What are the implications of Japan’s evolving national security policy for the Indo-Pacific region?

In this video, Professor Takashi Shiraishi – one of Japan’s leading public intellectuals – will address the background of Japan’s security policies, the nature of the ongoing Diet debate on the security legislation, and the implications of Abe’s security reform agenda for North East Asia and the wider region.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s security reform bills, which are currently being debated in the Japanese Diet, aim to enable Japan to exercise its right to collective self defence, albeit in a limited way.  Exercising this right – a right enshrined in the UN Charter – will represent a significant step forward for his efforts to normalise Japan’s security posture.

The security legislation package is the latest in a series of significant security and defence reforms that Abe has championed since returning to the Prime Ministership in 2012. This includes the creation of the National Security Council of Cabinet, the drafting of Japan’s first national security strategy, the relaxation of defence export principles, and the revision of the US-Japan Defence Cooperation Guidelines.

Professor Takashi Shiraishi is one of Japan’s best known and most respected academics. He currently serves as President of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and as President of the Japan External Trade Organisation’s Institute of Developing Economies. His current research interests include East Asian regionalism, politics and international relations. Professor Shiraishi is influential as an adviser to the Japanese government, including having served on a number of governmental advisory panels, such as Deputy Chair of a Government Panel on National Defence Policy Guidelines from 2010-11. He is currently serving on a Panel of Experts that is advising Prime Minister Abe on a Japanese Prime Ministerial Statement to be made on 15 August 2015, marking the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII in Asia.

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