Japan, A Discreet Leader in International Relations

Under Prime minister Abe Shinzô, Japan showed increased leadership in the Indo-Pacific region. Tokyo was the first to adopt an Indo-Pacific vision (FOIP), which it called "free and open", terms since used by the UK and the EU. The concepts THAT FOIP uses, such as "connectivity" and "qualify infrastructure", have become cornerstones of international cooperation in the region. From 2007, Japan also added a defence dimension to some of its bilateral or multilateral relations, inaugurating a defence diplomacy. Most of its initiatives serve to counterbalance China in the Indo-Pacific or beyond. Under Prime minister Kishida Fumio, China conditions Japan’s position over the war in Ukraine, or on economic security. This lecture, drew on a book published in French in April 2023 (Le Japon, un leader discret, Eyrolles), analysed the various dimensions of Japan’s newly found influence on the international scene.

 

A French and Australian dual citizen, Guibourg Delamotte is a tenured Full-Professor of Political Science at the Japanese studies department of the French Institute of Oriental Studies (Inalco), of which she is presently the Head and a Research Fellow with the French Research Institute on East Asia (Ifrae). She is aso Invited Senior Research Fellow, ROLES-RCAST, the University of Tokyo. She works on Japan's foreign and security policies, and Japanese domestic politics. She most recently published Le Japon, un leader discret (Eyrolles, 2023), La Démocratie au Japon, singulière et universelle (ENS Ed., 2022), and coedited (with J. Brown and R. Dujarric) The Abe Legacy. How Japan has been shaped by Abe Shinzô, Lexington, 2021.

 

Organized by the Centre for the Study of Global Japan, University of Toronto.