Japan, the Indo-Pacific and Lessons for North America: Economic Security, Interdependence and Supply Chain Resilience

As Canada and the United States develop new Indo-Pacific and economic security strategies, Japan serves as a useful model. Japan now has a Cabinet Minister specifically responsible for economic security as Japan addresses the economic fallout and supply chain disruptions due to US-China tensions, global decoupling, COVID and the war in Ukraine. To build resilience, Japanese companies are proactively diversifying their supply chains beyond China. How will these trends play out in the post-pandemic era, and what are the implications for North America? Experts Dr. Kazuto Suzuki (GraSPP, University of Tokyo) & Dr. Ulrike Schaede (University of California San Diego) held a discussion, moderated by APF Canada Distinguished Fellow Deanna Horton.

 

 --- Speaker Bios --- Ulrike Schaede is Professor of Japanese Business at the University of California San Diego, School of Global Policy and Strategy. She is the Director of JFIT (Japan Forum for Innovation and Technology) where she organizes a weekly “Japan Zoominar” on current issues on Japan. She works on Japan’s changing corporate strategies, including business culture, change management, employment practices, and global manufacturing and innovation under the digital transformation. She has written extensively on Japanese business organization, and is the author of The Business Reinvention of Japan: How to Make Sense of the New Japan (Stanford University Press, 2020) and co-author of The Digital Transformation and Japan’s Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2022). She holds a PhD in Japan Studies and Economics from Marburg University, Germany, and has been invited to visiting professor and scholar positions at UC Berkeley, Harvard Business School, Stanford University, Hitotsubashi University and the research institutes of The Bank of Japan, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Development Bank of Japan.   

 

Kazuto Suzuki is Professor of Science and Technology Policy at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo, Japan, and senior fellow of Asia Pacific Initiative (API), the independent policy thinktank.  He graduated Department of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, and received Ph.D. from Sussex European Institute, University of Sussex, England.  He has worked in the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique in Paris, France as assistant researcher and the Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba from 2000 to 2008 and served as Professor of International Politics at Hokkaido University until 2020.  He served as an expert in the Panel of Experts for Iranian Sanction Committee under the United Nations Security Council from 2013 to July 2015.  He currently serves as the President of Japan Association of International Security and Trade.  His research focuses on the conjunction of science/technology and international relations; subjects including space policy, non-proliferation, export control and sanctions.  His recent work includes Space and International Politics (2011, in Japanese, awarded Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities), Policy Logics and Institutions of European Space Collaboration (2003) and many others.

 

Deanna Horton is a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, focusing on interactive mapping projects (https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/canasiafootprint/ ) and related research along Canada-US and Canada-Asia relations.  Ms. Horton is also affiliated with the Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC, the Asia-Pacific Foundation, the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.  She sat on the Board of Trustees of the Royal Ontario Museum 2017-2020.    In her previous foreign service career, she served as Ambassador of Canada to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (2008-10) and subsequently as Minister (Congressional, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs) at the Canadian Embassy, Washington.  Deanna Horton was born in Toronto. She studied at McGill University (Hons BA); Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (MA International Affairs); Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (Diploma in International Studies); US State Dept Foreign Service Institute in Yokohama. She speaks French, Japanese and German.