reinforce and make US Japan allies more effective more credible and more efficient over the years policymakers and people in uniform have been working very closely as to how to make Japan US allies work but things changed and they were not particularly successful I think they have done enormously good job in somehow maintaining and improving the way the two countries work in the security areas on the basis of the security treaty but nevertheless this law will augment that wonderful relationship furthermore and I think that they will be able to do a few things that they have not been able to do in the future now perhaps more interesting particularly to you I think this law will also enable Japan for the first time perhaps to work with countries other than the United States more actively and more effectively in the area of security law and there is no such word as Australia in the law of course but these laws apply in some instances to countries other than the United States under certain conditions and under certain circumstances and I think a lot of people have in their minds one country that is Australia and so we'll see how this will be implemented and it's not that the law will change the whole thing but on the basis of the law there is a lot of room for Australia and Japan to do more in the area of security laws the most of the things that Australia and Japan will be able to do will be limited for Japan to take logistical support, surveillance and search and that kind of traditionally Japan kind of thing but nevertheless I think that this has never been clear and so this is one big step and lastly I think this will enable Japan to be more actively involved in international peacekeeping operations and there are some technical changes of law so forth and so on now why this law now and I will talk about the logic behind the support and I'd like to talk about the opposition behind the law and to talk about Japan's post-war security policy and constitutional issues I would need about two hours really to go through that I don't think you have that much time and you will be bored but you remember in August 1945 we were a vanquished country and nobody wanted to see Japan as a military power again frankly speaking we are a very bad guy a group of bad guys and naturally the United States and as well as other countries wanted to make sure that Japan would never again embark upon adventurous military policy and invasion I think I think it's except for some revisionist I think that's the consensus among the people of Japan that we did something terrible and in fact the August 14th statement by Prime Minister Abe reflecting upon Japan's past clearly indicates that now hence the new constitution of Japan had this famous or notorious arikonai by the way I'm for arikonai I think it's very good that the country reflecting upon the past decides that we'll never again be engaged in aggressive war I think that's a wonderful thing that the United States kindly imposed upon us but there was a problem here because when the war was over MacArthur's presumption was that everybody would be happy and will live forever happily things didn't turn out to be that way and soon there was this Cold War situation in fact General MacArthur wanted Japan to rearm when the Korean War happened and then Prime Minister Yoshida said maybe a marvelous idea but I don't think we could do that because I remember this arikonai thing that you kindly gave to us so General MacArthur later said it was not my idea, it was Japanese idea this is by the way too much of a simplification it's much more complicated but just to make a sort of simplified version of the story so Japan had to think about and the United States had to think about how to maintain security peace of Japan and there are two answers to that one is essentially to develop a new self-defense force and it's going to be limited it's going to be only engaging individual self-defense or defense of, I shouldn't say individual because nobody was thinking about the distinction between individual and collective but just to defend to the minimum extent and the maximum extent that they could do the Japan proper and that was their mission in fact in the initial period it was so weak that nobody thought that it would be a mighty power in the future in order to fill the gap so to speak and augment that percarious situation that Japan was in Japan and the United States agreed to enter into an alliance and this is the beginning of U.S. Japan security treaty in 1951 and this has been lasting until now and this has been very successful in terms of deterrence and in terms of everything else in the area of security now the United States under this treaty is obligated to defend Japan it was not so under the 1951 treaty but the revised treaty of 1960 changed that so they are obligated to defend Japan Japan is not and why so? Well nobody on the U.S. side expected Japan to be able to defend the United States at the time but at the same time Japan because Article 9 decided that that could not be done physically or legally and hence the United States thought about it and nevertheless they entered into the security treaty because in return the United States had and Japan agreed that the United States armed forces would be allowed to use bases in Japan not only for the defense of Japan but also for the security and peace and security I think the initial language was Far East the history of Japan's cooperation with the United States in the security area is the history of expansion of that the Japan proper and Far East and then wider East Asia and then I think we are now beginning to talk about Indo Asia Pacific now so there was this inherent imbalance within the structure of the treaty and this constitutional restraint upon Japan to not to be able to be a normal ally of any type so Japan has been working very hard to balance the inherent imbalance by creative means and I think that began particularly after the Cold War beginning in the 1980s when the Cold War so reheated and at that time Japan was able to cooperate closely with the United States because the threat was Soviet Union but this threat shifted from Soviet Union to North Korea and then to somebody else so the question is how to make it possible for Japan to make sure that the Japan's defense is effective but also for Japan to incorrect the inherent imbalance to be contributing more to the area security and peace and that I think is the Japan's post-war security policy expanding to this day this is too simple an explanation and I'm sure that technically we have a lot more issues to talk about and here you are however but there is clearly a changing security environment in this area and I don't have to do that so Prime Minister Abe began to take this proactive contribution to peace that in order for Japan to more effectively defend itself we cannot do everything by ourselves we have to work with others more closely with the United States but more actively with other countries as well so this new law is basically enacted with the background of this changing national security environment and also because of the need that no one no country, no single country can secure its safety and peace by itself I'm sort of tempted to sort of recite in front of all these English speaking people one poem by John Donne, English poet you remember that he said no one is an island but part of the continent entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent a part of the main and I think the new security legislation actually says that this law is based upon the realization that Japan cannot alone defend itself and we have to work more closely with others I think I have spoken more than 20 minutes now but let me please bear with me for another five minutes and one interesting thing and one important thing is that this is the logic that is behind the new security legislation but surprisingly there was a very strong opposition to the passage of the new law you may have heard about it but in fact even today according to some polls if a Japanese person is asked by a poll taker as to whether he or she supports the legislation about 30 to 35% of the people do say yes I do as opposed to 50 to 50 perhaps 5% it varies from newspapers to newspaper and I don't know why but it's a technical thing and clearly the opposition at least according to some polls is bigger than the support with the caveat that it seems that the support number is slightly increasing and the opposition number is slightly decreasing but nevertheless there is still a very strong sense among some Japanese this is very bad in fact that you have seen a lot of demonstrations on the streets of Tokyo and why then is the opposition to this level some parties and some political leaders call this law as a war legislation rather than peace legislation or security legislation and many people began to talk about the possibility of Japan going back to the conscription system some of my friends talked about it and asked me if there will be conscription now I don't know why they were thinking that way there are I think two reasons for that and I think that A is still a very strong sense of passivism and this is reflected by and expressed in Ariko Nai Japan has liked the idea that we have declared that we will never engage in war and somehow the idea that the Japanese armed forces would be overseas possibly using force sort of shocks people and if you read this carefully that's the ultimate and very rare occasion in which Japan will be allowed to use force in fact the law is very strict about under what circumstances Japan will be allowed or armed forces will be allowed to use force but this notion that Japan will send troops abroad again and possibly use force gets a very strong guts feeling yaku kind of thing and that's number one in fact majority of the Japanese constitution scholars have stated that at least part of the law where there is this collective security collective self-defense right is concerned unconstitutional I don't tend to think so but the best and most well educated and bright constitution scholars they all talk about it so that's one issue number two is I think that there is this may I invent a word passivism as opposed to pacifism I think this is based upon history as I said that we got terrible experience throughout the 1930s and 40s and we were determined never to engage in that kind of war and invasion that caused many casualties and death among the Japanese but also to many countries in Asia and Australia suffered from Japan's military and adventurism in the past but I think there is a consensus on that but there are two views derived from that one is to say never again we will be doing anything outside of Japan and that just to send troops abroad is a bad idea because that could lead to the resurgence of military and the resurgence of many deaths and so forth another view or the second view and contrary view is exactly what Prime Minister Abe has been talking about that is precisely because we were so bad in terms of the area security this is a time based upon our policy of maintaining peace and be very restricted about our defense posture that we should be doing more we should not be only concerned about our security but also how to keep the area safer and more secure so in conclusion I would like to say because of this very strong opposition and this is not really based upon the sort of technical analysis of the law but more on the Japanese people's feeling if somebody asks that this is the beginning of a process of Japan becoming just like anybody else having a normal or regular army and navy and air force I don't think that will happen even under this law what Japan can do and what the self-defense force will be able to do will be very restrained and I think correctly so there have been some impressions on the part of America at least to the extent that I talked about this thing last year that now we are not only talking about the alliance we are talking about how we together can be actively engaged in peace operation and that's I think over expectation I think it would be more limited Japan will continue to be engaged in defensive measures and non-military measures and only in very rare occasions we are ready now to defend some other countries vessels and forces now on the other hand I don't think that this will lead to a future adventure at all in fact Gallup poll has an annual survey of asking people in 64 countries as to whether somebody who is asked this question will stand up and take arms and defend his or her country if invaded by a foreign country it's something like 80% of the Chinese will say yes and Australia I don't know 90% or I don't know the United States roughly I don't have the number I should have brought that it's probably about 50% 45% I don't remember the number somebody may know that Germany is low because of the historical records and historical memories 30% Western Europe tend to be a little lower Japan is 11% and this is the lowest among 64 countries so if we were to be more actively engaged in security measures A it will be restrained and B it will again take time and I think Japan will be very cautious and if anybody worries about Japan becoming a mighty military power no worry Thank you very much Thank you Professor Agawa and please stay with us for some questions I'm glad that in your presentation as well as the wide-ranging geopolitical dimensions and this map will make us all think a little bit a new about our place in the world so thank you for that but as well as that I'm glad that you did touch on the question of the opposition and the criticism of the new security legislation in Japan because that is certainly a dimension that gets a lot of attention in the international media and I think we all have questions about that I'll take a few questions from the group now and we'll try to have time to answer them so any questions or comments from the audience please Richard Salmons from the Coral Bell School here at ADU Prime Minister Abe at the United Nations recently outlined Japan's intentions to seek a permanent seat on the UN Security Council it's not the first time for Japan that he's renewed that intention so what policy trade-offs do you think would be necessary if Japan was to be a realistic prospect to gain a permanent USA seat on Japan? I know enough about where we are on that I think it has always been Japan's desire to have a more presence and more right in the United Nations composition of the Security Council and otherwise when I was serving as Minister for Public Affairs at the Embassy of Japan you may remember that Japan worked very hard to get the new system of Security Council and try to be one of the newly proposed and changed permanent member it didn't work out and so I think that desire still with us and with Prime Minister Abe but my impression is that it's a very difficult proposition and that it would be very difficult to achieve that I'm sure that my friends in the Foreign Ministry have such an excellent and creative idea to make it possible but I don't know, I'm not privy to that this however reflects the reality of the United Nations Security Council, I think that it's basically deadlocked because now the permanent members of the Security Council consist of the United States and Great Britain and France and then China and Soviet Union and for a while we thought that the Soviet Union well, I should say Russia, I'm old so I tend to say that but Russia we all thought that has changed but recent incidents seem to show that they are back in the old mode and so when that kind of country has a veto power it wouldn't work and on the other hand China is increasingly assertive and anything that might jeopardize their position would be the world community including some issues in this part of the world they will certainly veto that and may I say, as I said in the series of slides showing the fleet review that I'm not sure if the British government is still as influential as it used to be and the recent visit by Xi Jinping to Buckingham Palace and given a wonderful room to stay there was not a very security oriented move but I think simply Britain's need to have a very good economic relationship so all these things seem to indicate that the whole world will have to think about how to make it more effective I'm not that optimistic about the possibility of doing that but either there or in some other fashion that a new mechanism is needed, I don't know how and perhaps somebody else may be able to talk about it you may have some idea It's your lecture professor, I would note that there are other countries who also claim to have permanent seats not this one but perhaps India so there is a big debate to be had I have a question perhaps from the audience this gentleman here The NS Department of International Relations here at the Indian News thank you very much for your lecture I found it very interesting that while you were talking about cooperation with navies around the periphery of China that the Australian Navy of fire reading the newspaper correctly is exercising with the PRC live fire exercise and I'm wondering as you've described the cooperation among the countries around China what do you think about the possibility of the alternative, the engagement activity that Australia is indeed involved in and as you know all of the countries in the periphery want good relations with both China and Japan and the US and everyone else but is this notion of working with India Australia, the United States, South Korea as the Chinese describe it is this a containment policy? what you're suggesting and proposing that we cooperate Thanks Peter I think there's just two questions there perhaps but please With respect to your navies exercise with China I just had heard that they even did live fire exercise but in terms of joint exercise I'm not surprised that they do that even the Japanese Navy or the maritime self-defense war has been trying to do that kind of exercise all the time I think from time to time depending upon political situation they refused to do anything with us but in the past their fleet have visited Japan they did joint rescue operations exercise and so forth and so does the United States so does very many countries in the world I think it's very important that we get to know each other very well and I think in fact I just heard when I was in Hong Kong a couple of days ago that the fact that the Japanese I mean American US's best lesson came into the 12 miles zone is a welcome thing for Chinese Navy but for the first time they can exercise with the US's lesson but I don't know whether that's the case now everybody has it's his or her or the countries have different situations I think in Japan's case we feel that the area environment is more tense and that China is more assertive to be Japan and that we have this territorial dispute and that we have each China see natural resources dispute and one of the significant things about this talks in Seoul particularly between China and Japan was the fact that they agreed to resume talks about the possibility of joint development of gas rigs in East Asia China Sea which was agreed on back in 2008 and because of the sensitivity of the area basically they said if you are to do this natural gas rigging that we should think about how we could peacefully together work and Chinese may I say just ignore that agreement and when ahead so we have our own interests to work more closely with the United States in this area in fact I just met a journalist who is known to be on China's side in Hanca and he asked me why the Japanese people don't think about the possibility of better way of securing its peace by distancing Japan from the United States and I thought it was very interesting and I think that the Chinese are saying that kind of things to everybody but any event that's the view case in point South Korea is in a very difficult position I think that they are so close to China and for all sorts of reasons my understanding they haven't really voiced their support for the South China Sea that's not an issue yet and I think that some of the ASEAN countries so afraid or maybe very in favor of China that they are not joining a strong statement among ASEAN countries the question however is given all these different views to what extent countries collectively or unilaterally respond to whatever China does and I think that what we need to do and I hope that Australia will be with us is that if China does this that response will be this and if China does that response will be this it's neither a simple engagement nor a very strong opposition per se but just to have a very clear sort of predictable outcome so that they know what we will do and we know what we will do and that way that we can avoid needless confrontation and also I hope that China will restrain themselves that's my feeling on that Thank you Professor we're getting close to time but I want to take one more question in fact there's a few hands raised so what I'll do is take these three questions and I will let you decide how briefly you wish to reply to them perhaps combining your reply into one response because I know there are voices that want to be heard so George Brennan you had a question I think George is a colleague at the National Security College Thank you Mine was a further question on the bilateral relationship with Korea despite what South Korea despite what I think Japan feels rather a derivative efforts to improve the relationships bilateral relationship remains rather difficult since the Second World War and what you thought the prospects were there That's one question Japan-ROK relations, sir One question that I'd like to ask you is one country where yours technically is still at war namely Russia now there are two islands in the Korean chain now I've spoken to several Russians and they say there are no Chinese living there now they think they've all been told to leave this is a time that the Japanese government stepped up to the plate and said we recognise that these are no longer Japanese territory but part of Russia and sign the treaty because technically you're still at war Thank you indeed so Russia-Japan relations and a sore point there and our last question is in the middle of the room there I think then we're done Hello, I'm Joel, I'm a public servant so Japan's considered a law-abiding country it's good to fight law-abiding countries do you think it would be desirable for Japan to use international arbitration to resolve some of the territorial disputes that's directly involved in like Takashima-Dokdo or the Senkaku-dayutai in particular and is Japan looking to use arbitration to resolve this? Thank you Thank you very much so Korea, Russia and arbitration please I have only a minute and a half left if I can answer all these questions I will be employed somewhere else so let me try We're like you go two minutes over Let me try my best and I don't want to lie that I say something that I don't know simply I don't know the answers but I have some feelings about some of the questions that I have received on Korea-Japan relationship I'm sorry, I keep saying Soviet Russia-Japan relationship and arbitration number one, Korea there was a time about five years ago that the Japanese were so optimistic about our friendship with Korea that I heard from somebody that among the young Japanese female diplomats the number one place that they desired to be stationed was Seoul for several reasons, one, Korean guys are so dandy and handsome and so sexy number two, the food is good and three, they are very friendly Now over the past five years things have changed and there have been a lot of speculations and studies as to why this happened and I don't have time to go into that Now it is true that the relationship has been rocky but my very subjective feeling is that this is not really based upon any serious current issues between the two countries We talk a lot about Dokuto I should say, Takeshima Dokuto and Koreans are very unhappy about the way in which we continue to say that that's our territory We are very unhappy about the fact that they say this is Dokuto But despite that territorial dispute unlike Senkaku no Japanese in his or her same mind will ever try to take it back by force In fact we are so comfortable that the airplanes in both countries fly over that area without any problem and there you know traffic control is going on So the question really is how we are going to A, hopefully overcome some of the sensitive and touch issues such as comfort women territory issues and the colonial past and also some forced labor issues But separate from that I always tell my Korean friends that you have some reasons to be feeling bad about our past relationship but that shouldn't be the reason why we cannot work together So I hope that this three-party meeting and the Park 2 other meeting they came to a reason that they can despite these disagreements that they can work together for the area security, for the economy and everything Number 2, Russia Russia, I will not speculate on that and they have been a lot of talks about what kind of options we have My sense however is that there are certain things in our life that it's better not to resolve and this may be one of those and it depends on how much Russia needs us and how much we need them and there are reasons why we need Russia's help in many areas and in certain ways Russians are very practical and so they will work with us with or without the resolution of the territorial issues territorial issues are I think fundamentally something that the countries cannot easily yield to Number 3, arbitration I have heard the position that Japan should try arbitration with respect to Senka Island and in fact there has been some strong voice for that One very famous international law professor that I know back in the United States Japan should indicate that we are ready to do that kind of things and China will not say no and that's going to be a major public relations coup but I don't think that our position is that I think our position is that there is no territory dispute there and therefore we are not in a position to go into arbitration I've been thinking a lot about it but I don't claim to know whether we have the correct answer or whether we have any options there Thank you very much Thank you all for your time Professor before we end I'm going to ask my colleague Dr Hitoshi Nasu from the College of Law to give the verb of thanks before we conclude As co-director of the Center for Military and Security Law my role here is very simple to thank Professor Gawa for sharing his insight into this very controversial issue surrounding Japan he certainly shared with us a very important background and different views in a broader context which often is very hard to understand for people outside because of the media's tendency to highlight or emphasize a particular aspect or one side of the story so it's very fortunate for us to be given this opportunity to understand much deeper issues and context in which the controversy has been arisen so I thank you for that presentation and now I invite the audience to join me in thanking Professor Gawa Thank you very much