In the seventh episode of Japan Memo Season 3, Robert Ward hosts Sakata Yasuyo, Professor of International Relations at the Kanda University of International Studies; Dr Mireya Solís, Director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies, Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies, and a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings; and Dr Chung Min Lee, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Professor at the Institute of Convergence and Security Affairs, Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology. Dr Lee is also the Chairman of the IISS Advisory Council and a IISS Trustee.

Robert, Sakata-sensei, Dr Lee and Dr Solís explore the factors spurring tension and reconciliation in the bilateral Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) relationship, conventional and new challenges facing their relations, the status of bilateral and trilateral US-Japan-ROK cooperation and offer perspectives on ways forward for sustaining the recent rapprochement.

Topics discussed include:

· speaker perspectives on the drivers behind the recent bilateral rapprochement;

· the impact of the Shangri-La Dialogue on bilateral and trilateral US-Japan-ROK relations;

· areas of alignment between both countries’ Indo-Pacific strategies and potential areas of cooperation;

· potential for economic, economic security and traditional security cooperation; and

· speaker perspectives on the sustainability of the relationship and rapprochement.

The following literature is recommended by our guests to gain a clearer picture of the topics discussed:

· Mireya Solis, Japan’s Quiet Leadership: Reshaping the Indo-Pacific (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2023) (Forthcoming)

· Yoichi Funabashi, The Peninsula Question: A Chronicle of the Second Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2007).

· Kishida Fumio, Kakuheiki no Nai Sekai e – Yūki Aru Heiwakokka no Kokorozashi [Towards a World without Nuclear Weapons: Aspirations of a Courageous and Peaceful Nation] (Tokyo: Nikkei BP, 2020).

· Edited by Michael Raska, Richard A Bitzinger, The AI Wave in Defence Innovation: Assessing Military Artificial Intelligence Strategies, Capabilities, and Trajectories (London and New York: Routledge, 2023)

We hope you enjoy the episode and please follow, rate, and subscribe to Japan Memo on the podcast platform of your choice.

Date of Recording: 28 June 2023

Japan Memo is recorded and produced at the IISS in London.

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