China's Growing Power and a New Era for the US-Japan Alliance

Dartmouth College’s Initiative for Global Security and the Centre for the Study of Global Japan at the University of Toronto were pleased to co-host an expert discussion of how the US-Japan alliance should adapt to the rise of Chinese power and a changing Indo-Pacific. Speakersl discussed emerging challenges to the US-Japan alliance, and to what extent the alliance responded (technologically, politically, and militarily) to these challenges.

 

 -----SPEAKER BIOS----- Moderator: Prof. Jennifer Lind (Dartmouth College, Government Department and Dickey Center)  Jennifer Lind is Associate Professor in the Government department at Dartmouth College, a Faculty Associate at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University, and a Research Associate at Chatham House, London.  Professor Lind’s research focuses on the security relations of East Asia, and U.S. foreign policy toward the region. Her book, Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics (Cornell, 2008), explores how memory and apologies affect international reconciliation. Lind’s current research and book manuscript examines the future global balance of power, arguing that China’s rise has led to a bipolar system: that through “smart authoritarianism” China has emerged as a peer competitor to the United States. Professor Lind has published her research in numerous academic journals, and writes for wider audiences in Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Panelists: Professor HIKOTANI Takako, Gakushuin University, Japan  Takako Hikotani is Professor at Gakushuin University International Centre. From 2016 to 2021, she was the Gerald L. Curtis Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy at Columbia University, and continues her affiliation with Columbia as Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. She also serves as the Asia Society Policy Institute Fellow at Asia Society Japan Center. Professor Hikotani previously taught at the National Defense Academy of Japan, where she was Associate Professor, and lectured at the Ground Self Defense Force and Air Self Defense Force Staff Colleges, and the National Institute for Defense Studies. Her research focuses on civil-military relations and Japanese domestic politics, Japanese foreign policy, and comparative civil-military relations. Her publications (in English) include, "The Japanese Diet and defense policy-making," International Affairs, 94:1, July, 2018; "Trump's Gift to Japan: Time for Tokyo to Invest in the Liberal Order," Foreign Affairs, September/October 2017; and "Civilian Control and Civil-Military Gaps in the United States, Japan, and China" (with Peter Feaver and Shaun Narine), Asian Perspective 29:1, March 2006. Professor Hikotani received her BA from Keio University, MAs from Keio University and Stanford University, and PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, where she was a President's Fellow.

 

 Professor MORI Satoru, Hosei University, Japan  Satoru Mori is the professor of international politics and U.S. foreign policy at the Department of Global Politics, Faculty of Law, Hosei University. Dr. Mori is currently undertaking research on U.S. strategy in Asia, U.S. defense innovation and its implications for U.S. allies, and the history of U.S. defense strategy. Dr. Mori is a former Japanese Foreign Ministry official and holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo, LL.M. degrees from Columbia University Law School and Kyoto University, and a LL.B. degree from Kyoto University. During his sabbatical leave, he was a visiting researcher at Princeton University (2014-2015) and George Washington University (2013-2015). He currently chairs a security policy project at the Japan Institute for International Affairs as well as two government commissioned projects. His book on U.S. diplomatic history The Vietnam War and Alliance Diplomacy (in Japanese) published from the University of Tokyo Press in 2009 was awarded the 15th Hiroshi Shimizu Prize for Distinguished Academic Work from the Japanese Association of American Studies. English publications include “The Case for Japan Acquiring Counterstrike Capabilities: Limited Offensive Operations for a Defensive Strategy,” (co-authored with Shinichi Kitaoka) in Scott Harold et al., Japan’s Possible Acquisition of Long-Range Land Attack Missiles and the Implications for the U.S.-Japan Alliance, (RAND Corporation, forthcoming) 7-25, “U.S. Technological Competition with China,” Asia Pacific Review 26:1 (2019) 77-120, and "The Promotion of Rules-based Order and the Japan-U.S. Alliance" in Michael J. Green ed., Ironclad: Forging a New Future for America's Alliances (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) 97-112. He is also a recipient of the Nakasone Yasuhiro Incentive Award and is also a senior fellow at the Nakasone Peace Institute.

 

Professor Andrew Oros, Washington College, USA  Andrew L. Oros is Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. His latest research project, initiated as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC in the past year, examines how demographic change – such as shrinking populations, aging societies, and gender imbalances – have and will affect the security environment in the Indo-Pacific region and, in particular, the network of US alliances and partnerships in the region. He conducted research for his last book, Japan’s Security Renaissance (Columbia University Press, 2017), as an invited research fellow at Japan’s National Institute of Defense Studies and as a Japan Foundation Abe fellow at Keio University in Tokyo and Peking University in Beijing. He also is the author of two other books and numerous articles and book chapters on issues related to East Asian security and Japanese politics. He serves as an executive editor of the scholarly journal Asian Security, is a member of the US-Japan Network for the Future (Japan/Mansfield Foundations), and is part of the Mansfield-Luce Asia Scholars Network. He earned his Ph.D in political science at Columbia University, an M.Sc from the London School of Economics as a British government Marshall scholar, and a B.A. from the University of Southern California.

 

Discussant: Prof. Phillip Lipscy (University of Toronto, Department of Political Science and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy)  Phillip Y. Lipscy is associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He is also Chair in Japanese Politics and Global Affairs and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Japan at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. His research addresses substantive topics such as international cooperation, international organizations, the politics of energy and climate change, international relations of East Asia, and the politics of financial crises. He has also published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy. Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations, examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations.