Tuesday, March 9, 2010

As President Barack Obama said in a November 2009 joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, “In a few months we will be marking the fiftieth anniversary of our alliance…that has served our people so well and has provided peace and security for the region in an unprecedented way. That anniversary…represents an important opportunity to step back and reflect on what we have achieved and celebrate our friendship, but also find ways to renew this alliance it and refresh it for the twenty-first century.” With the approaching anniversary of the revised Japan-US Security Treaty, what are the Hatoyama administration’s plans to “refresh” our connection, and how will Hatoyama address Japan’s role in Asia while moving toward a greater Japan-US global partnership? Our top international relations specialists—Dr. Michael Green, Dr. Jun Saito and Dr. Robert Weiner—will discuss the future of the two countries’ alliance and share their predictions on Japan’s role in Asia and beyond in the year ahead.

Dr. Michael Green is a Senior Adviser and holds the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), as well as being an Associate Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University. He served as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) from January 2004 to December 2005. He joined the NSC in 2001 as director of Asian affairs with responsibility for Japan, Korea, and Australia/New Zealand. From 1997 to 2000, he was senior fellow for Asian security at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directed the Independent Task Force on Korea and study groups on Japan and security policy in Asia. He served as senior adviser in the Office of Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of Defense in 1997 and as consultant to the same office until 2000. Green speaks fluent Japanese and spent over five years in Japan working as a staff member of the National Diet, as a journalist for Japanese and American newspapers, and as a consultant for U.S. business.

Dr. Jun Saito is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University. At Yale, he teaches courses on Japanese politics, international relations in East Asia, and comparative political institutions. His research focuses on the institutional determinants of representation and redistribution, in particular how choices of constitutional structures and electoral institutions translate into redistributive consequences. His coauthored article with Yusaku Horiuchi won the 2004 Alan Rosenthal Award from the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association. He is a former member of the Japanese House of Representatives (2002-2003).

Dr. Robert Weiner, Moderator, is Assistant Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey. His research and teaching focus on Japanese and East Asian politics, political parties and elections, democratic institution-building and design, and game theory and general research methods. Prior to joining NPS, Dr. Weiner was an assistant professor in the Government Department of Cornell University. He has held research fellowships at Harvard University’s Program on U.S.-Japan Relations and Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and visiting researcher positions in the Law Department of Keio University (Tokyo).

Location:
Union Bank
400 California Street
11th Floor Assembly Hall
San Francisco, CA
Map

Time:
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
6:00 pm Registration & Reception
6:30 pm Program

Cost:
$6 for Japan Society members, members of cosponsoring organizations, and students with valid ID
$12 General Admission

The Japan Society kindly thanks Union Bank for their generous support for this event. This program is co-sponsored by the USF Center for the Pacific Rim, the World Affairs Council and JETRO San Francisco.

This is a lecture event hosted by the Japan Society of Northern California. Guest passes issued by the Japan Society will be accepted. Advanced registration is strongly recommended for building security purposes. The deadline to RSVP for this event is Thursday, March 4, 2010; refunds will not be made after this date.