[inaudible conversations] c-span2. next a discussion about the possibility and consequence officers japan building up its military. with sheila smith, senior fellow at the council on foreign

relations. this is an hour. >> welcome to -- -- [inaudible] >> i'm pleased to -- japan with the newly published book before we begin the process that makes the policy possible global leaders including united airlines are partners throughout north america we'd also like to thank our co-er organizers it is a pleasure to be working with them for tonight's program. though it's my pleasure to present the cofounder for

remarks. [applause] >> good evening i am the head of the young china watchers new york part of the leadership team we would like to think the society for this amazing opportunity to host thisis and thank you for joining us we have a fantastic evening for you. organization is a dynamic group of china focus professionals through roundtables and through the academic policies and communities to provide a chance to engage individuals to interact and discuss the

most prescient issues emerging today through a growing global network with the next generation of leaders. and why have the privilege of introducing the provider and award-winning writer and researcher specializinges in international security and geopolitics and economics appearing in a range of publications including the new york times and iraq and the senior editor where he writes on security and geopolitics and economics in the asia-pacific region also senior fellow at the american federation ofci scientist working on conventional force development with deterrence a nuclear strategy. the director of research of intelligence contributing editor from the morning post

and in addition fellow strategist in carnegie council on ethics and international affairs leader without further ado let's welcome. [applause] >> thank you everyone for coming. out today to emphasize this lovely venue is not often do affairs - - talks on international affairs in this auditorium i have the pleasure to introduce someone who needs no introduction we are all very fortunate to be here today with doctor sheila smith who was the country's foremost

expert on issues related to japan and the alliance and asian security issues in general what i am writing about these issues when i go to google her name is next to the topic she has already written something about it. so i look at her record quite a bit from her past writings. from the council of foreign relations where she works on japan the author of the book japan rearmed and intimate rivals in her book published a few years ago. also the author on constitutional change and a regular contributor to media outlets in the united states and from the east-west center she directed the multinational research team from the us

military presence south korea through a visiting scholar before that where she researched form policy to china and the visiting researcher with the security think tanks in the research institute for security she is the vice chair and additionally in the asian studies department at georgetown university i invite everyone to welcome sheila smith to the stage where she will talk about her book. thank you. [applause] >> thank you.

thank you for that lovely introduction i am delighted to be back many of you may know i was an undergraduate student here. and the japan society is very could hang out and be adults. we saw films here and programs like this. we saw the japan society has a home away from home where we got to be japan professionals and talk to others who develop careers in the field. i cannot see any of you i have friends in the audience who are behind the big light thank you for coming and looking forward to the conversation also the young china watchers for inviting me months ago in particular to talk to the group and i was delighted m m to

have a chance to meet the next generation of movers and shakers so thank you for that. and of course they always make me feel welcome i'm delighted to be back. i have a new book that takes me back because i began to think about as a graduate student writing my dissertation looking at a country of article nine that said it would not treat military power in the same way that other countries did. and its constitution that japan's people as a word to settle international disputes i kind of wish our constitution said something like that but it seems so

obvious. about the real question i wanted to research was how does that square to be a principal ally in the postwar era and how does that square with that defining configuration of international politics that seems like a very long time ago of the cold war but in that time and i got my degree of international relations and that security class was about nato every security class talked about nato not one focused on asia. and tom christiansen is now

here but why are we talking about this why are we talking pressures? when we talking about security wire we focused on m europe? because it was the cold war and that is what we did. but our generation said hold on. the dynamics play out differently in asia. the two hot wars of the cold war's were in asia and our allies feel the divisions of i europe into east and west and north and south of the korean peninsula but japan is just offshore of china and obviously the soviet union at thece time. japan was very resistant to see its own military to play a considerable role in that cold

war however it did see great advantage to offer bases to the united states and no self to florence to force one - - defense forces and the essence of what contingency might motivate another country and the framing of the cold war and the korean peninsula from the very beginning was a defining possibility that might bring more to the shores of japan because it was then in 1950 and sadly today were

armed forces could be used therefore a way that it could become embroiled in war so that doesn't mean all armed forces thought about that contingency because it took a long time in japan for the things we take for granted but like contingency planning or what will you do if? it takes a long time for that to be legitimate in postwar japann and that i have one chapter all about the cold war between military and civilian authorities that is very much a part of the early decades of the postwar period that things changed after the cold war ended it with that dissertation and that research the background chapter but the ay that different kinds of realities to shape what i think is a significant

transformation. and how they look at their military. into be structured the way that debate has played out. and this is the early pieces and then to put the military out of the country and in coalition but the cold war brought defense forces to the forefront of japanese

thinking. it was not the framing even as the prime minister to be forthright with the military and then to be in conjunction withth other partners to many in cambodia and those here and that was no diplomat that was japanese. and then they were alongside others around the world to

move into a peaceful transition. that was the very beginning under the law of 1991. but today to operate across the globe across with humanitarian or disaster relief. q war. they are contentious at home but nonetheless that's what happened. they are today operating in the gulf of aiden in the antipiracy. they also the delve defense forces today have at the behest of the prime minister of course operate in conjunction with the australian military, the indian military, they visit the

philippines, vietnam, singapore, many of the places where we think that war memory would preclude the japanese from sending military but night a capacity that is very different than the prewar period. the japanese today are helping the filipino military, especially on maritime capacity building. they're helping them make sure they have the ability to defend their own waters. they have visited vietnam at the invitation of the vietnamese government for similar reasoned. work very closely with australia, all across the western pacific, on intelligence gathering, surveillance, monitoring, all kinds of consultations now on the south china sea. they're both maritime partners. but they're very close security parts of the united states as -- partners of the united states as well. india another interesting story. the united states and india have been having exercises over the years. we typically think of them as

maritime exercises but in fact they now engage all three of india's branch of 0 the military. japan's three branches of the self-defense force, the maritime care and ground for have a strategic conversation with their friends in new dehli and the exercised are something the japanese have been built into as part of their efforts to increase their security and strategic dialogue with india. so you have a very active self-defense force now in the region, places where you might not think that the japanese military would be all that welcome. but in fact the japanese military today is one of the best most accomplished militaries in asia and they are also very instrumental in making sure that other countries around the region feel they can turn to tokyo to help them if and when they get challenged by other growing larger parties in the region. of course the mary time area

where is we see he that most conspicuously but not exclusively. i'm referring to the chinese but where the chinese military operates in southeast asia. so japan is the -- japanese military today is four or five generations after the end of world war ii and a very different military. it's very professional. i think you'll know a lot of people have asked me, why did you put that cover on your book? i would hold it inbut i don't have a copy but has provocative -- there it is -- provocative cover but the picture aside, the title is something that i thought about a long time because of my work at cfr. i live down in washington, dcs a you know. i spent a lot of time there both in the in obama areas and no he trump administration and officials would come to me and still come to me to say are the japanese rearming? are they going to build a military? ...

japan has invested considerably in its military capability. without a doubt. top 10. that goes back to the 1980s. today it somewhere around seven or eight depending on how much china is spending at the moment. it slips back and forth. it's ranking within the top 10 may be slightly different year-to-year. there's no doubt about it, japan has felt it necessary and important to invest in the military as it instrument of statecraft. what's more interesting is not three militarizing of japan but the decision-making that japan has engaged in the last decade or more about how to use that

military. i just walked through one of the chapters with you here about sending the forces abroad in coalition with others. the more difficult issue for japan of course has been defending and making sure their military is ready to defend, should someone put pressure, threaten, coerce or actually attack japan. i think that's the one place where you see a considerable change in japan's environment. he see two neighbors, and thinking of north korea and china, who have themselves moved their arsenals into a position of capability or increase their capabilities are sufficient to be japan. that is me north korea is about to attacked the chinese. doesn't mean ãbbut both of those countries have invested considerably technologically and financially. in building rapidly military capabilities that undermine japanese security. we saw the most recent

indication of that in 2017 when north koreans were sending barrages of missiles overtop of japan and then resending a larger test missile that could potentially reach the united states actually into japanese airspace or over japanese airspace. japanese now look at north korea and of course they worry about the nuclear peace obviously. because that will be a test for all our allies, especially our nonnuclear allies of south korea and japan but for the japanese it missile arsenal. it really lays bare the vulnerability of japanese capability. japan does not have eating,ãdoe have missile strength of its own. it has very carefully avoided developing the kind of capability, has stayed very much in defensive mode, reactive mode.

but as the japanese have watched the koreans and north koreans develop this kind of capability and proliferate the number and the kind of missiles that pyongyang has accrued over the last 5 to 10 years, it raises what i call in the book, a missile gap, it raises the question for the japanese. are they continuing, are they going to continue to subscribe to this idea that they should not purchase a strike capability? that they should not do this? this has been part of the political debate in the book. they can read it if it's not interested, politicians have debated this avs have people inside the ministry of defense and inside the defense forces. that's a threshold the japanese have yet to cross. that's one way in which the threat perception which north korea has been doing since the mid-1990s has affected the japanese thinking about their own defenses and wants might be necessary.japan has done, and

done with deep investment, is engaging ballistic missile defense system. he saw last years the japanese government announced it would expand the capacity of their ballistic missile defenses to include an onshore version of what they call the ages of sure which will give japan a much greater capacity to detect, track and if necessary to shoot down any missiles coming from continental asia. there has been a lot of spending on a defensive structure, force posture, to deal with the missile threat from north korea and potentially obviously the missile threat from other parties around japan. the second area where japan has seen its threat perception intensify has been china. we've seen that in terms of the modernization of chinese nuclear forces but we saw the japanese getting very nervous in the mid-1990s about china's willingness to threaten taiwan. with potential use of force during an election campaign.

the real challenge, the real wake-up call for japanese security planners and for the u.s. japan alliance was the island disputed 2010 and again in 2012. ãbthese islands in the east china sea have a very strong emotional component, especially for the chinese people but also the japanese. china and japan have basically avoided a direct clash. let's just leave those sovereignty issue on the side but by the mid-2010 that was no longer possible as you saw it ratcheting up of not government to government tensions really, citizen to citizen tensions, protester demonstrations. fishing captains. having a few too many and decided to take on the japanese coast guard. that then galvanized i think the political leadership in both countries to a point where they could back down so now you

got government forces on both sides, coast guard, not yet navy, operating within the territorial waters of those islands, which were for a long time basically were quietly managed by the two governments. today the ãisland drive japanese defense planning. but it certainly opened up the possibility for the first time that japan might be the recipient of some kind of pressure, military pressure, from china. or some kind of military attack may be on these remote islands. before the united states was involved. i talk a lot about korea, the assumption about a contingency on the korean peninsula during the cold war it even after the cold war was always united states would respond in that japan would either be pulled in or want to support u.s. forces to the bases but never somewhere where japan would be attacked directly, that the

initiation of the use of force or conflict would begin with japan. but the san cock island disputed in to raise the prospect that miscalculation, and accident, not deliberate necessary ambition but that kind of escalatory dynamic something we are seeing a little bit over there in the middle east today. that type of wrapping up of tensions can be very hard to manage. the japanese have responded with washington to shore up the u.s. japan alliance to make sure the united states and japan are on the same page in case something were to happen. and to try to figure out strategies for ds glaciation should there be that kind of crisis. but nonetheless, that challenge with china over the islands really did open the possibility that the united states might

not want to go to war with china. but the united states may have different interests from japan in a conflict such as that. that's what we call the risk of abandonment. allies don't want to be entrapped by the conflicts but they don't want to be abandoned by us if they have a need for us either. that became fairly focused look at japanese security and political thinking about how do we make sure the united states and japan are deeply embedded so that possibility of abandonment is probably not going to happen. i think those two scenarios north korea and china clearly have had the biggest impact not only in the way japanese think about weapon systems and purchases. he saw the defense plan the end of last year that an uptick in annual defense budget growth for the next five years but they also have prompted a rethinking of the u.s. japan alliance. ended up grading in the

dialogue between the united states and japan about how the alliance is going to work, given the new asia, given these new pressures. the book also talks in a chapter i call ãrelying on borrowed power ãfrom the japanese perspective on why there's more attention given today by japanese political and security planner political leaders and security planners about how to make sure the united states remains engaged. and that the conversation between the united states and japan becomes more and more closer, i wouldn't say to war fighting kind of alliance, that's what we have the rok. that's what we had with nato, largely still do. but that we get a little bit more concrete about what do we do should this happen?as you all may know we got 50,000 american military personnel stationed for deployed in japan. we operate the exercise with operant ãb

those are the ones that matter if you are in a crisis or have to respond quickly to a crisis. i think that's why you have a greater sense of need for conversation between the united states and japan. in the last decade or so. especially the last five years. we wrap up a little bit by giving you the two cents conclusion of the book. i work at cfr i'm not supposed to just be an academic. i'm supposed to help try to make policymakers understand what's coming next.

when i sit in washington in these conversations, i'm not a policymaker, i don't sit in classified settings. all the writing in this book is open-source based on my experience not based on any classified data or anything like that.when i do sit and have these conversations and i was at cfr in washington through the crisis through the 2017 north korea missile launches, what i thought the book that need to be written was, how does this work? what's the debate in japan and how does it help us and help our policy community understand what might be coming next? it also speaks to the question about, is japan going to change? it's fundamental postwar organization of military capability limited to national defense. coupled with alliance with the united states. my answer today is, no. unless. the unless is important because i think a lot of people feel this rising threat perception from north korea and china will make japan change its mind on things like conventional strike. some people think even nuclear weapon when i did the book in

new york at cfr i can't tell you how many questions i got about japanese nuclear capability and what the japanese could do and what they do it and how would they do it. i thought, take a breath. japan is not about to become a nuclear power. threat perception my conclusion is threat perception alone is not going to push japanese political or security strategic thinkers away from that basic fundamental premise. the limited capability, limited to the needs of national defense and reliance on the u.s. for extended deterrence from both nuclear and conventional strike is still the preferred method of ensuring japanese security. i think that's going to be true no matter what the chinese or the north koreans do. where i think you will have a variable that will change japanese thinking, that variable will be the united states. if the alliance is no longer

reliable, if we decide asia is not our thing, south korea and japan can go it alone. why shouldn't they? if we decide that we are more interested in burden sharing than a shared strategic relationship across asia, if we decide to negotiate with north korea and accept them as nuclear power, it's inevitable. these are the kinds of decisions i think will prompt some rethinking in japan about what that means for the long haul for japanese security. at the end of the day if there's a catastrophic failure in the alliance to defend japanese interest and certainly to defend japanese territory, then sure, i don't think the alliance is going to last beyond that. i don't think that's what any of us are thinking about though. it's the more unclear areas of

how secure will japan's political and strategic thinkers feel in american reliabilities and allies. because japan's military capability has largely been created to complement america's forward deployed forces and america's willingness to offer an extended deterrence. should that willingness and, then you will have a japanese debate over what his options are and i don't in the book try to give you four or five actions that japan might do because i think it's a little premature. i don't think that something that's going to happen overnight. and i don't think it's something that's going to happen just because we were president in the white house at the moment who made some statements that make us a little worried about burden sharing. this is not a phenomenon when i conclude the book i do reference the president and his comments about our alliances but i walked ãwhat i want to do in the book is help americans understand that it's our alliance with japan in the

end that will be the most important shaper of japanese strategic choices going forward. thank you. [applause] sheila, thank you so much for that amazing tour through the content of your book. i've been spending a lot of time with the book recently and i recommend it very much. when i was thinking about how it would begin our conversation of japan society today i thought maybe you would do north korea first but then i woke up this morning and i had to change plans because now are you going to talk about the gulf of oman, which is unexpected. what a twist to iran, historic

trip to iran. unclear specifically which actors within the uranian system but certainly this puts japan at the center of the u.s. and escalation that's been going on for several months. my question is, walk us through the conversations you think are happening right now in tokyo. i know you spent a lot of time with japanese security planners but what is going through their mind and what are the questions they are asking themselves. >> this is a quick breaking morning for all of us. you are all saying what? i may be wrong because i was going on twitter and going on trying to figure out what was happening in the region and trying to figure out time differences between iran and tokyo and the east coast and the united states. that's not where i normally think about it out there and

middle east. i think it was a panamanian flagship. these are not ships that have the japanese flag on them. but the company that was responsible for the cargo japanese company. i heard later today was initially reported there were two japanese ships but one might be a taiwanese ship but there is one chip. the president of the company came out and said we don't know enough yet. i think all of what i could see coming out of tokyo and i see some rather official looking people in the room there probably better placed to comment on some of this than i am is we don't know exactly what happened. i find it hard to believe that this was something our secretary of state let me say this first, our secretary of state mike pompeo had a press conference this afternoon in which he seemed to imply was the government of iran that might be responsible. he said it was a setback for prime minister abe to do this.

i think we don't have enough information yet to understand. i believe there are meetings happening either as we speak or into the night or early tomorrow morning. hopefully we will get more evidence we will have some factual information from which to judge the scenario. but, with japan, my book is all about would japan make choices about sending its military end it is in the gulf of aden that there is a destroyer in the ctf 151 which is a combined task force or antipiracy operation. source japanese or regular participants in. there is japanese surveillance aircraft that are based on a nobody in support of the mission. japan does have assets in the region. would japan apply those assets? no.

and there are two reasons i think that. would they do surveillance? perhaps. with that combined task force share data? perhaps. but would japan send its maritime self-defense force to confront iranian or whoever ships? probably not. the reason i say that is twofold, the ships that were attacked, people have been rescued. there are no people anymore on burning ships. that would be the primary concern. what i think is harder is what does this mean for the missions that prime minister abe went on which is to help reduce tension. to offer his services potentially and mediator between iran and the trump administration here in the united states. i suspect secretary of state pompeo's speech, today suggests that tensions that will go up between washington and iran.

not because mr. abe didn't get the job done but because the cargo ships themselves offer an excuse or rationale for greater tensions. there is i think the challenge for the prime minister honestly. what is mod doing? there are people from the ministry of foreign affairs and the audience i won't presume to exist what they're doing but the diplomatic mission was very important for japan's interest. nobody wants a conflict in the middle east, especially along the oil roots that service the advanced industrial economy of the world. so if you watch the market this afternoon, respond to the tankers, the bombing of the tankers, then yes this is going to shake up not only japanese economy but the global economy at large.

my sense is, whatever the diplomacy ends up being inside the un security council japan want to avoid a consecration that has this kind of destructive implications for the global economy and obviously for its own supply of oil. >> changing gears a little bit, can you speak right now but japan particularly thinking about conventional strike acquiring its own missile forces. one of the topics that came to mind was on august 2 the intermediate range force treaty will no longer apply the united states the u.s. will have withdrawn. we've heard reporting that the u.s. will develop missiles, the treaty restricted the united states from developing ground or launched missiles with ranges between 550 500 kilometers. in your understanding, this is a recent development them u.s. made the decision in february, with the conversations you think are happening in tokyo about anf in the future and how

is that going to plant the debate. >> let me try to unpack that. the history of ins in japan is something that maybe the audience may not know which is intermediate nuclear forces largely seen as a european problem back when. during the cold war. there was because the soviets developed ss 20 missile they had deployed it to the eastern europe and western europe and the united states were worried about this would make it hard to manage escalation and to turn our nuclear weapons. that's a little cold war history. at the time it was ãwho was prime minister in the 1980s. at the williamsburg summit the japanese government led by prime minister ãmade us very strong point that the security of the west was indivisible. we were talking about star wars

back in and we were talking about what we take for granted and ballistic missile systems. ãbecause the united states and russia, soviets at the time, were saying, we will pull back these intermediate range nuclear forces from europe and put them on the other side of the soviet union. who lives on the other side of the soviet union but japan. it's basically a conversation between the two superpowers that was going to solve a problem in europe at the expense of our allies in asia. japan said no thank you. we are not going to accept that there was a very powerful beginning of a conversation on the import of this not only inf but compromises the united states might be willing to make that would be detrimental to japanese interests. now the story is somewhat different. now it's conventional and nuclear communities missiles can do both. they carry both kind of capabilities. president putin has largely

driven the conversation about the inf coming apart because of the capabilities that russia has been developing. i think you can get two opinions on this, you probably have a pretty well-formed ability in your self on whether or not we should of walked out or shouldn't have walked out based on what the russians were doing. you can make the case on both sides. but the real blog for asia is china. chinese intermediate nuclear forces are not covered under the inf treaty. i am not nacve enough to think, let's have a trilateral treaty. and everything will be great. because the chinese don't even acknowledge that inf matter. they just don't. it's not a problem, we don't have to talk about it we are not interested. that's the real problem for japan. interestingly enough as you know the japan china relationship has been getting a little more in the problem-solving mode and a little warmer and i think some of the senior bureaucrats from

the ministries of foreign affairs from japan and china to bureau chiefs of judges ottoman have decided they need to have a little bit of a conversation about the possibility of discussion of inf. i don't think there is going to be ãbit's hard for me to imagine how japan and china could have an effective treaty of their own but it's interesting that it's rising a little bit in the japan china relationship. reality is, i don't think our government is interested in disarmament. >> in the conversations between japan and the united states being in alliance don't seem to be an alliance. >> they are not either. our last nuclear posture review, i don't want to bore you guys all with the nuclear conversations but you can go back to the obama era and there is a kind of dual reaction to the proxies. there is a very strong embrace by the japanese public president obama speech in

prague about the responsibility of the nuclear powers also to disarm. not just not per location but that. it's a very strong japanese desire for nuclear disarmament. for obvious reasons. but for extended for those who responsible for planning extended deterrence, there's a little bit of a tricky issue here, which is how do you make sure that there is enough teeth in the american forward deployment to bolster the nuclear umbrella. if china does this or north korea does that then we have a whole arsenal of weapons systems with which we can respond. that's the more recent conversation on the nuclear posture review incorporated some of the japanese thinking on exactly what kind of specific weapons they would like to see us put out in the regions. >> the warming you described between japan and china we are expecting to see a meeting

between president xi and president abe not far from now. what you think will be discussed when they meet? >> is coming at the g 20. it's not a bilateral summit. mr. abe went of course as you know last year to beijing so it was just japan china meeting. i suspect iran just like our q&a just got taken over by the iran conversation i suspect that will be high up there too because the chinese will want to have that conversation. there will be a lot of countries that want the iran situation to be included in the g 20. but then let's leave that out there for a second.north korea, interesting to me is the extent to which some of the conversations at the highest level between the prime minister and the president of china have included reference to north korea and prime minister abe has passed not only present trumpet also president xi jinping to help persuade i think north korea will be there obviously. the larger context of the japan

china conversation these days is how we can we work together across the region? this is what i thought was interesting about the prime minister abe trip to china is that i think both governments were trying to find a place where japan and china might find economic cooperation opportunity together that highlights not necessarily be ã ãbut also highlights the prime minister's idea of a free and open pacific. so can we find common cause? can we find a place where we are not logging our heads where we may be able to find a constructive balance between our visions of what the future of asia should look like. >> i think we will open for questions now. i think there's a microphone around the room. raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question and when you do, please wait for the microphone, state your name and affiliation and please make your questions short and make sure they are questions. we will take questions now.we will start over there.

>> can you tell me that your thoughts on japan's cyber defense capabilities. >> i will preface that by saying i'm not a cyber expert. what i've been watching unfold from somebody who's interested broadly in the security relationship between our two countries is two things, one is that everybody's who here in new york especially if you work in a corporation understand the private sectors were seeing a plethora of services is really very valuable. japan has been doesn't spend a lot of time with nongovernment cyber experts, in this country, in israel, in other countries where cyber is seen to be pretty robust industry. you see not only japanese

private sector engagement but also public sector consultation. the japanese of course are getting ready for tokyo 2020 next year, it's a point of deep concern because of course everybody in the world who will be going to tokyo and domestic security in japan will be of the highest order, obviously, as it is with every country that hosts the olympics. there is that preparatory phase as well. it's not just simply with the two militaries may or may not be doing. the interesting thing about hear this from people who are experts on cyber. i'm just sharing what i'm hearing. the more robust forward leaning and creative cyber knowledge is not yet in the government. it's actually outside governments and that is something that the japanese government has been persuaded needs to be a priority for them. i think our inside government cyber capacities, to be quite

frank, i guess maybe i shouldn't be too frank. let me try to be diplomatic in my frankness. we've had a lot of hacking. of our government, of our national security agencies. there is a lot here that the united states is working on in terms of the fragility and that doesn't mean that the united states has no cybersecurity, please don't misunderstand me but there's also different dimensions of this step we as the united states government continues to grapple with. it's uneven across our government. so there is that. if i could say one final point, it's not about cyber, it's about security at large, the japanese government under prime minister abe passed the national secrets law but which was something that the u.s. government in particular but also australia and others really wanted japan to upgrade its government security

systems. so that sharing of intelligence and data could be fully protected. there is a push to include japan in ãwhich is the contortion of five countries all english-speaking countries. that share intelligence across alliances. japan was very quick to make its decision on huawei. largely for that reason. because united states government doesn't want its allies to be using ãproducts for the 5g networks i think japan is moving in a direction that it hopes will help to facilitate their participation in the five eyes intelligence sharing. >> great question. >> thank you. my name is ãand a journalist. my question is about japan's leadership role in the

asia-pacific given that the u.s. is issuing little or no interest at all that's the feeling you get i will give you the example of the tbb which was abandoned by president trump and japan took the lead by re-creating the cdp be which has gone into effect after was gratified. what you think is the feeling in japan about america's leadership role? >> this is where it should out the japanese in the room. >> i think you should be frank. >> i should be frank. diplomatically frank. i think this huge disappointment, the tdp physician there's obviously huge disappointment stop there's two reasons for that. this was an american and

japanese initiative by the end of it. and we walked. i am not a fan of president trump's decision cell those biases must be put on the table i think it's a huge strategic loss for us but more importantly i think it was a huge economic opportunity that we lost as well. i think what happened at the end of the obama administration is that the obama administration officials began to sell it as strategic leadership when they ought to at home been selling it economically good for the united states and they couldn't make that case well enough. as you know in 2016 both republican and democratic base party members decided tdp was not good for america economically. we will have a long recovery i think of how we deal with that here at home in terms of how free-trade operates and to whose it is but in terms of our

leadership is another place i think prime minister abe has been very forward leaning which is in the creation of the indo pacific revision and there along with prime minister modi in india they put a lot of meat on the bones of a broad conception for the region. it spans two oceans, three cotton minutes at least, maybe another one, over on the eastern side but i think this is another place where you see japan's leadership is not necessarily saying i'm going to do this, you follow me, but building partnerships and networks and conceptions of what kind of collaborative space there is. at the end of the day, it's all about the free and open endo pacific. it's all about values. what kind of asia japan wants to see him and i think sustaining what we now euphemistically referred to as the liberal order. but creating frameworks for rich free-trade, economic development, transformation to

digital and all kinds of economic transactions, these things can continue to happen across the region, not just countries that have an advantage. i think japan has done a lot lately to offset some of the disadvantages. i think we have in the region and beyond. >> we are running a little short on time, do you mind if we take two questions at once. >> and i will try to be snappier. >> last question we will start up here. just wait for the microphone please. >> the upcoming g 20 summit hosted by japan, all the attention is going to be on xi and trump. is there any immediate role to play a role with iran? this is the economic security.

>> one last question from the audience. the gentleman right appear in the second row. >> and roger mcdonald from revitalization. the question is, the title of this is japan rearmed. the politics of military power. the question is, over the last 20 years, what has japan done to be rearmed. is there a history or track record to track that? in the second is that domestically in japan what are those politics? what are the two or three key issues within japan domestic politics that are being addressed because of this?

>> i'm not sure i understood the second part. let me start with xi and trump. in the g 20. i don't know how much iran is going to overshadow everything. it depends on what happens security council depends on what happens the next couple days. it becomes a little harder to take about g 20 but i think a trade war between the united states and china sooner or later is going to impact negatively on japanese interest. i think to the extent that abe wants to shape trump's thinking, it will be on the commonalities high pr, protections, the kinds of structural issues the imbalance, not of the deficit, the trading imbalance but of the way in which people are constrained in doing business within china.

i think there is a lot of common ground between tokyo and washington on this.between japanese and american private sectors. i think there's a lot more common ground then we often get into the strategic mindset we forget there is common things. things like cps. making sure china is not purchasing critical technologies and resources. we have a pretty vibrant and robust order in washington. the practices by the chinese that are really undercutting competitiveness that are really also have this national security concern for both of our countries and i think there is a lot of common ground, nonetheless, the trades the cost of this tariff war are huge. they haven't necessarily been huge for the global economy yet but they are getting there. they're beginning to see the ripple effects and if you combine that with iran tensions the downturn on the global economy could be severe and the

whole g 20 conversation will be about that i suspect. nonetheless, i don't think prime minister abe is in a position to tell president trump to stop. if he had that kind of influence on the president, we would be in tbp right now. this is just not what the president, the president is running up $25 billion in subsidies to our agricultural sector. we are getting hurt, sectors of our economy are getting hurt. i don't think mr. abe is going to change that basic point of view. i think implicit in your question and maybe lee didn't mean it this way but i'll take it this way, just because it's the summer of 2019, is the bilateral u.s. japan trade talks. there are other people who could speak much more cogently than i am how that's going to come out but there is frustration in the trump administration ambassador hegarty our ambassador in tokyo made a very clear statement today or yesterday about the president's frustrated with the delay in the bilateral trade

talks and if you may remember that when president trump went to tokyo and had a lovely three or four day long extravaganza that included the imperial he was quite a long way pointed in his references to the lack of trade agreement and the continued deficit. i think underneath here is what i worry a little bit about is china he may just say, we are going to continue with china but let's get a little bit more concessions out of japan on the agricultural sector to make the farmers happier. there might be some spillover effect in the bilateral trade talks that will be hard for mr. abe to manage, especially with the election. in the last five minutes i can give you the full book, i can tell you to buy the book. but i think to be fair, domestic politics and japan obviously have altered around

article 9 the japanese i use the phrase the japanese themselves use over the course of these issues. the political interpretation of article 9 manifests itself in the policy of the military in the form of the breaks of the car like the bricks of the car. how that's interpreted over time has changed in a sweeping way. you go back to the 50s and 60s it was about what kind of weaponry do they have bombing sites?capabilities, huge debates about facts of the aircraft. zero now. what kind of sophisticated capability, not a problem. 70s, 80s, you move into

mission, what kind of missions will self-defense forces, he can't do anything unless it's nearly considered ãbno security of japan not geographical concept. antipiracy imports of secure japan it doesn't happen anywhere near japanese territory. these ways of defining politically what kind of limits need to be imposed on military and the use of the military have gradually transformed over time. it's kind of the story of the book. how to limit, what limitations are implicit in the constitutions and what i really to keep the military from doing things it ought not to do. the second is the balance of political power in japan. for people not watching japanese politics everyday like some of us the fact is mr. abe has two thirds majority in the lower house of parliament which for those of you who know parliamentary systems he can set legislative agenda and since the last upper house election he has had more or less if not two thirds majority at least people with affinity

have been largely two thirds majority in the upper house. very unusual in politics. the election coming in july is an upper house election it's not clear that that will continue but he's had a lot of latitude because the ldp and its partners have been very strong electorally.it allows them to do difficult things for other leaders couldn't even if they wanted to could have gotten it done in my view. there's a couple more teams but we are out of time. those are the two big picture kinds of things is what you get done? there are several prime ministers along the way that have more capabilities than others politically to move the needle. >> thank you so much. we will note that the subtitle of the book is politics and military in power so it delves into the questions.i thought that the description of japan's hermeneutics of article 9 was

excellent. i definitely learned a lot that i didn't know about the constitutional debates in japan. japan rearmed, i invite everybody to think sheila. >> thank you all for coming. [applause] russia, china, turke