On October 31st ICDS organised a seminar on Japan’s alignment policy after the start of the war in Ukraine. The seminar was also a launch event for the recently published Japan Chair report “Japan, NATO, and the Diversification of Security Partnerships”.
The seminar started with opening remarks by Indrek Kannik, director of the ICDS, Koichiro Nakamura, ambassador of Japan and Dr Bart Gaens, Japan Chair at the ICDS and Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
The remarks were followed by a presentation: “Japan’s Policy towards the War in Ukraine and the Role of its NATO partners in the implementation” by Dr Beata Bochorodycz. Since the outbreak of the war in February 2022, Japan has taken a very firm stance in support of Ukraine, swiftly condemning the aggression, imposing sanctions on Russia, and providing financial and material assistance to Ukraine in coordination with the United States and G7 countries. This presentation addressed the questions regarding Japan’s underlying motives for such strong support, the impact of the war on Japan’s security policy, and the forms of cooperation with its NATO partners predominantly from Eastern and Central Europe.
The seminar concluded with a roundtable discussion on the Japan Chair report Japan, NATO, and the Diversification of Security Partnerships.
Speakers at the roundtable:
Dr Elena Atanassova-Cornelis is the former Japan Chair (October 2023 to September 2024) and currently a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the ICDS. She is also a Professor of International Politics of the Asia-Pacific at the University of Antwerp (UA) and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium. She is concurrently an Associate Fellow within the Global Fellowship Initiative of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Switzerland; an Adjunct Professor at the Brussels School of Governance (BSoG) of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a Visiting Professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), Japan.
Dr Beata Bochorodycz is a Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies of Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznan, Poland. A recipient of scholarships from the International Rotary Club, Japanese Ministry of Education, Japan Foundation, and the Fulbright Foundation, she has been a visiting scholar at Yokohama National University, George Washington University in Washington DC, SOAS in London, GRIPS and Sophia University in Tokyo. Her research foci are Japan’s foreign and domestic policy, the US-Japan alliance and the Okinawa issue, and civil society.
Dr Takuya Matsuda is an Adjunct Lecturer at Aoyama-Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. Dr Takuya holds a PhD from the War Studies Department at King’s College London. The writing of this report mainly took place when he was a project researcher at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo. His research focuses primarily on alliance politics, great power relations, international relations theory, and US grand strategy. Dr Takuya received his MA from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and BA from Keio University in Tokyo (Japan).
Dr Bart Gaens is the new Japan Chair at the ICDS and a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow in the Global Security and Governance Research Programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki. In addition, he holds the title of Docent at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki. In the past, he has worked as Project Director for FIIA’s Centre on US Politics and Power (CUSPP), as a Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Helsinki, and as a Specially Appointed Associate Professor at Osaka University, Japan. He has published widely on Japan’s foreign policy and regional role; Europe-Asia inter-regionalism and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process; India’s foreign policy and relations with the EU; domestic politics in Myanmar; and security-related issues in the Indo-Pacific region.
Nele Loorents is a Research Fellow at the ICDS. Prior to joining the ICDS, Nele Loorents had a long career as a civil servant at the Estonian Ministry of Defence. Since 2000, she pertained to the fields of defence investments, as well as defence policy and planning. Nele Loorents served as Defence Counsellor and Representative of the Estonian Ministry of Defence to the Estonian Embassy in Washington DC. In that position, she followed the developments of the US security and defence policy, as well as worked with Estonian-US political and military affairs in bilateral, regional, and NATO contexts. Between 2017-21, Nele Loorents served as Deputy Defence Counsellor in the Permanent Representation of Estonia to NATO.
The Japan Chair is supported by the Government of Japan.
