Upcoming Events
December 20, 2012:
David Welch and Seung Hyok Lee will make a presentation titled “Island Disputes and the ‘Democratization’ of East Asian National Security Decision-Making” at the East Asia Institute (MacArthur Asia Security Initiative Core Institution), Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Recent Events
October 18, 2012:
Mr. Eiji Yamamoto, Consul-General of Japan in Toronto, held a guest lecture on “Recent Situation of Japanese Politics and Economy” at St. Bede’s Chapel, Renison University College, University of Waterloo. This event was co-sponsored by Keiko & Charles Belair Centre for East Asian Studies, Renison University College, and the JFI.
October 11-14, 2012:
JFI team made up of David Welch, Ken Coates (University of Saskatchewan), Kimie Hara, Caryn Holroyd (University of Saskatchewan) and Seung Hyok Lee organized a roundtable titled “Japan’s Policy Horizons” at the Commemorative 25th Annual Conference of the Japan Studies Association of Canada (JSAC), hosted by Carleton University, Ottawa.
September 29, 2012:
JFI took part in East Asian Festival at Renison University College, University of Waterloo. The display booth of the JFI offered information about Japan-Canada scholastic networking and was visited by a large number of students, faculties, and locals.
August 14-15, 2012:
JFI held its second official symposium of the year titled, “Emerging Security Roles: Lessons for Japan from Middle Power Experiences” at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo. Participants from Canada, Japan and Sweden made presentations in panels on “Japan as a ‘normal’ middle power,” “over-the-horizon regional and global governance & security challenges,” and “Canadian and Nordic styles of middlepowermanship.”
The symposium was followed by another roundtable panel at the Japan Foundation, Toronto. Japanese panels reported their finds from the Waterloo symposium, as well as further discussing what Japan could learn from the lessons of other middle powers, particularly Canada.
Publications
Event Report of the JFI’s Spring 2012 Symposium “Disaster Management, Energy Security and Multilateral Cooperation: The Tohoku Disaster and Its Regional and Global Implications” is now available as a PDF. The report is designed, edited, and published by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).
Japan Watch
The Japan Times, “Grassroots ties with South Korea, China will differ” (October 31, 2012) Japanese media are increasingly noticing that “the differences in the political systems and levels of social development” in China and South Korea are an important cause of divergent ways in which bilateral relations between Japan and its two neighbours have unfolded in the midst of the current regional territorial disputes. Up to the 1980s, when South Korea was going through a turbulent period of democratic transition, South Korean government, the media, and the people were worked up over political issues involving Japan. Now, despite the bilateral friction over the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute and President Lee Myung-bak’s recent visit to the islands, Korean grassroot-level exchange with Japanese citizens has consistently grown to a record-high. South Korean government also maintains the position that “the basic principle of having other fields move forward separately (from politics)” should remain. On the other hand, Chinese organizers of bilateral exchanges have been prone to canceling their events, as they have to be more sensitive to the “hints” provided by the Communist Party’s stance toward Japan, despite no official instructions from the authorities. Under the current situation in which top leaders and the Foreign Ministry are engaged in verbal condemnations with their Japanese governmental counterparts, reading between the lines of top leadership’s words and action is a serious business enough for them. However, for those Chinese grass root organizers, government is not the only authority they must keep their eyes on; pushing for exchange programs and festivals during this sensitive time would make them traitors in Chinese society, and ultimately this fear of “social sanction” is the most serious obstacle hindering bilateral citizen-level communication.
