 Colleagues, we acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and pay our respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal people past and present. Welcome to the National Security College at the Australian National University. For those of you who I've not met, I'm Rory Medcalf, the head of the college and I'm really delighted that we're working in partnership this evening with the Australia Japan Foundation of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to host this very special event, the 2015 Australia Japan Foundation Address, by a distinguished visitor, Professor Takashi Shiraiishi. I want to welcome you all and make a particular mention of welcome to our eminent guests, including His Excellency, the Ambassador of Japan, Mr Sumio Kusaka. I also would like to welcome the Chair of the Australia Japan Foundation, Murray McLean, one of Australia's most experienced and accomplished diplomats, former Ambassador to Japan. I'm also pleased to note other members of the Australia Japan Foundation Board here this evening, including Professor Veronica Taylor, who's also the Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific, here at ANU, my own Dean, so welcome, Professor, and other members of the board, including, I believe, Dr Chaki Ajoka. Now, it's really wonderful to see strong attendance as well from some of ANU's leading academics and executive staff, as well as senior Australian government officials, members of the diplomatic corps, and others. Professor, I think this is a sign of the interest in your expert perspective this evening. Ladies and gentlemen, in a moment we'll introduce our speaker, but first I want to say a few words about the topic at hand and how it concerns and connects with the work of the National Security College and ANU more generally. Now, in striving to understand the strategic future of our Indo-Pacific region, and thus our own future, Australia's future, we often run the risk, in my view, of simplistically imagining that everything boils down to a China-America dynamic. What does China do with its growing power? How does Washington respond? Recent developments, however, have reminded us that there are other very substantial powers in our region with their own interests, their own capabilities, and their own choices. Not only, for instance, India, a country I would take a particular interest in, but also Japan. It's becoming increasingly obvious in my view that we cannot and should not write off Japan as an influential strategic actor in our region. I would argue that it's in Australia's interests as a friend and a partner of Japan to help encourage but also shape a responsible kind of normalisation of Japan's security posture as a contributor to a regional balance and to regional order. So what precisely are the implications of Japan's national security policy? Well, that's what this evening, Professor Shirishi, one of Japan's leading public intellectuals, will offer some answers on for you, and I certainly won't pre-empt his remarks. He will look at the background of the Japan's changing security policies, the nature of the current debate, including on security legislation, I suspect. But the implications also of Prime Minister Abe's security reform agenda in North Asia and across the wider Indo-Pacific region. Now, it's fair to say that Professor Shirishi's input has had considerable impact on some of the developments of Japanese policy in recent years, including the national security strategy in December 2013. Those documents I think helped to frame a lot of significant rethinking about Japan's defence and security posture in our region, including the way Japan is shifting from a land-based to a maritime focus in its forced modernisation and its focus, and including Japan's engagement with a wider array of security partners beyond the U.S. alliance, including, and I think really including quite significantly, Australia. Now, as part of this shift, Australia's own security relationship with Japan continues to strengthen, a process that has broad continuity of engagement against some time ago that has intensified under Prime Minister Abe. As we all know, Japan's one of the three countries being considered in the context of the competitive evaluation process for Australia's next submarine, and a small contingent of Japanese ground self-defence force personnel are currently in Australia for the talisman sabre exercise with the United States trilateralising that exercise for the first time. So in this context, it's really timely, I think, that Professor Shorishi is here to give this address. This is an example, I'll just say in closing, of the very kind of active policy engagement that I think the National Security College can usefully contribute to our national debate as part of ANU's wider mandate of policy impact. In that field, I also want to note for you a few of our other recent important activities, including convening last week a strategic dialogue with the commander of the US Seventh Fleet, Admiral Thomas, on board his command ship, Wild and Sydney, conducting the expert and industry consultations for the Australian Government's cyber security review, and conducting expert consultations to define the future operating environment for the Australian Defence Force. These kinds of activities are mutually reinforcing with our very busy schedule of training and executive education across the Australian public service and our expanding masters and PhD academic programs. Now, our guest is visiting Australia as a guest of the Australia Japan Foundation and as a contribution to the deepening of mature strategic discussion and understanding between our two countries. So in that context, I'll be very pleased in a moment to invite Murray McLean to introduce our speaker. Before I do, I do one or two housekeeping matters. As you may know, we're recording this evening's event, so please have your phones on silent, and this event is on the record. So when we get to the question and answer session, please ask your questions in that context. With that, it's my real pleasure to invite Murray McLean to introduce our speaker here this evening. Murray. Thank you very much, Rory. And it's a great pleasure to be here today. Once again, I was here last week for the very successful Crawford Leadership Forum as well. So it's been a very active time with the, I think, very much the Australian National University and in this particular instance, the National Security College headed up by Rory for joining together with the Australia Japan Foundation to host this very esteemed speaker, Professor Takashi Shiraishi. Professor Shiraishi is without any question a very, very insider, very much a Tokyo insider as far as influence on policy is concerned. And it's very broad policy as well. He's actually a specialist on Indonesia. In fact, he's without any question Japan's foremost specialist on Indonesia. And he, nonetheless, like all very good policy advisors, has a very broad understanding of Japan's strategic environment. And that is what I think we'll be hearing very clearly from him tonight, the current state of affairs in respect of that, but also how it implicates Australia's own policy. I enjoyed very frequently when I was ambassador in Tokyo having very frank and very educative for me discussions about policies of the Japanese government policies. And I know tonight you'll all hear and benefit a great deal from that as well. This is part of the role that the Australia Japan Foundation has. As Rory said, it's sponsored or at least funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. But our role is actually to broaden the base of understanding at the people-to-people level, the non-government level. And that's really, I think, very, going to be amply helped by Professor Sherry Ishii's speech. We have been very active over the last number of years since its formation and next year we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary of the Australia Japan Foundation, which was indeed set up at the same time as the Treaty of Nara between Australia and Japan. And as Canberraites, most of you are, would know Nara and Canberra are sister cities, so we will look forward to that as well. Anyway, that's enough from me. I really want you to join me in welcoming Professor Sherry Ishii for what I'm sure will be an extremely important discussion. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Professor Metcalf and Professor, I mean Ambassador McLean, for the nice introduction as well as the opening speech. It is an honour to be here. And first of all, I'd like to thank National Security College and you, Australia Japan Foundation, as well as the Australian Government, to make this meeting happen. I'd like to talk today about Japan's security and foreign policy. Two and a half years ago, two and a half years have passed since Mr Abe came to power in December 2012. Over the last two and a half years, he has done quite a lot on the security foreign policy and foreign economic policy fronts. The National Security Council, NSC, was established in December 2013 with the Prime Minister, Cabinet Secretary, Foreign Minister and Defence Minister at its members, and with Mr Yachi, a former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs at his first director. A national security strategy was adopted for the first time in history, also in December 2013. And prior to this, there had, of course, been national security strategies, but they tended to be widely assumed and debated, but not codified and made public available. The current national security strategy contains several key phrases such as proactive contribution to peace, dynamic joint defence force and seamless response to various situations, including great zone situations, and gives serious consideration to the two most important strategic factors in the Asia Pacific, and that is the rise of China and the American rebalancing. The new defence programme, Guidelines, released along with the national security strategy needs to be located in this context. The new guidelines emphasise defence posture building in the southwest region and gives the priority to maritime and air capabilities, as well as capabilities to deploy and manoeuvre forces. The guidelines also say that the self-defence forces would develop an amphibious capability to deal with invasion of remote islands. As part of the national security strategy, the government also set out the new principle for the transfer of defence equipment and technology in place of the previous three principles and related guidelines on arms exports. The new policy allows the Japanese government agencies and private firms to develop and produce defence equipment jointly with the government agencies and private firms of Japanese allies and partners. The defence equipment agency, which will be established soon in October, will be responsible for defence equipment procurement and development, and as part of its job, it will start funding research in dual technology at state research institutions and universities, even though the funding scale is very, very small. The cabinet also decided to change the constitutional interpretation of Article 9 in October and submitted a set of national security bills to the parliament to allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defence under certain, though very, very limited, circumstances. The bills are now under debate in the parliament and it is hoped that the bills will be passed in a few months. New guidelines for defence cooperation were also agreed on between Japan and the United States in April this year. Originally formulated in the Cold War era to set the parameters for U.S.-Japan defence cooperation in case of military attack against Japan, it was last revised in 1997 after the end of the Cold War. Prime Minister Abe can claim credit for all these policy initiatives and decisions, but it is important to remember that some of the issues have been there for more than 25 years. For example, the constitutional interpretation of collective self-defence has been a recurrent issue, at least since the Gulf War in 1991, and some of the initiatives which led to Mr. Abe's decisions began to take shape under the Democratic Party of Japan administration. In retrospect, the government under the DPJ, though dismal I must say in its performance, turned out to be useful for defence policy. Because the party had none of the historical baggage that the Liberal Democratic Party had to deal with in its effort to change Japan's defence policy, DPJ allowed operational officials who played crucial roles in the policy making process in Japan to initiate new policy measures as long as they did not threaten party unity seriously. For instance, the security and defence panel, Mr. Hatoyama, the first DPJ Prime Minister established in 2010, submitted its report to Mr. Kan, the second DPJ Prime Minister, and this report already contained such ideas as proactive contribution to peace and dynamic defence force and the revamping of Japan's defence industry and technology strategy. Prime Minister Abe has also been active in visiting and meeting his counterparts all over the world, especially Japan's neighbours, but with this important exception of his two immediate neighbours, China and South Korea. He visited Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia in January 2013, within a month after he came to power. He visited Myanmar in May, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines in July, Brunei in October and Laos and Cambodia in November 2013. He was the first Japanese Prime Minister who have visited all the ASEAN countries in one year. The Japan ASEAN Summit was held in Tokyo in December 2013. Mr. Abe visited India in January 2014, Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea in July and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in September 2014. So far, however, he has not met with Korean President Park formally. His meeting with President Xi Jinping in November last year was far from cordial, but it achieved its purpose. Both men agreed to establish a channel to deal with an emergency. Both men again met this April and apparently the second meeting sent a clear signal that senior Chinese officials of the government and party can now go ahead and undertake business with their Japanese counterparts. If we look at the countries Abe has visited, it is clear that there is a geographical focus and that this focus is a region stretching from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. To put it differently, Abe is expanding the geopolitical arena for Japan's engagement from an Asia Pacific framework to an Indo-Pacific framework. He is also underlining the importance of political alignment, security cooperation and rule and norm making. In the speech, Mr. Abe was scheduled to give in Jakarta in January 2013, but was unable to because of a terrorist emergency. He had talked about his plan to build a network for security cooperation with Japan-U.S. alliance as a cornerstone. A network brought enough to ensure safety and security and prosperity from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and strengthen ties with maritime Asia. In this context, he specifically mentioned Australia along with India with which he intended to strengthen relations and he underlined the position that Japan, Australia and India share in common along with Asia member countries, the United States and others, the common position that the seas, which are the most vital commons for all of us, should be governed by laws and rules and not by might. And finally, let us look briefly at Japan's foreign economic policy. Japan and Mr. Abe concluded the free trade agreement with Australia, decided to join the negotiation for KPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, the basic agreement of which will be reached hopefully in the month or two now that the American Congress has given trade promotion authority to President Obama. And Japan has also began negotiations with the European Union for Japan-EU FTA. The government decided not to join the China-led Asia-infrastructure investment bank for now, but the huge demand for infrastructure funding in Asia for as well as the AIIB's long-term strategic implications are well understood. Mr. Abe announced that Japan would provide 110 billion American dollars to the Asia Development Bank for the development of quality infrastructure in Asia. The ADB governor also stated his willingness to cooperate with the AIIB and explore possibilities for co-financing with the blessing of the Japanese government. And it is not hard to note a few important threats running through all these policy initiatives and decisions. Japan, under Mr. Abe, is responding to President Obama's rebalancing, both in security policy and in foreign economy policy, by deepening and expanding the U.S.-Japan alliance. Japan, under Mr. Abe, is also aligning itself with its partners and building a network for security cooperation and in so doing is expanding its regional focus from the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific. It is widely understood that China cannot be contained because it is now fully integrated into the global and regional economy, but Japan, together with the United States and its allies and strategic partners, continue to hedge the risk of China's unilateral attempt to change the regional order by force while engaging China in the fields of multilateral norms and rule making as well as cooperation in areas of mutual benefits. Equally important are the kinds of policy challenges the government under Mr. Abe is responding to. We are well aware that the distribution of wealth and power is changing very fast. Globally, the G7 share in the global economy measured in current prices American dollar in the final two decades of the 20th century was 65 to 66 percent, but declined to 50 percent by 2010 and will be less than 45 percent in the coming few years. This owes a great deal to the rise of emerging economies such as China, but also India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and others. Regionally, the combined share of Europe and North America was about 60 percent in the final two decades of the 20th century, but declined to 51 percent in 2010 and will decline farther in the years to come. In contrast, the Asia-Pacific region is rising and in the Asia-Pacific power shift has already taken place. Japan had been the largest economy in the final two decades of the 20th century with a 14 to 15 percent share in the global economy. In 1990, Japanese economy was three times larger than the economies of China, India and ASEAN combined, and even in 2000, it was still twice as large as these economies combined. But this is no more. China, whose share in the global economy was less than 4 percent in the year 2000, rose to more than 9 percent in 2010 and is expected to reach 14, 15 percent in a few years, or roughly the share Japan achieved at its peak. By then, China's economy will be larger than all the economies of Japan, ASEAN and India combined. It is misleading and very wrong, I think, to foresee the future by extrapolation. For I, for one, have serious doubt whether China keep growing at 7 percent for the coming five to 10 years. There was a time when the Chinese economy was growing more than 10 percent a year while the United States and other advanced countries were in serious crisis. In those years, there were expectations that China would surpass the United States as the largest economy in the world. But I think those days are gone. The Chinese economy is now confronted with serious structural problems. Nonetheless, China over the last six, seven years has done quite a lot, insisting on its core interest vis-à-vis its neighbors and the United States becoming assertive in territorial and sovereignty issues, deploying economic cooperation as a foreign policy instrument, as if at the end of the day, anyone can be bought with money. Such actions make us wonder what it wants to achieve and what the China dream, President Xi Jinping, talks about really means. But it is a fact that the balance of power has changed radically over the last 25, 30 years, and Japan as well as other states, I think, are mapping out their strategies, at least in part, with the extrapolated future and the experience in the recent past in mind. And this perspective is useful to understand what kind of thinking informs the policies of the government under Mr. Abe. Despite Abe's reputation as a nationalist, and I'm sure he is a nationalist, the issue of generation also matters. Compared with the generation of Mr., for example, Aso, former prime minister and current deputy prime minister, or Mr. Fukuda, who was prime minister in 2007, 2008, Abe is 20 years younger than these people, and Mr. Abe is more progressive than they are in social and economic policy. And he understands that reactivating Japanese economy is the most crucial challenge. This is not the place to discuss abenomics. But let me just note that the TPP, together with Japan, EU, EFTA, are viewed by Abe government as part of the economic structural reform, along with deregulation in agriculture, medical services and labor. And it is well understood that globally, the time when industrialized advanced economies, including Japan, can readily spearhead initiatives to shape the liberal international trade system is passing with the rise of emerging economies. It is also well understood that global governance systems in such areas of development finance, international trade and investment, global warming and cyber security are either fast changing or in need of refashioning. Needed to say, Europeans have a quite different take on global security risks, while the ISIS and other radical Islamist challenges are part of their own internal security issue. And the Russian threat is real. China is not seen as a threat, but rather an opportunity for economic gains as demonstrated, I think, by the recent British decision followed by other European states to join the AIIB. This perception gap, however, may become smaller in the coming years, as China's share in the global economy keeps growing without an accompanying change in its position on many global governance issues. Regionally, the Japan-U.S. alliance remains the base for all security and foreign policy initiatives undertaken in Japan, both under DPJ after Hatoyama's plunder in handling the American base issue in Okinawa, and under LDP, Japan has been doing what it can to deepen and strengthen its alliance with the United States. The newly established NSC makes it easier to coordinate policy with the United States. The new U.S.-Japan defense cooperation guidelines and Japan's new national security laws will make it more effective to promote defense cooperation, not only for Japan's national security, but also for the peace and stability of this region. The TPP will strengthen and broaden the alliance farther, and the American commitment to the defense of Japan in the Senkaku Islands, as well as massive American support and assistance in the wake of the disaster and the nuclear power accident in the northeastern part of Japan in 2011 really enhanced public support and the credibility of the alliance. Admittedly, Mr. Abe's nationalist reputation, as well as his visit to Yasukuni Shrine in December 2013, dismayed many people, both Japanese and non-Japanese, including myself, and raised serious questions about whether Mr. Abe is a revisionist and how far he will go, not only in his views on Japan's imperil and wartime past, but also in his foreign policy. But his recent speech in the American Congress has eased this worry to some extent, and I have the sense that Mr. Abe as a nationalist, as a realist, is getting upper hand over Mr. Abe as a nationalist. I'm not in a position to say anything definite about his statement in August on the occasion of Japan's surrender, but judging from his speeches at the Australian Parliament last year, his speech in Indonesia on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Asia Africa conference and his speech at the American Congress, I'm cautiously optimistic that he will be more realist than nationalist, and that he will most likely say what he's expected to, even if he may not use the same phrasing that Mr. Murayama and Mr. Koizumi used in 1995 and 2005. Japan also aims to support ASEAN unity and provide assistance for ASEAN integration. Japan has provided the major part of funding for ARIA, or the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN in East Asia, since its inception in 2008, and ARIA now serves as a think tank for the ASEAN Secretariat on issues of ASEAN economic integration. Japan has been active in economic cooperation that is providing ODA for infrastructure and human resource development and encouraging Japanese FDI. And because Japanese firms have doubts now about prospects for long-term investment in China, not only because of the political risk, but also, and more importantly, because of the rising labor cost and intellectual property issues and so on in China, they have turned to ASEAN countries. Indonesia and Thailand and more recently the Philippines have emerged along with India as the most prioritized investment destinations. At the same time, I should note that Japan's economic cooperation policy now has different political implications for mainland and maritime Southeast Asia. In view of China's initiatives in infrastructure development in mainland Southeast Asia, building highways and soon high-speed trains from Kuomint, the capital of Yunnan province down to Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar, Japan's economic cooperation in mainland Southeast Asia is geared toward building highways horizontally from east to west, providing support for trans-border production networks with Bangkok as a hub, thereby integrating even more deeply the mainland Southeast Asian economies into the global and regional economy. Japan actively promotes economic cooperation with maritime Southeast Asian countries, especially the Philippines and Indonesia. Japan has initiated security cooperation with maritime Southeast Asian countries and Vietnam and here Vietnam can be seen as at least in part as geopolitically maritime because of the little position in the South China Sea. After the Japan ASEAN summit in December 2013 in which Mr. Abe proposed defense cooperation, Japan ASEAN defense minister meeting was held in Myanmar in June last year for the first time with maritime security and non-traditional security as two major areas for cooperation. Japan has also expanded its cooperation in maritime safety, providing coast guard patrol ships to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam and creating programs for maritime security and safety capacity building. Here I should mention as an example the fact that GRIPS, the National Graduate Institute for Police Studies where I serve as president in partnership with Japan's coast guard will start a new English language MA program to train mid-career coast guard officials from four ASEAN countries and Japan. And Japan and Malaysia have also recently agreed to start negotiating a legal framework for the transfer of defense equipment and technology. It is hoped that this will serve as a template for Japan's cooperation with other ASEAN countries in the transfer of defense equipment and technology. The policy the government under Mr. Abe adopted on the transfer of defense equipment and technology has turned out to be a very useful in fact far more useful foreign policy instrument for promoting security cooperation with such countries as Australia, India and some European countries. The defense ministry is now designing the legal framework for the transfer of defense equipment and technology with Japan-Australia cooperation in mind designing the system for Japan-Australia collaboration project once this framework is agreed on. The implication I think is clear enough. The vast region encompassing both the Pacific and the Indian Ocean is now a de facto region. Major players in the Indo-Pacific region include Japan, the United States, China, ASEAN member states India and Australia. As the map will show, this greater region is structured with Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and India along a horizontal axis and Indonesia and Australia on a vertical axis. To the north, this vast region includes China and the rest of ASEAN continent along the way to India in the southwest are situated I mean located such countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh. What Prime Minister Abe has been doing is enhancing Japan-Batton partnerships with core countries in the Indo-Pacific region especially Australia and India as well as the Philippines and Indonesia. This does not mean that mainland Asia is not important. As I said earlier, Japan is promoting economic cooperation to make the region from Vietnam to Myanmar and Bangladesh open to the global and regional economy. But it is on the Indo-Pacific that Japan has staked its future and the imperative of maintaining the peace and stability of this region. Thank you very much. Professor, thank you very much for those remarks and I think you've left us with a lot to think about, a lot to talk about. We want you to stay here now because we have a discussion and some questions. Personally I took away from that a few very strong messages and I wasn't checking my phone, I was tweeting just in case I was distracting you in the front row. Your strong message about or your strong judgment that Mr Abe is proving to be more realist than nationalist, that is something I think many of us will watch very closely and take a great interest in and I'm sure there will be interest in that. Your view also about Abe and Japan's strategic thinking encompassing a wider Indo-Pacific conception of the region is something that resonates here and again we'll be watching with great interest and the challenges domestically in the security reform agenda you've been speaking about because if we read the headlines, if we read a lot of the media coverage we wonder whether that reform agenda is going to be as smooth or as consistent as perhaps official documents suggest. So I think you've left us with a lot to think about. I want to encourage and invite colleagues and friends in the audience to perhaps ask a question or make a comment. I'll please ask you to introduce yourselves and I guess if you do make a comment please follow it with a question. We'll begin with Lezik Kuzinski from the National Security College and we'll move from there. Please wait for the microphone. Listening to your remarks and your explanation of what is going on in Japan, I just wonder whether the Japanese public will actually support and accept those changes particularly in the national security area that you've mentioned in relation to those two bills that are being deliberated in the diet because I noticed that your Prime Minister, whom Japanese newspapers call Abe-chan, is under serious criticism. There is opposition against him. There have been demonstrations outside the diet and the further he goes in this direction the more he polarizes Japanese opinion. So far he's been riding on the crest of the wave in terms of abenomics and so forth but should the economic benefits of abenomics wear off in the future, he may face difficulties in the polls and some of these changes that you've referred to may be arrested if not reversed. Would you care to comment? Well, thank you very much. I mean, I would first say that it very much depends on which newspapers you read and then you get very different impressions. Especially Japan Watches abroad has a habit of reading Asahi newspaper, which is known to be very oppositional to any LDP government. But actually the Asahi newspaper has been losing its subscription quite radically. And actually it is Nihon Keisai Shimbun. It's a kind of Japanese version of Wall Street Journal. And Yomiuri, if we reach sort of right to the center or middle of the road newspaper are gaining actually subscriptions. So in that sense, I mean actually I would rather say that you have to be a bit cautious about which newspaper and especially if it is English language newspaper, Japan Times, this is almost, their tone is almost the same with communist newspaper. So actually, you know, I mean, it is very important. I mean, having said that, my reading of the Justin politics is now practically all the LDP politicians as well as opposition politicians are looking at the coming upper house election a year from now. And the political schedule is created with this election in mind. And my understanding is Mr. Abe wants to pass the security bills, hopefully in the coming two, three months before the current parliamentary session is over, before the end of September. And so that he has enough interval to go to the election. And hopefully by then economy is picking up so that he can go to the election in a position of strength. That is his calculation. And I don't think, I mean, LDP leadership wants to back down from this schedule especially on security bills because then it means Mr. Abe will lose a lot of momentum and that will be suicidal and therefore he will try his best and run through the bills. More actually tricky part is whether the economy picks up a year from now and that actually makes a lot of impact on the coming elections. And once he wins elections, hopefully he will use this capital to work on structural reform more than TPP. Already agriculture lobby is weakened but there are other lobbies. I mean, for example, labor market is very rigid and also the medical service sector is very rigid and very much protected. And this needs to be deregulated. And I know that Mr. Abe is very much aware of these problems but I think that only when he can win big in the coming elections he will address these issues. Thanks very much Takashi for an extremely careful and fulsome analysis of Japan's strategic position and the Abe government's response to the circumstances which Japan faces now and in the future. I'd like to go back to something you wrote in the book we launched here last week from Funabashi in your important contribution to that book. At the end of it you said that over the past few decades Japan's diplomacy had been framed too much through the prism of Japan and Asia rather than through the prism of Japan with Asia or within Asia. And I wonder in assessing where things are at now, what value add that reconception of Japanese diplomacy brings to the analysis? And how the Japanese government's response through that prism you would judge where the current government is at with respect to initiatives Japan can usefully take within Asia. And in particular are the particular initiatives that you would see that the Japanese government might pursue beyond those that you've described very carefully in your address. It's a tough question. Well I mean probably the biggest difference between Japan in the 1990s or 1980s, 1990s and Japan now is as I mentioned a major power shift. I mean Japan at the time was larger and Japanese economy was larger than all the rest of Asian economy is combined. And therefore Japanese thought I mean quite complacent thinking that Japan will be the big power in Asia and therefore they can run along with I mean together with Americans sort of quote unquote manage the region and they tried actually. But now no more. I mean China is a bigger player. China has more power and actually this is a big worry not only for Japan but also other countries. And so in a sense I mean we are very much aware that all the countries including Australia and Japan and us and countries actually maintain do a kind of very delicate balancing act because China is very important economically but security we are very much dependent with the United States and therefore we maintain the security alliance with the United States. So this delicate balance is in a sense the common denominator and that I think is making Mr. Abe act differently from former leaders because in a sense he's for the first time I mean acting like middle power prime minister rather than big power prime minister. And I think this is a new trend and this is going to going to stay. So in that sense I mean Japan in Asia is now a fact it is already accepted and politicians I mean leaders are acting on that. And I think I mean Japan-Australia relationship in a sense clearly shows this sort of changing the dynamics. Pete Van Ness A&U international relations. Thank you very much for such a comprehensive analysis of Mr. Abe's security policy all the way from collective self-defense export of military equipment TPP no AIIB and so forth. As someone who works on China it looks to me like an anti-China Indo-Pacific design. And presumably what you would say to us is that Australia ought to join in. And my question to you is do you really think Australia should join in and if so why? Well I mean I'm telling Japanese colleagues both in academia as well as in the government that distance matters. And I fully understand your perspective on China is different from ours even though we share a lot of interest together and also we share the common democratic values. And so in that sense you know I mean once in a while I use a word that Australia as Japan's de facto ally but at the same time I'm aware that some of Australians might be a bit nervous about the word. So I mean we are very much aware but at the same time we do whatever we can together. I mean that is actually my position. Be pragmatic. Colin Lyons is my name. I'm not an academic so I thought you might appreciate a question from an interested lay person from Canberra. You made fleeting reference to the tension between China and all its Asian neighbours over those disputed islands. Is there anything to prevent the Chinese military power and the threat that it poses to its neighbours? Sort of winning the day. Is it what will prevent them from getting their way in terms of what they build on those islands, what they extract from the ocean close to them and intimidating all their neighbours. I mean the United States is a long way away and it's got its own share of problems. I wish I know the answer. I don't think Chinese will stop for example building the airfield and militarising the place in the near future. And I don't think the Chinese are willing to negotiate for example the code of conduct with us and countries multilaterally and also negotiate territorial issues multilaterally. But at the same time what we have learnt over the last several years is that you have to be firm when you deal with Chinese. And when you stand firm you also need to have muscle. And that's the only way actually you need to negotiate and deal with Chinese. But at the same time I might be a bit too optimistic but I tend to see the current generation especially Xi Jinping as probably the most invoked-looking and nationalist product of cultural revolution and so on. But judging from my own encounters with younger party leaders in their 40s I mean at least they understand the language I mean English and they actually read some of the works abroad and they have at least they can imagine themselves in other people's perspective. So I mean I'm not entirely pessimistic about this but you know I would say the coming eight, nine years would be very tough dealing with Stonese. We'll take one more question from the audience. In a moment I want to ask a question of you if I may Professor which builds on your answer on China. A lot of us who've watched China, Japan relations, the maritime tensions in recent years have wondered where will this lead and as you know a few years ago there was a lot of alarm over the prospect of escalation. We seem to have seen things perhaps not cool down but reach a kind of an equilibrium for the time being. I noticed for example the in principle agreement to begin daughter-resume dialogue on confidence building measures late last year. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the tempo of incidents and encounters it seems to have evened out or slowed down. I just wonder if you might comment on the prospects for managing the tensions. Let's assume that behaviours don't fundamentally change in the years ahead. How do you see these tensions being managed without escalation that none of us want? I mean first of all I would say that the major responsibility should be placed to Mr. Ishihara Shintaro former governor of Tokyo who in fact wanted to buy that island you know just to put the issue to the surface and then it was exploited. I mean it was seized, the Chinese seized that opportunity to make the point that it is their territory and then started sending ships to that territory of water. So in a sense you know it was partly because of Mr. Ishihara's mistake which invited this development. At the same time I think you know the Chinese probably expected to achieve too much and now finally they came to realize that they can't really get much beyond what they have established the fact that you know internationally people now understand this is disputed area even though Japanese government itself maintains that there is no international conflict. So that part you know in a sense Chinese gained a step on this issue. But at the same time Chinese worried also about an accident. I mean and that is exactly what Mr. Abe achieved in his talk with Mr. Chichin Pien last year. So I mean as far as I can tell the frequency of Chinese ships incurring into coming into that water has declined a little bit even though they regularly send ships even now. More important actually as I mentioned briefly about a week after Mr. Abe met with President Xi Jinping in Bandung in April this year. I mean Chinese party and government leaders started to come. I mean for example you know I mean our grips my university has an MOU with China's Central Party School and we didn't have any communication since 2012 until a week after Mr. Abe met with Xi Jinping and the letter came I mean the letter which I received was written in English. The first sentence said we have been waiting for this moment for a long time. So you can already see you know I mean actually there are a lot of impact sort of expectations that they still need to engage Japanese and we are doing that. So I think you know the vast is over but at the same time we have to be very cautious because you know I mean they always play the game step by step. But what you say implies a complexity in China's position in the different agencies in China that perhaps provide something to work with. Thank you Professor. There was a question in the front here. In the middle I'm sorry please. Andrew McBride I'm a former master's student of the National Security College. I've noticed you've spoken very little about the Japan and Korea relationship apart from your comments about not meeting with Prime President Park. Would you think Japan might move to making some kind of radical gesture like some paper I can't remember who published it suggested giving up say Takashima the claim on Takashima as a step towards resolving the dispute with Korea and of course there's a comfort women issue. I'd just like your thoughts on that. I think you know I mean the relationship is far more complex than Takashima or whatever. And I'm quite cosmetic about the relationship especially and the President Park because in a sense the basic framework for Japan-Korea relationship now in place is partly a product of her father and therefore she cannot afford to be soft on Japan. She has to be very tough and otherwise you know I mean already she has full of problems domestically and therefore in a sense Japan is the easy target I would say the easiest target to mobilize popular support in Korea. So I'm not optimistic at all about this. But at the same time if you look at the operational level lots of things are going on and therefore in a sense I mean as long as all these issues can be taken care of at the operational level we don't have any problem. Only when we go to the political level we have problems. Greg Jarosch national security college student. Does Russia pose any serious regional security concerns or bilateral opportunities for Japan down into the future. It seems there's very little it said about the Russian neighbor. Well I'm reasonably sure that Mr. Abe has different opinion about this from me because he is in fact keen on engaging Russians especially Mr. Putin. But at the same time if you look at the Russian behavior over the last say 20 years 25 years you can tell they are not you cannot trust them and the way they engage Japan is very opportunistic and therefore you can't really do any serious negotiations with them. That is actually my understanding. That's a very direct answer. I was waiting for the next bit. The lady over here on the on the right. Thank you very much for that very interesting talks that when we talk about the Indo-Pacific which is very very predominant in Australia now we're getting predominant. But you mentioned quite a lot of Asia but it actually reaches also to the Middle East. And I wonder what kind of implication you think about you know talking about the Indo-Pacific particularly that the issues of the Middle East for Japan. Well I mean actually Middle East I must say is very tough place to figure out. And I mean of course Middle East is crucial for Japan's energy supply. And this remains so for quite some time. At the same time actually it's a good news that Americans are now producing oil and shale oil will be exported to Japan. So at least you know it will lighten some sort of security worry about Middle East. But at the same time I mean frankly I don't know I mean ISIS definitely is an issue in Japan too. And also sea lanes are important. But at the same time I mean in a sense we actually think that Americans will stay as a kind of maritime power for many years. And in a sense Japan's sort of security policy to reach the Middle East is predicated on that assumption that Americans will stay. PhD student from Strategic and Defense Study Center. Thank you for insightful remarks on Japan's security policy. I have two quick questions. One on the our base international economic or trade policy. You emphasize that the TPP is one of the priorities of Japan but Japan is also a party of another free trade arrangement in Asia. The regional economic comprehensive partnership and the negotiation is going on with 10 ASEAN member states along with China in the Australian New Zealand. So my question is what is the position of Japan on the regional economic comprehensive economic partnership. The second question is related to the evolving regional architecture security architecture in the Asia Pacific. Because since 2009 there have been ideas and initiatives on what should be the core of regional security architecture in the Asia Pacific region. For instance the former prime minister of Australia Kevin Rod proposed the Asia Pacific community and your former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama proposed the East Asia community. So what is the current position of Japan on the core of regional security architecture of Asia Pacific. Is it bilateral security alliances should be the core or ASEAN security arrangements such as the East Asia submit all the ADMM plus should be the core of the security architecture. Thank you. Well first of all about economic cooperation I mean the FDA. Certainly the current government is putting a lot of emphasis on TPP and second I would say on Japan EU FDA. I'll say I mean trade people wants to have ASEP because it is really good for Japanese transnational production change. But at the same time they are very much aware that for example Malaysia is not that eager as far as we can see to conclude the basic agreement on ASEP and India is not really you know I mean cooperating with us and so I mean in a sense I would say rather pessimistic about ASEP. And also we are doing Japan China Korea FDA but this is not going to anywhere. So this is a trade front. The security front well I mean people talk about East Asia Summit East Asia Summit and ASEAN plus processes as very important and I wouldn't deny the importance at the same time. If you really ask you know what is the core security policy. I mean most important security framework for Japan. It is Japan US Security Alliance and try to network I mean establish networking with Australia India some of the ASEAN countries and so on. That is the most important. I mean of course you know I mean you can talk you can talk a lot about East Asia Summit as well as you know ASEAN plus defense meetings and so on. But these are more sort of confidence building and so on and not really real security cooperation. Terry Henderson I'm a member of the general public. When you took Mr. Abe on a tour of Asia I don't recall you mentioning North Korea. I'm sure North Korea gets noticed in Japan as one of its more noticeable neighbors. What is the security outlook of Japan towards North Korea. I mean certainly we're worried about the developing missiles and nuclear weapons and also in Japan the Japanese kidnapped by North Korean government longer on the go is a major issue. And North Korean government under the current Kim leadership in fact you know sort of started to talk with Japanese government under Abe hinting that they want. I mean they may deliver something new to the government and so I think Mr. Abe was interested and started to talk with them. But so far we haven't got anything from North Koreans as usual and you know I mean probably the expectation is now very low. So you know I mean I briefly said that I don't think we can really trust Russians to negotiate. But you know the expectation or trust in North Koreans is far far lower. Vafik Zavi from Prime Minister and Cabinet. I'm from the cyber policy branch so you only very briefly mentioned cyber security and I was wondering if you wanted to add any remarks about Japan's role particularly in promoting norms and confidence building measures in Asia. Well actually cyber security is very important but at the same time in the sense you know I mean the entire cyber space is almost like anarchy and we really need to create a kind of regime to police this space. And recently I submitted a report to the Foreign Minister for Affairs about the need for what we call science diplomacy and basically encouraged the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Kishida to sort of experimentally appoint a science advisor and then raise some science related questions to the G7 summit meeting this coming year. And one issue I suggested is how to create and start talking about regime creation of cyber space. I mean we are actually being attacked by who we don't know. And we are actually increasing the budget and hiring more people but at the same time this is I don't know I mean whether I mean how you are dealing with this issue but in Japan those real experts in cyber security are in short supply and whenever there are good ones they are always head hunted not just by Japanese private sector but by the American private government business people and therefore we are always losing really good ones. And so actually this is really tough issue. But certainly this is really important. Thanks Professor and I think you've illuminated one of the problems that we have in this country as well. In terms of in terms of recruitment and retention of the people we need in cyber security. Before we conclude I just wanted to ask one or two I guess final questions. One on a topic that hasn't had much airing today but which the chancellor of this university Garrett Evans would not forgive me for asking you for not asking you. So I'm going to ask you for some views on where Japan currently stands on the range of nuclear nonproliferation and arms control issues both from a Japanese perspective and as a partner in the international international system. Well I mean of course you know I mean Japan is a large Japanese public is a large not just nuclear weapons but also nuclear power plant these days and therefore I don't think there is not much an issue for Japanese government as well as public to maintain the current regime and you know if necessary strengthen it. But on nuclear arms control on the nonproliferation treaty. I think you know I mean I think you know I mean I'm not really following that issue very closely and therefore probably you know more more more here but my sense is actually there is not much debate going on on this issue and probably for ever the government especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decide will be accepted by the public. Thank you Professor that and that issue has gone a bit quiet I think a much of the international debate but of course these things change. The last thing I wanted to ask you about was to build on the earlier point about regional architecture and to ask you about a few of the few of the initiatives in developing mini-lateral security arrangements small numbers of countries cooperating quite closely. The Australia, Japan, United States trilateral arrangement is often held up as the most effective of these. There's been debate about whether there should be other arrangements a quadrilateral arrangement within Indian others. I'm wondering if you have some views on. Well I mean actually for now we are doing three sort of this small mini multilateral engagement with Korea and with India and with Australia and but always Japan, US but this time I understand that there is something going on between Japan, Australia and India and this is a good sort of you know I mean step forward and I would love to see more actually initiative of this kind not just with India but other countries in this region. Thank you. Thank you Professor I think that's certainly an interesting area area to watch. I know that the Australia, Japan foundations brought you in here for a flying visit for your lecture tonight and other engagements are out around town and they've given you a very long day which I think is in the interest of the Australian taxpayer. I'm really excited that we hosted you here at the National Security College this evening. I want to thank again the Australia, Japan Foundation for bringing you here and for being our partner in this public policy engagement event and Professor I think I want to invite now the audience to show their appreciation for your time and remarks. Thank you very much.